Hey thanks for playing and letting me know about the stutters! When testing myself, the only notable stutters i encounter are when starting out and walking towards one of the NPCs, not sure what thats about. Other than that its mostly lag free for my weaker laptop (i think i missed preloading the acid/fire puddles of the throwing goblins though). Did you have any other instances of freezes/lags?
Theres no really good reason to let the player start with no equipment, but you start out with a little bit of money and recruiting the dwarf he tells you to better buy a weapon with it. Spells are a bit strong right now, so starting out with one could make things trivial in the beginning, but i get where you're coming from. Maybe i can come up with some weak starter spell/ability for the witch.