The Best Early-Game Loadout in Dragonwilds

 

    Dragonwilds ranks nearly every weapon, armor piece, shield, and cape by a Power level stat, and the wiki's own crafting-requirement tables show exactly what each one costs to build. That means the "best early-game loadout" isn't a guess — it's whatever sits at the lowest Power level and uses materials you can gather with your bare hands and a crafting table, before you've smelted a single bar of bronze. Below is that loadout, item by item, with the numbers behind each pick.

 

Your first weapon: Stone dagger or Stone club

 

 

    Only two weapons in the entire weapon list carry Power level 1: the Stone dagger and the Stone club. Both are crafted at the crafting table — the very first station, no forge or bench required.

 

• Stone dagger: base damage 7–18 (midpoint 12.5), attack combo 7, Block value 13. Materials: 8 Stones, 4 Ash Logs (12 items total).
• Stone club: base damage 14–24 (midpoint 19), attack combo 5, Block value 13. Materials: 8 Stones, 6 Ash Logs (14 items total).

 

    The table's Block column is undocumented for weapons — only shields define Block as damage reduction, so treat "13" as a raw figure, not a confirmed stamina cost.

 

    Doing the arithmetic on damage-per-material spent: the dagger works out to about 12.5 ÷ 12 ≈ 1.04 midpoint damage per item gathered, while the club is 19 ÷ 14 ≈ 1.36 — roughly 31% more damage for each unit of Stone or Ash Log you spend (1.36 ÷ 1.04 ≈ 1.31). If you only want to farm one weapon first, the Stone club gives the better return on materials; the dagger's edge is its higher attack-combo rating (7 vs. 5) and lower total material cost (12 vs. 14 items). One hedge worth flagging: the wiki notes that "Attack Combos shown include the bonus attacks awarded by Weapon Expertise, unlocked at 16 Attack" — a fresh character without that skill will see fewer combo hits than the 7 and 5 listed above.

 

Your first armor: the Reinforced set

 

 

    You start wearing the Adventurer's tunic and Adventurer's leggings (8/8/8 melee/ranged/magic defence each, crafted from 9 and 6 Coarse Animal Fur respectively) — the Miscellaneous Armour table that lists them doesn't carry a Power level column at all, so that starting set can't be numerically ranked against Power-level-rated gear; treat its rank as undocumented.

 

    The first Power-level-rated set is the Reinforced set (Power level 2), and — like the starting weapons — it's craftable at the same crafting table, no armour bench needed:

 

• Reinforced helmet: 6 melee / 4 ranged / 3 magic. Materials: 4 Animal Bones, 2 Leather.
• Reinforced body: 15 melee / 9 ranged / 8 magic. Materials: 10 Animal Bones, 8 Leather.
• Reinforced legs: 9 melee / 6 ranged / 5 magic. Materials: 8 Animal Bones, 6 Leather.

 

    Full set total: 22 Animal Bones + 16 Leather for 6+15+9=30 melee / 4+9+6=19 ranged / 3+8+5=16 magic defence. The melee-armour intro also documents a set-bonus scale that applies once you're wearing pieces from the same class: 1 of 3 pieces gives "-33% Block stamina cost," 2 of 3 gives "+50% Crit chance after blocking," and the full 3 of 3 gives "+25% Damage to staggered targets" — all three Reinforced pieces are melee-class, so a full Reinforced set clears that bar and unlocks all three bonuses.

 

Your first shield: Torch, then Wooden shield

 

 

    You start with the Torch equipped in the off-hand slot — the wiki lists it explicitly as the "Starting shield upon character creation." It's Power level 1 with a block value of 5, built from 1 Ash Log and 1 Coarse Animal Fur.

 

    The very next upgrade is also Power level 1: the Wooden shield, block value 26, crafted from 10 Ash Logs at the same crafting table. That's 26 ÷ 5 = 5.2× the block value of the Torch for the cost of 10 Ash Logs and zero Coarse Animal Fur — arguably the single best material-to-defence trade in this whole loadout, and it doesn't even require leaving Power level 1.

 

Your first cape: the Tattered cape

 

    The cape table's intro is explicit that capes are "mainly cosmetic," giving only minor defensive bonuses. Most capes carry a flat 2/2/2 melee/ranged/magic defence, but almost every one of them requires either a quest reward, a vestige purchase, or a specific PATTERN item — none of which are available to a fresh character.

 

    The one exception on defence is the Tattered cape: 0/0/0, the only 0/0/0-defence cape in the table — every other cape carries 2/2/2 or higher (Fire and Obsidian run 4/4/4). It's craftable at the crafting table with no quest, vestige, or pattern prerequisite — not uniquely, though: the Community cape and Umbral Sands cape are also 2/2/2 with no such requirement. The Tattered cape's real edge is its zero-cost defence tier plus that recipe, not exclusivity of unlock. One gap to flag: the capes table lists no materials column, unlike the weapon and armour tables above, so the Tattered cape's exact item cost is undocumented here — check in-game at the bench.

 

Craft the Stone club or Stone dagger first — both cost 8 Stones plus a handful of Ash Logs. Swap your starting Torch for a Wooden shield the moment you have 10 spare Ash Logs; it's a 5.2× block upgrade at Power level 1. Save Animal Bones and Leather for the full Reinforced set rather than spending them piecemeal on one piece at a time, so you land the full 3-of-3 melee set bonus in one trip back to the crafting table. Grab a Tattered cape last — it's cosmetic, so it costs you nothing in priority.

 

Running your own Dragonwilds server

 

    Once you and your group are past the Power-level-1 gear above, a dedicated server keeps your shared crafting-table stockpile, vaults, and world state running even when the host logs off — useful the moment more than one person is farming Stone, Ash Logs, and Animal Bones for the same loadout. A gamever Dragonwilds server applies updates automatically, takes one-click backups before anyone touches anything risky, and stays up 24/7 so nobody has to re-fight the early gearing grind from scratch after a restart.

 

    Want your whole group gearing up together from day one? Rent a Dragonwilds server at gamever.io — instant setup, automatic backups, and 24/7 uptime. Start with a free trial and use promo code WELCOME.

 

Conclusion

 

    The actual best early-game loadout in Dragonwilds isn't a matter of taste: it's the Stone club or Stone dagger, a full Reinforced armor set, a Wooden shield to replace your starting Torch, and a Tattered cape. The weapon, armor, and shield picks are all Power level 1 or 2, and every item in the loadout is craftable at the crafting table alone; the Tattered cape's own Power level stays undocumented, since the capes table carries no Power level column at all. Gather Stone, Ash Logs, Animal Bones, and Leather first, and you can have this entire loadout assembled before you ever need to visit a blacksmith's bench, fletching bench, or armour bench.