Not the ailing kind, those guys are easy enough. It's when I go down southeast a ways to move out of the crash zone. So far I've managed to beat one after a few reloaded saves, but the second is killer.

I'm a dwarf, no special background, with average on all stats besides dex and 1 above in strength, 1 above in const, and 1 above in int (1 above average being 9). I put one point into Gunsmithing, one point into Electrician, and one point into Force Magick. Picked up a Flintlock Pistol, some bullets, a Fine Steel Dagger, and Boots. I was trying to go as steampunkish as I could, so I figured electricity and guns =D.

The shield I get from Force Magick rank one raises my armor a great deal, but it's not much against these Wolves, which are Level 3 where I'm still Level 1. Virgil is a bit more sturdy against them but falls just the same as I do. My knife seems to be most effective as the pistol just misses all of the damn time, so I use the knife. Fights with the pistol don't seem to go any better. I tried giving Virgil an unidentified Axe and Robe to help him and they don't do much either. I've gone through about 15 reloads now trying to fight this wolf and it is maddening.

Any tips? Did I just plain make a sucky character? Am I doing something wrong? Please help me! This game seemed amazing up until this point, and I have no doubt it's going to be even more amazing after this point, but I can't seem to get past this.

never ever EVER be a mix of magic and tech character.
Tons of things key off directly on your tech or magic score. For example, magic damage...

100% magic affinity means you are doing 10 times more damage per casting of a spell than 10%. Also, whether your spell fails or succeeds depends on your own magic affinity - enemy tech affinity... so trying to cast spells on an enemy with high tech affinity (or when you yourself have tech affinity) will cause them to fail.

Basically, re-start the game, choose one or the other, and never mix them up.

Note that it is a LOT easier to be magic affinity character. You need two spells, harm (best DPS and DPM spell in the game), and stone throw (for blowing up non living objects, golems, bridges, etc).
Properly maxed you can be insta killing those wolves with a single harm...
But you don't HAVE to be that min maxed to play... just remain focused on magic OR tech. and remember they are opposites...
A tech character with a good sword or gun... (oh, also choose swords OR guns)

oh, also your resistances (fire, electric, poison, etc) all improve the further away you move from the midpoint. My first game I played was a tech-mage who was balanced exactly on 0 (on purpose) and he sucked... I only later learned how bad balanced is.

Argh, dang, one of the things I was most looking forward to was a hybrid, but thanks for the tips anyways! I'll restart.

What's a good starting character to breeze through the game with to see the story/roleplay? I am having the same issue. I made a human fighter-type I guess with some points in STR+DEX and bought a small sword. those wolves obliterated me

Okay, I made the half-ogre with melee and dodge that the manual suggests as an easy and simple character and the wolves were still tearing me down. Every once in a while I could take one down if it was only one at a time but then I'd have to rest for an hour or two to heal up and recover magick. But most of the time I just died. This is on moderate difficulty. I'm loathe to go down to easy because it feels cheap.

Is the UAP necessary to play the game? IE Does it better balance the game and make the game a good experience, or is the original just fine on its own? I'm currently running an untouched original, no mods or unofficial patches. Really want to enjoy this but this is the fourth character I've made that is just being eaten by these damned wolves and the crash site is starting to get boring.

EDIT: Well, I installed the UAP and remade the same Half-Ogre and the wolves are still just as hard, but to anybody who is having troubles with the wolves:

I discovered that you don't need to fight them to move on. I didn't realize that this has a map-travel system simliar to Fallout. Go to your map, select a destination, and click the big circle button to the right of the map to fast travel to a location.

That would have been handy. I swear the one in fallout wasn't as hard to find ><. But I like this atmosphere better. And the music is gorgeous. But, yeah, there you go. Map travel, don't try to get past those wolves right off the bat.

Just figured out you can open up the world map and kind of "quick travel" to the town, bypassing the wolves.

I made a human mage, bookworm - points in INT CON and WILL I think. Casting Harm, as it's my only spell.

I like that in the intro, when I played my first character, I talked to the guy approaching the crash site myself and ending up attacking him. When I rolled my second character, I let Virgil do the talking and he intimidated the guy by bluffing.

Actually you don't have to (and generally shouldn't) fight the wolves in the canyon past the assasin encounter as world map travel becomes available just past a little way past that encounter. I belive Virgil points this out too.

UAP is not necesary but recommended as it does fix tons of bugs. It does not make balance changes much beside ones caused by him fixing bugs.

Edit: I see you figured out your self :-p

I've found that the only way to do it is make him wait way back and run the enemies to him. Only problem there is that he will fight but you don't be able to see his health bar while he's in wait mode.

Try to tell him to "Back Off" (F5 key).

Thanks.

Kind of overwhelmed with options right now ... don't really like it. I guess that's a weird complaint, since non-linearity is what a lot of people look for in games. Not feelin' it in Arcanum though.

I did enjoy chatting it up with that Necromancer under S&Sons or whatever it's called. That was funny.

Now I have to travel to some mines to research dwarves - I feel like I should do some sidequests or I'll be underleveled for the main adventure. Currently lv7. is this true?

the problem with combat is indeed that the allies are just an XP sink, stealing your XP and getting in your way. This is a shame since their stories and dialogues are AWESOME... so i take them along, but they really bother me and get between my legs... you can ask them to wait and they will not take up xp and get in your way... they also do not gain xp during that and will lag behind you on level. I sometimes do that... but its a PITA to switch them from on to off and you have to KNOW by heart exactly where conversations occur so you don't missing something doing that.

As far as the ogre goes... is he a magical swordsman or a tech swordsman?

The "classic" mage uses magic directly to cast spells on enemies, and is very very strong.
The "classic" tech user uses ranged weapons, specifically, guns.
You can be others but they are tougher, but not unplayable.
As you mentioned you CAN leave those wolves for "later" via fast travel (can always come back later to finish them off).

The danger with melee is that you are getting hit back. With ranged attacks you can spam attacks fast during realtime mode (don't overspam magic or you pass out, you CAN waste attacks that way)
With close attacks I find its better to play as turn based.
Remember that if you have 5 move, and your attack takes up 4 moves, then in a turn you can attack twice. The first attack consuming 4 moves and leaving you with 1 move. the second attack consuming 1 move and 3 fatigue!

If you are being tech, do NOT get healing magic... The plants to make a tech healing kit and fatigue kid are supremely common (and don't bother carrying them if you are a mage, you can't sell them unprocessed, and its not worth it to ruin your magic affinity to get them.

Be aware that you CAN get magic / tech affinity over 100%... only way to do it is via starting game bonuses... so an Elf (+15% magic) who sold his soul (+20% magic) can get 135% magic max, and 65% tech max.

Anyways, when fighting with melee the quality of your weapon matters a lot. You will get better magic swords later in the game via completing quests (can't make them), crafted swords are SHEER AWESOME and cheap and available FAST and EARLY... !BUT! crafting is a tech skill.

Being a dumb brute is POSSIBLE but very brutal your first gameplay, you lose out tons of gameplay options (persuade is awesome, take it! early!)
An ogre swordsman (assuming he is dumb) is literally the most difficult build I can think of that actually takes combat skills and doesn't multiclass (you can be magitech guy... or worse, you can elect to take NO combat skills whatsoever, that is truly brutal right there...)

Being a smart tech guy who crafts weapons is the alternative. You will be making lots of money via crafting (crafting just takes components... combine cheap component A + cheapt component B and sell for a HUGE profit... takes up nothing from you but knowing the formula!), there is no real limit on wealth generated that way (well.. you will drain the merchants stores of reagents, and clog them with junk... look for replenishable sources like trash cans in terrant for stuff, sell them to restocking merchants who get rid of the junk).

Anyways, so if you want to be a tech swordsman, better stat up so that you can craft the balanced sword ASAP.... mmm, or i guess extra strength will also work..
My first playthrough I actually WON the game with 3 cohorts, fairly lowish level, lots of persuading done, a perfectly balanced 0% magic/tech, and using a magic sword and magical armor...

Things that you might not think that benefit from your "affinity" (or suffer):
1. Being cast a positive spell by an allay, more tech you are, the lesser the result, it will fail.
2. Casting a spell on an enemy, damage = x * your magic affinity - his tech affinity
3. Your resistances (poison, electric, etc) go up with magic, not sure what they do with tech, but you get items that give resistances.
4. Gameplay changes, you are not allowed near trains and in tech shops.
5. If someone shoots a GUN at you, or you shoot a GUN at someone else, high magic will make the gun FAIL, it takes the tech and magic of both sides to determine whether it fails or not, i think it also improves damage to have high tech affinity.
6. Using enchanted armor, better the more magical you are.
7. drinking a potion, better the more magical you are.
8. using a tech potion (aka, a healing "kit"), better the more tech you are, worth the more magic.
9. using a tech armor, better the more tech you are. suppresses magic.

notice that tech is defined by ignorant fools... that is... swords and armor are neutral, neither tech nor magic... steam powered battlesuit armor is tech, CRAFTING armor and swords is tech (even though the resultant product isn't), a sword can be enchanted since its not tech unless its a fancy sword (aka, lightening sword / fire sword / chainsaw sword, etc... you can actually craft such things via tech, its crazy awesome :P)

Once you get the hang of it the game will seem very easy, but its really tough at first when you are figuring out how things work. The pure freedom in character making is really nice, but it is very easy to get lost and make mistakes there.

back to the quick travel option, it is very handy but be aware that there are also random encounters with creatures occasionally once you auto-travel anywhere except from the crash site to the first town. It took me two reloads to travel from shrouded hills to tarant, first time was a large were-creature who killed me too fast to get a good look and the second was a large bear before I made it with no problems. Not counting the lesser creatures that I actually could dispatch.

WTF is up with wolves in this game? I'm level 15, my doctor lady companion is level 10 (just got her a little while ago) and these LEVEL 3 WOLVES are still able to kick the crap out of us. Nothing else at that level hits me very often, and on the rare chance that they do they deal out some super-low amount of damage like 1 or something. I can handle all sorts of crap my own level and maybe a little bit above. But these LEVEL 3 WOLVES? Oh man. I have to blow mollies on these guys to win. Mollies! On LEVEL 3 WOLVES!? According to every other creature below level 8 for me, I should be able to gun the crap out of these guys. But nope. Have to blow a molly or two or they damage us down too quickly.

Also, what the crap is with the Mountain Clan dwarves mine you have to explore? Level 1s, Level 3s, Level 8s, one Level 12, OH, A Level 25 Iron Golem that two shots me! Argh!

I love this game, and I simultaneously hate its guts. As far as I know I'm out of feasible encounters for my level and I'm not sure what to do to level up to make those encounters feasible. I'm sure I'll find something after an hour or two of searching.

I'm not sure I agree with this. A mix of magic and tech is harder, certainly, but not impossible. I found that playing a melee character is quite easy, such that one can choose a mix of tech and magic skills to go with it. Your tech and magic skills won't be as effective as they would if you specialized, but since you're primarily using melee it doesn't matter, they're just for backup. Trying to be a gunner with some magic skills will be pretty hard though; guns are actually not as powerful as you'd imagine (think in terms of the early guns in Fallout, where you shoot a guy in the head for 5 damage) and they're slow. Tech proficiency is really needed to make them effective. But certain types of hybrid characters are definitely feasible.

I'm not sure why the wolves in particular are giving you so much trouble. Standard wolves are pretty tough for low-level characters and you should definitely use the world map to skip over them in the beginning of the game, but after you've gained a few levels, got some decent armor, and bumped your Dex a little so you have more actions per combat turn, you should be OK. If you really feel like you need to level, just wander out into the wilderness and fight some random battles. You also might stumble across the odd special location or two that will have some extra fights and some loot.

Also, the UAP is highly recommended but it doesn't affect difficulty; the idea was to fix bugs but not actually change any balance issues since that would be contentious.

P.S. -- I don't remember what difficulty setting I used when I played through the game, so maybe I was on easy and that's why it was easier for me.