I seem to have reached an impasse; I'm very low health and the way forward is past two goblins. I have completely cleared everything thus far, and am completely out of healing roots.

Pretty damn unforgiving game if its simple a matter of "restart, lol".

Wonderful game up until this point >_<.

Use health regeneration fountains as often as it's possible. Stairs to the first one are in the bottom-right corner of Ruins of Stonekeep (1st lvl)

Awesome, thanks so much !

The health regen fountains are key in the early game, and later in the game things get easier. You'll get magical healing later on, and magic is much easier to refill than health. The first few floors of the game are probably the hardest part of the game up until the very end which gets tough again. So don't be discouraged by the difficulty in the beginning!

Gonna necro this old thread. But these guys are mostly right. First two floors of Stonekeep it's key to take advantage of the fountains. The one up in the tower previously mentioned is particularly useful. The Goblins/Sharga running around up there? Don't kill them. Go up there with a shield and hang out. Let them hit you repeatedly, heal up at the fountain as needed and max out your block skill. It'll make the later levels easier.

On floor 3 you can get a Runecaster and two runes at x10 y18 2 . One Rune is the lesser healing rune. Just hang out at the mana circle at that location and max out your magic repeat casting firebolt rune. You don't have to hit anything. Just casting it is enough to max out your spell stat really fast. And there's a mana circle on every floor from there on till the Dwarven Clan hall, Ice Realm, and Faerie realms. Between the shield skill, fountains, and magic you shouldn't need herbs anymore. I don't even eat them anymore during playthroughs. They and the health potions are just sorta... Collectables.