I've been meaning to write up a post of this kind for a while. I'm not really happy with how it's turned out so far, but I'm going to toss it up here as a starting point for discussion on what kinds of things might be changed or added.

• Be vigilant, and be paranoid.
  
  
  • Once you're in the PK levels, strive to have every detect available to you up constantly.
    
  
  
  • If detect invis isn't part of your class abilities, it may be difficult to maintain at low levels; do what you can at the times it seems most necessary.
    
  
  
  • For any detect that you don't have, try to cultivate allies that do have it that can help you know who might be lurking.
    
  
  
  • When in doubt, move like someone's chasing you, and prepare like someone's about to attack you. For example, if a thief could be lurking hidden outside your guild trying to trip you and fly is one of your class abilities, use it before walking outside!
    
  
  
  • Check where a lot and have a good sense of who's around you and where they're going.
    
  
  
  • If someone you don't know and you're not pretty sure for one reason or another isn't hostile is running right towards you, assume they're trying to murder you and react accordingly.
    
  
  
  • If you can't get into your guild or other relatively safe location because you're too bloody, when possible, keep moving!
    
  
  
  • Check who group or who pk often -- even stealth classes like thieves, assassins, and rangers that you might not be able to see much of the time will need to be visible occasionally. Knowing who's out there can give you an edge in surviving.
    
  
  
  
  



• Learn constantly.
  
  
  
  • Logging your fights may be a good idea. Combat can go by too quickly for a new player to pick up on all the nuances of what's happening, and reviewing your fights at your leisure later may help you pick out important details that you missed, details that can help you do better the next time.
    
  
  
  • Knowledge of the world is vastly important. It will take time to pick up every secret of every area, and no one will ever really get there, but the more you know, the better off you are. Knowing where a piece of armor that few know about can be an advantage in PK, as can knowing how to get a locked door between you and an assailant, as can knowing an extra way out of an area. Feel free to seek out maps or people to show you around an area to help get you started, but know also that in the heat of a player vs. player battle there's no substitute for having the level of familiarity that only comes from working your own way around an area a few times.
    
  
  
  • Knowledge of the specialization options to each class and the various skills and spells a class can bring to bear against you can also be important; it gives you an idea of how they may try to fight you. There's too much there to absorb it all right away -- consider asking allies or groupmates what they consider to be the most dangerous abilities to your character to get started.
    
  
  
  • Every kind of character will have tough match-ups or hard skills to deal with. Keep in mind what these feel like for the character you're playing -- this will be very useful in the future. If your assassin really struggles with axe-wielding warriors, later on when you're playing a warrior you might try to get out some axes to fight assassin enemies. Either you'll figure out that, yes, this is a good way to get an edge in this match-up, or you'll figure out what you could have been doing as the assassin to counter it. Whichever the outcome, you've grown as a player.
    
  
  
  • It's fun to theorize about what could handle what in a given match-up; however, there's no substitute for actually trying it out. If there's something that seems unbeatable to you, there's no better way to find the flaws in your theory than to play that and put it into action.
    
  
  
  
  • Although aligning yourself with (and hopefully joining) a cabal will make you enemies and almost certainly get you killed, it's also a great way to make friends with much more experienced players who can help your learning considerably.
    
  
  
  
  • Don't be too quick to delete a character that struggles, in PK or otherwise. Probably, everything you try will feel weak at the start.
  
  
  
  
  



• Be humble.
  
  
  
  • You're new to a game with many players that have been around for years. This doesn't make you stupid. This doesn't mean you can't get an edge on someone -- probably, in your first hundred hours of play, you'll figure out at least one thing that people who have been playing the game for ten years don't know, there's just too much out there for everyone to figure out everything -- but it does mean you should err on the side of humility.
    
  
  
  • Feel encouraged to post logs of your fights for other players to critique. Take this criticism with a grain of salt; some of the players who talk the loudest know the least. Equally, if another player points out something stupid you did, be open to admitting you made a mistake and plan to correct it in the future. You can argue on the forums until your fingers snap off, but the game doesn't care -- if you're still making the same mistakes, they'll keep getting you killed whether you admit they're mistakes or not.
    
  
  
  • Accept that you don't know everything yet. If other people can kick a lot of ass with a class and you just die a lot, the problem probably isn't with the class. Understand that you aren't the first person to take character type X up against character type Y, and that given different players X has probably beaten Y a hundred times, even if the fight seems insurmountable to you.
    
  
  
  • Don't make excuses for your losses. It is nearly impossible to tell someone why you should have won a fight or why their win is somehow cheapened and not come off as a sore loser or a whiner. Sorry, but this is just the way it is. Also, making the excuses keeps you from understanding the mistakes you made. Again, the game doesn't care that you think it's cheap that someone killed you while you were distracted/hurt/practicing/too low level/whatever -- if you keep leaving those openings for other players when you don't have to, you will keep on losing because of it. It is nearly impossible to die in CF without making some kind of mistake, even if that mistake is as simple as "I should have been more aware of my surroundings so that giant warrior couldn't get the drop on my invoker."
    
  
  
  
  • Don't criticize the roleplay of others. Certainly you shouldn't do this at all in game, even in thinly veiled pseudo-IC speech form -- there is no way to criticize someone else's roleplay without compromising your own roleplay. (Ideally, don't try to do it at all on the forums or OOC either, at least for your first year or so of play.) Instead, react as your character would.
    
  
  
  
  • Don't overstate your PK success or general toughness outside the game. Ideally, don't talk about it at all. Everyone is new here at some point; everyone will be on the bottom of the PK totem pole at some point. There's no shame in this. If by your third character you're holding your own, no one will remember that your first one was a punching bag. However, if your first character was a punching bag and you bragged about all the people you killed, everyone will remember that once the truth comes out in a PBF.
    
  
  
  
  
  



• Plan ahead.
  
  
  
  • Most characters should carry at least one return potion and at least one teleport potion at all times. If you lose or use it, make replacing it a priority.
    
  
  
  • Have enough food, water, and money on hand for whatever you're undertaking.
    
  
  
  
  • You don't need every prep item under the sun for every fight. Conversely, understand what really is important and will make a difference. For example, if you think an opponent can win easily by tripping you, be flying.
    
  
  
  
  • If you don't have an idea of how you'll win a fight, get out of there. Don't hang around for a while and see how things go. This is a sure way to die. Understand that no plan survives contact with the enemy and be ready to amend your strategy on the fly, but at least go in with a rough idea of what it would take for you to win or lose the fight. You don't have to run away from every fight you don't start, but this is not the worst idea until you begin to learn what your character and others are capable of doing.
    
  
  
  
  • You will never have as good of gear for a fight as you want. Accept this and learn to do the best you can with what you have to work with -- after all, the fastest way to get a bunch of good armor is to kill someone who already has it! Become good at re-equipping to a servicable level for your character from scratch without the help of others -- at the least, you should be able to come up with return and teleport potions, a detect invis solution if you need one, food and water, a way to see in the dark if you need one, and some basic weapons and/or a shield before your ghost period is up. Obviously, your allies can help speed-up your recovery immensely when available. Having some cash in the bank before your death, when possible, is also a big help to getting back into fighting shape quickly.
    
  
  
  
  • Much is made by some veteran players of high skills, good equipment, and/or heavy use of prep items winning fights. These things are both true and not true. It's important to realize that PK in CF isn't like PvP in some games, where all combatants will be fighting in an arena or other neutral territory and all will be equally ready to fight. If anything, fights in CF where all combatants are ready for a fight are the exception, not the rule -- nearly always, someone will be more wounded from a previous fight, or not have time to prepare, or not have a set of weapons ideal for fighting the other player, or have more allies, or be in terrain that favors their class or attack strategy, or... you get the idea. Part of the art of the game and a great equalizer of many matchups is in choosing the fights that favor you and avoiding the ones that disfavor you too much. If you really think your low level shapeshifter can't beat the warrior coming for her, be vigilant and escape when he approaches. If your thief can't face that anti-paladin in a 'fair' fight and win, use stealth to choose a moment to strike when she's already weakened. If the only winning strategy you can think of for your ranger to beat a conjurer involves fighting in the mountains, make sure to lure them there, and so on.