Thanks for all the input. The game is only new to me once and that's a large part of why it's Tactician mode or nothing for me. I've never finished a game and thought "gee, I really should have played on a lesser difficulty and then played the whole thing again on a harder difficulty." Maybe I'd do things that way if I was seeking to suck every last bit of value out of the games I play, but my queue is long enough that I'd have to live to 120 to get through all the games I'd like to play. Dying doesn't interrupt the flow for me. I like dying. If I'm not dying some, the game isn't trying hard enough.
It sounds like I'll have the toughest time before I reach the city when I'm only a party of two, but once I put together a full party it should be manageable. I know I asked for no build tips, but the points of leadership for initiative is useful advice, and I would have guessed crafting in general wasn't very useful and was there for novelty (and I would have been very wrong about it), so thanks for that :P Looking forward to starting in earnest later today.
