Is Rydia Strong Enough?

Can anyone tell me how to keep Rydia from constantly dying in the beginning of FFIV? I am going through the caves where you meet Tellah (I just bought FF Chronicles by the way) and ever since I found Rydia on up until the time that I met Tellah she's done one thing consistently... die. She can only take one to two hits and then that's it. She only has about 20 HP and usually never even gets a turn before she bites it. Cecil on the other hand takes a hit and loses 1 HP of damage. Should I just leave her down until I get to a Damacyan? Is it possible to defeat the monster at the end of the caves with just Cecil and Tellah considering the monster gets 8 turns and you get two? I know that these are a lot of questions but I am becoming very frustrated and disenchanted with this game. I've heard so many great things about it but haven't seen them yet. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, it was quite hard, because Rydia sucks so much. I seem to remember going into the boss battle, and letting her atleast detract a hit away from Tellah and Cecil.

And don't let yourself get frustrated with the game. It turns out to be quite excellent.

First make sure you put her in the back row. This keeps her alive longer. Then just go in the desert area and kill the relativly weak monsters until Rydia levels up a bit. Then work on cave monsters until she's somewhat stronger. The key is keeping her in the back row at all times and working on getting her levels up.

Personally I never had a problem with her because I leveled in the desert areas for a bit until she was abotu level 7 or so.

Try doing what I did, just fight in the dessert until Rydia can summon an Imp. They're not a good summon, but getting them is so difficult you'll gain a good amount of levels simply in trying.

Put her in the back row.

Equip her with a Rod.

When in battle, 'Use' the Rod against an enemy.... don't "attack", but 'use' it.

It'll do ~30pts of damage.

I typically stuck with ICE (multitarget of course) in the desert until she could do a couple LIT's, and then started whoopin up on the fishies....

All before getting Tellah (he'll just suck XP away from her).

It wasn't very long until I just killed off Cecil and had her by herself....

Yeah, at the begining of the game she was rather weak. But just keep her in the back and level up a little and she'll be fine. Trust me, further in the game, you won't think she's weak at all.