What Should I Know Before playing The Witcher (Enhanced Edition) for the first time?

Solution 1:

Don't neglect alchemy. There are fights that are incredibly difficult without potions that become easy-mode with the right one(s).

Also, there are several points in the game where you are required to make a choice, and this will affect conditions later on (a later fight may have more/different enemies, for example). None of these are game-breakers, but you may want to consult a guide if you don't mind spoilers and feel the need to make the "right" choices.

(Here's one from GameFAQs, for convenience. I'm sure there are others out there.)

Solution 2:

Make sure that you finish the trophy quests before leaving each area. You cannot go back to do these later, and you will miss out on an end-game weapon if you do not do them all.

The only place where you can really hurt yourself in terms of character development is wasting skill points, so take a careful look at the descriptions and think about how you want to play. The easiest route is probably Fire+Melee, ignoring all other spell upgrades, though there are a number of ways to play. The skill for advanced techniques in hand to hand will help you get through the boxing minigames, but the charge-up boxing power is not very useful. Likewise, the power to reduce drunkenness time is not useful -- you can always use a potion if you need to.

You can get a 3-red meteorite sword by the end of chapter 2, if you are careful, and it will last you a long time.

Don't neglect potions and sword oils. Having a sufficient supply of these will get you through most encounters. Make sure you also keep at least a small supply of the one that removes toxicity -- you will not always have a campfire on hand to rest it out.

Solution 3:

For the skilling: Actually imho the witcher is a melee fighter, so putting more points to the sword skills will work well.

For the magic skills: concentrate on one or two spells, that should be enough.

Keeping this in mind, you won't make big mistakes on your skilltree.

Edit: I read that you can carry over your character to The Witcher 2, so keep your savegames! (the skill tree will be reset though, as they are refactoring the skills)