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Discussions Rules and Guidelines
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I guess thats a scripted battle... that you are supposed to run away from.
There are save game tools where stats and items can be freely edited, but I strongly suggest against doing that - unlike God Mode switch you could employ temporarily to avoid an otherwise sure-death situation, devil-may-care editing will screw up your game permanently.
The game is certainly distinctly unfair at times due to its random dice roll approach, in a true board games spirit, I might add. You may do fine with a ♥♥♥♥♥ party and you likely will get stuck with a balanced, well-developed one (although your chances are obviously better with the latter). There's a lot to learn and to try to hopefully even the odds.
As others have said - in this game there's absolutely no shame in running away or hiding. Or both, in fact. When they say this game is not for the faint hearted, remember that it takes much more courage to live than to die hopelessly. And that means running away to fight another day.
For the rest - there's a lot of information right here on Steam Discussion for beginners (and not so beginners). I'd agree that it's a tedious (and sometimes conflicting) read. But there are some basic things written down that in hindsight will seem obvious and help immensely especially during the early levels of the game.
As already written above, look for spots where only one or two enemies can melee you at once. Use missile shield against their throwing knives. Use formation and weapon ranges wisely.
Use your ailment spells. Sleep them, blind them, make them afraid, insane, nauseous, whatever is available from your casters. Iirc, there is a paralysis amulet on the Road, which is excellent for this area. Many effects are available from bombs and powders, if you don't have the magic school available at the correct level.
Run! This game is not set up to win every encounter with ease, so if you see the Highwayman or Brigant variant, withdraw, hide and sleep them off, or try to get into Arnika as fast as possible.
Enter Arnika for the first time only when you are at least L6. In Arnika itself, you have access to better weapon and armor, which won't make Arnika Road a breeze, but better manageable.
However, many experienced players, including some who considered themselves expert RPG players, fell on their face and then posted reviews blaming the game for their failures. These negative reviews claiming the game was too hard or flawed seriously hurt the reputation of the game and sales of it, leading in part to the demise of the developing company, Sir-Tech.
Artifically keeping ones level down is one way to get through this area (after the monestary before the first major town is reached). I never use that trick and sometimes it is pretty dicey to fight or stay away (by running) from enemies, particularly for a magic orientated party. There are numerous excellent places to fight from... if you can reach them. By calling that technique "artificial" I only mean one is not taking level-ups soon after they are available. It is not my intent to criticize those players who choose to use that technique. It makes the game easier there and if it is fun, that is the bottom line.
If you are running a magical damage party then, yes, your mana for each kind of spell is very limited. You cannot afford pure disabling spells and do not want spells that will only scatter your enemies. You want your enemies together, even multiple groups in some cases and to cunningly use your damage spells effectively hitting as many as possible at once. If you eliminate most foes that way then close counts and your party, even low on mana, can probably handle the last one or two. Be sure to take a nap to restore mana before proceeding away from that nook. A Bard anywhere in the party makes this napping twice as effective. I would recommend only napping as much as needed to restore most or all mana and no more. Enemies respawn when you sleep so, in general, if you sleep longer you will face more enemies. That can make you go up in level faster in an area (if you take your level-ups) which is not matched by better equipment you get in new areas, making the higher level new enemies (they also go up in the level they respawn at) unbalanced relative to weapons you should have at that level. Sleeping only as much as necessary does result in some respawns but if you have a highly magical party you need the mana..
To help conserve mana, avoid misfires and failures, i.e. cast in the green (or maybe yellow with some risk). Have healing spells and also use, without delay, any healing and mana potions. Do not try to save them for later or let the hit points of your characters get low enough so they might die. Resurrection powders can bring them back but they cannot be targeted with healing spells while dead so once resurrected they are highly vulnerable to dying again, immediately and, in the meantime are not helping... so use those healing potions early and often... that is what they are for. Sucessfully get to the city and expect (unless you artifically keep your level low by not leveling up) that it might be very difficult to reach there. Consider it a major accomplishment (by skill and/or luck). If you do artifically keep your level low, do not actually enter the city without leveling up or you may hit a known bug and face level 17 foes. If even going back to earlier saves does not give you any way to proceed against the brutes blocking your path to the city then start the game over and know you are not the only one. In my first game I got myself into a position where it did not matter how many times I reloaded, I was simply doomed. That is the last time that happened for me but many other times it was very difficult to reach the first city. Other times it was easy and, usually, it was somewhere in between. I use nooks when available but generally do not skip parts of the monestary or side paths along the way.
At any rate, I found that if you're having trouble clearing out large packs of enemies, that Earth Magic is probably your best friend. It is extremely easy to power level by simply casting low rank (1-3) Knock Knock spells on the vaults in Arnika.
Don't cast Knock Knock any higher than that, because it might accidentally unlock the vaults and you'll lose your easy power level option.
Once you skill with Earth Magic is high enough to learn Whipping Rocks, get this spell as soon as possible. It deals a fairly decent amount of damage for an early game spell, and can start one shotting people once you get your skill level high enough to cast it as stronger ranks.
The key (most succinctly stated by Biogoo's post above) is to choose from where you fight the foes. The original poster seven years ago called it "5 Highway men with about 75 HP each". Those are actually Higardi Roustabouts that attack with their fists. Finding a nook which allows them to attack the party only one or two at a time is very powerful.
Depending upon the type of party and how it is specializing there are weapons that miss a lot but do significant damage, maybe 15, when they do hit and penetrate. That means a decent weapon of which few are available prior to Arnika Road (where the Roustabouts and worse are). Spells can also do significant damage, like Fireball for example, if a Mage is in the party.
The party also has the capacity to heal. One or more characters might have the Heal Wounds spell and there are Light, Medium and possibly Heavy Heal potions available to the party. These should be distributed among party members because drinking one can take a beaten down party member with low HP from low back to high (if they are not paralyzed or something and can drink a potion). There is no better use of potions down the road. Use and do not hoard healing potions when fighting on Arnika Road early in the game, especially against foes with lots of HP.
Magic protections, like Magic Screen can help to prevent party members from being Poisoned, Pararalyzed or Blinded (etc.). It will not prevent those entirely, but helps. A Priest can get that buff at Level 5 (along with Armorplate which helps defensively) and a Mage can get Missile Shield and Enchanted Blade at Level 3 (also cast as buffs, re-cast between battles), both of which can be cast at Power Level 2 or 3 by the time Arnika Road is reached. Missile Shield is especially useful against Level 7 Higardi Highwaymen with over 100 HP each and higher. They throw a lot of daggers and the Missile Shield causes many or most of those flying dagger attacks to be deflected. Weapons that miss, which happens a lot in the early game, is made significantly more effective through the Enchanted Blade buff that a Mage can obtain at level 3 (resulting, on the average, in more penetrating hits). The way that race, attributes and skills at creation and level-up are chosen can also impact the effectiveness of weapons greatly. Early in the game using dual weapons can weaken the character's main weapon. Make sure you know what you are doing if you choose to go with dual weapons.
If you only have weak weapons (in the early game) like the Omnigun, staffs and slings, and if your attack spells are weak and only can hit a single target (like for a hybrid character who has barely started to obtain magic by the time Arnika Road is reached), then perhaps your party cannot generate enough damage, protection and enhancement buffs, healing and defense fast enough and your party will die on the road, almost no matter what you do. Please recognize that this does not mean the game is broken, only that there is too little early power within your chosen party to navigate the early part of the game. It is simple, really. Just start over and put more characters with more early weapon-based and/or magical power.
There are guides and videos that can give you a hands on introduction to a few powerful party types that you can observe working and then use that knowledge to create your own party or follow through by playing the entire game with a suggested party (as an introduction) before designing your own party down the road whenever you get the urge. Alternatively, just keep slinging parties against the Arnika Road "wall" until one of them "sticks". There are also cheats to make the road much easier but where is the fun in that? Good luck.
If I remember correctly, each of the schools of magic have a spell that can be used for power leveling them. All except for Fire Magic, which has to be grinded the hard way.
Water - Cure Lesser Condition (casket room of the starting temple)
Earth - Knock Knock (Arnika Vaults)
Mental - Detect Traps (top floor of the Arnika inn)
Divine - Heal Wounds
Air - I forgot this one, unfortunately
I also do not use or recommend any form of cheating (there ware several available methods), which the original poster requested. Such things ruin the game, IMO, but this is an individual game so it is entirely up to the player with my support for even his or her decision to use cheats. They potentially make the game easier if that is desired.
Repetitive training is not the same as cheats, it is just something else that I do not do or recommend (unless it is also accomplishing a needed in-game purpose and is not just for stat inflation). This game is entertainment and fun rules. Do what is fun.
Personally, the reason why I would support repetitive training, is because for some strange reason, the game only lets you invest points directly into a stat up to about 70. Then you're forced to train up the remaining 50 points through actually using the skill.
Unfortunately, the amount of usages that are required to train these skills becomes ridiculous, even when the associated stat used for that skill is maxed out.
My Wolf priestess had around 90+ piety, and she still had to spam a full 120 casting points of Detect Traps for about 4-6 rests in a row just to increase a single rank of Divinity or Mental Magic.
Doing this for skills that do have an easy power leveling method is still a slog. I can't imagine how tedious it is to do so for skills that don't have such a method available.
While I can't imagine doing that, I do repetitive train in small doses.
And almost everybody does little things along the way that take advantage of the training system. Unloading your remaining mana before resting, for example with some Heal Wounds, is pretty commonplace.