The damage the kamikaze dwarfs can do is a set amount, not affected by anything but the proximity to the explosion and the amount of explosives the dwarf is carrying, so if you have a highly enchanted cloak of fire resistance (which I always do due to mines in GC) and maybe some rings of fire resistance you should be ok for kamikaze dwarves unless you get mobbed by them or are being an idiot and carrying combustibles around without a chest.
Personally I found the Orcs and Golems more of a problem.

Then again all that goes to crap when the mystic dark frogs appear and proceed to magically strip you of all your equipment and/or debuff it.

Also on the topic of permanent stats: permanent invisibility + being polymorphed into a golem of a decent material = win.

You buy things from the library?

*is a filthy exploiter of the vandalism glitch there*

You can't really feign being surprised on the internet like that, BDR.

I actually do, I don't use the kick-stuff-from-the-library-then-sell-it-again trick.

I buy from the library because I want to save the scrolls for when they'll really be useful, and by that point I have more gold than I know what to do with.