Which wolves are you talking about? The ailing wolves at the beginning, or the actual, full-on wolves that you meet when you exit the crash site?

If you can make it out of the crash site, then you want to use fast-travel to get to the first town. This is MUCH safer (and faster) than traveling there manually because you won't run into some very tough wolves that can tear apart your level 1 character.

If you're having trouble within the crash site, your issue is probably that you need better Dexterity. This is more important for fighting than strength as it determines how well you can hit enemies, and gives you more attacks per turn. Put some points in Dex rather than maxing strength (you can max strength later, as you level up) and you might have an easier time.

Also, given how complex Arcanum is, reading the manual is highly recommended if you have not already done so. It will help a lot in creating a good character at the start.

My two cents on top of what others have said.

I love tech characters and guns but the low level ones blow so since i also love grenades i usually start the game with a point in explosives and 2 or three points in throw and buy a boomerang from the starting store. The throwing weapons are MUCH better ranged weapons early on and as you lvl up and get access to better fire arms you can make the transition later. 4 points spent on throw and molotov cocktails make the early game MUCH easier for tech characters.

Huh, this thread is still alive?

Easiest and most story-rich build: the talky mage. Almost no combat skills, no difficulty fighting.

Start as human and sell your soul for the alignment ceiling at -20. Magickal aptitude is not important; the important thing is that the good path is richer in story content, but the most awesome NPC only joins evil characters - and by the time you can ignore that restriction he'll be too low a level. Selling your soul keeps your karma well grounded while you're free to do good deeds.

Get the first two spells in Force. Force is better than Dark Necromancy: Shield will be useful to protect NPCs and Jolt is THE combat spell for the immediate future and a leveling tool until early 30s. Buy a set of lockpicks if you want to; you'll find a set past the first town. Get a dagger if there's leftover money, but do battles with Jolt (meaning at high mana).

Get Virgil, kill wolves one by one, waiting for the mana to regen or just by resting. I clear the surface by sunset, then descend into the cave. Kill the assassin because why not. Don't clear the passage: Sogg is waiting. Get a point of Persuasion, then collect Sogg. With Sogg in party, do the small SH quests, clear the mine, rob the bank by staying late inside (no need for lockpicks, but invest in Unlocking cantrip because it'll come in handy eventually), immediately tell Doc Roberts on your "partner" and be prepared to defend the bank come morning.

The thieves on the bridge are still kinda tough, so persuade them to leave, then immediately go into battle mode and throw a grenade their way (may require a couple retries - but you can save in combat). This won't give an additional Fate point since the unofficial patch, so what? The heavy jacket is neat (and can be fully repaired if damaged by the blast).

Here I go to Tarant for the Smoking Jacket and the CH blessing, sidetracking to the Wolf Cave for the lockpicks. The jacket, the two blessings and the two buffs take care of the talky part. In the meantime, I raise WP for Jolt and Unlocking to be of some use, and invest in CH because I plan to leave the environs of Tarant as an Expert in Persuasion. I also take care to not try any tricks of the trade on the Expert trainer, since her Rep is bugged. Some points go to IN because self-respect matters (also, three spell slots mean that I can stack beauty buffs - yes, they stack). I tour the bars and answer riddles, buy Dread Armor, mana staves and boots of +speed. Sogg, meanwhile, does fine with the enchanted sword until we arrive at Ashbury around level 14 where he gets a katana.

We get Dog (awesome) and Geoffrey (fun to watch him wet his pants in the temple) and raid the cemetery (exception: elementals), the two Torian Kel dungeons and the Ashbury castle (exception: the innermost room, unless we get lucky and the fight bugs out). If there's still xp to go until level 20, we tour the Tarant sewers some more, then go pick up Torian Kel (finally!).

At this point we have three heavy hitters, a healer, a distraction machine and a (bad) tank. Now we're almost invincible, at least until weapon- and armor-damaging monsters become staple (they do, right now - what a coincidence).

Fortunately, one unbreakable weapon is found the in BMC mines, and until I get my - that is, Sogg's or TK's - hands upon it, Shielded Dog does the fighting, with brief appearances from Jolt. I collect the staves from the casters (so they wouldn't break them) and use them interchangeably as mana runs out and regens. Complex IN checks are handled via potion.

The important thing for a talky mage is to save before an important conversation. Some convos are plain bugged, and in those that aren't you never know if you are better off being naturally polite in response to initial rudeness (thus raising the base line) or going in at full power.

At low 20s, Teleport is available (walking is for peasants and trains are off limits with Dog), and at high 20s I'm ready to be a master of persuasion. Level 30 sees me to CH 20 if so inclined and 25 unassigned points can buy me 5 schools of magic (or one random skill and 2 schools of magic, etc).

And that's sacrificing everything for the sake of the story. More reasonably built chars should do much, much better.