Defending yourself:
- You parry better against weapons you know. That means your class has the weapon skill, and that you've practiced it. The better you know the weapon you are trying to parry, the better you will parry.
- If you are playing an intelligent race, practice everything you can. One practice is no great loss.

Turning this around, choosing a weapon that another class does not know, when fighting against them, will help a lot. e.g. Staff against an orc is nice.

Also, don't carry lots of stuff if you are a class with the dodge skill, unless you are wanting to bash well at the expense of dodging well.

Gold:
There are a number of areas listed in "help newbie3" where you can find people that will provide you with an easy income for mobs you kill.

Improving:
Get groups to tell you how they are getting from A to B.

Try to do it on your own later. Try to explore the area later. Don't worry if you die. Just remember how you died and don't do it again in the same way.

These aren't anything new, but I'd add:

* If someone attacks you and you weren't expecting it, the vast majority of the time that's a fight you're not going to win. Most of the time, the right thing to do is retreat and evaluate the situation (which may mean "getting the hell out of there")

* Return and teleport potions are overpowered. Don't leave home without one.

* Gold is overpowered. Try to keep someon hand for replacing potions (when you use them), healing poison/disease/blindness, etc.

* If you use a client that supports logging, consider logging every session in its entireity. That way you can:

a. Figure out how you got to some area if you weren't the one leading,

b. Refer back to items you may have identified, but most importantly:

c. Review your PK encounters to learn what you did right or wrong.