Thanks for the advice, but all this just further confirms how finicky and unnecessarily restrictive the opening of the game feels. The beginning of any game shouldn't require the player to search for every little bit of XP in order to level up enough to progress. The whole "save before doing anything" also says a lot about the tightrope feel of the early game where every encounter (that's doable) is skin of the teeth and usually results in multiple deaths and reloads. This is the introduction for goodness sakes! It's meant to ease the player in.
I'm all for a challenging and tactical game, but this kind of difficulty should come further on in the game. The difficulty should ramp up, not start with a difficulty spike and then fall off a cliff like D:OS after the first act.
