Well... about magic I can tell you this.
The biggest problem with mage class is that there's no point in taking it from the start which is why a lot of people suffer because of it.
Many people think about if you want to be a mage you should take Timid Lona perk from the start which will increase 5 points of SURV and 5 points WIS which UP the lamp damage a bit and also lower the prices in the store by 5% and you can find more useful herbs in the mountains or in the forests. Yeaaaah... but on the other hand you've also open a lot of problems (Yep... Timid Lona at start it's like opening Pandora Box).
- - - - The problems of being a magician - - - -
1) The first major problem - If you open Timid Lona from the start (At LvL 2) then you'll run slower and all your physical weapons will be without damage at all except for usual lamp which will get you in trouble even with small bugs because of 3.8 speed... and if you will get a leg injury you can't able to escape easily... and if u take damage Lona's mood is going down very fast (Bad Mood = Bad Damage -> Or just pick Pessimism perk -> but i don't like it personally because of the dialogues) and the only way to do some damage and quests is hire companions from the tavern. So... Crysytal cave become sometimes very difficult without any help (Solo) and usual Tropical Forest can be a pain too because of boar random attack (3.8 speed mean - If you get 1-2 leg injuries then it becomes almost unreal to escape even using sprint).
2) The second major problem - You can't use magic until you reach level 15 because only at level 15 you get access to magical weapons which means there's no point in LvL up your WIS stat at all but only SURV or SCU (Stealth stat) and also 5 extra SURV stat won't give you access to cooking dry food or smoked meat or potions until you LVL UP 10-15 times SURV by yourself personally (Same thing if you wearing a hunter's set)... Yep - Equip stat tell you there is 15-20 SURV but it's to find more food in the forest, take less damage from magic and do more damage with lamps and traps (And yep... some events will favor you because of your big SURV stat but basically it doesn't work if the world's danger rating is already somewhere around 30 - For example i've only come across 6 wagons in the whole game where only 2 had anything useful... amm... like fire books or staff or even dancer parts set that's pretty expensive to sell).
3) The third major problem - Like I said before the mage can't do a very good damage until Lona's WIS stat reaches about 20 points (I mean you need to LvL Up 20 WIS stat and use any staff + glasses = 35 WIS) because without good mag damage you'll be caught and squeeze in a corner very easily and you just... welp yea... you die~ Magic uses up a lot of stamina and to compensate for that you need a lot of magic damage (CONST only for travel or for a safer gameplay). In a one vs one battle even with 10-15 wisdom won't be much of a problem... but you know this game... yeah... you're usually attacked by a bunch of people or goblins or fishmens... and the abominations are practically always walking in droves.
And if that doesn't scare you then you can take it from the start (Despite all the problems I like to play as mage -> it's fun.)
Mage is pretty weak at the beginning but very dangerous at mid-game (Mage at LvL 40 is very dangerous because of the Electic spell book and Fire spell book with Flame staff or Aqua staff becomes very painful. I forgot to tell you that burning spell in the Fire book is even more dangerous than lamp burning skill because of stacking speed that even at lvl 20 it works very good 1 vs 1).