ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Fighting Dreads in Dreadfell, and having hard time(lvl24 shadowblade). The only approach I've found is ladder dancing - hit it with specials until it hurt, retreat, regenerate or wait out hex. Time prison could help with isolation. However I lost life to pack of Dreads, and this approach works only for single(and slow and boring). Am I supposed to fight them at all, or they are like Out of Depth monsters in Crawl - should not be fought but avoided? Are the some special tactic for fighting them? Is it a scaling problem - am I supposed to arrive to Dreadfell earlier, with lesser level?

Postman wrote:Fighting Dreads in Dreadfell, and having hard time(lvl24 shadowblade). The only approach I've found is ladder dancing - hit it with specials until it hurt, retreat, regenerate or wait out hex. Time prison could help with isolation. However I lost life to pack of Dreads, and this approach works only for single(and slow and boring). Am I supposed to fight them at all, or they are like Out of Depth monsters in Crawl - should not be fought but avoided? Are the some special tactic for fighting them? Is it a scaling problem - am I supposed to arrive to Dreadfell earlier, with lesser level?

Unfortunly killing easilly or not them always depend with wich class you are playing. I agree that for melee classes could be harder since you have to get close and be in their spell range. But t's for example very simple kill dreads with Summoner classes or Alchemist or Magic classes (and probably archers). See an example of a lvl25 wilder prepare to kill an lvl56 dreadmaster (with no photoshop.) http://www.imagebam.com/image/52057a114082507
Just easier with some classes than anothers. :/

Basically, there are a few ways you can kill dreads.
- Passive damage (if you stand next to him as a sufficiently gloomy Cursed for long enough and don't die yourself, eventually he'll fall over. Also works, a lot faster, via things like icy skin)
- Spell damage (which ignores defense)
- Having really, really, really good to-hit (which usually isn't going to be worth the investment, as you won't find many other monsters that require that level)
- 5% chance to autohit.

On the flip side, though, if your melee defenses (armor in particular) are good enough, dreads will have a hard time hurting *you*. If you don't have a good dread-killer, though, and your defenses are poor enough that they're a threat, then yes, running away is called for.

I don't think I've ever run into a big pack of them at once - would certainly be very tricky with a melee character. Wands can help a little, and just gradually wearing them down with the odd lucky attack. Unfortunately they're not too easy to escape from as they'll always follow you through walls across the level.

I run into pack only once. But on the Master level I meet Dreadmaster - dread with one big red eye. Didn't even tried to fight him. Just time prisoned, and luckily Master died by himself(look into previous thread)