How do you gain more experience in the game?

[Leith]

Hello all,

I have plenty of good stuff, e.g superb armour and weapons, yet I'm unable to use them due to my current stats. I am level 9 now and I still have a stamina of 36! When do I get to use the good armour? I cannot seem to find a good way for earning more experience, apart from the obvious way, that's killing lowly monsters that give you about 15-20 experience points. The alternative is pretty expensive; using the idols where you spend 5000 gold to get 1000 experience points. And if you get the 'Training' perk your followers will benefit slightly. The question remains: How do you get sufficient experience to use the better loot in the game ?

P.S I unchecked the 'easy fights' option from the start.