My first playthrough I did not take either, until Arx where I specced thieving on one character and I did fine, granted it was classic, but still.
Your problem is that you pick fights way out of your league it seems,
That's wrong. I've had enough experience that I avoid engaging in combat with enemies which are 2 level or more above me.
One fight which gave me trouble was with some enemies only one level higher than I was (11 vs 10). That area was the lowest level enemies I had encountered up until that point. After I got wrecked, I left and continued searching for another way forward. That got me to level 11. I eventually found the way through to some level 10 encounters.
even equipped that quest you mentioned with ring would be tough as level 11 vs level 13 voidwalken there. But... why? You really should not be doing that one at that point and certainly not wearing rags.
The enemies were level 9 and 10, they were not 13. It was an ambush and the enemies were not there until the fight started, so I couldn't have known what level they were until they appeared. You might be thinking of a different encounter.
Other than that, basic equipment from vendor is all you really NEED, if you are still using level 6-7ish stuff at level 11 you will feel the pain and at some point simply having more armor/magic armor is just better than that outdated piece that gives you attribute/skill boosts.
I've just replaced most of my gear with level appropriate stuff. I won't be able to do that again anytime soon, though.
Plain stuff from vendor is not terribly expensive, you should be able to afford to refresh yourself once every odd level supplementing stuff you get from quests and chests.
I'm down to about 4000 gold. I guess I'll just have to see if that will be enough to let me continue.
