How much ground to cover

[Amberlaine]

This was inspired by this thread discussing whether to open the greater vaults in Dredfell, and in particular by this comment:

ToME is not Angband. Diving as fast as possible for the endgame is not the optimal strategy here.

I've also seen people recommending that, because monsters scale with your level and some areas can be extremely risky, grinding absolutely everything isn't the optimal strategy either. I'm assuming there's a balance.

Is it worth coming back to the vaults after leveling up some? Or back to dangerous situations run away from? Are there other places worth skipping? Farportals perhaps? Bearscape and other DarkGod-whim zones? Does it depend on how quickly you hit level 50?

[HousePet]

Depends on your equipment.
While the game scales to your level, it doesn't check the quality of your equipment, and you levelling up doesn't improve your equipment either.
So you are really doing zones for better equipment.
If you already have excellent equipment, you can skip ahead. If you don't, those side areas are there for getting more loot.

Alternatively, you might find exploring side areas and vaults fun.

[Atarlost]

Scaling matters less than you'd think. Most dungeons have minimum and maximum scaling levels. The most dangerous monsters also have minimum scaling levels of their own. No matter when you go into a dungeon up to the level of the worst out of depth monster it can generate that most dangerous monster will be the same level.

So, for example, The Master has a minimum level. He doesn't get easier just because you skipped stuff. He's higher level than the dungeon's minimum level. For that matter the dungeon can spawn Emperor Wights. They're higher than the dungeon's minimum level. They're higher level than any non-yeek can reasonably be before running out of dungeons to do that aren't even harder than Dreadfell. It pretty much doesn't matter what level you do Dreadfell: the nastiest stuff in the dungeon (excluding particularly nasty rares) doesn't change. Doing every other dungeon in Maj'Eyal except the elven ruins as opposed to doing just quest dungeons will get you a few levels closer to the elites and bosses and make the weaker skeletons and ghouls and vampirs a few levels nastier, but the mooks still won't be as nasty as the elites and bosses. Unless you lack good physical effect removal because higher tier skeletons have dangerously optimized talent sets.

At insane and madness almost everything is rare and that changes things, but on normal and probably nightmare grinding can help get you past trouble spots. Especially if you have a bad experience modifier.