Originally posted by Zep Tepi:

If you hear the zip of arrows, clanging metal, or rattling bone sound, there are skeletons nearby. They are hostile to dwarves and animals. Skeletons guard towers or crypts. If there's no tower nearby, then there's a crypt. Sometimes crypts are buried in hillsides and hard to see. You will learn to thank the skellies for leading you to them.

I might add to this.

If thou shalt choose to craft the beloved and praised Stagbreaker, the mighty hammer of the Gods, thy may be pleased to realize that burial chambers become trivial.

Build a base, upgrade leather equipment, weapons and a shield. Do not stay in the forest for a long time, go out on raids in search of food / ore / crypts. You can hunt trolls and make troll armor, it will be a good bonus to survivability. But strive for bronze armor and weapons, after which the dark forest will not become a problem. Also, make small houses in the forest with the ability to safely take a breath, cook food and get a rested buff, it saves a lot when everything does not go according to plan.

The Black Forest will quickly become trivial. No, really. You'll get better, and your gear will get better, and eventually you'll be able to run into the Black Forest with nothing but a shield, a club, and a pair of pants and absolutely wreck everything.

You can't do that yet because there's a learning curve and it really starts to kick in as soon as you move to new biomes. It seem extra steep if you're not geared up or you've not yet developed enough knowledge and/or skill (player skill - not character skill). Once you do it'll be much, much easier.

My advice is the same as what others have said. Get good at parrying. Practice on the weaker enemies until you get the timing. That lets you counter attack with bonus damage if you swing fast enough after you parry. Depending on your weapon you might be able to hit the enemy twice and get the bonus damage before they're no longer staggered.

Practice stamina management, get used to running/walking away from enemies. Often you can walk fast enough to get away without burning stamina. Get good at dodging and know when to run away from a fight that you probably can't win. Use terrain to your advantage if you can.

Carry a bow and basic arrows for range combat with some fire arrows for tougher enemies. The bow is a great way to start a fight, sometimes you can one-shot certain enemies with it while sneaking due to the bonus "backstab" damage you'll get if they're unaware of you, and is also useful for hunting deer. A parrying shield (the round ones can parry, the bigger ones only block damage) paired with a decent one handed weapon seemed to work really well for me throughout the game. That bonus damage when you stagger an enemy makes a big difference and you'll start dropping enemies in just a few hits once you get used to it.

I stuck with the leather armour set, then upgraded to troll leather, until I got to the point where I was mining silver so you don't need to grind bronze armour or even iron unless you want to. Bronze will make your life a bit easier but the troll armour is only 2 armour points lower per piece, 6 base versus 8 base for bronze, so it'll work and it doesn't slow you down like bronze does. I didn't want to mine enough bronze to make, and upgrade, a full set on my first character and it turns out that you really don't have to. You probably should, but it's not necessary.

Honestly armour was secondary to having a good shield and knowing how to use it, though good armour means if you miss a block or parry and take a hit you probably won't die, or nearly die, in just one hit from stronger enemies. I found a slightly upgraded club was just fine in the Black Forest, and even used it in the swamp for a while, but the mace (bronze or iron) was even better. Some enemies have weaknesses to certain types of damage, but may also resist other types. If you're hitting most enemies for a good amount of damage, then hit something else and it seems like you're doing a lot less - you've probably just found an enemy that's resistant to that type of damage. That's part of the reason I always run around with a bow with both regular and fire arrows and a mace. Gives me piercing, blunt, and fire (dot) to work with. It's rare that something's resistant to all three.

Good luck in the forest! Hopefully some of the tips in this thread help.

I guess to best some it up your first several forays into the BF should be well prepared targeted resource gathering missions. During the day. Also you can get a rested bonus by just sitting down next to a fire, doesn't even need shelter.

Using sneak helps to reduce unwanted attention. It can be annoying and slow, but until you're used to the place, it helps a lot. Don't wander around at night and stay away from pink spawners.

Listen carefully. Trolls make a distinctive groan/growl that's different from the dwarves, as well as loud stomping feet. You'll usually hear them before you see them. Hit sneak, if you haven't already and try to figure out where they are. It's amazing how those giant blue guys can hide in the forest. If it sees you, run toward the meadows until you can't hear stomping anymore. You will probably pick up a train of dwarves if you do, though. (Assuming you're not up to fighting it yet.)

If you hear the zip of arrows, clanging metal, or rattling bone sound, there are skeletons nearby. They are hostile to dwarves and animals. Skeletons guard towers or crypts. If there's no tower nearby, then there's a crypt. Sometimes crypts are buried in hillsides and hard to see. You will learn to thank the skellies for leading you to them.

If a dwarf is throwing rocks, might as well close in and take care of it before its friends arrive. (Watch out for starred ones though until you get used to them.) Noise attracts attention, and they're easier to kill if they take turns rather than bunching up. Eventually you will get used to the timing of smacking them. Don't just stand still and get hit, run around like they do. Once you're used to them, they're easy to smack. Your third hit does double damage and usually finishes them.

Most common cause of death is forgetting to check your food/health meter before getting into trouble. The first few trips into the forest are the hardest, but soon you'll be wandering around like you own the place, even if you don't upgrade your gear.

Level up your leather gear in the meadows first, and be back at your base before dark. Eat 3 different foods. Make a bow and some wooden arrows and practice.

build a fence around a copper node and dig it out, they go deep underground. The fence will keep the rifraf out while you work and also muffle the noises from mining.

Craft a stagbreaker (hammer) and clear out some crypts to get cores so you can build a smelter and kiln.

It is a jump up from the meadow. Make sure you have upgraded your armor and weapons as far as you can. Tin is easy to find along the coast, copper is more of a challenge, but you need both to make bronze to further upgrade your stuff. get a bow if you don't have one yet.
Basic stuff.... eat as soon as you can, don't let your health run too low, you don't have much in the beginning. Build a basic base with bed near the BF so you have a place to beat a hasty retreat when needed. Trolls are the toughest, but you need the hide for best early game armor. I take them down by sneak fire arrow to the head, run away, turn and shoot right after they attack, repeat till dead. Some have a better way and will chime in, but this works for me.

Make sure your meadows gear is fully upgraded and have the best food before you mess with the black forest. You should have leather armour, bow and fire / flint arrows, flint axe/spear/knife all fully upgraded. Mushrooms or honey, grilled necktail and cooked meat eaten well rested and just before you go.

Watch your health and stamina and be ready to run away rather than take too many hits. If your rested status runs out its time to leave or find shelter and fire. As long as you have stamina you can run away from any enemy. Have Eikthyr power ready and use it. Pretty soon you will have troll armour, bronze and portals and things will get a lot easier.

Wooden shield. Parry greylings until you figure it out. From now on parrying is crucial, it costs less stamina and blocks better that static blocking, plus gives you an attack bonus on the staggered enemy.

Originally posted by FluffyBob:

Wooden shield. Parry greylings until you figure it out. From now on parrying is crucial, it costs less stamina and blocks better that static blocking, plus gives you an attack bonus on the staggered enemy.

This.

Once you master parrying against greydwarf and greyling, everything gets much easier. Add a bronze bucket and even troll won't be a challenge.

First of all, chop down some pine trees for core wood, which will enable you to craft Stagbreaker, and area damage weapon that will be useful in clearing crypts.
Then start looking for burial crypts. There you can find Surtling Cores which you will need to smelt metals, bone fragments for upgrades as well as valuables that you will be able use at the merchant.
Inside the crypts there are skeletons who are weak to blunt damage. Unupgraded club is weak so flint axe might be still preferred however if you are fighting several enemies, consider using Stagbreaker.
While running around in the Forest you will likely come across Trolls. Kill them as their leather can be used to craft better armor. trolls are weak to pierce damage so use bow or spear against them. I would not recommend fighting them in melee range until you get better equipment though as you will need at the least bronze buckler to parry a hit from a troll.
Also make sure to pick up any carrot seeds and thistle while there. You will need them.
Once you got your smelter and charcoal kiln, it is time to find some metal. You will need copper and tin to make bronze. Tin looks like a small wet rock and is found on shorelines, while Copper looks liek a large green rock and is found on hills (they can be hard to distinguish from regular large rocks so be prepared to be disappointed a few times before you find an actual copper deposit)
iMPORTANT: the copper deposit is much larger than it looks as most of it is underound so be prepared to dig it out. Here is a trick: if you ding a hole under the copper you can get sheltered which allows you to place a workbench for repairs and a campfire for the rested bonus. It also makes it harder for enemies to get to you so you can mine mostly unbothered and you wont have to run back to the home base , you can just keep mining all night.

Originally posted by Ryzilynt:

Level up your leather gear in the meadows first, and be back at your base before dark. Eat 3 different foods. Make a bow and some wooden arrows and practice.

build a fence around a copper node and dig it out, they go deep underground. The fence will keep the rifraf out while you work and also muffle the noises from mining.

Craft a stagbreaker (hammer) and clear out some crypts to get cores so you can build a smelter and kiln.

You don't need a fence, just dig around the copper, that will prevent them from getting in unless you mine the earth right under them or something, but you are going to be mostly unbothered once they cannot find a path to you.
Btw how is he supposed to level up his leather gear first when you can only find bone fragments in sufficient quantities in the Black Forest?

Oh btw you can scare the regular greydwarves with a torch, but not the brutes and shamans.

thx guys, thought i was ready cus i beat eikthyr. i was wrong. the grind begins

You can do the dungeons (burial chambers) with a leveled up flint axe and basic level 1 leather armor as long as you maintain your food level. Go slow and keep backing out to the main entry room to let your HP recover.

After the first one, you'll get lots of bone fragments to start upgrading the armor. You need lots of the Surtling cores to build charcoal burner, smelter, and later portals. The other loot will buy stuff at the trader.