ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Finally won this game (on normal/roguelike), thanks to Mex's Archmage guide: http://te4.org/characters/149236/tome/c ... 7c07919233. The character ended up being extremely tanky. Afterwards I went and killed Athamaton, too, without too much trouble.

I changed Mex's build a little bit, but then this was normal, so I guess much more margin for error:
[*] Never got an Anorithil escort quest, so took the worldly knowledge prodigy at level 42. This freed up an inscription slot, which allowed me to go with a wild (physical/mental), heroism, manasurge, and movement. That was a great package.

[*] Got Time prison much earlier than Mex suggests. It's absolutely awesome for stopping escorts from running into their death. Even if you have to deal with 10 monsters at once, while you have this baby to take care of: lock him up in a time prison, and start throwing your fireflash all over the place. The escort will be standing in the burning wake and remain unharmed. Same trick to save the Yeek from Subject Z (which I didn't do on this occasion, don't remember why).

[*]I didn't think that blastwave was all that good, its damage didn't seem to scale very well. I was quite happy to leave it at level 1, and just enjoy the cleansing flames that came with it. I was a few class talents short, because as soon as I got my generic talents from the alchemist quest, the class point quest was completed without my help.

[*]The 5th point in Disruption Shield was still giving me substantial benefits, so I did that. That talent is absolutely crazy!

Now for some completely different class (and I guess higher difficulty level). Any suggestions/recommendations?

Congrats! I think you're seeing the difference between Normal and Madness difficulty with some of these things. Draconic Will isn't really needed on Normal, so taking Worldly Knowledge works out fine. Mex probably had much higher spellpower to scale Disruption Shield to max efficiency without extra levels because you get much better item drops on Madness. You were smart to adjust it to your own situation rather than blindly follow the guide.

I did actually take Draconic Will, and that was awesome, especially before the 1.3 update nerfed it by making it ineligible for Timeless! I skipped out on Cauterize. I had a second life vile, but never ended up using it.

Personally I use the addon that let's you chose your escort type when I am running a build that "wants" a specific tree. Since the addon gives you "random" as an option I consider it pretty fair and usable. Opinions may differ on that.

Well, I guess I am a purist. The random element is there by design - it forces you to be flexible and to adapt to circumstances. I wouldn't even use the item vault, I consider it to be not in the spirit of the game. I love the fact that no two runs/builds will ever be the same.