This is a guide to help new players starting out if they're having trouble. It's focused on getting dex to 60 for the master sword and pick pocketing. There's other routes to take. You can invest directly into strength or magic for instance. However, I always feel that it's good to get to 60 dexterity. Pick Pocketing pays for itself experience wise. You don't even have to use the master sword if you don't want. Note that getting transform scrolls makes the early game pretty easy. You can kill all of the bandits and trash mobs without much challenge. I usually do it anyway to speed things up. The only other route is to cheese things with the bow by standing on rocks or tents.

I usually start the game by doing all the non combat quests and getting as many levels as possible. I let the thief near the second entrance go after catching him so that I can get 1 dex from him after joining the thieves guild. Then I have Lares escort me to bring back the ornament. Here I get skins for Bospar's quest. Lares kills many wolves, goblins, molerats, etc. for you. This will gain you at least one or two levels. When you get to the ruins there is a shadow beast to the left. If you stay a certain distance from it it will slowly move towards you. You can bring it to Lares and he will kill it. This will be 300 extra exp and 250 gold (when you become Bospar's apprentice. Don't go into the ruins yet. There is a willow bow and some arrows behind the camp and a place to rest if you need to. Then start heading back to town.

On your way to town there's a hill with potions and a longsword on the left. Grab it to sell for 120ish gold pieces. Down the road from there is a broken wagon. Grab all of the arrows littered about. There's a broken crate of spells with sleep and ice block of particular note I believe. Grab everything you can find there. Head down the road to a camp with a hunter on the left. In the camp there are a bunch of arrows and a short bow. Some are in a chest. Grab them and head down the road. Near where Lares killed some mole rats there will be another broken wagon. Grab all of the arrows and the wolf sword to sell. The wolf sword is too short to be very useful anyway. The sword is better IMO. There's one in the the first room of the inn if you didn't get one yet. Head back to town.

Sell anything you don't need. Go to the guard guarding treasure near the first entrance to town. Equip and cast the sleep spell on him. Move past him and loot the chests for the leather armor and equip it. Go to Lares and train dex up to 34. Buy the ring of dexterity + 5 from Bospar.

Leave town via the second entrance and go to the left. There's some blood flies, rats, and mole rats. Kill them all with the willow bow. They should die pretty easily. There should be a cave with bandits. Don't go all the way in. At the entrance there's a light orc axe. Grab it and head back to town. Give it to the black smith to complete his quest and tell him you want to be apprentice to another master. Complete Matteo's quest by giving him 100 gold or getting it from Gritta (bully way). Then he will give his consent for you to be an apprentice. Constantino will give his consent by default. Complete Thorben's quests and gain his consent. Become an apprentice to Bospar. Sell him whatever you collected. You should have over 1000 gold. At this point you can buy a transform Dragon Snapper and transform warg spell from Ingaz. He's to the left going down towards the poor section.

Tansform into a dragon snapper. Run around the entire map and kill all of the field raiders and monsters that don't drop spells or loot (lurkers and snappers). Sometimes I kill some of the skeleton's to make my life easier later. They usually provide good experience. You do miss out on some of the loot, but with pickpocket you should have plenty of gold. It's especially important to kill the field raiders near the merc camp in the cave. There's a dex potion + 3 there that you will come back for later. Eventually, go back to where near where you got the light orc axe. Go up the hill near bye and kill the bandits there. Then, transform back to human and loot them. While doing this, avoid human NPCs at all cost. They will remember seeing you if they aggro and will aggro again until you cast an oblivion scroll on them.

You should have quite a few Learning points now. Go back to the hunter that you passed on the way to return the ornament. Behind his camp are two field raiders. You should have killed them when you were a Dragon snapper. If not, transform into a Warg and do so. Next, proceed down the hill there and kill the bandits in the camp. Loot everything you can and come back for the chests later. On top of the tent is a log. Walk across it. There's a potion of dex potion + 3 at the end of the ledge. Grab it and go back to the inn. Start going towards the merc farm. Equip the bow and kill the wolves that are on the hill. Grab the goblin berries near the cave. There's also one near the inn near a dead corpse. Avoid the boars on the left for now as they can be tough sometimes. Run to the field raider cave and grab the dex + 3 potion. Drink them and you should now have 34 + 5 + 3 + 3 = 45.

Go to town and sell all of the loot you got from the bandits. You should have over 1000 gold. Go to the shrine of innos near the inn. Save your game. Pray donating 100 gold and reload until you get + 1 dex. Go to the inn and sleep. Got back to the shrine and do this again until you get + 10 dex. You will now have 55 dex.

Go back to the field raider cave. Behind it there's two stone tablets you can pick up. Continue though a little pass with a locked chest. Once you're through there will be a dragon root on a tree stump to the left and a hunter that teaches you hunting skills if you like when you bring him some food and drink. More importantly there are two wolves to the right and two trolls. Kill the wolves with the bow and then proceed to the first troll. These can be killed easily with even the weakest weapon if careful. Get behind the first one and strafe left and right behind him hitting him with your sword. After a long time he will die at 5 damage per hit. You can loot him for a 300 gold troll hide. Do the same for the second troll for 600 gold. Near the second troll is a rapier 100 damage + 8 to 1 handed. Grab it, the king's sorrel, and anything else you find.

Go back to town. Go to the bar (poor section) and and ask Kardif about work. Ask him about special work. Talk to the man sitting near bye and he will give you a quest to intercept Baltram's package from Akil. Talk to Baltram and then go to Akil's farm. Kill the mercs there if you can. They're worth 200 exp each. In early game that's a lot. I usually have to reload quite a bit to accomplish this as the farmers make it hard to target them. You can use the bow, rapier, or lightning scrolls that you can buy from a vendor. Pickup the package from Akil and give it to the thief you got the quest from in town. He will tell you to come back later. Go sleep in a bed and come back. He will reward you will some exp and money.

Go back towards Akil's farm. At the top of the stairs go left and hug the rock wall. You will meet some rats, a scavenger, and a wolf. Kill them all with the bow. There will be a cave in the rock wall to the left. Go inside and shoot the first two bandits in the second room with the bow. They are weak and should die easily. Pull out your rapier and kill the last tougher bandit. Block and attack until he's dead. Sometimes you can do it with the bow easier. Especially if they glitch and get stuck. Inside the chest you will find a stinky fish. The note has the name Halvor at the bottom. Bring it to Halvor and tell him you will make a deal with him to sell you special items. Buy his fish special fish and open them for loot. Go back to Kardif and he will tell you that someone is waiting for you behind Halvor's house. You will meet Attila there. He will give you a key to the thieves guild. Go to the ocean and swim right. There's a door to the sewer's that's locked. Open the door with the key. On the left is a bunch of rats and Bospar's stolen bow in a locked chest. On the right you will find Jesper who will have some minor dialogue with you. Continue down the path until you find Cassia. She will give you the quest to join the thieves guild. After starting this talk to Jesper about Bospar's stolen bow. You can train in sneak with him if you want. You will need it to complete the thieves guild first quest unless you put Constantino to sleep with a sleep scroll. Sneak is useful for other things though like getting onto the Paladin's boat early game (if you're not a fire mage) to get the + 3 strength potion there. It disappears in later chapters when you have access to the boat replaced by a + 3 dex potion. Learn lock picking from the other thieves guild member down the hall guarding chests.

Attack and kill Jesper. If you can, get the killing blow to get the exp. He's worth a fair amount. I usually reload until I get it. Cassia has the master sword and will kill him quickly which makes it hard. Loot his body for another key. This will allow you to open a wooden door that is down the hall and around the corner. Inside the dark room is a large chest. This is the hardest chest to lock pick that I've found. Save, reload, and keep trying until you get it open. You will receive 300 gold, + 10 strength amulet, and a + 3 dex potion. Drink the potion and you now have 58 dexterity.

Complete the thieves guild quest by stealing Constantino's ring from his locked chest. Return it to Cassia and join the thieves guild. She will teach you a secret nod and give you the key that open the door from the thieves guild to the inn. Go back to Rengaru (the thief that you let go early in the game). Perform the secret nod and he will give you dex + 1. Now you have 59 dex. Either train 1 more point of dex with Lares or eat a goblin berry if you're not going to turn them all into + 3 dex potions at some point. If you're going strength build or mage with no bow you probably want to use your king's sorrel for + 3 strength potions or magic potions instead. Note that there's only 13 dragon root available so you will have some king's sorrel left over for other potions if you choose to make those potions.

Go to a bed and sleep until midnight. Equip your ice block scroll. If you talked to Martin (by the docks in the middle of some paladins) and asked to see his inventory he will equip the master sword instead of selling it. Since it's night time the paladins are standing pretty far away from him. Cast ice block on him and hit him with the rapier until he falls down. Loot the master sword off his body. Since you hit him with ice block before he aggroed on you he won't be angry at you if you knocked him down before the ice block wore off. You won't have to use an oblivion scroll on him or pay the penalty to the paladin in the barracks for starting a fight.

At this point you can buy the composite bow from one of the vendors near the second entrance to town if you want to be an archer and invest a lot in dex potions. If not there's a crossbow on a small hill near the bridge on the way to the ruins where you return the ornament. It's 60 strength requirement and 90 damage.

You should have a lot of learning points available. I would train pickpockets with Cassia, go around stealing from people, and get a lot of experience and money in the process. Then I would train one handed, bow, crossbow depending on what you want to specialize in. I would also get strength up to 34 at some point and then increase it by dragon root or + 3 potions. The same with dex and goblin berries if you're and archer. You can train it higher if it meets your maximum strength and dexterity needs. Constantino will teach you to brew + 3 strength potions if you learn the basics of alchemy by learning to make a healing or magic potion. It costs 20 points. Sagitta will teach you to make + 3 dex potions for a sun aloe. It's pretty easy to get and requires no fighting. It's at the end of the path to return the ornament. There's a hunter there and some snappers, but you should have killed them when you transformed into a dragon snapper. Another way to kill them is to stand on a rock near bye and shoot them with the bow/crossbow. There's an entrance to a cave with a tougher troll. You shouldn't kill him yet as his hide is a quest item in chapter 2. Instead grab the sun aloe, goblin berries, and stone tablet near bye. Bring the sun aloe to Sagitta and she will teach you to brew + 3 dex potions for 20 learning points.

I'll stop here as this is quite a bit when written down. This is the best way I've found to go to make life easy on myself early in the game before I join a guild. I usually try to complete most of the merc quests aside from the strength stew quests as you miss out on a + 1 strength stew when you're a merc or a fire mage. If you're going to be militia you can do it if you want as you don't get the extra + 1 anyway. I would complete the rest of the merc quests and duels for the extra experience before joining a group. Make sure to duel enough of Silvio's men to make Bulko want to duel you. When you beat him you will get an extra + 1 strength stew from the lady there. If you invest 10 points into one handed and have the master sword that will give you 30 one handed. That's enough for the next set of sword animations (fighter). Then you should be able to beat all of the mercs.

On a side note, when you have enough money talk to the priest of innos near the gate to the city. Keep donating 50 gold to him and he will give you + 2 mana + 80ish hp, and + 1 learning points. The hp in particular is helpful early on. Also, when you are going into town for the first time don't complete the quest to get into the city via wearing clothing, bribing the guard, or bringing Constantino's herbs. Instead, walk around the guard on the right who won't stop you. Talk to Lares for 500 extra experience. Go back to the city entrance, talk to the city guard, and complete the quest by telling the guard you're returning Constantino's herbs. That will give you a maximum of 600 experience.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents on how to best start the game. Have fun whatever way you choose to do it.