New here.

[brsieg]

I just got some basic questions after reading the manual and how-to

1. what's the most efficient way to get food early?

2. best choices for skills early.

also,what do skills like exploration do?

[murphylawson]

those attributes are caps for crafting, you can use the best materials you want but if the required attribute is too low, you can't make a high quality product. Exploration however is used in tracking and also for foraging, where exploration*perception decides what and how many roots and berries you find. Stealth is used for criminal acts, leave it alone for now. Best way to get food early on is to gather apples mulberries and hazel nuts in broad leaved forests. I recommend that you get hunting as an early skill and settle in a grassland moor or heath, then catch chickens and rabbits. Hearth magic is good so you can build a new hearth fire, carpentry is also good so you can build a house when you settle down. Farming is good fro when you manage to either find ruins to loot for seeds or wild wind-sown weeds. Fishing isn't too great actually in my experience. Do NOT buy swimming!

[tristamizumi]

"Hunt" rabbits and chickens. Just be sure to cook the meat. Collect spindly taproots, blueberries, and chantrelles.

Hunting, Foraging, Plant Lore, Farming, Lumberjacking, Carpentry, Fishing, among others.

http://havenandhearth.wikia.com/wiki/Haven_and_Hearth_Wiki

[brsieg]

thanks for the replies, another question, are there any ways to tell if a boar is nearby? i've been ninja'd by two of them (as in, they jumped from behind a tree and 1hitted me)

[murphylawson]

that is why I recommend setting up your camp in grassland moor or heath, no boars, the only way to tell if they are nearby is your character limp on the ground surrounded by blood.

[Twerp]

Boars are unstoppable murderbeasts. Learn to keep an eye out for a telltale tusk or tuft of brown fur peeking out from behind a rock or a tree, ravenously anticipating the opportunity to stomp on a newbies head and eat his shoes. You can allegedly escape them by running far enough, but I've never managed to shake a pursuit before running out of stamina and getting stomped. Try to build a boat and keep it on a nearby river, those seem to be the only reliable method for evasion. Though I hear hiding in the extended shallows of a lake also works.