This game is beyond hard, even with a walkthru! I did all the quests that are within the town, and I am only level 2! Emridy Meadows, is seemingly impossible at this point!! Anyways, this one post claims if you rest outside of town for 24 hours, all the vendors restock their ammo... I have tried over, and over, and over, and over, and over again to rest outside of town, and every single time, bad guys appear!! What am I doing wrong? I really want to like this game (Arcanum was great!!), but I've already "rage-quit" more times than I can count..

It's possible to rest outside town if you're lucky. I don't remember the vendors restocking during the game, if you need ammo, try to rest where random encounters may include ranged attackers.
I prefer polearms over missile weapons, they grant a strength bonus and attacks of opportunity.

You don't have to fight the ogre at Emridy Meadows, avoid him (the other monsters there aren't too hard) and return when you've gained a few levels more, explore the Moathouse and other locations first.

To soften up the very hard beginning you can grind XP by resting or travelling and getting interrupted. When trying to rest at the Deklo Grove interrupting monsters aren't too hard to kill for example and 1-2 levels do make a big difference in the beginning.

I don't know what walkthrough you are playing, but Emridy Meadows is NOT a low-level area at all. Don't go there till you are all lvl 4 or higher, and don't take on the Giant or attempt to find Rainbow Rock till you are lvl 6 or higher (at least not till you have good boss-debuff spells, those fights are VERY tough). The wandering monsters on the road both to and from Emridy Meadows can be brutal. The first place you are "supposed" to go when leaving town is either the Moathouse (in vanilla) or Welkwood Bog (in the Co8 mod).

Reduce the chance for random wandering monster encounters on the road by having at least 1 PC in the party with good Spot, Hide, Listen and Survival skills (Druids and Rangers are good for this). You still encounter wandering mobs, but now will be given the choice as to whether you want to initiate the encounter or not.

The longer you camp in a non-safe spot (ie. the tent "camping" icon is yellow rather than green), the higher chance of getting ambushed by wandering monsters. Camping for 8 hours 3 times is less likely to generate a random encounter than camping for 1 day. But take it on faith, just plopping down anywhere and camping is VERY risky in ToEE. (as it should be imo)

You don't need to leave town for the Shopkeepers to restock (I just playtested this to confirm). BUT you do need to "pass time" (ie. click on the watch icon where the tent icon usually is) for 1 day inside any building in Homlett (ie. just "passing time" while standing outside in town doesn't work). If you need a safe place to rest and heal, you have a couple of options:

1. Go to the Welcome Wench in Homlett and either pay the gold for a room OR talk to the Innkeeper at the desk till you get the dialogue where the Innkeeper says he is suspicious about a guy who he thinks cheats. Then go talk to the NPC named Furnoc with a PC having the highest Spot skill and play dice till you get a dialogue that accuses him of cheating. Then tell the Innkeeper about it. In gratitude, the Innkeeper will allow you to stay at the Inn for free from now on (ie. the "tent" icon is permanently green, you can rest as long as you like).

2. Priority #1 should be establishing a safe place to camp in the Moathouse tower. Speak to Furnok, Spugnoir and Fruella in Homlett, and get them to join your party (Fruella joins if a male PC agrees to marry her). They are a lvl 4 Thief, lvl 2 Wizard and lvl 3 Fighter respectively, and it costs no gold (initially) to have them join. Go to the Moathouse, and kill the giant Toads that ambush your party (prioritize killing toads that grapple a PC with their tongue). Furnoc can backstab them every other round by turning invisible with his ring, moving behind them before he attacks. Spugnoir has a few spells he can cast, and gets good bonuses with missile weapons iirc. Fruella has a returning throwing cleaver. Once the toads are all dead (there are 5 of them), go to the Moathouse drawbridge and have a thief PC (not Furnoc) hide and sneak into the courtyard and enter the door to the tower immediately on the left. This will take the entire party inside the tower, even the ones still standing on the drawbridge. Now kill the spider inside the tower. Once it is dead, you can now camp inside the tower for free, and it is safe (make sure everyone is sneaking when you leave the tower!). If you don't want Furnoc, Spugnoir or Fruella in the party any more, either go back to Homlett and speak to them to leave, or get them killed in combat and take their stuff

3. Later on in the game, you can find options for establishing a safe place to rest in Nulb and even within the Temple itself... But personally, I like using the Moathouse in the early game as my "home base" since it even has a storage chest for extra loot.