Used: enemies in the beginning areas

i know im not the first nor only person to have had a lot of frustration and difficulty with spawns in the beginning areas because i made a character that was not "optimized" to be a combat terror. weaker starting characters sometimes, perhaps even often or frequently, get murdered by goblins and ants that spawn with high bonuses to their physical stats. i mean, at level 2, unless somebody helped me, or i make an optimized character, i cant beat one ant that has +8 to hit due to high strength and hits me for 5-10 dmg per shot.... let alone that ant along with one of his buddies.

sure, it doesnt happen in every encounter... but it happens enoguh to make the early levels overly frustrating. and at level 4 when the death XP loss gets worse, its an even bigger hit because the monsters give piddly xp and still arent much easier to killl to balance that reduced gain.

i think it would be an improvment to slightly raise the xp gain and lower or totally remove the stat bonuses on the enemies in starting areas.

I didn't have a problem with this (thinking back, this is probably because I kept Kaliria in the Graveyard almost exclusively until level 9, and she's a cleric), but I can see how some would. I think this is a good idea. It's always nice to party up with folks too, but sometimes there's no option for that or you just want to be alone for a bit... I think perhaps raising the xp on the lower level kills up until maybe level 6 or 7 could be a good option. By then, even spellcasters should have some 3rd level spells that might help them even things out a bit.

I'll make it so the ants and goblins don't fluctuate in ability scores, which should make things easier and even things out as far as battle with them goes.

that would do the trick, i think.

I've altered the normal goblins (but not the shamans or berserkers) and the giant ant workers and soldiers. Now these guys don't fluxuate in ability scores.