Dwarven arcane solipsist, how to rescue

[Chattius]

This so far level 25 character was started while examinations for a shoulder surgery and played while recovering from it. I was told to do finger exercises while the arm still in a cast. So i used a trackball and i wanted the character easy without much talent trees. While the start of the character did all this, i am now at a point where i have to scout before each fight just for surviving. Lot of wall digging to do Julius Caesars divide and conquer tactics.
Also i use many items to allow tactical playing, movement runes, to get the enemies close. I accidently took the chromancy tree instead a point in spin fate and since i didn't want to waste it i unlocked it with my first category point. While useless first i now survive mainly for its scouting. But this is time eating and no longer the easy character i wanted.

What i plan is to continue the crazy route and take the 2 shield protegies since successful blocks double the dream smith damage. Is an arcane shield blocking dwarven solipist playable, or will it add to the pain i already have recovering from the surgery?

- Race / Dwarf (mastery 1.00)
Resilience of the Dwarves (generic) 1/5
Stoneskin (generic) 1/5
Power is Money (generic) 4/5
- Technique / Combat training (mastery 1.00)
Thick Skin (generic) 1/5
Armour Training (generic) 3/5
- Cunning / Survival (mastery 1.00)
Piercing Sight (generic) 1/5
- Chronomancy / Chronomancy (mastery 0.80)
Precognition (generic) 1/5
Foresight (generic) 1/5
Moment of Prescience (generic) 1/5
Spin Fate (generic) 2/5
- Psionic / Dream Smith (mastery 1.30)
Dream Smith's Hammer (class) 5/5
Hammer Toss (class) 5/5
Dream Crusher (class) 5/5
Forge Echoes (class) 5/5
- Psionic / Solipsism (mastery 1.30)
Solipsism (class) 4/5
Balance (class) 1/5
Clarity (class) 5/5
Dismissal (class) 5/5
- Psionic / Mentalism (mastery 1.30)
Psychometry (generic) 1/5
Mental Shielding (generic) 1/5
- Psionic / Feedback (mastery 1.30)
Biofeedback (generic) 4/5
Resonance Field (generic) 1/5
Amplification (generic) 3/5
Conversion (generic) 1/5

[Planetus]

I'm playing a dwarven solipsist focusing on Dream Hammer myself right now, though I went AM (haven't gotten it on line yet). What difficulty and mode are you playing on, and what kind of problems are you running into?

Your build looks pretty similar to mine, though I'm only 22 atm. The three big differences I see are:
1.) I have Solipsism at 4/3/1/5, plan to go 5/5/1/5. On a talent based class like Solipsist, I honestly don't see THAT much use out of global speed. It's always nice to have, but if you rely heavily on talents and bump attacks aren't a great option (assuming that without mindstar mastery), you may find turns where your best option is either to move 1 step, or just sit still and wait. The former may be good in situations, but the latter is just a waste. The increased saves from Balance, on the other hand, are always nice to have.
2.) I have 3 points in Mind Sear. I'm running with Everything Unique (though not set to EVERYTHING... yet), so I really needed that damage early on, and it's still useful from time to time, inbetween my dream hammer combos.
3.) Nightmare. I'm currently only 1/2/0/0, and I'll probably only invest 1/5, maybe 2/5, but Inner Demons is KILLER! Speaking of which, what did you do with your second cat point? I see Chronomancy, but was the other cat point spent on an inscription?

Anyway, my tactics against tough enemies are: Hammer Toss to a point right behind them (so that it hits them twice), Mind Sear, if they or anything else has closed distance, use Dream Crusher (if it's them) and then Dream Smith's Hammer (or just that if the close target isn't them), which resets Hammer Toss and Dream Crusher. Then I repeat. If I think it'll be a long fight, I start with Mind Sear and use it between each talent, to do damage while Dream Smith skills are on cooldown. If I think the enemy is really tough, especially high damage and/or ranged, I start off with Nightmare and then Inner Demons (even if Nightmare didn't work). In other runs, I've hit them with Psychic Lobotomy and/or Sunder Mind to lower those mental saves first. Haven't gotten that far in this run, since I really want Dream Smith to be my focus. Also, don't be afraid to pop a Resonance Shield if you need to. It's not 100% damage absorption, but it's nice. Oh, and another note: Dream Walk can be a very nice teleport, even if there isn't an enemy nearby.

With all of that, I've only gotten into negative effects of solipsism a small handful of times, and I have two healing infusions to handle those.

Of course, if you're playing on a higher difficulty, some of that might not be enough.

[Atarlost]

Stop putting points in Spin Fate. Spin Fate is terrible. The first two Chronomancy Talents are okay at what they do and might be worth something, but Spin Fate isn't. Also, read up on the Sunk Costs Fallacy and next time don't waste cat points and just play on as if you'd failed to save the escort because you don't have the generics to spare on an escort category that isn't exceptional. I think you're also over-invested in Solipsism. Dismissal only works against really minor DoTs and is almost certainly not worth increasing your solipsism threshold for. The global speed may not be either. Even the saving throw unification is probably something to delay investing in because all solipsism talents are double edged swords and you have single edged swords to get working first.

I don't think Dream Forge's shield is a real shield even while it notionally exists and therefore won't work with the shield prodigies.

[Planetus]

Wow, I totally overlooked the part on the shield prodigy. Yeah, the Forge Shield is more of a damage shield kind of thing than and equipment shield. If you're talking about Spectral Shield and Eternal Guard for the prodigies, I can't imagine what your stat distribution will be. Spectral Shield takes magic and Eternal Guard takes constitution. Magic serves no purpose to you other than the Spin Fate tree, and I think even there it's only for unlocking talents. Constitutions is a horrible stat in normal characters, but for a solipsist it's doubly bad due to the penalty from the Solipsism tree. You could POSSIBLY justify that stat if you got the Conditioning tree from a Warrior escort, but even then I think you'd only put in enough for all the talents, and even THEN you'd probably be better of just taking the talents from the escort.

Your HP pool, effectively, comes from Wil and heavy investment in the first Solipsism talent. You'll get more HP bonus from items than you could dream of getting from the stat at this point. Of course, if you're planning to meet the prodigy requirements with equipment stat bonuses, which is hard, but doable, then that's not a problem. You'll still need to invest in Strength to equip a shield, and that'll be long-term regardless of whether it's level points or equipment points.