Hiya, everyone. I just started my first game the other day, and I must have immediately gone the wrong way. Trying to avoid an explore-and-reload habit as much as possible, so: does this look recoverable to you?
What I've done: (spoilers pro forma, but really this is all first hour content.)
Do the things on the snail airship and crash it. Pick up Clich� McElfname the unconscious beach cleric and add her to the group. Find a dead end with a locked door. Go back and through the wreck to kill some brain monsters. Find footprints on the other side and follow them. Talk to some grave robbers in a ruined temple and scare them away. Step on an unstable floor tile and crash through into a room below. Be attacked by a much larger group.
So, as far as I can tell: I can't run away from this fight (can't reverse-fall back through the ceiling). I can't talk them out of killing us. And I can't win a 2-versus-6 or 7 fight, even now that I've discovered the convenient oil barrel which some of them tend to cluster around.
Very broadly, what is this? Did I stumble into something that's meant for a larger or higher-level party? Or should this be a solvable one, and I'm missing something crucial about the game?