If I think I have half or even a quarter of a chance, I don't mind running into the fight, but when if I have no chance, then there's nothing I'm really going to learn. Definitely as a lowbie, it's important to have as many spells up as possible: fly, detect invis, invis (though I don't see much value to it), and uh....that's about as far as I've gotten so far. Haste perhaps, except that it decreases regen. Slow is good because it increases regen.

It's also not my character's role to usually pick a fight, even if I see one coming. It's more his role to hope the fight won't happen and then try to survive/win it when it does. The one time it fit my role to pick a fight, I learned a client program is probably a wonderful thing. The opponent really impressed me. He picked a fight with a mob I would have to in role defend, and so I went running into the room to pick the fight, forgetting that I need to type murder, not kill, to initiate combat. Anyway, it looked in my scrollback like he fled the moment I ran into the room, then ran back in while I was typing where and killed me in 4 hits, from when I was at 100%. I was able to enter one command in that combat before I got pounded into paste, and that command wasn't flee. The lesson I learned was: that appeared to be one well-thought trap, maybe I should think of using a client other than telnet, and remember to use murder, not kill, although he still would have beaten me with ease. Each fight does teach something valuable, and it's a matter of putting the pieces together eventually.

I'm still looking for preps. It would help newbies if there were a table of preps somewhere, but I understand that learning preps is intended to be part of the learning curve, and that's fine. I finally found out where I can buy recall potions, so that's 1 down, buncha other stuff to go.