Originally posted by GunsForBucks:

What gear did you have?

If you were only in iron I would avoid being anywhere near the plains and focus more on mountains.

The safe way to approach things is to max out your equipment as much as you can before going to the next biome. Explore the next biome up from the edges to collect what you can for upgrades before you beat the bosses.

So after Mountains and I am in wolf gear I will start to check out edges of plains looking to hunt lox for that food upgrade. I will spot villages to clear later but avoid contact with the inhabitants. Frankly out of the two worlds I am working on, post H&H, I just got both to silver level. So getting ready for the plains now and have not dealt with the new tar enemy thing yet. I am going to be extra cautious with those and have to figure out what will work for them.

This answers the OP's question. Well, it should, this is the correct way to play the game without being a masochist edgelord. Not dying at all should be highly valued in Valheim.

Get those Bow skills leveled and a pack of Goblins will be dead before they can reach you, also the only upgrade to your Armour needed is Troll and a Lox cape.
I would just put this death down to not placing your Portal sooner, apart from that we all die now and again.
If you still need help with reclaiming your body then let me know.

Originally posted by HeikoFennec:

So as much as I've played the game I too often fail. The latest was a loss when goblins from what is now clear to be a too close plains biome killed me mid-build of a base, thus removing access to the gear, resources and my ship. So how best then to go? I barely found enough iron to assemble an axe and shield as well as a torso armor, furthermore trying to pin down a decent source of the materials.

You do keep previous equipment right? I even have reinforced chests where my wife and I keep our previous gear (leather/bronze/iron/silver tags above them too)
and yeah, as pointed above, I start with some pallisade walls or raised ground and build a portal, then build whatever you want.

put portals somewhere safe, in trees, on rocks, or surrounded by a moat/trench wide enough for mobs not to get to them

and always have a backup set of gear to equip when you need to recover your corpse/tombstone
(wait for daytime if you died at night during a raid before attempting to recover your gear)

I make a point lately to try setting portals on new islands, particularly if they seem potential for gain. As the rng map goes I was trying to bypass plains to get to swamps that did have crypts, even saw a slime boss summon pot surrounded by water. At the time I was equipped with troll, altogether just under 40 defense, and essentially my scouting setup. As for the site of my last demise it was a patch of meadow near to swamp, to my fool choice I was setting camp while fending off graydwarves

There isn't a lot of planning to do when facing the plains level enemy in 2 pieces of iron. This is where you run away, using terrain to confuse them until you can crouch/hide and they get bored and leave.

That also means that your building site may be in a bad location. I would never build next to the plains, the stuff there does too much damage to structures. A single mosquito can peel the roof of a home in just a min or two. And a raging lox can flatten the whole building in seconds if you used wood.

So.. a plan?
you need more iron. A LOT more iron: it is used in the next armor sets, not just its own level set, and its used in building construction and upgrades and boats and more. So your plan for now would be to recover your body and return to the swamp or find a bigger swamp and go into iron processing overdrive for a bit. Once you have a full set of armor, you can venture to the mountains and start to work there; focus on killing some wolves first off, so you can get a cold proof cloak and a new food (wolf skewers, you need to find onion in chests there too). Stock on on the materials from the mountains (food, arrows (obsidian and cold), and if you can find some, silver). Generally you just have to take it slow in new areas. Get on the edge, see what the enemy are like, what they can do. Get some new material and figure out how to farm more of it. Stock up, upgrade, venture deeper.

Originally posted by HeikoFennec:

So as much as I've played the game I too often fail. The latest was a loss when goblins from what is now clear to be a too close plains biome killed me mid-build of a base, thus removing access to the gear, resources and my ship. So how best then to go? I barely found enough iron to assemble an axe and shield as well as a torso armor, furthermore trying to pin down a decent source of the materials.

suggestion: before entering a new biome\location make sure that you have a quick way to reach it. either you have a spawn point or teleport nearby.

and if something will kill you and you see no way to reclaim the corpse you can always try to use corpse run (place 1 item into inventory. die. then when you'll retrieve this corpse you'll get a buff for 50 sec. eat some food and don some previous tier armor to be safe. activate the buff and run to get your items back (or kill stuff that prevents you from getting them). in a worst case you can suicide multiple times to have the means to refresh the buff.

ps: /killme in chat helps with suiciding. and after 1st death you will not loose skill points for 10 minutes

Biome intersetcions are (allmost) dangerous to build but can be funb at the same time
often you can watch the creatures fighting themselves

if you are up to build near a biome with stronger (stronger than you) enemys allways be prepared to get in contact with them

your better of getting fully equipped with the best available armor, weapons and food, and then build a new base at the border of a biome.

otherwise i recomend taking over a small hut somewhere nearby and use it as a base of operation for future buildings

If death is removing access to your gear, resources and ship the main thing you're not planning out is portals. Anywhere you plan to build, start with a basic room with a portal.

What gear did you have?

If you were only in iron I would avoid being anywhere near the plains and focus more on mountains.

The safe way to approach things is to max out your equipment as much as you can before going to the next biome. Explore the next biome up from the edges to collect what you can for upgrades before you beat the bosses.

So after Mountains and I am in wolf gear I will start to check out edges of plains looking to hunt lox for that food upgrade. I will spot villages to clear later but avoid contact with the inhabitants. Frankly out of the two worlds I am working on, post H&H, I just got both to silver level. So getting ready for the plains now and have not dealt with the new tar enemy thing yet. I am going to be extra cautious with those and have to figure out what will work for them.