Yeah, it can be pretty tough. Stick to the roads, and avoid areas with difficult creatures (you may have to learn by trial and error for that one) until you can handle them.

Easy tutu fills EVERY random spawn point, which I think is a little insane. Here is a mod that lets you adjust how many are populated, and how fast they re-spawn.
Taken from the description:
"The default behavior of the new EasyTutu spawn system is to populate every spawn point on your initial visit to an area, and then repopulate each spawn point one game day after it has been cleared. This add-on will allow you to introduce an element of randomness to monster spawning: you may select a base spawn chance (the choices are: 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, or 90%), and the selected percentage is used as the chance of any individual spawn point becoming populated when it is time for a spawn there. Spawn points will still be capped at a maximum of one spawn per game day with this add-on installed."
http://usoutpost31.com/easytutu/
*Note- filling every spawn point is NOT default BG behavior. This mod will actually make it closer to vanilla*

Wow that seems a little excessive! I had no idea! I always use BGT.

Yeah I do too. Just saw that once while considering tutu.

What? I had no idea! This is my first time playing BG. I had installed EasyTutu and thought it seemed pretty brutal out of the gate. To be honest I have already been playing for a couple days now with this setting and still managing, so maybe it's not so bad. At least I'm leveling up quicker than normal and picking up mad loot!