"I've tried a combat build, and you never really have enough money to do anything with it.
I started refining combat builds to be able to be able to shop from the Exotic trader on w1 d7. A good combat build can clear 4k+ gold in the first six days, easily--and no "skip combat cheat" is required.
"reduced quest rewards. "
My combat builds always have 6 CHA on the MC (4 dates on week 1 is great for stat building), so I also get maximum quest rewards.
"the above was said assuming you intend to pay off the debt, not if you intend to bum rush the quests to get rid of the debt."
1) Getting rid of the debt before the second collection saves a bunch of money.
2) I think combat is a lot more profitable than you think it is.
I'm doing a run with 2 starter orcs and as of the morning of W:2, D:7, I'm sitting on a pile of 1,204 cotton (which can be sold for just over 12k) that I looted out of bandit forts. (I looted a lot more than that, mind, but the 12k worth of cotton should be enough to illustrate that I'm hardly hurting for gold.)