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[Capt. Snow]

I need help, I go through adventurers like crazy. I always die from stupid but admittedly funny things, such as a having a fully armored hero being pecked to death by a hawk, dodging off of a cliff, drowning in a small pond, or getting torn to shreds by any sort of animal in the game. I also once managed to set myself on fire in the wild. Companions aren't much help either, in fact they seem to fare much worse than me in fights. Could I get any tips on surviving more than a few days and not being wasted in every fight I get in?

[Magnumcannon]

Don't go full armored if your Armor User skill is low or non-existant.
Get a shield, they're always useful. Also, Shield User.
Take a weapon of your choice, but be aware of its limitations. It's not really a smart thing to fight a Bronze Colossus with a copper mace.
Always have Swimmer in at least novice.
Don't wander around at night alone if you don't want to fight those pesky boogeymen.
Don't fight near cliffs (Duh)
Know what you're facing before fighting it.
Running away is always an option. If you can get that stealth mode, then just fast travel out of there!
Choose the right companions. Try to vary their weapon type a little, like having some axemen, spearmen, crossbowmen, you get this.
If you're the lonewolf type, you might consider becoming a night creature. A vampire, a necromancer, or both.
Have a high number of companions.
Don't fight if you're wounded.

[Evil One]

Don't go valiantly battling through legions of undead and their necromancer masters, finally getting to the top of a necromancer tower in order to read the slab, only to discover you didn't have reading at, at least novice level (this happened to me).

[a smiling bearded cretin]

The Vanilla Stat (Not Quite Linear) Scale
Random civ peasant (no skill) —> NPC adventurer/soldier (competent skill level) —> Other semi-megabeast/megabeast (giant, cyclops, ettin, dragon/roc*) —> minotaur** ---> NPC weapon master~/night troll~~ —>  hydra (talented skill level)~~~ —-> titan with web/fire or bronze colossus (slow, but made out of metal)

Compare your stats. Don't be more than one level defensively below (shield/dodge) if you choose to fight an enemy solo. Treat everyone like they feel no pain, even if they do.

Notes:
* All except ettin (edited) give in to pain, though dragon and roc have talented level attack/defense, all are initially passive.
** Because of aggression, grab/being in the maze. Being inside makes grab more effective. Limited dodge away in maze. Minotaurs have up to Expert in skills, but easily go out to pain. Could be as easy as other semi-megabeast.
~ weapon masters have the highest offensive skill set, but feel pain so...
~~ Because of grab/no pain/big speed/big strength/high aggression.
~~~ Hydra's big speed, talented attack/defense, high aggression and no pain.

[vjmdhzgr]

I'm pretty sure ettins can feel pain. Also grow beards, which is interesting. Probably irrelevant to combat difficulty th out.

[Capt. Snow]

I managed to massacre a Kobold village in Masterwork DF and kill a vampire in Vanilla, so I think I'm definitely doing better than I was before. Though, any more tips on adventure mode in general would be great!

[Magnumcannon]

Go for the legs.

[a smiling bearded cretin]

I'm pretty sure ettins can feel pain. Also grow beards, which is interesting. Probably irrelevant to combat difficulty th out.

I guess I mean ettins don't give into pain as do the others in the grouping. With a warhammer, you can chip away for quite a while on an ettin, but the other pain feelers go out in one shot. Maybe I'm not looking into the raws closely enough, or it's hardcoded(?) but ettins are just damage sponges.

Also I've much more respect for the ettin since it (they? probably they) grow beards.

[StagnantSoul]

Ettins are pushovers, one literally screamed for help and ran away from me, and when i finally caught it, died after only bruising my arm. Similar things happen in fortress mode, ettins get punched in one head and pass out. Cyclopses, however, I've never beaten one, not even with my adventurer who had dragon meat in his backpack.

[a smiling bearded cretin]

Ettins are pushovers, one literally screamed for help and ran away from me, and when i finally caught it, died after only bruising my arm. Similar things happen in fortress mode, ettins get punched in one head and pass out. Cyclopses, however, I've never beaten one, not even with my adventurer who had dragon meat in his backpack.

Yes and it is for that reason I like ettin as the very first fight for heroes/demigods because ettins take damage and stay conscious which means they give out good stat return. No weapon stat gained if the opponent is passed out. I start heroes/demigods with nothing higher than novice weapon skill, sometimes no fighter skill, but always high shield/armor/dodge, so whacking away at a target to boost weapon/fighter is useful.

Cyclops should be quick to kill (though sometimes there are fast, relentless clopses that require care). Are you heavy on offense but lower on defense? Are you in the lair getting grabbed? The cyclops/giant can vary in that it may get hit then pass out, or more rarely, the fight could begin with a long series of misses targeting foot/neck and then I'll need to pull it out of its lair to balance out their relative speed versus my character who may be behaving slowly for some reason. This tends to happen when novice weapon skill is not paired with novice fighter skill (which seems to give a good drop in hit %).

[StagnantSoul]

I'm heavily defense aimed, with the max amount of armour and only proficient in weapon skills, with a lot of stats put into agility, and I use a shield and a buckler, so using two shields isn't that cheaty. But still, cyclopses have always ripped me apart. Splatter me against walls, shatter my ribs, break a shoulder, relieve me of my hammer and smash my head.

[Max™]

I tend to bleed the megabeasts (and semimegabeasts) with harder materials out, once you can get through the skin on the next and open an artery it's safer.

Incidentally after Roses discovered where the attack accuracy entry was (it'll be listed properly in the next version of gm-editor after dfhack r4 comes out) I did some testing and this is an important thing to know:

MULTIATTACKING ONE ATTACK PLUS A CONTROLLED DODGE HAS NO ACCURACY PENALTY. There is no reason to not aim an attack and dodge somewhere.

[StagnantSoul]

I tend to bleed the megabeasts (and semimegabeasts) with harder materials out, once you can get through the skin on the next and open an artery it's safer.

Incidentally after Roses discovered where the attack accuracy entry was (it'll be listed properly in the next version of gm-editor after dfhack r4 comes out) I did some testing and this is an important thing to know:

MULTIATTACKING ONE ATTACK PLUS A CONTROLLED DODGE HAS NO ACCURACY PENALTY. There is no reason to not aim an attack and dodge somewhere.

Someone else shared this a while back. I use it while fighting bogeymen.

[a smiling bearded cretin]

Incidentally after Roses discovered where the attack accuracy entry was (it'll be listed properly in the next version of gm-editor after dfhack r4 comes out) I did some testing and this is an important thing to know:

MULTIATTACKING ONE ATTACK PLUS A CONTROLLED DODGE HAS NO ACCURACY PENALTY. There is no reason to not aim an attack and dodge somewhere.

Interesting. I remember it being anecdotal that multi-attack involved a % penalty to whatever you combined. A few days ago I read the DF Talk 21 transcript where Toady goes over the combat mechanics that would roll out with DF2014. Maybe that's where that idea came from. Whether this is exactly how DF2014 rolled out is something else, as things can change.

Since say Sept/Oct 2014, I'd always thought of everything as divided between Multi-Attack, and aimed Single Action. Multi-Attack came with a % penalty, but Single Action, provided it was Active and not Passive carried the highest %. That's how I'd integrate single action blocking to set up opponent recovery, then follow it with a single action aimed attack for % reasons.

Still nothing really changes the general/popularly held idea that Multi-Attack (Quick Attack + Dodge Away) is the foundation of everything anyone does in combat. Old forum hands like Nikow and Robsoie always said some form of that in various combat-related threads.

[Max™]

Yeah, I sat and checked the attack accuracy values multiple times in various situations and it's consistent that there is no penalty for attack+dodge, then the first attack takes a big hit for multiple attacks, and other attacks take a more random hit.

Oh and artifacts are indeed more accurate, like twice as accurate as a masterwork or thereabouts.