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On Monday, my players decided to try and conquer Riddermound without any magic assistance. They had:
- Thief
- Fighter
- Hunter
- Merchant

Our Mage was no longer able to play, and rather than anyone creating a 2nd character or going back to hire a hireling, they decided to head into the Mound (nevermind that a wandering Wraith had already nearly kicked their butts when their mage had been with them the week before). As you can image, it didn't go well. They managed to fight 'The Lady' and ended up with 2 of them on the ground, one nearly dead, and the merchant running out of the dungeon as fast as he could. The thief took her down at the last moment (fire attack, no magic), but it was nearly a total player kill.

That leads to my question. When building a party, what advice do you give your players? I am thinking 2 mages may even be needed. 1 specializing in healing and one in offensive magic. Also, a knight and definitely a thief.

What do you think? What is the proper party makeup? What have you seen work best?

In general, a group who can cover each others weaknesses is ideal. And that ultimatly depends on what they pick to play.

So imo a party of a thief, fighter, hunter and a merchant is a solid one, though someone should have some INT skills.

That you MUST have a mage is imo not entierly true. Yes they can deal with more "magical" enemies, among other things. but those kind of monsters are kinda rare, and not every encounter needs to lead to a fight. It can, if your players want too, but Dragonebane's combat is meant to be pretty brutal, even when you lean into it.

I have run the Riddermound a couple of times, and one of the best groupes where a thief, a scholar and a merchant (they wanted to play characters that had no real buisness to be adventurers), and got out by playing more cautiously and tried to avoid fights (managed to talk things out with the Lady and simply decided to flee when the wright popped up after looting the crypt. The thief did get maimed by the giant spider though)

I ´m running a group with 5 players. Mage, Knight, Smith, Bard and Thief.
We have the mage for INT- Skills, he is also very useful in dealing magic damage.
We have the bard for CHA- Skills, and the musicanfeat is very good support.
We have the knight for tanking, and he can fight as well. He always has to protect the mage, who is very low on Hitpoints.
The thief is for the DEX- skills, and he is an incredible damagedealer.
The smith is the wildcart. A bit tank, a bit damagedealer, a bit support.

But best party is imo Knight, Thief, Mage and Bard.

I think a Tank and a Mage are the bare minimum. As for magic, I guess Mentalism looks like the best choice if you are going to have a single mage, with Animism coming second..

The optimal party of 4 for a campaign like the secret of the dragon emperor I'd say is 2 mages, 1 knight and 1 bard.

Bringing an animist mage (access to healing, some area of effect spells along with banish for the many undead and demons in the campaign is just too useful) along with the choice of either an elementalist (more direct and versatile magic damage) or a mentalist (more buffs and utility) would probably be best.
The knight is there to tank, their guardian ability and starting with the best armor certainly helps with that, having someone that can make good use of the magic weapons in the campaign is also a bonus (could potentially be a secondary face for the party as well).
The bard is there to buff/debuff (the musician ability is really good) and be the primary face for the party.

This party also gets access to most of the useful skills for the campaign via their profession, the few they don't get should be possible to pick up via the freely chosen skills.