Advice for Creating D&D 3.5 Characters

[DAT]

First, some background.

Many many years ago, I cut my role-playing teeth on D&D, then moved to AD&D, which I played for ~10 years. Then I moved over to GURPS and have been happily playing it for the last 18+ years.

Recently, I’ve been invited to join a gaming group that is playing D&D 3.5. They are starting up a new campaign with 1st level characters July 25th.

The rest of the party will include:
A Human Ranger,
A Human Cleric,
A Human Wizard, and
A Human Warmage.

So a rogue or additional fighter type would be useful for the party.

The two character concepts I’m considering are:
1) An explorer/treasure hunter skilled at finding traps, detecting ambushes, and sneaking about unseen/unheard in dungeons, i.e., a Rogue or Rogue-combo.
2) A naïve wanderer, from an isolated community, out to experience the wider world and who is trained with both a blade and spells, i.e., a Fighter-MagicUser type.

The DM said he will allow any race from the published books.

The DM’s policy for rolling up ability scores is to roll three sets of six 3d6 numbers, select one set, and arrange the numbers as you like. The sets I rolled (using the DM’s spread sheet) are:
Set 1: 18,17,15,15,15,7
Set 2: 17,16,15,14,13,13
Set 3: 17,15,15,13,13,12

So with the above information and the intent of creating a character for the July 25th game, I borrowed a 3.5 Player’s Handbook (actually a Player’s Handbook II and later found some down loads of the Player’s Handbook I from the WoTC web site) and some supplements (Complete Adventurer, Complete Arcane, Complete Warrior, Races of Destiny, Races of Stone, and Races of the Wild) and started reading.

After scanning over everything, I’ve decided two things:
1) There is an INSANE amount of new rules/classes/feats/skills/prestige classes and options for using them that I’m totally unfamiliar with, and
2) I need some help/advice.

The help I’m looking for is to have a competent character (one that can contribute to the party and be successful in his niche) and to have a general idea of his plan for advancement (assuming he survives).

Now for the questions and advice:
[Note: I'll be checking with the DM on everything, but I wanted to gather some of the Hivemind/Collective's wisdom first, since the DM is not availble till next week.]

1) For the first character concept, I wasn’t sure if a pure Rogue or a Rogue-Combo (e.g., Fighter-Rogue) would make more sense. Any advice/thoughts? Any ideas for a better class? Is multi-class a bad idea in 3.5?

2) For the second character concept, I thought the Duskblade class (PHB II, pg 19) looked neat, but wasn’t sure how it would compare to a Fighter-Wizard, Fighter-Sorcerer, Hexblade, or any of the other Fighter-MagicUser type class. Any advice/thoughts?

3) What about race for the character? For the first concept, I was thinking something with low light (Elf or Gnome) or dark vision (Dwarf or Whisper Gnome (RoS, pg 95)). For the second concept, an Elf or Human. Any advice/thoughts?

4) What are people’s thoughts on the sets of rolls for the abilities? Is the first set with the high of 18 and low of 7 better or worst than the second set with a high of only 17 but the low is 13?

5) What are people’s recommendations for assigning the numbers to the abilities for the two concepts? How about with the added complication of Racial modifiers?

6) What are people’s recommendations for assigning/selecting skills for the two concepts? (I saw some good advice for a Rogue in the thread Blood Legend started)

7) What are people’s recommendations for selecting Feats for the two concepts?

8) What are recommendations for selecting weapons for the two concepts? (e.g., what is so good about a Gnome's hooked hammer?)

9) For future advancement, any advice for selecting a Prestige Class or not? For the first concept, what do you think about plans to eventually take the path of a Dungeon Delver or maybe a Thief-Acrobat (assuming I correctly understand how Prestige Classes work)?

10) Anything else I should ask about?

Thanks.
-DAT