New player to Arcanum and have made several abreviated starts. Originally was going for a "balanced" Tech/Mage but after some reading on here and in game experience decided to shelve that as being a bit more involved to pull off succesfully than my knowledge and experience of game allow for.. Decided to go Tech and yes I've seen all the recommendations to avoid firearms as a new player but latest character is doing pretty well with her Fine Revolver.
However, I'm thinking of doing another fresh start with long term goal of mastering Therapeutics.
Character=Candice "Candy" Paine, female Half-Orc-Miracle Operation background
Have patched the GOG game and am using the level cap mod with reduced XP costs and 100 levels (I'm looking for fun and easy after work RPG gaming not a hard core challenge.)
So for my female Dr. Jekyll where to put my initial 5 points? (thinking raising her beauty at creation or shortly thereafter is a good idea for that initial impression.)
How soon do I start learning Therapeutics and what other Tech disciplines should I look to get ?
How about stats? She'll have ST5, CN5, DX5, BE6, IN11, WP8, PE13, CH9 before spending any points. When and how much should I raise them?
What about skills? know I want to get persuasion rank 2 very early but what about combat and other skills?

I would put one point into herbology, so you can heal and make money off your potions.
3 in firearms, so you can hit something early on. (Bullets are expensive)
1 in gunsmithy, so you can craft flintlock in the cave on the crashsite.

Give a decent weapon (fine steel dagger / rapier) to virgil on the crashsite, because you can't hit anything in melee.

With you 9 Ch you can recruit Sogg in Schrouded Hills, so you have a good fighter, who you can also heal/buff.
Try to recruit Sogg before reaching lv 3, otherwise he will always be 1 level behind, which I find annoying.

You can also become gun expert (500gold) in shrouded hills, very early on, so you hit even better.

Buy the bullet schematic early on (Tarant), for cheaper bullets.

At level 2 I would get the fine revolver schematic, which lasts you a long time.

Level 3 onward for persuasion, if you want it early. The elixir of persuasion is also available early on.

She's worth picking up as another tech body for fights if you feel you need that. Her tech skills won't be as useful though, since they overlap your PC's. Also, she's one of the non-voiced NPCs, so she seldom has anything interesting to say about anything. I'd take her along, since you can drop her anytime you feel like it.

BTW, I made a full Herbology/Therapeutics character once, and it was one of my favorites. You'll be doing a ton of crafting, but long before the end of the game your whole party will be chugging your concoctions prior to combat, and they'll all be transformed into unstoppable machines of destruction.

Firearms seems okay in the beginning, but gets worse and worse as the game progresses. That's part of the trap. It shouldn't matter too much if you've got decent companions though. You can let them juice up on your drugs and they'll do most of the fighting.

Don't worry about restarting over and over - everyone who likes the game does that.

Agree with UniversalWolf about Jayna. A bit superfluous, except for roleplaying. Candice and Jayna might get along very well.

Magnus might be good because of balanced sword, eye gear.
Going into smithy and mechanics yourself instead for the goggled helmet is also an option.

Charged rings are also great. You need dexterity so you can fire more shots per round.

Candice "Candy" Paine finally arrives in Tarant at level 15 after completinhg Arboloha's quest, checking out the local mine, helping Doc foil a bank robbery and killing the bandits that had been charging a "toll" to use the only bridge out of Shrouded Hills. Several encounters with some sort of cult thugs who want the last of the blimp survivers dead has her mad and Virgil is worried about his mentor Joachim while Sogg just wants a cask of something cold and alcoholic after the long hike in the wilderness.

Note: may have overdone the XP editing with the level cap remover but having fun and she still has a long ways to go for the stats, skills and disciplines I want her to have.

Currently she looks like this
Female Half-Orc with Mirical Operation background
Stats; ST 5, CN 5, DX 6, BE 12, IN 11, WP 8, PE 13, CH 12
Skills; Dodge 1 (Apprentice), Melee 1 (Apprentice), Throwing 1 (Apprentice), Haggle 1 (Apprentice), Persuasion 1 (Apprentice), Firearms 3 (Expert)
Technological Disciplines; Herbology 1, Electric 2, Explosives 1, Gun Smith 2

Next couple levels will go to raising Persuasion to 3, after that will decide if a couple of rings boosting her DX are enough for me to start working on Therapeutics or if I want some points there first. Eventually going to want to learn some Pick Pockets and Pick Locks but can wait a little for them.
Meantime going to recruit Magnus and once I have my Expert in Persuasion Gar so her lack of ST shouldn't be a major issue

Question regarding items, Ive been saving all the notes I fnd, the Passport and match book, and the boot from the mine. Are any of those things needed later or am I just wasting inventory space?

The boot is only useful for trading with Resizze in Shrouded Hills for information on the ring. You seem to have traded the camera instead, or maybe sold it for cash. Someone might be interested in the picture that camera made in the opening cutscene. You can buy it back for a lot of money.

The matchbook says something about Roseborough, so maybe if you go to that place at any point. Maybe the Innkeeper at Roseborough Inn can say something about it.

Don't know much about the passport myself, have not played that route much. [spoiler]Passport is fake. Made by thieves guild.[/spoiler]

Thanks again for response, I talked the info out of Resizze and indeed did sell the Camera too him for a decent amount (325 if I recall correctly). [spoiler}Bessie's boot can be sold in Tarant for 250 [/spoiler] . Had already surmised that passport was fake though thought it might come in handy when I meet "the boy" and the name on the matchbook and fact that it was only matchbook I'd seen so far in game were what has me hanging on to it.

What about all the various notes and telegrams (and possibly newspapers?) any point keeping any of them after I read them? Thinking the letter found at crash site about accepting a marriage proposal might prove useful at some point but many of the others like the notes/telegrams for Virgil are just eating inventory space.

On a different subject, read someplcae that there was a mod or way to take charge of your followers leveling so you could spend their CP to make them more useful. Don't recall now however where I read that and if it works with the last User Patch, High resolution mod and XP cap mod. Would definitely be interested in being able to take charge of CP spending for entire party so I could have a more useful mix in my parties.

Most of them can be thrown away or stored in some abandoned chest somewhere, if you need a specific on after all. Can't think of a single one. But I think a handful of notes from the mainquest, like the letter from Min Gorad, alter the dialogue slightly as in "[Show him the Note]" vs "[Tell him about it]". Sounds like an awesome mod. Have not come across it myself. I control my followers leveling by modding the leveling schemes. I found this thread on the terra-arcanum forums. But link is dead.

awwww, those poor trolls! they seem like such great guys if you just get to know them!

Followed the link you posted and read the whole thread. Last posted link in that thread still leads to an active Mediafire download of the FollowerEdit hack by Drog.
Downloaded, extracted and did a quick test to see if it was working and indeed by setting followers to no scheme you get to spend their CP when leveling. Will have to do a bit more testing to see if as the last post in that other thread indicates you need to edit some files to get the option for non tech users in vanilla to be able to craft tech items for you working but looks very promising.
Note as Drog says you won't see immediate effects of spending CP on your followers but after changing screens the point spend will appear.
Note 2: As the last post in that thread on Terra-Arcanum indicates you'll need to do a bit of file editing if you want to give Tech Disciplines to followers that normally don't have them and be able to have them craft stuff for you.