ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

This place. This place is such a colossal pain in my ass.

Level 18 Dwarven Beserker - 2 hit by some rogue on level 2.
Level 19 Yeek Archmage - violated by a multihued drake/vampire combo on level 4.
Level 20 Higher Summoner - backpedaled into a trap on level 7.

In case you havnt figured it out Ive died every time in one of those sealed off monster vaults.

From what Ive read its strongly hinted that this stupid tower has a brutal boss. My theory was do the monster vaults for XP. Now Im thinking of just skipping the damn things until later. Is this viable?

Really wanna see this 'Far East' others speak of... :p

OneoftheLost wrote:In case you havnt figured it out Ive died every time in one of those sealed off monster vaults.

From what Ive read its strongly hinted that this stupid tower has a brutal boss. My theory was do the monster vaults for XP. Now Im thinking of just skipping the damn things until later. Is this viable?

That's not just viable, that is what everybody recommends.

Dreadfell is the first place Greater Vaults appear. Greater Vaults are what Darkgod puts in the game when he feels he's been too nice lately and needs to harvest a nice crop of player tears. The general advice is never open a vault unless you are ready to die and very powerful for your area. So yes, skip all the vaults.

As for The Master, I've never had a ton of trouble with him. Then again, I tend to run powerful enough builds that I open vaults, so perhaps it won't help much. Just know two bigs things about him-he summons a lot of minions, so be ready for that, and he resurrects once when you kill him. Always, always, always have at least two escapes when you fight him, and if possible try to clear the entire floor before trying to deal with him so you don't have to worry about other monsters. Zig-zag tunnels are your friend.

The vaults are definitely a challenge. They can offer a lot of XP and good loot, but if your goal is to get to the Far East, I'd say yeah, skip them. Or at the very least, clear the level, hit Rod of Recall, wait until it only has a few turns left, and then open the vault. If you're pretty confident you can take what you find, right-click recall off and start clearing very, very cautiously. The difficulty of the vaults is even more variable than the dungeon itself, so you can easily breeze through one if you get lucky of find yourself absolutely flattened.

Dreadfell vaults are trying to kill you.

They're mean and nasty and you don't need to open them immediately, or in fact ever.

D.A.R.E. to Just Say NO to Dreadfell vaults.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education to Just Say NO to Dreadfell Vaults?

Red wrote:Drug Abuse Resistance Education to Just Say NO to Dreadfell Vaults?

Keep your drug habits out of this nice clean forum, please.

Obviously what I'm talking about is Dreadfell Asskicking Resistance Education.

I can't think of a single time I entered Dreadfell with as low leveled a character as level 20. Perhaps you should try exploring some of the rest of the continent first.

The only zone you might not want to do is Melinda's Crypt. Depending on your build, this varies from relatively easy to a pretty even chance of dying. (And depending on race, you might not even get this before Dreadfell.)

As a side note, how on Earth did you even get a Yeek to Dreadfell by 19? They've got a freaking 15% exp BONUS. I know some speedrunners like drop out of their starting zone and sprint like hell for it, but I usually assume speedrunners have beaten the game once or twice or five hundred times.

Ah, that's part of your problem. ToME is not Angband. Diving as fast as possible for the endgame is not the optimal strategy here.

Don't open dreadfell vaults unless you are quite confident in your character. Period.

For a bit more exposition. You are most likely going to either get a vault that is kinda "meh". Or you are going to get an extremely nasty super overleveled vault with level 60 demons trying to kill you. The "meh" vaults that you could do are not worth the risk of the nasty dreadfell vaults unless you are running a rather nice build or are an extremely good player or both.

Edit: yeah I wasn't paying attention level 18 dreadfell is way too early. I think I am usually about level 26-28.

cctobias wrote:Don't open dreadfell vaults unless you are quite confident in your character. Period.

Or quite happy risking death!

There's nothing wrong with playing risky, unless you care about actually winning.

Obviously this guy wants to win, so he should stop with the risky play.

Personally, I now do Dreadfall vaults when I go after Pale Drake. I suspect it would be more optimal to come out of Reknor without portaling and do the Elven Ruins, Grand Corruptor, and Dreadfall vaults before going East so the loot is still useful, though.

There can be ludicrously dangerous stuff in the Dreadfell vaults even if you wait. There was like a Level 60+ Spider Boss in one that was impossible for me to kill no matter when I visited him.

What dificulty were you on, Karusuman? I do the vaults every time (risky, but I run high-powered builds) and never once found anything that deadly.

Normal. I honestly couldn't believe it myself, I think my game just bugged on that run.