How to get the character to 20th level

[grouchy]

As this is my very first post, let me say that ToME really is a blast! I am flabbergasted by its amount of content, fluid combat and deep story. It is really amazing to see such high quality game being released for free in a hope people would donate anyway (I donated, by the way ). All the best to its creator, maintainers and developers.

As you may have guessed, I have a question, I hope you don't mind.

Problem is I can't get past character teen levels.

Let me elaborate on this. For me, to be efficient in ToME one needs to learn intricacies of races and classes (that's the major point which makes this game as great as it is). So far, I tried to classes -- berserker and cursed. Both are fun to play, the former being significantly easier, mainly due to its bonuses to life gain and sheer attack power. Cursed is also a lot of fun, but it's more subtle and requires more than your average hack & slash approach which, I find, berserker suits nicely.

Most of my characters were dwarves.

Anyway. As I said, I would play single race and class till I get efficient. Usually this boils down to picking "Play the same character" once he dies.

This is fine with me -- I learn all the highs and lows of particular race/class combo. I may say I am now pretty efficient with playing both berserkers and cursed, at least at the beginning; I know which perks develop as first and which suits my play style better. This is to say I have read most of the guides scattered all over the internet.

The problem is I can't get past second tier dungeons and I can't really find a way round it. See, first-tier dungeons are pretty easy once you get that going; for the cursed "get that going" happens later but once it happens, nothing in tier 1 dungeons can stop you.

I get stuck on tier 2 dungeons. With my most successful cursed, I got trounced in the Old Forest (it was very first level 2 zone); with my berserker, I made it through The Maze, Old Forest and the Sand Worm, only got killed in Daikara.

Now, the questions.

1. How do you guys beat level 2 zones? Should I, for example, farm ambushes, hoping to gain levels through this way? This could work, I guess, but is barely elegant approach and, as such, I don't find it fun.
2. Is the fact that I get killed in level 2 zones caused by that I don't develop my characters the way I should? Don't wear appropriate gear? I rarely -- if ever -- visit shops, that's a fact, maybe I should do it more often?
3. Do I grind?
4. In the guides it says one should always have a way of escaping. Cool -- I do escape, and then what? Do I enter the same dungeon or descend into different one? What if in all level 2 zones I get badly beaten and had to retreated from all of them? Where would I go now?

In general: how do I get past character teens?

Thanks in advance.

[HousePet]

This is a very common place for people to get stuck.
Most common mistakes are:
Playing on Roguelike mode. It makes it hard to learn from you mistakes and the game is designed for Adventurer mode.
Doing what the quest journal says to do immediately. Do some exploring and ay attention to the zone difficulty messages.
Not understanding how to use Inscriptions properly. An extra inscription slot is usually the best use of your first category point.
Spreading talent points too thinly.
Not understanding status effects.

A few other tips:
When people say use escapes, they mean tactical repositions. You don't need to flee to the other side of the continent.
When you die or get stuck, consider going shopping. It could be your equipment is sub par.

[Radon26]

the shortest answer would be: "survive and gather experience, and you will get there eventually."

other than that -
1) be aware. while most enemies are trash, they can add up if they manage to surround you.
also, if you see an enemy with a red frame, its a rare. and purple is a boss, or a randboss.
right click and inspect the creatures to read what they are capable of.
2) items generally, the higher the tier of the item the better it is. however, make sure it is the correct type, with stats that you want.
you are not going to put a great sword on an archmage.
3) vision and planing. abilities like "track" or "arcane eye", put together with "vision" or "earth's eyes", allow you to plan your engagements before you inevitably step into a room of rare ghouls.
4) grind while not necessary, it does help to check all the tier (not lvl) 1 zones, for the experience, and the items you will get out of it. leave the S.caves and the camp for the last.
5) read this, pls.
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=45069

edit.
regarding HP's mention of shops.
you mostly go there for abilities rather than stats.
rushing boots, gloves of dispersion, belt of undeath/hat/leather of the fish, torque of psychcoportation/mindblast/psionic shield, and other tactical assets.
although you might find an item that is "just that awesome", that it doesn't need these tactical assets, you are probably unlikely to have the money at that stage.
otherwise its "you will find better eventually so no need for just a little stat boost".

[grouchy]

Oh boy. Pardon spelling errors, I was writing that in kind of a rush (not to mention English is by far not my native language but I do try so please bear with me).

Roguelike vs. Adventure -- was the game really designed to be played on Adventure mode? Note, I am used to dying; you know, ten years or so ago I would play ADOM, to the death. I have few wins under my belt and there is no such thing as adventure mode in ADOM (at least it held truth then). While adventure mode is more forgiving, I admit, it is not that satisfying, at least for me.

Now I play Carnacs -- the extra cat is spent on infusion slot. Fast leveling also does help. They still die but that's only due to my recklessness.

Re spending talents too thinly -- can you elaborate on that? In the guides, particularly that on Cursed, they would say to invest in as many spells/perks as possible.

Re escaping: when I am in need of retreating, I then usually find that the mob was to demanding for my character even when he was fully rested. Hence, I would wander to other zone, only to learn its boss is as demanding. This way I find myself running out of places to go => no means to level up. This happens too often when I play Cursed; Berserkers are like tanks and I have no problems leveling them up to 15-16 level or so. With Cursed, I made it once or twice to teen-ish.

And let me say again that ToME is simply awesome.

Thanks!

[Micbran]

Roguelike Vs. Adventure: it's all personal preference. Some people prefer adventure because they make a lot of mistakes and aren't that careful (me!) while others prefer roguelike because they value the one life to a higher degree and thus are extra careful.

Cornacs are my go-to race and are pretty strong. Just make sure you utilize that extra inscription slot on covering up your classes weaknesses. Lack of escapes? Teleport/Controlled Phase Door/Movement. Lack of sustain? Regen/Healing. Need to shore up your effective hp cause you have low life? Shielding. Lack of status cleanse? Physical wild (the rune versions aren't that great imo, at least compared to the all resist that a wild gives you).

I heard you're supposed to spend your talents thinly... More talents = more stuff to use in different situations. But I suppose you should still bring the talents you use most up to a decent level like 3 or 4.

Cursed have a rough early game. But... Besides that, most bosses DON'T regenerate. So, if you run away enough you'll eventually get them. In theory. Also, when building your character, always think of what your next obstacle is. Whether it be cold resist for The Master, physical resist and knock back resist for the boulder throwers, it's always good to keep what you need to build in mind.

Edit: And also, +HP gear is fantastic.

[HousePet]

It is intended that Adventurer mode is the standard, as since a lot of it is randomly generated it is entirely possible for something to happen which you couldn't have avoided. So you get a few lives to deal with these situations. You only get a few extra lives on Adventurer mode and it is still a challenge to win the game, but the extra lives give you an opportunity to try different tactics against what killed you. This is a great way to learn how to play the game.

You can only use one talent per turn (ignoring speed modifiers), so having 10 different activatible talents isn't going to help much if the enemy can beat you in 4 turns. That is how you can spread points too thinly. Where you likely do want to spread thinly is the passive talents, as they don't have a turn cost and tend to have bigger returns from the first point spent.

I would also suggest not playing Cursed until you have got better at the game. (I also don't recommend using guides, but anyway...)

What order are you doing the dungeons in?

[Coldbringer]

You're going to have a really hard time learning the game if you play on masochist mode - Roguelike. As a ADOM player myself, I'm grateful to have the option of multiple lives so I can get a feel for my character class and get used to them before finally being defeated. They are very nuanced here in TOME and there are multiple ways to play them.

It would be helpful to know what monsters/areas are killing you.

One of the best defenses is the torques you find or buy from the store that reduce all damage from multiple elements. The one that reduces physical damage IMHO is the best in the early game.

Secondly have a healing/regeneration/shielding inscription, a teleportation/phase door/movement inscription, and a status removal inscription. Some races & classes have good skills to remove negative statuses or escape or recover HP on their own so you can skip those inscriptions. Or you may find an item that grants you a skill that fills these needs.

Thirdly, use terrain to your advantage. Run back around corners, heal up, get negative status off, and then restart the battle. Keep opponents debuffed as much as possible with stun, confuse, torment ect.

[dukereg]

I get stuck on tier 2 dungeons. With my most successful cursed, I got trounced in the Old Forest (it was very first level 2 zone); with my berserker, I made it through The Maze, Old Forest and the Sand Worm, only got killed in Daikara.

Yeah you are in the hard bit of the game, for Cursed at least. (I never won berserker.)

Re. races:
I know from both hearsay and personal experience that you can win with Cornac Cursed without being particularly skilled at the game, usually by getting Rampage at level 1. I'd recommend retrying that until you win.

1. How do you guys beat level 2 zones? Should I, for example, farm ambushes, hoping to gain levels through this way? This could work, I guess, but is barely elegant approach and, as such, I don't find it fun.

No way. You never need to farm anything as a Cornac. As long as you are thorough in clearing out most of the actual dungeons, you will be max level entering the lengthy later part of the end game.

2. Is the fact that I get killed in level 2 zones caused by that I don't develop my characters the way I should? Don't wear appropriate gear? I rarely -- if ever -- visit shops, that's a fact, maybe I should do it more often?

If you just wear the best gear you find, you should be fine. I only visit inscription shops, but I often have to visit all of those to find anything decent. (I also visit zigur's torque shop for torque of psychoportation if I'm not going to have other ways of teleporting e.g. as antimagic character).

3. Do I grind?

Well you don't have to farm anything, and you don't have to open vaults unless you want to, but you should completely clear everything else early game. Order is the most important thing; if you do them in the right order you're usually good enough to handle whatever they throw at you, but if you go somewhere too early you can get ganked or (worse) stuck unable to proceed.

There is a good reason optimal zone order threads exist; zone order is (in my opinion) one of the main predictors of whether your run will succeed or not.

4. In the guides it says one should always have a way of escaping. Cool -- I do escape, and then what? Do I enter the same dungeon or descend into different one? What if in all level 2 zones I get badly beaten and had to retreated from all of them? Where would I go now?

That is the worst case scenario. You want to either do something easier and come back later, or go back straight away because something has already changed about the situation to give you an edge (e.g. you killed his posse and you can take him one on one, you were caught by surprise and this time you can ambush him).

If neither of these are true... you'll be like me and abuse the game mechanics next time. What you do is find out which bosses are the most annoying. Then you beat their dungeon until you reach their level and then leave to do all the other early game content. (I routinely do this for Subject Z and The Master.)

Otherwise you just go until you hit something dangerous and then come back later. It's worth starting Dreadfell in particular long before you intend to complete it, because the uniques you encounter at random in there can get you stuck if you leave it too late.

[cttw]

Here are grouchy's top killers:

orc archer 15 kills
orc warrior 10 kills
orc soldier 7 kills
Bill the Stone Troll 5 kills
Prox the Mighty 3 kills
skeleton mage 2 kills
war hound 2 kills
Gehhad 2 kills
Norgos, the Guardian 2 kills
dozing giant venus flytrap 2 kills

Walking towards an archer is to be avoided. If you can't rush them somehow, the better way is to walk back around a corner and wait for the archer to walk to you.

[Zicher]

There's also a small thing to consider when learning new talents instead of improving already known ones: More talents means more targets for stunlock. Stun always puts four random talents on cooldown, and the more talents you have, the better chance that your escape option doesn't get stunlocked. This is also a good reason for learning talents from escorts, even unneeded ones, instead of picking stat points.

Oh, and it's nice to see so many ADOM players here.

[grouchy]

Hi.

Thanks for the feedback. All you say is deeply appreciated.

Re ADOM: I used to play first versions of ADOM, before Thomas introduced the talents/perks system. First version I played was a late gamma, even before 1.0.0 -- and this was the version I achieved all my victories on. Few weeks ago I purchased newly released Steam version, played it for an hour and requested a refund -- it was a frustrating experience to say, the least: 80-ishy keybindings, lagging and randomness beyond any control. Moreover, now that I forgot most of its nuances after all that years, I came to realize that ADOM is unplayable without spoilers. Not to mention how one can win witout spoilers -- I can hardly imagine that.

But the thread is not on ADOM.

Re zone sequence: when playing dorfs, it would be starting quest, then Deep Below, if I feel strong enough, Troll Mire, the quest next to the Troll Mire and then whatever flows. Scintilating Caves I tend to do as the last. Then Old Forest, Maze and sandworm lair. Meanwhile I do some sidequest: lumberjacks, trapped, whatnot. Finally, I try to do Daikara but fail every time. More or less, it is what community regards as standard approach, isn't it?

Re adventure mode: it is much more forgiving and allows for more exploration. I give it a spin yesterday and had the guts to enter golem graveyard for the first time. While I lost one of my lives in there, at least I know what to expect.

Re gear: what gear is considered best? How do I know which gear is better? For example, one sowrd give a 30% chance to reduce damage, the other grants +5 to mind save. When playing berserker, with relatively low Wi, which I do pick up? Also, when doing escort quests, I do betray. As a reward I am offered Wi or Cun bonus, but I would always chose +4 spell save.

Alright, maybe I just ask what saves do?

Re kills: orc archers -- they all from the first dwarf quest. I would play it on a reckless mode, as it is so easy to restart. Granted, it may imply I am not cautious when playing on higher levels. While it is not entirely true, I do agree I usually get killed due to feeling to confident.

Re what kills me: I often get traumatized by lightnings (Storming the city can be a real PITA, I would approach it in a hit&run mode; spell casters can hurt me, too. Once I got killed by a spellcaster who would cast "pacify hex", prohibiting me from escaping, moving and whatnot. I would just sit and watch the guy beating my poor dorf to death.

Thanks once again.

[cttw]

Ok just a couple of notes:

Golem Graveyard is for after you complete the game, and expect to die there even then.

Lightning damage often comes in great numbers from specific enemies and in specific dungeons. I am in the habit of keeping lightning resist stuff in stock even as I wear more appropriate gear, and then switch to the lightning resist gear to face certain enemies. You can usually get a wizard's hat with resist or a ring of lightning at least.

[HousePet]

Nothing wrong with visiting the Golem Graveyard around the same time you would visit Diakara. It frequently has something random there to play with.

Your zone order looks fine, so it looks like you just haven't figured out how to deal with ranged attackers yet.

When facing ranged attackers such as archers or magi as a melee character you should have close in talents and curative talents handy.
You cannot afford to just stroll up to the enemy while they are hurting you, you need something like Rush, a movement infusion or Blindside to get you there asap.
Ranged attacker will frequently try to inflict status effects (or similar like knockback) to stop you from getting close to them.
To deal with those you need to learn how to hide behind terrain so they can't target you, however you frequently can't do this so you will have to deal with status effects.
Status effects are frequently something you can save against, which is why you want saves or specific status resists. Even if you don't save versus a status effect, your saves can reduce the duration of the effect. But the most important thing is to have a way to remove crippling status effects. Mainly Wild Infusions, but some runes and talents can also do this.
Most status effects that stop you from closing in are physical or mental, but don't ignore spellsave or magical cure as magical status effects can be nasty too.

[Coldbringer]

"what gear is considered best? How do I know which gear is better?"

Geart that provides Immunities is best. Such as a ring that gives 20% to stun freeze/immunity. Or a helm that gives 30% to confusion immunity. You also want stats like strength, constitution, dexterity, cunning. Elemental resists are always good. And gear that grants you extra abilities

"Re zone sequence: when playing dorfs, it would be starting quest, then Deep Below, if I feel strong enough, Troll Mire, the quest next to the Troll Mire and then whatever flows. Scintilating Caves I tend to do as the last. Then Old Forest, Maze and sandworm lair. Meanwhile I do some sidequest: lumberjacks, trapped, whatnot. Finally, I try to do Daikara but fail every time. More or less, it is what community regards as standard approach, isn't it?"

I do all the tier 1 dungeons first. Why? The extra artifacts and levels to get more skills and HPs make a huge difference for when you start to tackle the tier 2 dungeons. You get the money to fill out your gear from the shops too.

For tier 2 dungeons I'd do Daikara last, it's arguably the hardest. Need to be strong enough and have the right tools to deal with the giants throwing lightning and boulders at you.

"Alright, maybe I just ask what saves do?"

They have a chance to reduce the duration of (or completely avoid) harmful status effects on you. Your opponent uses their physical power (for physical effects), spellpower, or mindpower stat vs your save stat. So you have 50 physical save and your opponent has 25 physical power and uses Stunning Blow melee attack, your chance of having it partially or completely reduced is very good. If you don't roll a good save from RNG, you get the full duration of the stun.

"Re what kills me: I often get traumatized by lightnings (Storming the city can be a real PITA, I would approach it in a hit&run mode; spell casters can hurt me, too. Once I got killed by a spellcaster who would cast "pacify hex", prohibiting me from escaping, moving and whatnot. I would just sit and watch the guy beating my poor dorf to death."

Use a torque that gives 7 or so turns of X amount reduced lightning damage. Or an item that grants Wards - you activate that and select an element to be warded against, and it completely negates x amount of lightning attacks, removing 1 ward each time.

Pacification Hex causes you to be affleicted with the status Dazed which prevents movement and lowers damage output by a percentage. Thing to remember about it, any time you take damage it is immediately removed. You can remove the hex with an inscription, and you can also remove the Daze effect with an inscription.

*Minor spoiler* Don't know if you're a donator or not, but at around level 15 to 20 you should be strong enough to go to old forest and it's sub dungeon gets you access to the shared stash. If you put in powerful items your class can't make much use of or has outgrown, then get another character there, you can give them a big power boost.

[grouchy]

Cool. Thanks once again for all the replies.

Few observations:

* Daikara is definitely the hardest of all 2nd tier dungeons. The Old Forest is the easiest. Sandworm Lair can be really hard if you happen to find alternative layout: I lost one my lives only due to the fact I didn't know what to do. In the alternative layout you need to follow the worms and do not stop; I was used to the other layout where you would follow the sandworm all along to the stable room where you would fight the mobs and gather treasures.

* adventure mode allows for more freedom and relaxing play. However, it also makes me feel less conected to my character so I would play recklessly and am more focused on "exploration" and gathering experience, which, in turn, I would make use of in games with a roguelike difficulty. It's good for learning though.

* there are also random dungeons worth visiting; I wasn't aware of that. They are worth one or two levels of experience which can make a difference of whether you pass Daikara or not.

* *sidenote*: games lags more, the longer you play.

* gear with +20% or so immunities, particularly when paired with similar items, really do rock. I would shrug off majority of spells and these which affected me I break after three or four turns. Cool!

* hurthling archers, they hit hard.

My zerker got killed by the Master. Before that, I lost a life or two in the graveyard near Old Hope -- I didn't even know what happened, she would bring me down from 70% of healt deep below zero and I even couldn't react. Anyway, that was fun.