[color:"orange"]To finish at that level must mean only doing the main story line[/color]
Yes, she only fought when absolutely necessary (using a survivor for the Sneak ability), completed as few quests as possible. She did get go through the catacombs and cure Mardaneus, part of the main plot, but which people have since discovered will not break anything critical if skipped.
She could not use scorpions (etc) most of the time, because she could not control what they attacked. Fights could be quite long and tedious, due to having a much lower level than the bosses she had to fight (low stats and poor equipment). Fighting the succubus at level 5 or 6, her chance to hit was small enough that she would save after getting a successful hit, so she wouldn't loose that progress if she got killed (she missed something like 4 out of 5 times, or more, and could be killed in 1 or 2 hits).
Once Areana got to the wastelands she quit. By then she had proved her point, so to speak, and set a record. Finishing the game would have meant more tedious fights with Black Ring members she had already fought once.
I do not recall if Areana went after animals for the meat, or avoided them for the unnecessary experience (though after you go up a couple levels the experience you get for them starts dropping). She certainly took advantage of any bread and meat she came across, though.
Arena confirmed that character level influences stats of equipment. The higher your character level, the better the chance stats will be in the upper range of what is possible for any particular piece of equipment. She tried the holy item quest at level 5, hoping to get a Frost sword, but gave up reloading after a fair bit of time. Coming back to this quest around level 8 or 10, she found it much easier to get acceptable stats on the holy sword (though she didn't get Frost).
It would get really tough in the wastelands at level 17 since even a higher charactor should have about 75% in resists. I want to get a charactor to the wastelands earlier than my last one. I'm thinking that level 24-27 would be stong enough to take out the weaker units there without dieing too often. The drops and items you can buy are much nicer in the wastelands, so if I arrived with poor equipment I could upgrade it fairly quickly.
Unique drops can be funny. I reloaded the dragon gloves about 12 times to get really nice ones. One of the reloads had no mods at all on it and was worth only 4 gold. So it went the whole range. I don't like reloading anymore, was alright for 1st time through. Playing with what you get is more of a challenge and mskes the other drops more valuable. Though I can see reloading a dagger for an assassin because there is little opportunity to get a good one.
The warrior has a good potential for finishing early with fade from sight and swirl combo. I know fade from sight is a level 24 spell but in about 1/3rd of my games I get that spell book around level 5 or so.
