ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I just won with an adventurer (here), that took a full investment (5/5/5/5 + boosted mastery) in 5 categories (with a bit in combat training and Harmony), instead of spreading it around as many as 12 categories (plus others). I found that focusing this way helped to make the game more fun (limited tool kit = need more uses for each thing), as well as being quite powerful on its own.

What are other people's thoughts for playing adventurers? Do you focus or dip into many trees?

I tend to double-dip my cat points into my main offensive trees, as one point is usually enough for utility trees.

Spread out, for sure.

There's always some way to make your build at least as good as the +0.2 category modifier would make your impact, for me. Usually, it's notably better.

There's a ton of simple dip skills that have huge impact, like Essence of Speed(which runs off no stat), Dark Ritual/Bloodthirst/Lethality(depends on if you're building Spellpower or not), etc.; I made a big post about the details of that on this forum.

Of course, the real reason is simply that I find it more fun; That I find it more effective isn't all that relevant. Optimized Adventurers are something I'm not likely to bother trying to make on lower difficulties.

But no, I don't find point focusing more effective or more fun, either one.

Still, that's a cool build; I like those choices for a laser focused build, though I wouldn't have ran Dreaming for sure(You're not AM! Pick up a Teleport or CPD, and get a fourth Class option so you're not literally running out of places to put Class points! Or go AM and pick Slime up for the teleport; You already have Equi healing!).

I was thinking that Dreaming was a bad choice too (Mindstar mastery would be better), but I was amazed at how useful it was in the final fight. I opened with a sleep that targeted both bosses, and hit the sorceror. I then brought up Dream Prison, and proceeded to Mindlash the Reaver down to <50% HP (with help) before my psi ran out (and Aeryn activated Irresistable Sun). If I had better Psi recovery, I might have been able to keep Dream Prison up indefinitely, making it a 2v1 fight the entire time.

Also, 5 infusions is very, very nice with Fungal Blood + Fungus tree. I could use any of them for a ~300 HP heal, ~50 x 6 turn regen, and recovering a turn at a later time. There were many times where I would pop a heal, cancel the regen, use Fungal Blood for a second heal and more energy, then use my free turn to do something awesome.

PS: yes, I literally ran out of places to put class points, and had 10 left over.

Oh, Dreaming isn't bad, not at all, don't get me wrong. Sleep and Dream Walk are both excellent moves, and Lucid Dreamer is quite solid too. Never messed with Dream Prison much, but it doesn't surprise me to find out it's pretty good.

And yeah, I don't have a good solid read on Fungal Blood, so I didn't really comment on that. If it worked for you, it worked for you. But yeah, if you're already heavily into infusions, going AM might have been a nice option for you.

Of course, I run non-AM on all sorts of silly people, because I'm addicted to teleports.