- Is there any way to find caves that doesen't involve questing?
Find? You mean they're not all there on the map to begin with? I've never noticed, all the caves I've ever needed have been pointed out to me, but I don't think they suddenly appeared. They've always been little gray circles. I could be wrong however, and anyway you should be able to find them through dumb luck...
- What's the best item for throwing? I have some masterwork steel bolts, a few rocks, and a handful of live flies.
Ballista arrows.No, truthfully, it doesn't seem to matter. I shattered a wolf's face with a rock I picked up off the ground, so I think it depends less on what you throw and more on your Throwing skill and your Strength attribute (as said face-shattering occurred at Novice Thrower but Extremely Strong).
Hey you know what they say, it ain't the size of the hammer, it's the stone you throw it at oh god someone kill me. Thrower may or may not determine to-hit. </standard RPG logic>
- What's a good speed, and how much crap can I lug around before I reach too low?
I think 1000 is standard no-attribute not-carrying-shit human speed. Elves are faster.* Wiki probably has creature speeds, I dunno. I'm up to 1200ish with some agility and I can outrun wolves by degrees. Sneaking lowers it dramatically but will lower it percentually less with skill levels, apparently. Same with swimming and speed through water. Carrying capacity depends on Strength, but of course if you ditch iron gear for leather you should be able to lug more shit without training, et cetera.
*It just occurred to me that this might be a greater factor in elven retreats being hardcore than the elves' actual resistance to damage, which if the wiki is correct is pretty poor. Unless NPC elves get better armor than elven adventurers. Anyway, I always had a string of messages to scroll through before I could do more elf-stabbing, and those strings frequently ended in "You have been struck down", so draw your own conclusions.