I just ran out of stamina in my first fight! Now I have to rest before I can even move or attack? That's just crazy and I'm not going to be playing this for long if that's how it's going to be. There needs to be pretty strict balance early in the game or even get rid of stamina completely, it's unnecessary.

Don't punish the player for choosing to play your game. I'm here to have fun ultimately, I don't want a real life simulation of what it would be like if I personally got into a life and death battle. And I play roguelikes such as Brogue, so I know where the difficulty should be at. Putting the difficulty in managing stamina is not going to be fun.

I had no choice but to rest and die … zzzzzz … so not fun.

I'm afraid stamina is one of the core mechanics in the game, it would require a complete redesign to remove it (for example adding cooldowns to abilities, removing healing skills and many more changes). As it is now it's purpose is to add additional depth to combat, using abilities require more stamina than a regular attack, but they always hit. It's a tradeoff which you have to make in tougher combat situations, if you spend too much stamina you have to take the turn to rest.

Having said that. In v0.4 there are plans to add modding support and more customization to your experience in the game, which includes removing stamina / fatigue or hunger / thirst for a reduced score in the game.

Yep, so I have managed to survive a bit longer now.  Hitting 'r' at the right times obviously helps which maybe i wasn't using right early on. Or I didn't realize how long it took to shake pursuers. It just felt brutally difficult for the first few games, it was a bit offputting. But I'm definitely surviving longer now.