Poison resistance potions are only vital at first though, once you have the mask and/or maxed out armor you'll be fine with regular healing mead. The trick is getting through those first few days of swamp where everything can solo you.

My go-to is playing things out of sequence. Tame some loxes and start a farm first, use lox cape to find silver veins, invade swamp for iron later, wielding soul damage weapons.

Abominations ... run from them until you get Bonemass's power. Then you can squash them with ease.

Swamps are the biggest difficulty bump in the game.
- Set up portals immediately. Always leave yourself an easy return path.
- Gear up. High level bronze is completely inadequate and it's time to get iron right away.
- Load up on high quality food. Sausages, fish and turnips unlock and are good stuff.
- WATER IS LAVA. You will insta sheath weapons when water reaches above waist level, this is a very fast way to die. Use the hoe to elevate terrain and remove water.
- Poison resist mead. Don't travel without it.
- Always have the well rested buff, retreat home before it wears out.
- Don't venture outside at night. All biomes are more dangerous at night.
- Look for swamp caverns and dive in. The caverns are FAR less dangerous than outside and has all the good loot.

My go-to is playing things out of sequence. Tame some loxes and start a farm first, use lox cape to find silver veins, invade swamp for iron later, wielding soul damage weapons.

use lox cape to find silver veins

Yeah that is pretty far out of sequence, because lox cape needs silver to build.

Originally posted by AugustusKron:

no seriously i get close to the swamp and start building, and then from there i build INTO the swamp until the swamp feels like home, and then i just take the iron out of my swamp.

You remind me of Shrek lol.

Originally posted by PHQ:

Originally posted by AugustusKron:

no seriously i get close to the swamp and start building, and then from there i build INTO the swamp until the swamp feels like home, and then i just take the iron out of my swamp.

You remind me of Shrek lol.

when you get to the swamp, just ask yourself this one important question: what would Shrek do?

Originally posted by AugustusKron:

Originally posted by PHQ:

You remind me of Shrek lol.

when you get to the swamp, just ask yourself this one important question: what would Shrek do?

What you would do i think. hehe... :D

Scout edges first for food upgrades and materials.
Potions
Upgrade food before going interior to mark crypts.
Put portals on crypts to get back fast.
Set up a processing facility close by to many crypts for ease of transport.

Scouting is probably the key thing... only go during the day.
I only do overnight stuff once I am in a crypt and digging out iron to run out in the morning. You are pretty safe inside a crypt at night.
Put a fire down inside a crypt entrance to get rested bonus and quick health regen.

Edit add - running around willy nilly can get you into a bad spot very fast. Go slow, clear spawners from a distance. Use hoe to level ground if you find a good swamp and want to make it easier to get to crypts.

dont go trough the water only if you can see whats in it...

By being prepared.

Swamps is for most players the hardest step to take. You need to be careful. You need to have the best food you can get. You need to have poison resistance potions!

Draugrs hit hard. Very hard. Have a safe base at the bordering biome. Start scouting from there at the borders. Always have a poison resistance potion in you. Leeches and green blobs can and will poison you. If you're getting poisoned and have numerous draugrs on your tail, you're going to be dead meat.

Have a hoe with you and make paths, so you can avoid leeches and don't have to swim. You will need the bloodbags of the leeches later, as well as the entrails of the draugr, so better keep them.

Beware of the frumious bandersnatch... err, abomination, I mean.

The swamp can be tamed with the right armor, shield and a mace. Not the abomination. You need an axe for that. But you want it. The first thing you should create from the roots of an abomination is the mask.

It will give you poison resistance. Whenever I enter the swamps, the mask will be my faithful companion. You don't need the iron cap. The root mask is your friend.

Edit:
The first abominations need to be killed with fire arrows or by moving it over the surtling fire geysirs. The first item you make from iron is the iron banded shield. It will block most of the abominations attacks.

Edit2: I still find the swamps the most horrible biome to venture into. Everything else seems easy against it. Even the dreaded 'squito is a joke against a two star draugr archer when you're still in troll armor.

i build forts and paths between forts, and bonfires along the paths, and walls near the bonfires, and stakes around the walls, and then i go into a crypt and get the iron and nobody bothers me

no seriously i get close to the swamp and start building, and then from there i build INTO the swamp until the swamp feels like home, and then i just take the iron out of my swamp

p.s. fire arrows burn for a little while after they hit something like a tree and cast some light around them.. you can shoot several fire arrows before the first one burns out.. burning wraiths also cast light if it's dark..

What everyone said.

Mostly, STOP - LOOK - LISTEN. Don't be in a hurry.

Initially tough. Take your time. I shoot arrows at the leeches early on. Do your best to avoid getting wet.

But most of all, run away. Once you find some turnip seeds, then you can upgrade food and also be sure to make a poison resist potion. Poison resistance is really important. Like others have said, work the edges and try and find turnip seeds.

Once you have some iron gear it gets so much easier in the swamps, only during the night can it still be dangerous. I also will run around/by/past the abominations early on to get to crypts, you don't need to fight them. Once you have iron armor, weapons that are upgraded, you can really crush the swamp enemies. Abominations are s8 forward with banded shield and sword, same for wraiths.

Inside crypts you can cheese the draugr by only partially opening a mudpile, in fact just some scraps on the floor is often enough. Then use arrows to kill em, especially if there is an elite in the room. First crypt is going to be tough but it will usually provide enough iron to make and upgrade a weapon or shield, or both. That and the food upgrades will have you all set. If a swamp has 2 or more crypts, I'll always make a base with a forge and portal near it.

Poison Resist Pots, keep a batch on you and a few at your respawn spot (I also keep extra food in case I need to do a corpse run).
Use fire arrows to burn spawners (Burial Pits and Pile of Bones).
Pull mobs back, dont rush forward until you are comfortable in the Swamps.
There is a mob that is like a troll but more fun, it hits like a truck but can be easily dealt with when you learn to parry it... just be careful as it repositions a lot which can mess up the parry timing.
Good items to prioritise are chains, you only need 10 Withered Bones to spawn the boss but you get loads of them, you really want a lot of chains and they can be scarce.
Kill leeches for bloodbags as they are used in a few good crafts, and entrails off Draugr for a good food item.

Poison resistance potions are only vital at first though, once you have the mask and/or maxed out armor you'll be fine with regular healing mead. The trick is getting through those first few days of swamp where everything can solo you.

Originally posted by ↑←■▲○×↓→:

:CURIOUSSLIME:

You take it slow.
You stay only during the day.
You raise the ground using the hoe to make pathways.
You leave campfires as beacons along the pathways(some do this some dont.)
You always have best food you can for your being there.
You keep poison resist potions on you and used until you kill enough abominations for the mask.

Dig out the ground around surtling fires so spawns of surlings hit the water instead and instantly die.

If you encounter an abomination, fire arrows work well and standing on the top of the crypts in the swamp is out of their reach. They'll run away but come back so just shootem til dead. Make the mask first so you can be more resistant to poison.

Drauger/skel spawn points range as well and again used crypts or high ground if needed(you can always raise a column of the ground that way.

In the crypts mine the mud carefully so as to let you see what's in the rooms but allow you to not get attacked if need be. You can use stagheim which will aoe through the mud too but it will also knock out the torches(minor thing). Later when you can make an iron sledge and upgrade it, this method will kill stuff in the crypts pretty fast. Also in the crypts if you get in a bind, go to the ledge just at the entrance, they cant get you there(cept blobs jumping occasionally). Also set a campfire at that ledge to dry off/rest if needed.

Consider putting covered workbenches at the top of crypts and a chest or two so you can store things you get in the crypts and also cut down on spawns in the vicinity. You can also store stuff in chests in the crypts too but not as convenience as on top of the crypts(top level mind you).

Make sure to keep a look out for turnip plants for seeds for farming for better food.

Some opt to make a smelting base in the swamp by finding a close group of indestructible trees and either building up in the trees or raising the ground between them (to make the walls of the base) and then building a roof above that. Works best when trees are in a circle. This way you can smelt what get as cores are easy from surts and coal as well. Then it makes it easier to make items and thus have to later transport less iron bars.

If you take on bone mass, its an extremely easy fight if you raise the ground in a 2x2 plot to its max height(or hope atop the skull though that's riskier a bit), then use a fully upgraded iron sledge to pound the ground on the raised plot. Jumping blobs usually cant get you and aoe gets them and boss pretty easily. Alternatively some take him head on with full iron and poison resist potions and a fully upgraded iron mace and shield instead.

Another method is get inside an indestructible tree near bonemass after spawning him(you can dig out from under it) and then using spikes and repairing/making more as needed(but you have to be careful about a workbench placement for that method. Its a slow method but one favored by passive fight runs.

And there are other methods of course.

If you encounter wraiths early on(they're usually common at night but if you get near a shack they'll get you in the day sometimes), parry with a shield or run/range them.