Are you playing petless? LoC is designed specifically to play as a petmancer, without pets you will struggle big time.
Edit- nevermind, i didn't see your last post. Hmm. When i play LoC, i isually play hardcore with inheritance (transferring gear from dead characters to new ones). Usually i struggle with self-found hardcore characters, but after i've collected some good gear for the next ones it becomes much easier. So gear matters a lot in this mod. Farm for some decent items early on, especially +skills items, which are plenty in the mod. This is my advice.