Really struggling to play this. Attacks keep missing and do terrible damage the few times they land. I just barely saw the bandit scene, did I just miss equipables?
The most likely adjustment you will have to make when playing this RPG rather than a typical one is that many skills are cheap and you're expected to use skills primarily rather than your basic attack. You should also try to be learning new skills from equipped gear whenever you can, to reduce any need to grind. If you are low on skill slots in the early game, note that you do not need to have Nurse or Stabilize equipped to use them out of combat, so just unequip those skills and equip more useful ones, maybe a stat-boosting passive.
Also, status effects are
not useless in this game like they are on many games, and can even be applied to bosses in many cases.
As for gear, the main thing is that you want to exhaust all opportunities in the capital before advancing the plot there.