As long as you are restarting, did you find the skill book in Farglow?
It is on the rocks in the training area between the camp and the lone mage. If you use that skill point to learn Lockpick, you can open a chest near the mage trainer.
I started off with a ranger / unarmed warrior combo, but didn't end up using melee attacks much (or at all once I could put 3 or 4 points into Splitting Arrows).
Poison Arrows and Stun Arrows will be useful until you can learn Splitting Arrows and Explosive Arrows; the latter two should be maxed (along with Ranger Strength and Ranger Stealth), but you only need a point or two in the former (look out for jewellery bonuses for all).
I didn't bother trying Way of the Ranger until I got to level 40 and had it as a bonus on a piece of equipment. It would have helped earlier once I was a high enough level to put a few skill points in (I ignored earlier equipment with that bonus, since I don't usually bother with temporary boost spells, potions, etc).
One level of Evade, Death Blow, Regenerate and Healing should come in handy, when you can learn them. I maxed Lockpick as soon as I could, but the random loot in chests doesn't tend to be that great at the start of the game; you could simply keep a list of chests that you can not open, and go back for them later when you have the skill points to spare to boost Lockpick.
You don't need to put any skill points into Mindread or Wisdom. Keep any equipment you find with those bonuses, though, to use before mindreading or turning in quests, respectively.
I mindread pretty much everyone, without reloading, and had no trouble leveling (though I did get to level 2 before mindreading people in the Broken Valley village; trying to work off a large initial debt on level 1 might be fairly hard with combat; I wanted to delay turning in quests as much as I could).
On level 36 or 37 (before heading to the Hall of Echoes near the end of the D2:ED section of the game) I put 14 skill points into Mindread to max it (though in FoV opponents respawn in some areas, so it would have been easy to work off the debt).
Anyone help a newb with Warrior build ... ???Summon skill bonuses sometimes show up on jewellery, which you only need to equip long enough to summon (and then you can switch back to your main equipment, if desired).
Welcome to the forum.
