Actually, mindreading first isn't a bad idea. As you level you get less experience for defeating opponents. If you mindread first, you will get more experience than leveling and then mindreading, since you will be paying off the debt at a lower level.
I mindread fairly liberally, and didn't have any problems (though fought a bunch of goblins and was level 2 before I entered the Broken Valley village), but playing again I would not do as many mindreads where you just get loot (though some of those can get you skill or stat books, etc).
