I went in without a manual and not being fluent in English back when I was 12 or 13, so you can do it too!
Most of the stats are pretty self-explanatory through tooltips. Arcanum's encounter design is more annoying than it is challenging, and any character can get through the game. But technologists are generally considered harder at the beginning, as they start out weaker and more resource-intensive than melee fighters, mages, and diplomats. They only begin to shine later on when they get the cool powerful crafting recipes and can make OP items.
Also, Arcanum is a game that pretty much encourages "multiclassing" since you get plenty of points over the course of the game. My first character specialized in both persuasion and melee and did both really well. If you got tech or magic you gotta specialize a bit more narrowly though because there's too many schools of technology and magic, and each spell and schematic costs one character point to learn. If you learn all of them you won't have much left for stats and skills.
Intelligence is an important stat for everyone, be it tech bro, wizard, or diplomat.
The amount of companions you can recruit is determined by your charisma stat.
Beauty is pretty much useless, never invest any points in it. All it does is improve NPCs' initial reaction towards you.
Just install Drog's patch and have a go at it. Nothing else required. Playing it blind is the best way to approach it as you can discover all of its cool stuff yourself.
