some tips: spend some time in the character creator to get to know everything and think about what you want to be/feel most comfortable with. Also keep in mind that you may be thinking things like "i can use water then lightning to do some nice stuff so ill put both water and air magic on my character" while it works. it would be nicer to do air on that character and then water on another character to so you can do it in 1 turn instead of two.
like Mr.C said crafting is really important in my opinion. you can craft pretty great stuff with it and it's a lot of fun to find the combinations. i would like to add that you can get companions and henchmen in the game which you can also spec to be a crafter or maybe that backup water mage to do water/lighning combos :P
Companions:
you get a wizard companion who specializes in water and air magic (but you can change it if youd like later in the game(or mod it up like i did i made him a earth/water mage to complement my fire/air battlemage main)) He also starts with the scientist talent which gives him +1 crafting and blacksmithing and a lot of people use him for crafting.
you also get a knight companion with two handed weapon
charisma is pretty much useless i wasted points in it on my first character and instantly regretted it.
you can pick up more then the items youd expect. you can also pick up barrels and put them in your inventory. they weigh 5 but are handy to sort your items early game till you get/craft some more bags ^^ (leather scraps + rope)
ALWAYS buy scraps (cloth scraps, leather scraps etc.) they are rather hard to get apperantly.
thats about all i can think of right now.
