I'm in Soprigal, and my party get their asses handed to them on a plate quite often. I manage one fight, then suddely I get ambushed and die.
So:

1) What are good stats? Are mine too low? I rolled for ages, and finally got what I thought was decent numbers. Aimed for 14+ in primary stats and 13+ in speed 14+ in endurance for fighter guys. Is that good enough.

2)How long are spell durations? Is it a good idea to always cast aid and leather skin. Will it last till next fight?

3) Is it normal that monsters don't leave treasure, or am I not searching properly? So far in the 3 (yes I've won only 3, lost about 10) fights I got nothing. I just press S after battle and get Search: Nothing. I'm afraid I'll run out of food and won't have money to buy new.

4) What's handicap?

5) How to recognize tough monsters? I accept all battles, and after it starts and I see I'm losing, retreat doesn't seem to do anything.

6) Any other tips.

Thanks in advance.

1:
They don't matter that much. Later on, you can boost them up on a repeatable quest.

2:
I'm not quite sure how time passes in VARN, but resting will end all spell durations. If you don't rest, spells can last several fights.

3:
Searching right after a battle is pretty much all you can do. It sounds like you've just had bad luck.

4:
It has something to do with who gets to go first.

5:
You'll learn to recognize them. The learning process consists mostly of getting pummeled without mercy. So if you find you're getting cursed to death by a gang of sprites who give you no chance to strike back, and you encounter them again in the future, run! On a similar note, if you find that an impossible fight always occurs in the exact same place, stay away from there.

6:
When you're in new territory, rest after every fight. Food is cheap. Save before levelling up, and only accept a new level if you are satisfied with the HP bonus. Stay in Sorpigal until you can handle everything (except the sprites). Then tackle the dungeon.

Ah thanks. Looks like I just got too much used to newer games where you're expected to breeze through the beginning.

I still love this game. Although different, it reminds me of Ultima which I played back in school :D

1) That's good enough.

2) It's a good idea.

3) It's normal. Don't bother. You can reload when you only have 1 food and no money left to enforce getting loot from the next fight. But you'll find loot much earlier.

4) It's a speed bonus/penalty your party members get.

5) You'll learn which monsters are how powerful which monsters are when you meet them.

6) Dying and having to reload very often at low level is normal for classic crpgs. After each successful battle search for loot (rest first if you're injured) and return to the inn for saving. Don't bother about exploring before you've gained enough gold and XP for training to level 2 and even afterwards grinding a few levels before doing long explorations is recommended.

People have already answered questions 1-5, but I wanted to add some stuff to 6:

Did you make your own party? If you did, you start with almost no equipment. I think you basically just have clubs. Also, your clubs do not start equipped. Make sure you equip them! It's easy to forget to do that.

The premade characters, however, start with some equipment and money. You can take it from them. Just sign in at the inn, and then take a few of your own characters and a few of the premade characters. Then transfer all the equipment, money, gems and food from the premade guys to your guys. Then sign into the inn again, and take the remaining premade characters out, then take their stuff too. You can use this stuff to give your own characters just a little bit of extra help in the beginning. Don't worry, you'll soon be finding much better equipment, but with just the clubs, the first few fights can be really hard.

Also, in the beginning you may want to buy equipment from the shop, but soon you will find that all the best equipment is found by fighting monsters. So after you've gained a few levels, save your money for training.

Lastly, you will find that once your spellcasters gain a few levels and get some better spells, you will have a much easier time in fights. It's similar to early D&D where spellcasters are very weak early on but very powerful later.

Ah, equipping clubs. I forgot that :o

Yeah, that makes a big difference. I think you'll find yourself winning a lot more frequently now.

Well, after equipping clubs, I started winning more fights than losing. Got gold, bought ranged weapons, learnt there is no shame in resting after every fight (or trap!). Things are going smoothly now.

Thanks all for your help.

Glad to hear it! Speaking of traps, I hope you have a robber in your party. They will soon become skilled enough to successfully disarm most traps, and are also very useful for opening locked doors without springing any traps. Also, when you find treasure, you can choose the "detect magic / trap" option to have your sorcerer automatically detect if the chest contains any magic items and if it is trapped. That can help you decide whether or not to risk it, especially if your robber is incapacitated.

I'm sure you've found this out already, but food in Sorpigal is 5gp for 40 units. Rest often.
Put up protective spells, too; Leather Skin (Sorceror level 1 spell 5) is noticeably helpful. Of course, nothing keeps the deadly Sprites off you.

The way that "Handicap" works is this:
Every player character and enemy in the fight moves in order from highest Speed skill to lowest. Every round, a new Handicap value is generated (from 0 to 6, favouring either monsters or player party) and that value is added to the speed of whichever party is benefitted. If you want to get ahead of the curve, have your Sorceror cast spell 3,8 - SLOW - which effectively halves all enemies' speed values for the duration of the fight, and cannot be resisted or dispelled.

One last thought - experiment with Bless and Sleep spells. Even with my currently-level-eleven party, Bless is cast on the first round of nearly every fight, certainly of every fight that I think might cost me something. And Sleep, even if it only takes one unit out of the fight for one round, can make a similarly huge difference at the start of the game. As you get up in level, there are other spells to do the same thing (often better) but as you get closer to mass destruction capabilities - high level Fireballs and Lightning Bolts, say - those become more useful than merely knocking one enemy out for a while.

Good luck!

wow I just killed sprites. 3 of them + 2 other monsters. It was the first fight after I got out of the inn so I thought what the heck, worst comes I'll just reload. Almost level 2 now...

On a less pleasant note, I got some excellent loot from a fight, armor +1 and a shield + gems, only to lose in the next one.. so new lesson, after good loot, save your game.

5 pegasi or hippogrifs can still kill my party before I even react.
So this brings me to my next question. What decides who surprises whom in a fight? Is it just random? when I enter a square with resident monsters (i.e. no ambush) sometimes I get the option to bribe/surrender/retreat and sometimes I don't. Appears random..

Second question. What's the use of donating to temples, and drinking at taversn?

Thanks,

And one more question (sorry for the double post; can't seem to edit my last response), what's a 10 foot pole used for? I've found quite a few of those and don't know whether to sell them or not.

In classic D&D 10 foot poles were used for searching for traps maybe it has something to do with it. I'd just sell them. Inventory space is too valuable.

Donating at a temple can make the priests there cast protection spells on your party as reward.

Drinking at the tavern can get you hints to solve some of the puzzles of the game. After you drink, Tipping the bartender (multiple times) can get you a clue. You can also listen for rumours without drinking, and those are occasionally helpful.

Surprise can be avoided if you use the Guard Dog spell, but that's a fourth-level Sorceror deal (which means you need level seven characters)

The 10' poles have no apparent use. This is where the cluebook comes in handy (and so far the only time I've used it) - for sorting out what items do what.