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This is my 2 cents as further help on dungeons for low level players.

I disagree with a lot that was posted in a previous thread on this subject. Some people were saying that you have to wait to be level 20 to start dungeons. This is clearly wrong, and dungeons add a lot of variety to the game, and are definitely worth it.

I am now level 13, and have been able to beat the bosses of not only Dark Woods - Gustavos country house (lvl 10), but also Mist Mountains - the Dragon Stronghold (lvl 20)

You can check out on server1 High Score section on dungeons, and find me there (look in the Boss items sections, and click on the link to see my current merc set-up, or look in the players under ionergo)

The trick is that low level mercs get much more out of critical abilities than high level ones. For instance a lvl 11 merc gets 3.5% chance of critical attack out of every 1 point of critical attack. This means that with only 27 points of critical attack, you get a 90% chance of critical attack (double damage). For level 9 mercs, it's even better, you only need 19 points of critical damage to get a 90% chance of critical attack (this is the max).

Similarly, for you healer, at level 11, with only 34 points of critical healing value, you get a 84% chance of improved healing (*2 hit points healed), and also with around 20 of blocking value, you get a 80-90% chance of blocking hits (this is important because after 30-40 rounds, the healer is the one that gets attacked.

So here is my set up:
between 1 and 3 attackers (levels 9-11), the more attackers the better obviously,
set them up with:
-as high skill as possible (every once in a while, you can see a merc with extra good stats for his level - get him!)
-equipped with weapons/armours with critical attack modifiers (the best at low level is Martial Arts - I have 2/3 of those on my guys, and with the high skill, that gets you to the 19-27 points I was mentionning above)
-next important weapons/armour is those with +damage: start with "of conflict", particularly good because it also adds skill, but then aim for better (assassination and Rayols ideally, but also poison, brutality, apprenticeship...)

The last guy is very important: your healer, because he's the one who lets you stay alive long enough to deal enough damage and kill the guy. I would actually start with him, as you can kill some of the first monsters with just 1 well equipped attacker (as above) and 1 healer.
However, you shouldn't take a healer, but a tanker (shield icon) to do the job, because in the end intelligence is not very important, healing modifiers on weapons/armours give you much more, and the tanker has much more HP, helping him survive and cure himself. Furthermore, he will have more charisma than a healer, helping you avoid a deadly double attack. set him up with:
-high charisma (as for the attackers, if you wait a while, you'll see a merc with extra good stats)
-high HP, but's that's really not as important, as long as he is a tanker.
-weapons/armours with healing modifiers and critical healing modifiers. I recommend "religiousness", which is very good in both.
-as a bonus, some weapons/armours with blocking modifiers (Parade or evasion are pretty good)

Since my main character is level 13 and has average stats, I don't even equip him, I only equip the mercs (level 9-11)

Now here are the rewards of doing dungeons: bosses, and even the some of the normal monsters drop high value items. Even if you don't like their stats you can still sell them, and what's good is you can sell them just when you need the money, so you don't lose it when you get attacked.

I was particularly rewarded in the mist mountains, as it is supposed to be level 20. I even got a level 24 trident of poison, and that wasn't even from the boss...

Some guy in another thread said that when you choose hard in dungeons above your level, the henchmen drop more weapons... to be confirmed.