I've played and finished this game for dozens of times, and, in my opinion, Kieran is hands down the worst character by far. Please allow me to explain why.

Due to his personal might modifier, his might is slightly higher in the beginning of the game, but lower in the later parts. For example, a dagger has weapon factor 10, which turns to 11 for Kieran. Great Sword "Justice" has weapon factor 60, which turns to 52 for Kieran. I guess this is to reflect that he's relatively more proficient with lighter weapons. However, due to the way defense works, he can barely scratch monsters later in the game. You see, defense reduces damage done by directly substracting from it, not dividing it (like most games do). That means that a character with a Might of 100 does more damage than two attacks from a character with a Might of 50. Even Kieran's faster attack and higher chance to hit (which he seems to have, though I'm not entirely sure of it) can't outweigh this. Also take in account that more damage means more experience, so Michael (and Conrad, for that matter) will end up with a higher fighter level, which means more hit points.

Also, the damage done using spells directly depends on the character's might modifier. That means that Michael actually has the most damaging spells in the game, and Kieran has the weakest. Magic items like wands and swarms also take in account the might modifier, so Michael should have no problem reaching Mage level 2 for more magic points. From there he should be fine on his own; more damage done means more experience, so he'll reach levels 3 and 4 quite easily for even more MP.

Kieran's attack speed is nice, but all characters receive this bonus on a succesful hit. Not thát important, but it is another reason why Kieran isn't that good compared to others.
Speaking of attack speed, Rogue levels are quite important, because reaching a higher level means that your attack becomes slightly faster. I don't exactly remember whether levels 2 and 3 did anything for your attack speed, but on level 4 (note: Jade Necklesses and Great Axe "Master" don't count) all characters' recovery time is cut by several frames. This is really easy to get; just equip a character with a nice bow for a while and he'll get there. Kieran may reach this a little easier, but it's no big deal. I'm actually not sure whether Kieran receives this bonus at all.

Then there's still Kieran's low Protection. He can't even equip boots. While a low Protecion and Might also applies to Ak'shell, at least he has a lot of MP to work with; this really comes in handy in the toughest parts of the game, like White Tower level 3 and the Dungeons.

For what it's worth, Kieran's still pretty good in the early game, where his attacks frequently take out weaker monsters in one hit. That advantage is quite short-lived, however. Also, I don't think ranged weapons take the might modifier in account, so he's a great character for Crossbow "Valkyrie", which always hits. Then again, this weapon really doesn't do much against later enemies. Kieran does, however, become arguably the most powerful character once you get the Westwood stick, which does 1000 damage 25% of the time you hit succesfully. This is so late in the game, however, that it is hardly worth considering.

Really happy to see the talkie version is now available! Great work!!

But I cannot get it to run using the commands listed by the download. I am able to run the game from a cd, but it hesitataes whenever someone is about to speak, so I would like to try this out.

here are my auto exec commands
do I leave them, or start over with a clean slate in the command area for DosBox? If I do start over, please help me with what to type in. The game is located in
"c-users-andy-oldgames-LOLCD"

mount c "c:\users\andy\oldgames"
mount d "e:\" -t cdrom
c:

It doesn't really matter in which folder the game is located, as long as DosBox is able to find it to mount. However the delay before the speech probably means your sound blocksize in dosbox configuration file is set too high. Try changing these settings like below, and see if that helps.

[mixer]
...
...
blocksize=1024
prebuffer=512

Also keep in mind, modern CD drives aren't really suited to run those old games from a CD, too many spin up/down times, you should use a CD image (ISO or BIN/CUE) and use the excellent imgmount in dosbox.

Here are the settings which I used when I tested the game. These might work if yours, for whatever reason, don't:

[mixer]
...
...
blocksize=2048
prebuffer=10

Thanks! What is the number of cycles some of you are running this game at? I was quite high, like 16,000 or so.

NVM

That depends on how strong your machine is. I have it always set to 30.000 cycles, though 27.000 should be optimal for pretty much every game before 1996. 16.000 should be more than enough for Lands of Lore, if the game isn't too slow for you, you might just leave it as it is.

My machine is pretty beefy. Is there a way to permanently set this in the config, or should I?
Also, I enter "cputype 386" before playing. Should I permanently set the config to this as well?

I don't understand why I can't get it to run without the cd by using the new cd version posted here on Abandonia? I erased all my old autoexec commands and try to start over. But it keeps saying "directory c:/lolcd/ does not exist". It appears maybe the first command line is being accepted, though. I even went as far as to install to plain old "C", giving the game it's own folder rather than a sub folder as I normally do, under "users/andy/oldgames" - still no luck. Now I just really want to know what i am doing wrong. I would rather run the game via the new CD version here on Abandonia instead of farting around with the dvd spinup issues I have using my own cd. I don't want to try imgmount either - sorry- I have put enough time and am already confused enough. Please help me run the new cd version!

There is.
Not recommended unless all other games you play in DOSBox do not have any issues running on a 386.
To find that out, we need to know what exactly you are doing in the first place. Your mount command(s) please, exact syntax used.