Seems fair to me. Disarming is annoying of course, but master swordsmen aren't unreasonably damaging or tough. A human fighter with good stats would have a shot at killing one at level 1; by level 10 any combo should be able to take one out. Troll berserker would be crazy as an in-depth spawn at that DL and level, but as it's from a mixed vault I don't see any issue here.

You should have at least 1 damaging wand at this point, or at least train up throwing rocks or bows to a decent level by lvl 10, so the master swordsman isn’t really out of depth, and the troll berserker is only slightly out of depth. It’s still beatable.

I was a drakeling farmer. Not sure where "good shot killing one at level 1" comes from., sounds like nonesense At level 1 you'd have no proficiency with your fists which you'd have to fight him with and he has high pv.

Training rocks does seem like a not-bad idea though, but again it's all down to means and whether the rng provides it. I have another level 10 farmer going now and he only has 5 rocks to play with, so training it is awkward. Rocks also have a higher rate of shattering than I realised.

I used point buy to generate a human fighter in exploration mode and wished for a master swordsman. I was able to kill it 9 out of 10 times, largely by virtue of having good PV. The one fight I lost was when he picked up my disarmed weapon, and it was still close. A level 10 drakeling farmer should have an easier time due to higher weapon skill, dexterity, and toughness, and can even win the fight with no PV from items by using acid spit (yes, I tested this too).

There's an early-game location that has hundreds of rocks.

Can't argue with that. Maybe it was a higher level swordmaster, but I was having trouble dealing any damage with my fists.

Random chance of visting it though. :)

I actually find it every time, although it only shows up when you are level 1 or 2, if you wander the forest area right after starting the game, you’ll find it very fast. It’s the best start to the game imo, as there’s a guaranteed decent weapon and shield there, plus all those rocks.

So I just fought off two master swordsmen in a row at level 13, with 32 dv and 22 pv. They raked off 50 health between them. Seems monster levelling really makes a difference. Also low dv/dex potential builds really seem to suffer, it feels like you're surrounded by semi-claw-bugs all the time with the armour penetrations.

22 pv seems absurd, what floor were you on? Or maybe they equipped armor?

This kind of sounds like the character is cursed or doomed. With 22 PV the master swordsmen would need to be something like level 20 to deal any damage with normal hits; this kind of monster level is not really possible outside of special areas like SMC, ICD, or UQ/FUQ.

Penetration hits are guaranteed though, so anything can damage you regardless of pv. I get the impression there is a invisible bar that fills when you take damage (even if all absorbed by pv) and when that bar fills you get a penetration hit. Just died to the snow golems guarding IQD at level 15, the first one did a crit to 60 health and then I dipped a potion of ultra healing in holy water and the next golem critted me to death. I wasn't doomed according to the log.

How about this: level 13, two greater dopplegangers seen above dwarftown. Seems a bit extreme. Did the game used to have this formula for generating monsters? I only noticed the effect when playing the later versions.

EDIT: stone statue in ud1, level below 5. Obviously I died to it.