it can be a bit rough to start, but with constriction in .10 it's really not at all a tough combo.
It does have a slightly more tricky ruleset for armor, though. It's possible to simply stay light armor if you're experienced and want faster spell support, but I think that switching to heavy armor around temple is more newbie friendly. You'll want around level 5 armor to wear plate, and 10 is better, but once you have some armor skill the penalties won't hurt much. Keep in mind that heavy armor can slow down your melee attack, though. Turn on game turns to get a sense of how badly, it decreases as you learn armor skill. Switch to a dragon armor (fire/ice/pearl) by late game; combined with good armor skill it's fairly easy to cast in. You'll still have a small penalty, though.
I'm of course horribly biased, as I wrote the guide you are going by, and some people claim it's terrible, but it works very well for me