I decided to play a crafting character and have selected: Archery, Artful Dodger, Fungal Arts, Alchemy, Smithing, Tinkering and Burglary I have having a really tough time starting him off. I only start with a handful of bolt which run out in the first couple of enemies. I can't really craft anything in the beginning, unless I get really lucky and my starting room starts with something I can make. Once I hit level 2 I feel that I have a little breathing room since I can summon the Slime from Fungal Arts but am still having major difficulties. Any advice?
The first couple of levels are the hardest in the game. You'll definitely have to lean on your summon for a long time until you can get a decent crossbow and even then it'll be tough. The main problem is your build - your only real damage output is Archery, which is rather lackluster at the moment until the ammo recovery is boosted again. Since you're unskilled at any melee combat Smithing is rather useless except for the armor recipes. You'll also find having 3 crafting skills forces you to split up the few ingredients you find. I'd suggest sticking with only 2 crafting skills. I've found Alchemy synergizes the best - either Alchemy/Tinkering for arrows/throwables or Alchemy/Smithing for melee. (Although I've mostly used magic with Alchemy so it may not be as appealing to non-magic users).
Until the next patch, pick at least one melee weapon proficiency, since bolts are scarce. I would go with mace, since it has knockback, which can provide some breathing room for your fragile character.
Oh my god I'm so sorry for you. Are you doing this as some sort of masochism challenge? Because that sounds like the most boring build ever. You can't kill anything (your only "attack" skill is Archery, and it sucks, and you'll run out of bolts), you have to micromanage your inventory like insane (all three crafting skills plus Fungal means you won't have any inventory space left for, well, anything), and Fungal is the most boringly overpowered skill in the game so you won't even die particularly quickly if you abuse it (just remember to cast spores every ten seconds), and to top off the OCD casting thing you've got to mash the lockpick skill from Burglary since that's the only way you'll be able to get XP half the time. I don't think I could come up with a less fun build if I tried. Maybe if you substituted Throwing for Archery, but that would just be cruel.
archery is pretty good as an offensive skill, but you have too many crafting skills. I'd go with archery (max) artful dodger (only need lvl 2 for knightly leap) funga arts (only need lvl 2 or 3) tinkering (max, remember the items needed to make bolts of mass destruction, you need these for zoos) archeology (max, to reroll items) golemancy (for the skill to create walls that last 50 turns, or lvl 4 for thaumites. The walls can also be used to push enemies away by casting underneath them and it can block attacks. Great ability for archers) for the last skill, pick whatever. unarmed is nice since the unarmed bonuses work with archery
