Thoughts after a madness win
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2026 4:40 am
Hey, fellow ToMErs, how's it going?
I've recently won madness/roguelike on a Paradox Mage and I feel like sharing the things I've learned on the journey. It's going to be a little bit of a long read, but first, here's my character sheet:
https://te4.org/characters/207036/tome/ ... b75744e8cb
And my entire run, recorded:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUBIzWgsvyx8
Some initial ramblings:
You know, there's a reason why there aren't that many people who played and studied madness difficulty enough to really experience the scope of its ridiculousness. In the eyes of the ToME community it's some sort of an evil game mode, too stressful, too unfair and too demanding to even waste their time on an endeavor so hopeless.
But what exactly is madness? One might as well say it's a different game altogether.
I know, right? That's what I thought before I started seriously and consistently practicing on it. But boy oh boy was I not ready for the many layers of truth behind these words... I started playing this game around nine years ago, and won insane enough times to eventually grow bored of Maj'Eyal. The only mountain left to climb was madness. So, I've put my entire annual leave to grind it as hard as I can in the hopes of finally achieving my dream, winning madness with a normal class (so, not adventurer, wanderer or possessor), and I'm here to tell you the story.
Thoughts on insane->madness transition:
Coming into this difficulty from insane feels like you've just started playing the game, everything is suddenly evil, unfair and unforgiving - again. Frustration is around every corner and you feel powerless - again. Things you were used to, numbers you've memorised, expectations, scenarios, everything is different now. You know the cliché phrase "forget everything you've learned"? It's not perfectly accurate, but it totally feels like it.
Love autoexploring? Forget about it. Doesn't exist anymore. Just unbind the button. Yeah. When you are absolutely sure that the level is cleared, you can slowly right click on your character and select autoexplore. It's that bad.
Comfortable with pressing the rest button frivolously? Think twice, as you might press it and literally lose the run. Mhm. You can die from careless resting... Happened to me a couple of times during my early insane->madness transition period. To give an example, a mindslayer/cursed randboss can mess you up pretty badly on insane, sure. But only on madness will the hunter! trigger when the pesky brat is in the dead zone of your track radius right after you've pressed the rest button. It will then beeline to you at 500% movement speed and double or triple turn you into oblivion. What's the dead zone of the track radius? Well, the hunted "radius" isn't a radius at all. It's a square. The ridiculousness doesn't even end there... That enemy now sets you as their target, gets a glimpse of your location and can alert nearby enemies, which were technically outside of the hunter! range and are completely unexpected. And trust me, on madness, you really don't want such surprises. But regardless of these circumstances you still gotta track diligently either way. You have to. All the time.
The numbers game:
To demonstrate the gap between insane and madness even further I'll talk about the numbers.
For example, Insane difficulty can easily be broken by numbers. Lets look at it from a weapon class perspective: you get 120 defense, et voilà, you are nigh untouchable by 99% of weapon based enemies. And that 1% can be either alpha struck into oblivion or utterly disabled. Perfect strike enemies can be simply walked away from, until it runs out. The only real danger would be weapon based summons, but they don't last. Now, on top of defense, you can also break the game with damage. You can consistently build your character in a way that it would one turn or two turn basically any enemy they encounter. No, I'm not exaggerating. Yes, you can even two turn Elandar without much trouble. Sure, phantasmal shield might not get dissipated and you will three turn him instead.
However, those numbers don't work on madness. Defense requirement is now 160ish, good luck getting that... Stuff in high peak has around 40k hit points, and it goes beyond 100k on some basetypes... Forge Giant or Champion of Uhr'Rok randbosses can have over 150k... Try three turning that... Also, everything deals obnoxious damage and applies a gazillion detrimental effects for 11-18 turns or more. Enemies will have 140-160 defense and/or godly amount of evasion, good luck even hitting that... Enemies can easily have 400+ armor, good luck dealing damage to that... As a weapon class, anyway. Long story short, you can't break madness with numbers, because you won't be getting those numbers, they are way too high to reasonably get without luck most auspicious in the history of Maj'Eyal. I can safely say, that's not going to happen in a real run.
Thoughts on track, out of phase and cauterize:
So, track is a requirement of play on madness. For mem that took some time to sink in, as I previously was in stark opposition to tracking talents in Maj'Eyal. I refused to use them, as well as magical mapping effects on insane difficulty, but on madness, you really can't roll without track. It is what it is.
Another thing I rebuked was out of phase. Yeah, that's crazy, but that's how I rolled on insane. Needless to say, I've had to let go of this prejudice to have success on madness. It really helps you out in t2s and all the way up untill damage penetration becomes somewhat more common on enemies. But even then, it's super useful against enemies that don;t have it.
My final line of mental defense was prejudice towards the cauterize prodigy. You've guessed it, I considered it too powerful and roguelike immersion breaking. Whatever that means. Well, now it's the prodigy. If you really want to be safe on madness, you will always pick it as your second or even first prodigy. You have to. It's that crazy, yes. ~2000 incoming damage after reality smearing, webs of fate and ghoulish resilience can happen already in Reknor or Vor Armoury. One super nasty offender is displacement shield as it ignores stormshields and damage mitigation/smearing. You really need cauterize on madness. Unless you are the literal Satoru Gojo of Maj'Eyal and can do without. Even though on my winner Paradox Mage run it triggered just once, in Rak'shor 3, it was totally worth it. Not only because of this one time, but also because it enabled some specific, potentially risky, but highly beneficial maneuvers throughout the game. As well as kept my sanity intact and my cortisol levels at bay.
Thoughts on madness difficulty spikes:
Difficulty spikes are another thing that hits different on madness. You know how on insane, occasionally, you can meet an enemy in high peak that can turbofuck you regardless if you're not ready? You start having these enemies in Dreadfell now. Imagine having 1000 health, ghoulish resilience, 40% out of phase, a 600 damage shield, 5 stormshield stacks... The grass is green, the sky is blue, you're brimming with joy and it's 1995 and the Donkey Kong Country just came out... It's all gone in one turn and this mindslayer/cursed orc elite berserker randboss with 15k health, 300 weapon damage and his talent level 21 bullshit just left you at 200 health. And this is in Dreadfell, what the heck? Wait, but what about the stormshield stacks? There was a pesky dreadmaster around with his nasty disperse magic and your stacks are gone-zo... It's not an outlandish scenario, dreadmasters are common there, as are mindslayer and cursed enemies. The worst part? Sometimes this kind of craziness starts in Ruined halfling complex...
The Master:
Next, the Master himself can be a massive issue. He can roll golden age of necromancy and always has spell shield and suddenly it's 86is phys save (so stunning him becomes even harder on top of his 70% immunity), 96ish mental save (so there's no way you're reliably beating that with your hat of sanctity) and 114ish spell save, good luck beating that one with whatever. Ok, PM can tune paradox and empower entropy, Archmage has disperse magic, but what does Anorithil, Sun Paladin, Demonologist do? Waste a slot on dissipation, I suppose... Or just fight him as is. Argoniel, Elandar and Linaniil have their saves that high, for the perspective.
My Paradox Mage winner, however, completely shut him down, because he happened to spawn like 10 tiles away from the stair, with no golden age of necromancy, while my character had 100 spell power and a hat of sanctity. My previous PM characters had some trouble with him, though. And the first PM character that reached the Master on madness, died to him.
Thoughts on RNG significance on madness:
Another thing to talk about is the rng impact on this difficulty. Sure, it’s a big thing on insane as well, but on madness it gets to a whole other level. Every time you enter a dungeon from the world map, you can't pre-track, you have to spend a turn on it. That turn, the hunter! can trigger. And it can happen that you're going to be swarmed immediately. The difficulty of the level is now decided primarily by your initial position upon its generation. There is a world of difference between a corner spawn and a center-adjacent spawn on madness. Center spawns are very, very brutal and choices must be made. Sometimes, you have the luxury of getting into the corner. Sometimes you don't, and you gotta start the fight here and now, and face the prospect of more and more enemies joining the "fun", because hunter! triggers over and over. At some point you'll have to retreat/run/reposition, cause otherwise you'll get overwhelmed. Sometimes this dance macabre will last for 40-50 minutes. You'll be running away, and you will have to plan your route very carefully. And even then you will only survive it if you have multiple mobility options, defensive layers, consistent detrimental effect removal, and a reliable way to apply a multitude of detrimental effects upon the enemies.
You're thinking: well there's just a handful of classes that even have such tools... And you're right. Most classes won't be able to beat Dreadfell on madness unless the goddess of fortune herself smiles upon them and bestows them with bounties untold. Dreadfell! Let alone Reknor of Vor Armoury. And let me tell you, if you thought Dreadfell and Reknor were bad... Prides are on a whole different scale of bullshit. You can't even know what you're up against upon entrance, cause track doesn't work there, and just have to assume that a blinkwyrm is going to teleport in at any turn to - you over with disperse magic on its next turn. It can also potentially do both things at once with its super crazy tl 40 essence of speed. That's just crazy, how many things can get out of reasonable control in the prides. And RNG can totally screw you over.
Physical and mental demands on madness:
Yet another layer of the trial is the sheer amount of time and effort you have to put in while remaining in a state of high concentration. I sometimes looked at my playtime after Dreadfell and it would be something along the 15-20 hours line. ~17 hours to beat Dreadfell, Carl! These are ridiculous numbers. The entire run took 64 hours... For the perspective, you would normally win an insane run in more or less 10. This is very exhausting while literally one really bad mistake can end your run which you have put so many hours into. I started taking madness seriously 15 weeks ago, and I've been dedicating all my free time and sanity to the cause, learning, playing, taking some breaks and slowly coming back into the grind. I became completely obsessed about the thing. There was no other option, I had to win. At some point, I had a lvl 50 character going, around 45 hours into the run, who did everything but three remaining prides. And then I started feeling powerful... Let my guard down and forgot I’m playing madness. I’ve lost the specific focus required for it, started - around and immediately found out, and the character was dead. All this time and effort, into the gutter. The emptiness I felt is hard to describe. I couldn't touch ToME for a week. The world lost its colors and the daily routine of life seemed like an unbearable burden. But I had to win. So I gathered my shambles and continued the grind. It really takes some character to win on madness being the marathon it is. And I had to learn it the hard way.
Leftover thoughts:
So... Yeah. Madness is overpowered. Ha-ha. You know, I've never really cared about certain mechanics in ToME, up until this difficulty. For example, runic and infusion saturation. Who the heck cares about it on insane? It's utterly irrelevant, fights don't take 60 turns on insane. Now they do! Imagine that you have +17 turns on the cooldowns of your runes, while that Massok the Dragonslayer you're fighting is not even at 50% of his health. Some protective loopscanbecome so inefficient, it starts getting really dangerous. So, you have to be very considerate of when to use your inscriptions.
Another thing that I barely cared about is calculating battle scenarios 20-30 turns ahead and predicting the enemy AI. I've never done it to such an extent on insane, at least not consistently. Yeah, it could happen very very rarely when I got in trouble and had to think, but trouble on insane is rather mild, compared to trouble on madness. It's like a highly contagious disease there, trouble starts fast and develops into a disaster even faster. What do I mean by "calculating the scenarios"? I.e. you are in Vor Pride 3 entrance and have a hat of sanctity that has a 30 turn cooldown, and there is a couple of high damage dealing enemy spellcasters without disperse magic (who you can shut down with that circle of sanctity), as well as some rare+ non-spellcaster enemies. Track doesn't work well in pride entrances, so you can't really tell when a random archmage with disperse magic or even Vor himself is going to arrive. So, you have to manage these enemies and those high damage spellcasters while waiting for the new enemies to arrive and holding that circle of sanctity, even if it won't happen at all.
By "predicting the enemy AI" I mean that under some circumstances and specific positioning in relation to the player, the enemies are more likely to use certain talents or perform certain actions. And this can be used to your advantage.
And that’s about it, folks. I hope my ramblings are going to help you out on your way to success.
Shoutout to Tradewind_Rider for his trailblazing, he really paved the road for us to walk, not sure how I’d fare without his Paradox Mage guide and his playthrough on YouTube. Thank you for your time. Ciao!
I've recently won madness/roguelike on a Paradox Mage and I feel like sharing the things I've learned on the journey. It's going to be a little bit of a long read, but first, here's my character sheet:
https://te4.org/characters/207036/tome/ ... b75744e8cb
And my entire run, recorded:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUBIzWgsvyx8
Some initial ramblings:
You know, there's a reason why there aren't that many people who played and studied madness difficulty enough to really experience the scope of its ridiculousness. In the eyes of the ToME community it's some sort of an evil game mode, too stressful, too unfair and too demanding to even waste their time on an endeavor so hopeless.
But what exactly is madness? One might as well say it's a different game altogether.
I know, right? That's what I thought before I started seriously and consistently practicing on it. But boy oh boy was I not ready for the many layers of truth behind these words... I started playing this game around nine years ago, and won insane enough times to eventually grow bored of Maj'Eyal. The only mountain left to climb was madness. So, I've put my entire annual leave to grind it as hard as I can in the hopes of finally achieving my dream, winning madness with a normal class (so, not adventurer, wanderer or possessor), and I'm here to tell you the story.
Thoughts on insane->madness transition:
Coming into this difficulty from insane feels like you've just started playing the game, everything is suddenly evil, unfair and unforgiving - again. Frustration is around every corner and you feel powerless - again. Things you were used to, numbers you've memorised, expectations, scenarios, everything is different now. You know the cliché phrase "forget everything you've learned"? It's not perfectly accurate, but it totally feels like it.
Love autoexploring? Forget about it. Doesn't exist anymore. Just unbind the button. Yeah. When you are absolutely sure that the level is cleared, you can slowly right click on your character and select autoexplore. It's that bad.
Comfortable with pressing the rest button frivolously? Think twice, as you might press it and literally lose the run. Mhm. You can die from careless resting... Happened to me a couple of times during my early insane->madness transition period. To give an example, a mindslayer/cursed randboss can mess you up pretty badly on insane, sure. But only on madness will the hunter! trigger when the pesky brat is in the dead zone of your track radius right after you've pressed the rest button. It will then beeline to you at 500% movement speed and double or triple turn you into oblivion. What's the dead zone of the track radius? Well, the hunted "radius" isn't a radius at all. It's a square. The ridiculousness doesn't even end there... That enemy now sets you as their target, gets a glimpse of your location and can alert nearby enemies, which were technically outside of the hunter! range and are completely unexpected. And trust me, on madness, you really don't want such surprises. But regardless of these circumstances you still gotta track diligently either way. You have to. All the time.
The numbers game:
To demonstrate the gap between insane and madness even further I'll talk about the numbers.
For example, Insane difficulty can easily be broken by numbers. Lets look at it from a weapon class perspective: you get 120 defense, et voilà, you are nigh untouchable by 99% of weapon based enemies. And that 1% can be either alpha struck into oblivion or utterly disabled. Perfect strike enemies can be simply walked away from, until it runs out. The only real danger would be weapon based summons, but they don't last. Now, on top of defense, you can also break the game with damage. You can consistently build your character in a way that it would one turn or two turn basically any enemy they encounter. No, I'm not exaggerating. Yes, you can even two turn Elandar without much trouble. Sure, phantasmal shield might not get dissipated and you will three turn him instead.
However, those numbers don't work on madness. Defense requirement is now 160ish, good luck getting that... Stuff in high peak has around 40k hit points, and it goes beyond 100k on some basetypes... Forge Giant or Champion of Uhr'Rok randbosses can have over 150k... Try three turning that... Also, everything deals obnoxious damage and applies a gazillion detrimental effects for 11-18 turns or more. Enemies will have 140-160 defense and/or godly amount of evasion, good luck even hitting that... Enemies can easily have 400+ armor, good luck dealing damage to that... As a weapon class, anyway. Long story short, you can't break madness with numbers, because you won't be getting those numbers, they are way too high to reasonably get without luck most auspicious in the history of Maj'Eyal. I can safely say, that's not going to happen in a real run.
Thoughts on track, out of phase and cauterize:
So, track is a requirement of play on madness. For mem that took some time to sink in, as I previously was in stark opposition to tracking talents in Maj'Eyal. I refused to use them, as well as magical mapping effects on insane difficulty, but on madness, you really can't roll without track. It is what it is.
Another thing I rebuked was out of phase. Yeah, that's crazy, but that's how I rolled on insane. Needless to say, I've had to let go of this prejudice to have success on madness. It really helps you out in t2s and all the way up untill damage penetration becomes somewhat more common on enemies. But even then, it's super useful against enemies that don;t have it.
My final line of mental defense was prejudice towards the cauterize prodigy. You've guessed it, I considered it too powerful and roguelike immersion breaking. Whatever that means. Well, now it's the prodigy. If you really want to be safe on madness, you will always pick it as your second or even first prodigy. You have to. It's that crazy, yes. ~2000 incoming damage after reality smearing, webs of fate and ghoulish resilience can happen already in Reknor or Vor Armoury. One super nasty offender is displacement shield as it ignores stormshields and damage mitigation/smearing. You really need cauterize on madness. Unless you are the literal Satoru Gojo of Maj'Eyal and can do without. Even though on my winner Paradox Mage run it triggered just once, in Rak'shor 3, it was totally worth it. Not only because of this one time, but also because it enabled some specific, potentially risky, but highly beneficial maneuvers throughout the game. As well as kept my sanity intact and my cortisol levels at bay.
Thoughts on madness difficulty spikes:
Difficulty spikes are another thing that hits different on madness. You know how on insane, occasionally, you can meet an enemy in high peak that can turbofuck you regardless if you're not ready? You start having these enemies in Dreadfell now. Imagine having 1000 health, ghoulish resilience, 40% out of phase, a 600 damage shield, 5 stormshield stacks... The grass is green, the sky is blue, you're brimming with joy and it's 1995 and the Donkey Kong Country just came out... It's all gone in one turn and this mindslayer/cursed orc elite berserker randboss with 15k health, 300 weapon damage and his talent level 21 bullshit just left you at 200 health. And this is in Dreadfell, what the heck? Wait, but what about the stormshield stacks? There was a pesky dreadmaster around with his nasty disperse magic and your stacks are gone-zo... It's not an outlandish scenario, dreadmasters are common there, as are mindslayer and cursed enemies. The worst part? Sometimes this kind of craziness starts in Ruined halfling complex...
The Master:
Next, the Master himself can be a massive issue. He can roll golden age of necromancy and always has spell shield and suddenly it's 86is phys save (so stunning him becomes even harder on top of his 70% immunity), 96ish mental save (so there's no way you're reliably beating that with your hat of sanctity) and 114ish spell save, good luck beating that one with whatever. Ok, PM can tune paradox and empower entropy, Archmage has disperse magic, but what does Anorithil, Sun Paladin, Demonologist do? Waste a slot on dissipation, I suppose... Or just fight him as is. Argoniel, Elandar and Linaniil have their saves that high, for the perspective.
My Paradox Mage winner, however, completely shut him down, because he happened to spawn like 10 tiles away from the stair, with no golden age of necromancy, while my character had 100 spell power and a hat of sanctity. My previous PM characters had some trouble with him, though. And the first PM character that reached the Master on madness, died to him.
Thoughts on RNG significance on madness:
Another thing to talk about is the rng impact on this difficulty. Sure, it’s a big thing on insane as well, but on madness it gets to a whole other level. Every time you enter a dungeon from the world map, you can't pre-track, you have to spend a turn on it. That turn, the hunter! can trigger. And it can happen that you're going to be swarmed immediately. The difficulty of the level is now decided primarily by your initial position upon its generation. There is a world of difference between a corner spawn and a center-adjacent spawn on madness. Center spawns are very, very brutal and choices must be made. Sometimes, you have the luxury of getting into the corner. Sometimes you don't, and you gotta start the fight here and now, and face the prospect of more and more enemies joining the "fun", because hunter! triggers over and over. At some point you'll have to retreat/run/reposition, cause otherwise you'll get overwhelmed. Sometimes this dance macabre will last for 40-50 minutes. You'll be running away, and you will have to plan your route very carefully. And even then you will only survive it if you have multiple mobility options, defensive layers, consistent detrimental effect removal, and a reliable way to apply a multitude of detrimental effects upon the enemies.
You're thinking: well there's just a handful of classes that even have such tools... And you're right. Most classes won't be able to beat Dreadfell on madness unless the goddess of fortune herself smiles upon them and bestows them with bounties untold. Dreadfell! Let alone Reknor of Vor Armoury. And let me tell you, if you thought Dreadfell and Reknor were bad... Prides are on a whole different scale of bullshit. You can't even know what you're up against upon entrance, cause track doesn't work there, and just have to assume that a blinkwyrm is going to teleport in at any turn to - you over with disperse magic on its next turn. It can also potentially do both things at once with its super crazy tl 40 essence of speed. That's just crazy, how many things can get out of reasonable control in the prides. And RNG can totally screw you over.
Physical and mental demands on madness:
Yet another layer of the trial is the sheer amount of time and effort you have to put in while remaining in a state of high concentration. I sometimes looked at my playtime after Dreadfell and it would be something along the 15-20 hours line. ~17 hours to beat Dreadfell, Carl! These are ridiculous numbers. The entire run took 64 hours... For the perspective, you would normally win an insane run in more or less 10. This is very exhausting while literally one really bad mistake can end your run which you have put so many hours into. I started taking madness seriously 15 weeks ago, and I've been dedicating all my free time and sanity to the cause, learning, playing, taking some breaks and slowly coming back into the grind. I became completely obsessed about the thing. There was no other option, I had to win. At some point, I had a lvl 50 character going, around 45 hours into the run, who did everything but three remaining prides. And then I started feeling powerful... Let my guard down and forgot I’m playing madness. I’ve lost the specific focus required for it, started - around and immediately found out, and the character was dead. All this time and effort, into the gutter. The emptiness I felt is hard to describe. I couldn't touch ToME for a week. The world lost its colors and the daily routine of life seemed like an unbearable burden. But I had to win. So I gathered my shambles and continued the grind. It really takes some character to win on madness being the marathon it is. And I had to learn it the hard way.
Leftover thoughts:
So... Yeah. Madness is overpowered. Ha-ha. You know, I've never really cared about certain mechanics in ToME, up until this difficulty. For example, runic and infusion saturation. Who the heck cares about it on insane? It's utterly irrelevant, fights don't take 60 turns on insane. Now they do! Imagine that you have +17 turns on the cooldowns of your runes, while that Massok the Dragonslayer you're fighting is not even at 50% of his health. Some protective loopscanbecome so inefficient, it starts getting really dangerous. So, you have to be very considerate of when to use your inscriptions.
Another thing that I barely cared about is calculating battle scenarios 20-30 turns ahead and predicting the enemy AI. I've never done it to such an extent on insane, at least not consistently. Yeah, it could happen very very rarely when I got in trouble and had to think, but trouble on insane is rather mild, compared to trouble on madness. It's like a highly contagious disease there, trouble starts fast and develops into a disaster even faster. What do I mean by "calculating the scenarios"? I.e. you are in Vor Pride 3 entrance and have a hat of sanctity that has a 30 turn cooldown, and there is a couple of high damage dealing enemy spellcasters without disperse magic (who you can shut down with that circle of sanctity), as well as some rare+ non-spellcaster enemies. Track doesn't work well in pride entrances, so you can't really tell when a random archmage with disperse magic or even Vor himself is going to arrive. So, you have to manage these enemies and those high damage spellcasters while waiting for the new enemies to arrive and holding that circle of sanctity, even if it won't happen at all.
By "predicting the enemy AI" I mean that under some circumstances and specific positioning in relation to the player, the enemies are more likely to use certain talents or perform certain actions. And this can be used to your advantage.
And that’s about it, folks. I hope my ramblings are going to help you out on your way to success.
Shoutout to Tradewind_Rider for his trailblazing, he really paved the road for us to walk, not sure how I’d fare without his Paradox Mage guide and his playthrough on YouTube. Thank you for your time. Ciao!