When I start an MM3 game, I try and fight my way down to Baywatch as quickly as I can to get the Pathfinding and Mountaineering skills. There's a well west of Fountain Head that is very useful in the early stages of the game. It puts your armour class (I think!) way up, so you can carve your way through the orcs much more easily. The skeletons in Baywatch give an inexperienced party a hard time, though, and a ghoul will take one apart, so you still have to be careful.