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[Lida_Brainbroken]

Armour skill is easy to train/grind, just harass a Horseshoe crab for a day with "C" set to stand your ground and use no shield.  Rinse and repeat until you're satisfied.
Shield skill is easy to train/grind, just harass a Horseshoe crab for a day with "C" set to stand your ground and use a shield.  Rinse and repeat until you're satisfied.
Dodge skill is easy to train/grind, just harass a Horseshoe crab for a day with "C" set to dodge.  Rinse and repeat until you're satisfied.
I could go on...

[Catsup]

without the use of a crabby danger room; but those skills are normally very hard to level up in normal combat relative to weapon skills. I never do that kind of training before, most creatures i fight are capable of killing me if i fight carelessly; my adventurers still do quite well though.

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

you do not get any armor at all starting out, and IMO armor skill is rather difficult to train.

 I guess i didnt state it in the right way; i meant that even if you somehow found full masterwork steel armor when your starting out you probly shouldnt wear it as the speed reduction is not worth the minimal protection you get.

You need legendary +5 armor user to avoid all speed reductions, and even then; armor really only deflects high-contact area usually low-penetration attacks that otherwise would have only bruised you. Attacks that fracture and chip bones and make you give into pain still go through.

so starting out you should add block and dodge which are more useful both starting out and later on, adding only a bit of armor user since its hard to train later, and adding points to weapon user would be a waste in comparison.

guess what i really meant to say is armor is an imperfect kind of protection compared to blocking, dodging, and later when you have high weapon skill: parrying hits and batting bolts out of the air. It also has the unique drawback of weight compared to block and dodge; which is quite a large drawback if you are peasant/hero and can only afford maxing only strength or agility to start out, and choose to max agility over strength. I made armored adventurers before, they were too slow to run away, too slow to storm and flank the enemy when with companions, and easily died when surrounded (armor weighed him down so he was too fat to avoid being surrounded).

1. Armour is plentiful, easy to find, easy to loot.
2. Imo amour skill is as easy as getting hit.
3. The protection gain is far exceeding the cost of the speed gain. My adventurer is at speed 919 wearing thick iron armour which has saved my life so many times already.
4. Stop neglecting toughness, endurance and willpower. Too many are times when someone shows up complaining about their adventurer dying from a stubbed toe only to find out they murdered those three attributes. Armour works against everything it should.
5. Weapon user should be the priority skill allotment.
6. If you are wearing so much armour to the point of encumberment, take it off. That is entirely your own mistake. Wear normal clothes, a breastplate and a helmet or even some greaves at most while regularly fighting, eventually your skill becomes so great you can wear a mountain of armours.

[Catsup]

what class is your character? because my hero characters have about double your speed if they can survive long enough to get enough weapon skills to become an elite; most of them start out at 1.3-1.5k speed unarmored but i tend to at least wear 1 mail shirt or so for the range of protection by late game.

I never said to neglect willpower and toughness, just armor for reasons i stated before; with at least 1/3 more speed than an armored character i can avoid being surrounded and close my distance with archers faster before my armor even comes into play. Endurance doesnt determine how many hits you can take before you go down, just how much combat time you have before you start getting tired so i dont know why you mentioned that.

armor can deflect the regular glancing hits that bruise you without armor, so i guess its not completely useless; but attacks that fracture and chip bones go right through it. However, its definitely not worth the speed trade off. Have you ever fought against swarms of zombies and bogeymen before? i have a hard time out-running them even at 1.5k speed since they charge so much and once they've grounded you your extremities start getting shaved away and you quickly die as they fracture your leg through your masterwork steel greaves and swarm you.

as for weapon skills OP said he was dieing too much, plus regular combat without danger rooms (crabs?) trains weapon skills faster than defensive skills, so they arent that important.

And about encumberance...well tbh i start getting uncomfortable if my speed drops below 80% it's unarmored value, so i guess thats just me, im not usually super-encumbered. I can tolerate 1 or 2 mail shirts since those protect the upper legs, arms, face extremities, upper and lower body, and maybe throat. But things like breastplates are literally a drag and not at all worth it.

[Loud Whispers]

what class is your character? because my hero characters have about double your speed if they can survive long enough to get enough weapon skills to become an elite; most of them start out at 1.3-1.5k speed unarmored but i tend to at least wear 1 mail shirt or so for the range of protection by late game.

Peasant.

I never said to neglect willpower and toughness, just armor for reasons i stated before; with at least 1/3 more speed than an armored character i can avoid being surrounded and close my distance with archers faster before my armor even comes into play. Endurance doesnt determine how many hits you can take before you go down, just how much combat time you have before you start getting tired so i dont know why you mentioned that.

Chipped bones and not being able to take hits is everything evident of a character with no endurance, toughness and willpower.

armor can deflect the regular glancing hits that bruise you without armor, so i guess its not completely useless; but attacks that fracture and chip bones go right through it.

No they don't. An iron breastplate will stop bites, kicks, punches leading all the way up to bronze great axes and short swords. Better armours fare much better of course.

However, its definitely not worth the speed trade off. Have you ever fought against swarms of zombies and bogeymen before? i have a hard time out-running them even at 1.5k speed since they charge so much and once they've grounded you your extremities start getting shaved away and you quickly die as they fracture your leg through your masterwork steel greaves and swarm you.

Bogeymen are incredibly strong. Zombies are incredibly strong. Greaves are where armour is weakest. If you let yourself get knocked down and surrounded, expect at least one mortal wound to eventually happen.

as for weapon skills OP said he was dieing too much, plus regular combat without danger rooms (crabs?) trains weapon skills faster than defensive skills, so they arent that important.

Some people do not employ exploits.

And about encumberance...well tbh i start getting uncomfortable if my speed drops below 80% it's unarmored value, so i guess thats just me, im not usually super-encumbered. I can tolerate 1 or 2 mail shirts since those protect the upper legs, arms, face extremities, upper and lower body, and maybe throat. But things like breastplates are literally a drag and not at all worth it.

A breastplate will afford more protection against spears, bolts, arrows and blunt objects than a mail shirt. Considering how those are the things most likely to kill you, such as by breaking your lungs in messy ways, they are well worth the neglible weight. A rope reed fiber cloth robe weighs 8Γ for a Dwarf. A breastplate weighs 17Γ for a Dwarf. You are seeing bogeymen where there are none.

[Lida_Brainbroken]

I don't really view crab harassment as a true exploit.  I envision a novice Page questing to become a Knight, going into the wilds and honing his skills against reasonable opponents.  If that Page were to try to wrestle a Hippo and died, the Knights would say he was a fool to try.  Also, in mainstream RPGs, the first opponents faced are often sewer rats or the like.

Side note: Though Catsup knows less than I do, he insists on believing he knows more than you, L.W.  Thanks for correcting his mis-information, cuz I give up.

[Loud Whispers]

I find the slow, gradual increasing of skills from every encounter with marauders and savage beasts to be more fulfilling than wrestling a crab or a hippo. You get that real sense of narrative!

[Catsup]

for my reply to training i was implying weapon skills are easier to level up than defensive skills if you do not employ exploits, not if you do.

as for chipped bones being a sign of low stats...i had some demi-god adventurers at one time that were armor users (this was when i first started playing adventurer mode); those characters had maxed endurance, high willpower, and maxed toughness and still took chipped bones from zombies, bogeymen, and ranged attackers, especially extremities (im sure the armor they used was at least +Iron+ or bronze, i dont remember exactly).

as for character class, i recently made a few peasants too; they are much harder at the start (armor or not), but i still started out with 1.1k-1.3k speed, which would end up as roughly 1.5k speed later in the game. Thats enough of a difference to justify not wearing armor at all; at least near the start of the game.

1 more important thing, it seems the weight values are significantly different for the same items between our games. Clothing and leather armor all weight under 1 unit of weight in my game. chainmail weighs about 20-30 units of weight depending on the material, helms 8-10, greaves/leggings 20-30, high boots 3, gauntlets 1, breastplates at least 30. (note i tend to wear metal gauntlets and boots, since those dont weigh that much, just not extremely heavy armor like greaves and breastplates). Shields are also very heavy, at 10-20 in weight, such that i have forgone wearing a shield on my peasant until i can reach my hide-out that my last adventurer retired to and obtain a featherwood one (the spare hand is somewhat useful for disarming bandit leaders if you can grab their weapon from the behind).

in your case, i suppose if regular clothing really did weigh 8 units and armor was only twice that... i would either play completely naked or go armored (most likely go armored)

[DSnow]

How does one train their armor user skill?

[Wilm0chimp]

Some great tips in this thread, however I am struggling to find animals to train on. The only animals I see are civ animals, animals in packs that run away (and thus I can't catch) or dragon raptors the size of elephants that tear me to pieces. Is training swimming and fighting fish a good compromise?

Also, how exactly does sneak work. I sneak around, but sometimes it says I have been spotted despite there being literally nothing living on the screen. I ran about 20 screens away from a bandit camp, and still could not sneak, yet people reference ducking behind trees and instantly being able to sneak again.

[Asra]

If birds see you, you cannot sneak. Also the best places to find combat are beaches I think. Crabs are slow and plentiful. You can also do some swimming, which can increase stats. Just get out before you drown.

[Freshmaniscoolman]

Seems like no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I grind my skills on the local wildlife, all it takes is one little scrap by any sort of weapon toting enemy and 1/3rd of the time you're going to die.

All seems to take is just 1 well aimed shot to something like a foot, leg or a arm and that's it, even when wearing full iron armor that I've scrounged up, just getting into a fight or 2 is enough to get me killed.

What skills are truly needed to ensure your first few fights aren't your last?

Unless my maps history is only like 5 years long, nearly every quest is to kill bandits or vampires, both of which are awfully hard.

You created 2 threads about this already, losing is fun.

[Ragnarock]

My legendary-everything dorf once died right after entering a room, fully armored, didn't even know anything was in the room -a rock thrown to the head <3

[Just Some Guy]

Get multiple shields. You can find them off the corpses of bandits you kill, or can be bought. Get companions before going on a quest to kill bandits. The more shields you have, the more chance of blocking an attack.

[Major Monocle]

I have survived for quite a while. Theoretically, infinite survival is possible, but it would include more eating and doing odd jobs than really fighting and adventuring, which is what we all like. ^^