ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

No matter how tanky I try and build my Bulwark there comes a time (usually around the last stage of Daikara) when everything in the world seems to start pelting me with lightning from the other side of the screen for huge amounts of damage. It feels like I'm missing something, should I be lugging around huge amounts of spare armour to swap into when facing specific threats, especially lightning? Should I prioritize elemental resistance above all else? Getting 2 shotted by something at level 18 and starting over yet again is incredibly frustrating and I'm not picking up on what I'm doing so wrong.
Comparing equipment with the umpteen slightly diffrent stats and special abilitys they all have is already the most tiresome aspect of the game for me. Deciding if it's better to have 5% acid defence and +1 Will over 10% nature defence or just better base armour...

For a bulwark, it might be worthwhile to lug some spare shields around. Shields that resist (or inflict) elemental damage can block elemental damage, too (normally, shields only block physical damage).

In general, though, there are way too many elements for you to reliably resist all of them. Instead, try focusing only on elements that you know will be problematic in an upcoming dungeon, such as lightning for Daikara and Tempest Peak.

That being said, getting two-shotted is usually a sign of problems besides just elemental resistance. If you need lightning resistance to avoid dying instantly in Daikara, then odds are good that you'll just end up dying instantly to blight or fire damage in a later dungeon. Could you post a character dump?

The block talent on a shield will block the damage type of any resists or damage it does (so if it says +5% lightning resistance or +10 lightning when hit it blocks lightning). Look for shields with as many element types as possible. Worth swapping between them.
Rush at Talent Level 5 has a range of 10 (same as sight range) so it will close with anything you can see.
A movement infusion is great on a bulwark.
If you take the step-up talent you can move very fast after each kill
Thick Skin talent gives resist all.

Maybe you just need to go someone else first?

If something hit you for big chunk of damage from afar, don't be silly and move in open to kill it. Move to nearest corner and wait for mob to come instead. Also +hp on cloak/belt.

Mewtarthio wrote:Could you post a character dump?

Does the game auto save one on death? I found my characters save folder and it has a TEAG file but I have no idea what the hell a TEAG file is and if it's what I'm looking for. Good news though, it has a lovely screenshot of my death, thanks game!

I'll be sure not to transmogriphy(?) all my spare shields in future, at least it's not lugging around spare plate armour. I have a vague memory of there being a place to stash stuff but damned if I can remember where it is, is it still even in the game?
Thanks for the help, now I have to get back to sending dwarves to their deaths with my incompetence

The key is to change how you approach the situation. I'd suggest prioritizing mobility (definitely use a movement infusion); shielding runes; and using terrain to your advantage. If you duck around a corner they will come to you once they're aware of your existence.

For most classes, the other ingredient is the ability to inflict a lot of burst damage to lower the number of turns that you're in danger.

Combine these tactics and most situations can be effectively dealt with. No class can walk one tile at a time up a tunnel in the face of a giant tossing ranged boulders and spells at them.

EvilAshe wrote:I'll be sure not to transmogriphy(?) all my spare shields in future, at least it's not lugging around spare plate armour. I have a vague memory of there being a place to stash stuff but damned if I can remember where it is, is it still even in the game? Thanks for the help, now I have to get back to sending dwarves to their deaths with my incompetence

If you can make it through the Lake of Nur and what lies beneath its surface,
you'll eventually find a sumptuous home. Meanwhile, before getting there,
you can just dump all your extra equipment in one of the
vaults found in any of the zones, thus you won't need to carry around
tons of gear you have no immediate use for. Inside a vault (past the door
you need to open to enter into it), items are safe and will not vanish.

Trollmire, Kor'Pul and Old Forest often have vaults on their L1,
making for a viable temporary base until you can claim the better one

EvilAshe, there are plenty places in the game which can kill you in a blink of eye if you don't know what's coming. There's a unique that can kill players with over 1200 life, 45% resistance and 50 armor in a single shot. There are pride entrances. And it's the longest Roguelike game I know, clearly not designed with single life permadeath in mind because it has so little variety, mostly no difficulty but occasional BRUTAL spikes that you must know about to survive. Don't feel like examining talents of Nightmare Horror ? There, have Inner Demons.

ToME4 heavily rewards players who read spoilers or have their characters die a dozen or so times.

b0rsuk wrote:ToME4 heavily rewards players who read spoilers or have their characters die a dozen or so times.

You've pretty much described every Roguelike ever. Now, I know you said ToME is longer and has less variety, but I don't think that's entirely true. ADOM is certainly longer and has some pretty complex sidequests, for example. If the OP wants to avoid spoilers, that's his perogative.

I've actually been able to make it to the end of this roguelike, while only a tiny fraction of people can say the same thing for the traditional ones. Is there another roguelike where this isn't true?

FYI, I didn't have to resort to spoilers to figure encounters out. A lot of the powerful class designs, by contrast, are not obvious and I did benefit from reading a bit on how they work. This isn't true for all classes, of course, but figuring out how the heck to make (obscure class) actually work well can be a challenge.

b0rsuk wrote:And it's the longest Roguelike game I know, clearly not designed with single life permadeath in mind because it has so little variety, mostly no difficulty but occasional BRUTAL spikes that you must know about to survive.

That's certainly been my experience. Coming from Crawl, the things that I've always disliked about ToME was it's tendency to murder my characters with little to no warning and it's absurdly cumbersome inventory system with every piece of equipment being overburdened with stats and abilitys.
I like Tome alot, it's my second favourite roguelike after Crawl, but to often I feel like it's confusing complexity with depth.

After posting this topic I actually had my most successful character ever, a level 25+ Bulwark that got murdered in the Volcanic Caldera by some orc wizard that spammed 200+ blight damage after I'd stacked up fire resistance (what with it being a freakin' Volcano though I totally mishandled the situation). Obviously ToME can't be just another Crawl because that would totally cripple the games own (many) strengths and be pointless besides (when I want Crawl I play Crawl), but what Crawl has that ToME lacks for me is a clear understanding on what I've screwed up when I die for the umpteenth time even if it's a mistake I just make again and again anyway, along with a clearer resistance system and the ability to stash useful-in-the-long-term equipment from the start.

THAT SAID if I'd been asked before I'd gotten used to Crawl I'd have probably made the similar complaints about that. Ultimately I have to adapt my play style to the game in question, it's a matter of getting used to it.
I still think having 7/8/9/whatever elements and equipment that may offer 5-15% resistances for various combinations thereof creates a mind numbing nightmare of inventory management though

I tend to ignore the small numbers on things.
5% resistance is just not worth caring about.

What you really need to get anywhere in ToME is meta game experience, not some particular resistance.

There are loads of ways of countering each individual threat. So learning how to recognise and react to the threats is the first thing to learn.
Coming from Crawl, you might be skipping this step, and are applying what you learnt from Crawl about recognising and dealing with threats.
In my experience, you need to forget everything you have learnt from other games, before you can truely learn how to play a new game. Especially in roguelikes.

HousePet wrote:I tend to ignore the small numbers on things.
5% resistance is just not worth caring about.

What you really need to get anywhere in ToME is meta game experience, not some particular resistance.

There are loads of ways of countering each individual threat. So learning how to recognise and react to the threats is the first thing to learn.
Coming from Crawl, you might be skipping this step, and are applying what you learnt from Crawl about recognising and dealing with threats.
In my experience, you need to forget everything you have learnt from other games, before you can truely learn how to play a new game. Especially in roguelikes.

I think this is the important point. There are so many classes of resistances, etc. that you simply can't defend against all.

The key things are

Almost all classes have a cheap basic skill to inflict a lot of damage; maximize it. There is a tendency to spread out and get level 1 of everything. This makes your character bad at everything.
Have a way of dealing damage at range or a way of closing gaps (movement infusion, rush, etc.)
Have an escape mechanism and ways of removing (early) or blocking (late) bad statuses. If you're properly positioned (to avoid multiple enemies whacking at you) you get breaks between blasts. The key is to be able to recover and inflict damage in these gaps.
Have ways to inflict useful statuses on enemies (e.g. blind, stun, confuse).
Use terrain.
FYI if resists, etc. are frustrating you run a dwarf and stack saves. It actually blocks most of the bad stuff most of the time. This has changed - earlier versions had saves being pretty useless and required 100% stun, confuse, blind resist or you were in bad shape. Thankfully this is different now.

Gear for me is more grabbing extra abilities (blind enemies near me, teleport, give my fighter a ranged attack) and less about elemental etc. resists. I do keep an eye out for gear with big blind / stun / confuse resists or lots of saves, as they're handy. Things like health bonuses are hugely useful too.

Mewtarthio wrote:

b0rsuk wrote:ToME4 heavily rewards players who read spoilers or have their characters die a dozen or so times.

You've pretty much described every Roguelike ever. Now, I know you said ToME is longer and has less variety, but I don't think that's entirely true. ADOM is certainly longer and has some pretty complex sidequests, for example. If the OP wants to avoid spoilers, that's his perogative.

Don't be unfair to other roguelikes. Games like POWDER or DCSS try to be fair the first time around. In POWDER, you can examine a monster to see how dangerous it is relative to you. It works well for most part and there are few surprises of the "foo hits you for 2/3 of your health" variety.

EvilAche, your 1st mistake is playing Bulwarks. Bulwarks, like minotaurs, trolls or orcs desensitize you. But they're worse than those races: the most dangerous attacks in this game are ranged, magical, and rarely physical. Bulwarks only really get resistance to melee (and not all of it) and archers (skeleton master archers and heavy bone giants are dangerous, but very rare). Their damage output is LOW.

In ToME4, it's extremely hard to gather all resistances. Try playing a class with high damage - 2H weapon or dual wield. It feels like you're playing a hasted character, you are hit by fewer spells because you give enemies less time to act. Wyrmics, Cursed with Rampage, Marauder if you can unlock it, Reaver. Berserker is okay, quite tough but doesn't deal as much damage as you'd think.