I believe that you do start with a dagger. It's just terrible and is only good for the bleed damage you'll almost never notice. I go and buy (or steal) a rapier, which is a way way better dagger. And then go and pick fights in the local area until I'm rich and-or bold enough to acquire shoes and a good shield. Then I leave the local area.
I fight with the intention of countering and I take shots when they either fall or I find time to trip them. When you get used to it, it'll seem like it's easy, but 60 hp is as much as you're gonna have for a very long time and sometimes, you being quick and perceptive isn't enough against a good ol' one-shot. So you're right in picking your battles. I often avoid a fight I know I CAN win just because I know how much food it'll cost me to heal and the RNG related to starvation is unkind.
I haven't been playing as much recently so not sure if it was a dagger or short sword but as far as weapons go, yeah, buying or stealing from the local shop is usually better even with the cheapest one as long as you get the right weapon.
I don't know how you can get rich as from my experience, you don't have much option of getting gold except finding some occasionally out in the wild but not much. I think as what the game is generally about, selling the player character is the only way of getting a stable income.
Haven't really encountered any one-shot battles yet or getting remotely close to starvation on my part. I'm either doing something right or wrong, lmao. Anyway, neat to have heard of your in game experiences.
Oh and as far as healing go, I think I just either go rest in the town or camp outside though I haven't noticed how much camping out would cost if any at all, I'll take note of that next time now that you mentioned starving.
The problem with being a thief is that you never have too much food, unlike, say, a ranger, who seemingly doesn't have food problems at all. It used to be that I could farm bits of money from encounters like Ogres, but now I can only get money from finding things like caches and artifacts, and usually get by by stealing sometimes. I must say, it makes a whole lotta sense, but as a thief, I face starvation pretty often. if Silajam had more food readily available, it'd be much different story. (Again, though, I also rest more often than I heal).
I started trying to learn how to succeed as a Ranger, and it seems like that class has food for weeks. I dont know for sure yet if Rangers have this problem, but I hardly have to even think about food as a Ranger--especially compared to the thief. And I put up with the struggle enough to get my thief to 25 before I stop and await the next update.
I just remembered, I never run out of food as a warrior rather. Never got that far with the thief yet so, I really am not sure.
Haven't really gotten that far yet, I'm still not done with the first area though I got a peak of the second area which was the marsh I think or something? I presume that there are multiple areas still that I haven't reached yet. So far, I've played a bit of warrior, thief, then enchantress.
The ranger, thinking about it, I think it kinda makes sense that it always has a surplus of food? As it is generally a class adept to the wilderness or something like that. I imagine it just finding berries and hunting game here and there or so.