

Armour is tracked for a lot of small individual areas, so if your opponent is wearing an open helmet without a visor you can absolutely stab them in their unprotected face for massive damage. Sword thrusts can do alright damage through chain, but will do fairly little against plate (though there are some advanced moves that target gaps and weak spots). Sword slashes against metal armour will do almost nothing.

Spend a few minutes killing a bunch of hares and deer and get a boatload of valuable meat. Using the water buckets in front of many buildings will remove the worst dirt, but you need to visit the baths every now and then to launder your clothes and armour to get them completely clean. If you're dirty and covered in mud, everybody will think less of you. If you wear heavy armour and fearsome (ideally bloodspattered) weapons, you'll be better at intimidation. If you wear particularly fancy clothes, you'll do better in speech tests. Consider using a mod to make it less of a nuisance. The minigame for lockpicking is kind of dire.When the priest in Uzhitz invites you to come drinking, say yes.Doing that will get you a reasonable set of starting equipment, a horse, and a couple of tutorial sessions for important things like combat, archery, and hunting.

It's probably a good idea to postpone most open-world stuff and follow the main quest until it brings you to a place called Neuhof and resolved the issue there. The first part of the story serves as an extended tutorial/introduction.
