ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

OK, what is the easiest mage to play? I always got confused by ToME and all of it's options. I'm an Angband vet and want to get into the more complicated play, but it is SO diffferent from Angabnd. I tried a Zombie Rohanknight Swordmaster once which was pretty easy, but wanted to try a magic user...

You could play a spectre half ogre sorcerer of melkor - those are pretty balls to the wall mage and quiet easy to win with. Ease of play however might be a bit rough as your hp can drop pretty fast.

Not sure about the easiest "type" of mage, but generally it's advisable to pick a Sorcerer as class and then just invest into the skills you want instead of Sorcery. You lose 1% of HP, but get better mileage out of your skill points.

Having said that,a Sorcerer with Melkor as his god is actually probably the easiest even if you're at 50% HP. Put a single skill point into Udun and you'll get Genocide pretty early. Once you have Genocide and Mass Genocide you really have very little to worry about, except on some special levels. If you want extra safety you can add in Thaumatury and hope for a View - Wall Creation spell.

EDIT: Oh yeah, you can also go for 25 points in Symbiosis, wear a Master Q and just summon huge hordes of Ancient Dragons on any special levels where Genocide won't do the trick.

Honestly, the easiest "mage" to play is probably a mindcrafter. You get all of the utilities you need, you get some decent attack spells, you don't have to track books or balance different skills, and so forth. That'll let you get a bit more into the complex play, and then you can work your way to mage from there.

I find the easiest to play is a lost soul deathmold sorceror with ironman rooms. It takes a while to figure out how the DM movement works, but once you have that the rest is easy. DM powers include being able to grab things out of vaults- like rings. With a couple of speed rings, Nenya, and Vilya the game becomes quite easy.

I would say Sorceror as well but then I've never played a Mindcrafter so Sirrocco could be right.