How do I get better at combat without possibly dying?

[Itsapaul]

After a few games including trying and failing to get that 5 person start to work (they just die no matter what direction I went in), I've gotten into a nice loop of selling copper around the default solo start's town and stealing from another town to get armor/weapons, but I still get trounced by randos with sticks whenever they get froggy. So far, the only times I've won are when I run past guards and let them deal with it. Do I need to grind out more dudes to start or should I be aiming just to grind stats at the comfort of my city houses? I've made sure to stick to light armor and cutting weapons for dexterity (except the race that gets negatives to it who I just gave a bigass sword to) but I don't think anyone's even gained 1 point in that yet. Everyone that's been around a bit to level is in the teens for strength, though that's from hauling copper as I haven't just had them run around with full packs yet.

[Mokona]

Only fight hungry people especially those with blunt weapons. Become a slave as they heal you after beating you so you wont die. Have someone not do combat and only fight when other npc around will help you while the one that doesnt fight only goes in and heals after combat. You want to get your toughness to at least 30 before you want to venture further then visual on the city walls.

[Bandy]

Originally posted by Mokona:

... You want to get your toughness to at least 30 before you want to venture further then visual on the city walls.

Yes, the game is brutal so you have to be very selective when to fight, but hiding within view of city walls is generally not a fun way to get into or play a game with so much exploration.

I would instead recommend getting your run speed up first so you can out distance anything that would kill you outright. But the game also has a relatively forgiving wound/health system that has been described as 'the toughest game that doesn't kill you', or something like that...

You as a successful player must maintain your 'situational awareness' so you aren't surprised, or at least not as often until you and squad can fight a little better.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Itsapaul:

...but I still get trounced by randos with sticks whenever they get froggy...

Neither Starving Bandits nor Dust Bandits will truly try to "kill" you. They will beat you until you're downed and take your stuff, but they won't try to kill you when you're downed. The same goes for many other "bandit" types and wanderers, too. (For instance, the Shek subfactions won't try to kill you when you're downed, either.) Carnivores will try to eat you, but Herbivores will leave you alone when you're downed. Slaver types will capture you when you're downed and won't try to kill you. (You're more valuable to them alive. :))

So, while there are a lot of very dangerous enemies in the game, you're more likely to die to bleeding out in many regions than being truly murdered. But, that doesn't mean that an enemy swinging very dangerous weapons with excellent skill won't end up killing you with one blow.

Because of the above, fighting Starving bandit groups is a very good way to get some "Toughness" and combat training. They all use blunt weapons, so there's little chance of truly terrible injuries. Fighting them in The Border Zone, where they're plentiful, and in Skinner's Roam, where they travel in much larger packs, is good training.

Dust Bandit camps in The Border Zone are excellent early combat training, too. However, you need to pay attention to Armor. In the very early game, it may look like those Skill/Ability penalties are pretty severe. But, you need the protection against certain enemy types because you're not going to be one-shotting them with advanced combat skills and weapons. Your interest there is protecting limbs from big cutting weapons like Dust Bandit Horse Cleavers. (Also, if you decide to go hunting Shek subfaction groups, like Berserkers, they're excellent training. But, they also use Heavy Weapons and you don't want your character's arms popping off...)

Fighting Fogmen is good early game combat and toughness training simply because they're so very numerous. It's also very good training for your Crossbow specialists. A side effect is additional toughness training for your melee characters as they're hit by friendly fire from your own training crossbow users. :) However, Fogmen WILL try to capture any downed characters and spirit them away to their camp right in the middle of combat with complete disregard to their own safety. Fogmen are numerous and appear to have a pretty large reinforcement range, so what appears to be an easy combat engagement at first can turn into a true battle for survival. Luckily, they're all pretty weak and unarmored.

Beak Things will eat you. But... they're good "Toughness" training. Vain is good for that since friendly Hivers are usually pretty close by. Do not lead packs of Beak Things to Hiver Camps, though... The carnage is depressing. :) One can find Gorrillos in Vain, too.

Garru packs are great training. They're safe to fight and won't attack/eat downed characters. Bulls are good as long as you already have a bit of toughness and some armor so they don't one-shot you. (Skinner's Roam" is good for that.) Goats are great for toughness training.

https://kenshi.fandom.com/wiki/Guide_to_Animals

It's worth noting that fighting animals can yield Hides. Crafting Hides into Leather is one of the easiest, quickest, most efficient way to level up Armor Smithing. It's very easy to amass good quantities of Leather for crafting to level up other skills. (Or to sell.)

Toughness and Combat training has been discussed in a lot of threads. Try some forum searches for it. AFAIK, there aren't any posts involving that subject that have been deprecated by patches - They should all still be valid.

[Craig25]

Originally posted by Itsapaul:

After a few games including trying and failing to get that 5 person start to work (they just die no matter what direction I went in), I've gotten into a nice loop of selling copper around the default solo start's town and stealing from another town to get armor/weapons, but I still get trounced by randos with sticks whenever they get froggy. So far, the only times I've won are when I run past guards and let them deal with it. Do I need to grind out more dudes to start or should I be aiming just to grind stats at the comfort of my city houses? I've made sure to stick to light armor and cutting weapons for dexterity (except the race that gets negatives to it who I just gave a bigass sword to) but I don't think anyone's even gained 1 point in that yet. Everyone that's been around a bit to level is in the teens for strength, though that's from hauling copper as I haven't just had them run around with full packs yet.

Start as a slave and pick fights with the guards or just stop being obedient. They will beat you down increasing your toughness, dodge, unarmed combat if you ever manage to land a hit, and maybe the melee skills but I can't quite remember if you need a weapon for those. Anyway the guards will heal you after and you can then just pick a fight again. I think as long as you don't take your shackles off they will heal you no matter what you do. Be careful about attacking when your limb health is low though, I have had my leg beaten right off my body before!
Slave start is also a good way to level up sneak and lock-pick.

I have a mod let me start in Rebirth with one character, but you seem fine to start with more and the default slave start is 2 I think. When you decide to make a break for it make sure you have stolen some food, when you take your shackles off or just become an escaped slave you'll lose the status that keeps your between hungry and starving as a slave. I've starved to death before shortly after escaping. I wouldn't try to escape through the gates and outrunning the guards, but you can move around them unseen.

Behind Rebirth is an abandoned shack. It's filled with a lot of decent stuff to give you a good start, food, armour, some katanas I think. It's best to head straight for there after escaping (again make sure you have stolen some food before you decide to go). Then make your way out of the Holy Nation territory for a while so they don't recognise you as a slave. The escaped slave status will disappear after a while.

I do think starting a slave is the best start and easiest way to get a lot of skills up quickly.

[kaiyl_kariashi]

The quickest way to get strong quickly (as in 40-50 stats within a couple days of starting)

Go pick a fight with enemies you have NO EARTHLY BUSINESS fighting. And any time you take damage, run away, heal, and go back in. As long as you keep your wounds topped off, you're very unlikely to die.

And depending on how many getting back up from playing deads you can pull off during your first few fights, you can very quickly get your toughness to the 30+ range which makes combat much safer. Having an extra person to hang back until the fighting is over to patch you up is the much safer option, but it's entirely doable solo just a bit more risky.


I prefer the Band of Bones camp near Squin, as it's a guaranteed spawn, they're much stronger than even Dust Bandits (but their weapons deal poor bleeding), and is just down the hill from a waystation that you can go back to heal and restock bandages/food after getting your butt kicked in. (and a ruin nearby you can get about ~12k worth of salvage from to bank roll your training supplies).

And since all early game armor is useless against them due to their high armor pen, there's no temptation to waste money on it, and you can go practically naked and not see much difference. After a day or two, when you start actually winning 1 v 1, you can replace their weapons with rusted blade planks and make future training more efficient.


the shek bandit factions in particular make great training partners since they all have guaranteed camps you can go and train at.

And you can make a clear progression from Band of Bones, to Kral's Chosen, to Berserkers once your skill gains start flagging even with a large backpack on. (I'd recommend also trying to get some standard grade or above Samurai armor suit (except for the boots), since it adds a good amount of penalties as well while also being really protective. (it's not much help vs Band of Bones, due to their hackers (you need High grade or above to really see much difference vs BoB), but is really nice vs Kral's Chosen and Berserkers since they have no armor penetration).


Just make sure you have enough strength to properly wield whatever weapon you're planning to use, and then pick a rusted blade or mid-grade salvage quality weapon and go to town on them. (you could use a rusted junk once you've got a little bit of skill, but I find the extra penalties and downtime outweigh the benefits on your first day or so. Once you're TRYING to stack penalties, then sure, go for it (also since they're quite weak the fights will last longer as you start to pull ahead of your training partners).



just for sake of comparison.....

in the time it takes to hit 15 Melee attack skill on a training dummy from fresh (which takes about 2.5 days), you can have ~45 melee attack, ~55 melee defense, ~60 toughness, ~50-ish with whatever weapon type you're using. Plus highly variable amounts of strength/dex depending on your weapon-type.

Though it heavily depends on your toughness growth. The better luck you have at growing that quickly, the more efficient your time spent training will be. (some times I'll only get it to 15 on the first day which is a good start and will make day 2 much better...sometimes it's nearly 50 and I start stacking combat penalties on Day 2 instead of Day 3 to really ramp up skill gains... it just depends on the circumstances).

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Craig25:

...
I do think starting a slave is the best start and easiest way to get a lot of skills up quickly.

As you described, it is a good, free, low-risk way to level up certain combat skills. It's pretty popular for that reason, though some players may not want to roleplay their game out like that.