Having recently bought this fine gem of a game today, my first few adventures consisted of:
Trying to roll a single ranger at standard difficulty. Poor Sombrero John was eaten alive by the toad. There probably IS a build that allows you to solo the game at a lower difficulty, but suffice to say, it's not a high charisma/toaster repair build.
Rolled up an actual party next time: One meathead melee with 10 strength and agility but no intelligence to speak of, as well as three identical goons (in true X-COM style) wielding knives with 10/10 agility and Coordination. Things went swell until accumulated damage from the toad caused one of the goons to bleed out, and since none of the party had medical skills, not much we could do despite having a ridiculous amount of supplies. Game sort of ended when everyone but the leader bled to death, and said leader was broke due to poor money management. I like to think that he decided to screw being a ranger and went back to the life of a raider.
Roll a similar party, replace the meathead with a Mormon cleric, as well as individualize the goons' special skills. Doing much better so far: goons slice apart raiders usually before they attack, and the medic keeps them from bleeding to death. I know not having a dedicated ranged unit is going to bite me later, but for now, trying to build up a stable money base and outfit my rangers.
Customization could use work. Wonder how well this game supports mods.