I'm currently in Chapter 3 trying to work my way through the Orc cemetery. My character is level 12. I joined up with the Fire Mages, bought the High Robes of Fire, and have a Sword of Victory and Longbow as weapon. I've got him to the "trained" level with one-handed weapons and he's mastered bows. I've also got all of the rune spells I could find, including Fireball, Ball Lightning, Ice Block, and Heal.

And yet I can't even seem to damage the Orc Warrior in the cemetery and I can barely handle the scouts and hunters. Am I simply under leveled? And if I am, can I fix that or have I built my character in such a way that he's going to be too weak to progress? And is there a better solution than roving around killing 500 scavengers and mole rats?

I see. Well, I'll just have to get out there and slaughter the wildlife a bit. Do monsters always return after a few in-game days or are they instanced every chapter? Hmm. 7000 experience points until the next level. That's about 140 scavengers. I'd better get started.

Thanks for the advice!

Monsters generally respawn at the beginning of every chapter, but not every one of them (you will have less of them than before).

As I said, you should be able to take down others monsters than scavengers. Try these hunting grounds:
-The forest between the Old Camp and the Sect Camp: there you will find Bloodflies, Scavengers, Molerats, Wolves, and 1 or 2 Shadowbeats. Do not try to kill the shadowbeast, the rest is OK. Near the place where you get the first focus stone is a ruined tower, don'T get in there yet, and a beach, leave this alone, too.
-The part between the Old Camp and the Old Mine: Scavengers, Molerats, Bloodflies, Lurkers, a few raptor-like monster whom name I forgot (be careful with them).

A general tip for Gothics: the first chapter is the hardest and the longest. You do not have to hurry, take your time to get some levels early on to make your later adventures easier. This means you should solve every quest you got (expect the faction joining quest, leave those last). You can join a faction at Level 5, but if you completing these quest take you to lvl10 (+/- on depending on how much monster you slain). That's means you have +60 HP, + 50 LP and more ore, and it makes easier to take on the Minecrawler Queen (and the minecrawlers, too, since they are the first "oh-god-that's-hard" type of monsters. Oh, yes, there will be more.

If you want to know which quests to solve (spoilers ahead):
-Every quest required to join the Sect Camp.
-Every quest required to join the Old Camp (taking the potion recipe to Dexter has absolutely no consequences ). Before you completing Diego's Test of Faith, take the list to the New Camp.
-Every quest to join the New Camp (there isn't many, if I remember correctly...). When you distribute the weeds for the baal, ask for the enchanted weed (or something similar), this will give you another baal's approval in the swamp.
-There are 2 quest chains you can solve in the Old Mine: both of them revolves around paying for keys from diggers, luring away the guards and looting more than the key's worth. Oh, and it's give you XP.

Spoilers over.

If you want some good weapons early on:
- Bone Bow: in the Old Mine, the lowest level, in one of the sidetracks. There will be minecrawlers, so either lure them out to let the guards kill them (SAVE BEFORE THIS, because if one of the named templars dies, you won't be able to finish the game), or solo them -this is hard until you have the:
- Templar's Sword: in the swamp camp, lure one of the SwampSharks to one of the templars at the side of the camp, let the shark kill it and take his sword. It"s two-handed, requires 40 STR but deals 70 damage. Awesome.
- God's hammer: it's harder to get, but more useful (and it's one-handed). To get this, you have to go to the bridge leading to the orc cemetery, but follow the path into the mountains. There will be Varans, Bloodhound (both dangerous). Follow the path, run very fast, and run very fast (yes, it's important). Do not head to the stone bridge but forward. After a few second of running there will be a cave in your left, in the cave you will find the hammer. It requires 23 STR to deal 52 damage.

Now that's everything I can remember, if something else crosses my mind I will write more.

Many thanks for the tips. I hope I haven't already killed the majority of these monsters. (I'm afraid I have, though.) I half wonder if I shouldn't begin again, but I'll persist with this game for now. That God's Hammer sounds like it should be right up my alley.

Can you tell me anything about how damage is calculated? I've heard that critical hits are calculated as damage level of the weapon + strength or dexterity of the nameless ponytail man. Is that accurate?

In Gothic 1 Dexterity increases range, not damage. Refer to this post for details.

About the damage:
-STR: Every point in Strength increases your damage by 1 (melee damage only).
-DEX: Every point in Dexterity increases your damage by 1, and shortens the time between shots (ranged damage only).
-Mana: It's required or spellcasting, as I said, the more mana you have, the smaller the chance you run out of it in battle.

These three has a hard cap, you can only train them up to 100. But you can find potions which will permamently increase them. A general tip about it: train up your primary stat (Warrior-STR, Ranger-DEX, Mage-Mana) up to 100, then use these potions. This way you will have ~210 STR, DEX or Mana. Don't worry, most of these potions won't be available to you until the end of the game. You can find potions which increases your maximum health, and you should use them right away - there is no way to increase your health by spending skill points, and more health is always good (bonus tip - there are three +15 HP potions in the old camp, in the guards room just above Gomez. Bring lockpicks).

Is that true with the sabres too since they require dexterity rather then strength? I could be confused but I believe they exist in Gothic1.

EDIT: Never mind as the answer is buried within the link you provided. :)

Good information. Thanks to you all. Seems like it makes the most sense to try to max out strength, no matter what build you're going for.

Well... If you're a mage, then you shouldn't. You need to invest your LPs in mana and magic circles. You will have spells to deal with everything, and you won'T use melee weapons at all. You will still have to use bows for a few times in the game, so keep one on yourself.

If you're a ranger, then, to make your life easier, try to max out two-handed weapons. I don't think it's a heavy spoiler, but you will use a sword in the last part of the game (or magic, but no bow). And that's critical chance is gonna help you a lot. To max it out, you need 70 LP (plus 30 if you're not in the New Camp).

As a warrior you should max out STR as soon as possible, of course. But no matter what path you take, if you find most of the STR potions, you will have more that 100 of it without any learning point spent on it.