So, I've been trying to take a dwarven paladin through the Unremarkable Dungeon, and I've lost about five in the attempt.

On the surface, it seems like it should be a no-brainer: you start with 14 PV. I feel comfortable going for the blanket in the small cave if my character has 5 PV, with a dwarven paladin, I can even look around and make sure I've grabbed all the weapons before I leave, no problem.

But I tend to still lose them later on, in part because they start with an abysmal weapon (2d3), and they sometimes run into something that has PV I can't get through (and can't hit without weapon skill using weapons found in the small cave), other times because they need to wait and heal up, but don't have enough food to do it, with the big pile of loot they grabbed and no food preservation. I usually buy two or three uncursed large rations from Munxip before I start the dive, but it's not really enough.

I've made the dive successfully with a couple of other characters in the past...is dwarven paladin not a good race/class combo to do the dive with? Any tips on how to not starve to death in the process?