ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

As the title says I'm new,just started playing this game yesterday although I've loved roguelike's since back on the Amiga,was pointed in this direction by a post on the Legend of Grimrock forum and I'm glad I found it albeit a little late.

To my main question....I thought it'd be best to play "vanilla" ToME and get a feel for the mechanics (rofl yeah right my Alchemist is lvl 14 and I still don't know my arse from my elbow) but I'd appreciate it if I could get some advice about what,if any,of the mods/expansions or whatever I should install and why plus should I wait til I start a new character in order to use them?

Also any advice at all about playing the game such as a link to a manual for dummies,would be great too.

The modding community is very new; I don't think there are any that I would call "must-haves." Some, like the "no traps" addon just makes your life easier. There are a number of gameplay guides floating around, but none are particularly up-to-date. You may want to check out the character vault to see what builds are popular.

The Cornac Fighter walkthrough is a pretty good guide to the rhythms of early-game TOME. It's a bit outdated (for example, Fighters have since been renamed Bulwarks, and you have to save you category point until level 10 to put it in Battle Tactics or Warcries) but for the most part still works fine.

non of the addons are really "must have". Darkgod does a pretty good job of fixing any glaring errors so most of the addons are just personal preference. Other than tweaks there are some character classes and races you can try out.