I'm in the acadamy & have summond a badger.
The 1st fight I clicked on attack nearest & it attacked the guard that was on my side.
So in the next fight I click on the badger to guard me, & he just stood there as the two goblins killed me.
Is this badger going to be any use to me?
I'm a sorcerer & so far the only way to stay alive is with my dagger.

it's been a some years since my sorcerer run but as far as i can remember the low level summons are totally useless, i think i didn't use any high level summons either and concentrated purely on direct damage spells and buffs.

Well actually after replaying it, It was simply the graphics making it look like the badger was attacking the guard, but the text showed he was doing damage to the mage behind the guard.

I was trying to get through the game without any mods for the 1st playthrough.
But that's not looking like a very good idea with the AI the way it is.
I have told the Cleric many times to heal me when I'm less than 75% health,which she agrees to.
But she has never once done it & is quite happy to watch her employer die unless I say Heal me. Is there something else I need to do to get the heal at <75% option to work?

I think I was a bit optimistic thinking I could do a 1st playthough on default settings, when an escaped prisoner can throw a fireball that takes my level 3 sorcerer & my familiar from full health to dead in one hit, before I can throw a little snowball at him.
Or maybe I'm just going into the wrong areas too soon.

I'll start again as a fighter, at the moment my inventory has all I can carry & I don't yet know what stuff I need to keep. (my paid mercenary won't carry anything for me)

you can't modify henchmens inventory/equipment in original campaign and same applies to SoU, only in HoU and possibly in some user made campaigns you can do that.

Low level summons are not bad, but while a badger can hold it's own against a goblin, you can't expect it to handle a bunch of them.

When playing a caster, I've found it best to carry a heavy crossbow and give fire support from afar.

The henchmen are.. difficult. Probably best not to expect much intelligent action out of them, but they can serve as a distraction. The cleric sometimes deals with a bunch of undead and so on.

There's nothing important in locked containers anyway, after a few levels you can get stuff like chime of opening or something that deals with them as needed.

You'd need some elemental protection to survive a fireball (or sneak in with invisibility or something). Playing a fighter will be much easier for you.

You may enjoy tailoring your fighter to fit into one of the Prestige Classes (such as Arcane Archer, Weapon Master or Dwarven Defender)

Also, if you can play this game with another person, that makes it the best. Those pesky fireball-throwers can be tough even with a familiar, henchman and summons.

A Rogue with Evasion can dodge it for no damage. Still risky though. Just a note on the mentioned prestige classe: Arcane Archer requires at least one level in a casting class, and Dwarven Defender must be (logically) a Dwarf character. The Knockdown feat works quite well against casters. Put them on their ass and they can't cast. If you can couple that with sneak attacks, you'll rip them to shreds.

However, I suspect, as he suggested, that he's just going into that area a bit too soon. Best place to start is in the Beggar's Nest. Pretty much all slow moving zombies there. Easy experience.