For comparison, I logged onto Live and created the Dark Elf Enchanter, going to the same newbie area with the same starter gear and what looked to me like the same stats.
Obviously, they've made the game easier now than it was way back when, but the difference is striking:
Code:
a black wolf - 22secs, npc: 12dmg, player: 19dmg, player won
a decaying skeleton - 17secs, npc: 14dmg, player: 19dmg, player won
an araneidae spiderling - 14secs, npc: 15dmg, player: 22dmg, player won
a decaying skeleton - 25secs, npc: 11dmg, player: 21dmg, player won
a decaying skeleton - 15secs, npc: 7dmg, player: 18dmg, player won
Even with the fight lasting 25 seconds, the decaying skeleton did 11 damage, while the player did 21.
In the default EQEmu setup, a garter snake did 44 damage in 27 seconds, and the player did 10.
I also noticed that, not only are the NPCs not hitting for max with each hit (it seemed to be pretty evenly distributed between 1 and 6), but on Live my character was hitting for up to 6 damage with the same 3/21 dagger as on Emu, where he never did more than 3.
Just some peculiarity that seems to be making fresh EQEmu starts extra difficult.