Salem

I know I've seen people mention this before, that its needed or strongly advised to have a combat char, that specifically fights. Unfortuantly, like most new players, I've made a jack of all trades like always, and his humors are good enough to kill a bear. I just need to be convinced that I need a combat character, because I'm too lazy to skill one up and such

The thing with combat chars is that they tend to die. It'd be wasteful to risk a character with civilian skills and proficiencies, making one with just the combat skills is much cheaper. And the crafting character will come in handy for making a replacement when your combat character dies.

If you don't intend to fight at all then you don't need combat char. You will simply teleport / log out / run whenever your character is in danger. Danger as in REAL danger of being murdered by other players. Animals are not dangerous. And hunting is not combat i the meaning of combat char.

However, if you want to do any raiding / combat / PvP then you should have such character, as it will die pretty fast most likely. So you don't want to lose all the skills needed to run your camp with that char. Or to lure rangers to your place.

Totally up to you. If you can deal with losing that character, all skills attained and making a new freshly inherited character, then I don't see why you have to.

But having a combat alt is great. You don't have to worry about leaving scents as knowing that character was made entirely for that sole purpose. Skills, combat chars don't need that many only the necessities. Other than that its just a focus on humours, something which I recommend you do first on a combat alt before you start levelling up those proficiencies and gaining those skills.

I'd want to defend myself, would that require a combat char? I mean, defend my homestead?

Yes, because you'll most likely die doing it. Don't let that discourage you, though, because losing a couple of characters is an integral part of learning how to PvP.