What do you die to?

[Al-Khwarizmi]

In JADE 0.1.4, most of my deaths are by hobgoblin leaders wielding a 2-handed weapon (such as a great sword or great mace). They inflict tons of damage and are faster than me, and without tactics or items/spells to delay them I can't do much.

What does the rest of the people die to? Also, any advice on dealing with heavily-armed fast mobs?

[Orbic]

Same thing here. Ogres can hit as well.
I'm trying different approaches now:
bare hands (levels up very fast, 2 attacks/round) with heavy armour
dual wielding - still looking for the adequate combo.

Bare hands looks good - hobgoblin leaders did not get me, but a bug did

[Laukku]

Humanoids with "great" weapons. It's frustrating, they don't tend to drop their awesome weapons even in 0.1.4, even though TB said so. Maybe TB meant that only weapons with pre-/suffixes drop.

Last game, I got pretty far. Level 8, 14 PV and a large great wooden club of precision (2d15+4) from an ogre, and the game was a breeze. Then JADE hanged when I went downstairs.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

The game was a breeze, even against the mentioned humanoids armed with "great" weapons? I think I once had a char with 18 PV and I still got pounded by a hobgoblin leader with a great sword... from what I'm seeing it's better to invest in PV than DV (and I'm not getting good results at all with shields), but I have never had a char with which I would call the game "a breeze" :/

Ogres hit harder but they are easy to outrun, so armed hobgoblins are my nemesis.

[Laukku]

Yeah. I killed most monsters in a single hit, even some ogres. The beings with "great" weapons are a much stronger threat early on, when you don't have much good stuff and HP. But when I got that awesome club, everything changed.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Hmm, I haven't focused much on 2-handed weapons... I think I will change strategy.

[Knyte]

I have the same problem with hobgoblin leaders and ogres...I've found that if I managed to get a great mace (which for some reason is 1-handed) and have a decent set of armor (my favorite so far was a studded great wyrm hide armor +4/+9) I do reasonably well, but in the end the mobs always pound me into pc paste, no matter how careful I am.

[Moeba]

I never had a problem with ogres... just check their movement speed (after how many moves do they wait one turn while you move) and hit them in the turn they can't move. Quickling tactics, so to speak.
Sometimes I die of orcish brutes though, encountered them even on the first level of the CoC once. Otherwise I usually die of hobgoblin chieftains, but that was in JADE 0.1.3. I got killed by a hobgoblin leader once as well.

And since there is no penalty yet for fighting with two weapons, I usually prefer to fight with 2 battle axes; barbaric orcish battle axes (-4, 1d7 + 7) can be found starting from lvl 1 of the CoC (though they are rare).

[Al-Khwarizmi]

OK, dual-wielding great maces is the way to go. I just had a character who was apparently a powerhouse. Reached lvl. 8 of the CoC, exploring levels fully. He had 21 PV. Most enemies couldn't touch him, ogres could only touch him with crits.

BUT...

He was murdered by a hobgoblin chieftain with a great sword. Damn.

[Laukku]

Mountain dwarves seem to start with a good two-handed weapon. I think it's better to not wield two average one-handed weapons, because PV reduction will be applied for each weapon, and the overall damage will be lower.