Basically yes, your melee and unarmed skills are not up to the task, and your strength, agility and endurance are a bad combination for close quarters fighting. Try sneaking and ending combat to get away from them.
I cannot recommend making your own character highly enough, the premade characters in Fallout 2 have terrible tag skills ie. barter and throwing. And even worse traits. Heavy handed, skilled, and sex appeal.
But only the experience of a first play through will tell you these things, the beauty of the game is that you can still 'finish it' with any character.
Edit. dammit took to long to respond.
Per has spoken. All hail Per.*
*No, seriously, read Pers' walkthrough if you have any trouble.
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