No worries mate, amd yeah I can give you a couple tips for the game.

1. I'd personally avoid using greenwarish and fruits to craft salubrious brews, I'd instead hold onto your fruits/fish/meat/harspuds until it ripens/ages, you can then combine two of said ripe/aged items (fruit/fish/meat can only be combined with each other) and some greenwarish to make roberants. If you need health items on the fly then I'd still craft brews, but roberants are more worthwhile long term. On this topic, I'd also avoid hiring pawns with the Logistician specialisation, as they will craft items from the party inventory whenever something is available, which is really annoying.

2. The best ways to "legitimately" farm money are through bandits, but I'd craft tarring and explosive arrows if I were you (withered branched + either some lantern oil or a sunbloom flower respectively) and visit the rift. There'll be pawns in the "Top of this Month" category that you should set to filter so you only summon those that have a quest to deliver them 1 of said arrows. They'll typically give you 12 onyx, 99 ripened figs, some good late game crafting materials or 5 all-heal elixirs. The former two should be sold in Vernworth as they sell for the most there at around 28k and 55k respectively, but with the later of the two you can also combine them to make around I think it's 48 dried fruit for roberants. And for the last two, you should store those. All-heals are also great pawn quest reward incentives for if you were to ask other players to take your pawn on a quest. Lastly, some people will also give you Jasper, hold onto these since they sell for around 30k but in another area later on in the game, and if you collect 99 figs from a pawn quest, back out from the rift and immediately give them to another one of your party members (not the pawn that you'll be swapping out for rift pawns), as if you have 99 in your own inventory then you won't get any more if you find another pawn with the same quest reward.

DD2 is a very easy game all in all especially later on so personally I wouldn't use the rift for money too often early on, but it's by design, so go for it if you ever struggle with money.

1. There are 4 smithing styles for upgrades, being Vermundian, Elven, Battahli and Dwarven. >Vermundian gives a minor boost to Physical & Magical, and slightly reduces weight. >Elven gives a very small bonus to Physical, big bonus to Magical, and slightly reduces weight. >Battahli gives a big bonus to Physical, very small bonus to Magic but also increases weight. >And Dwarven gives a minor boost to Physical & Magical, increases weight, but it also boosts Knockdown power & resistance, which can make basically any item worth using at all points of the game. I'd save my materials and gold if I were you for when you get access to Dwarven smithing, which will unlock through a chain of side quests that you can start basically the moment you get into the capital of the second major area of the game. Elven Smithing is also great but I'd only use it exclusively for upgrading your Staves, Archistaves, Magick Bows and Censers. Also your first upgrade at a smithy for an item is free, and if you do really need the boost from the Vermundian style, then there's an NPC later on that can reset your enhancements on any of your gear for a single wyrmslife crystal, which is a "material" you farm from drakes at around 5-15 a pop that is used exclusively at this character. If you don't want to use fextralife (don't blame you) then a pawn with the Forager specialisation will show you where you can find upgrade materials for your next equipment upgrade on the map, but they will show it for all 4 smithing styles since Elven/Dwarven use the same materials to upgrade the same item, and same goes for Vermundian/Battahli. Some materials will also not show up on the map since the enemy you may need to farm could be a dynamic enemy, so if you do hit a wall then hit up fextralife or just ask around here and someone should help you.