ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Even if I manage to avoid getting trapped in sand, it's only a matter of time before whatever unseen monster one-shots me.

Min level 7, I was a level 11 archmage, just walking around and BAM U DEAD.

Really, what the hell.

what difficulty are you playing on? also, arcane eye.

as far as i know, there are no OOD monsters in there, unless you are finding randbosses.

was that 1 time, or is that a consistent thing?

Get better seeing.
Be tougher before trying it?

Normal/roguelike.

So that sort of stuff is what Arcane Eye is good for?

looked like a stupidly dumb talent

the massive advantage of arcane eye, is that you can use it ANYWHERE.
though walls, at any distance, even into a vault!
then, with more points, it reveals stealthed and invisible enemies, and follow one if it is the target.

its radius may not be impressive, but it is really useful if you know how to use it.
downside is...
while, while you can cast the eye anywhere, it provide little vision, meaning it has to be aimed.
also, while there can be a wall between you and the target, the eye itself has to have a direct line of sight with the target to reveal it. that means, badly aimed eye may not reveal anything, even if there are a lot.

you have to expect the enemy, to find it.
if you just want a wide area scan, then track is superior, although it is blocked by vault walls.

Also note that arcane eye is instant, so you don't have to waste a turn scouting.

What attack killed you? I'm guessing it was a Sand Drake using it's breath, or a Tunneler rushing you.

I would recommend being level 15 or higher to do Sandworm Lair, have it be the last tier 2 dungeon you do before Daikara.

What you do in there depends on which Lair it is - there are 2 versions and it's random which one you get. But mostly you search for all the rooms to get lots of golden chests, beat the monsters, collect the loot, find the downstairs.

I think the game did say something about a sand drake.

I guess I'm just too used to DCSS reciprocal LOS

It's almost certainly sand drakes. They seem to hit way harder than anything else in there except the boss (and only because it also has sand drake talents). The same tends to be true of any dungeon they're in. They just seem to alpha strike harder than any other non-rare non-horror in the early game. They're pretty squishy, though. Getting them before they get you isn't an option, but if you have enough HP to not die in one hit they're not a problem.

always check the game log after you die to see what killed you and make a plan for how to deal with it next run. i'd recommend not playing on roguelike difficulty until you are more experienced

Use gear that gives life, physical resist, armor, blind immunity, and stun immunity. Those are the important defensive stats in that zone. Sand Breath hits hard but if you can survive the initial burst, Sand Drakes go down easily due to their low life and having no strong attacks other than Sand Breath.

If you're getting stuck in walls, carry a Psychoport Torque which you can often buy in Zigur for under 15 gold. Since you're an Archmage, Phase Door and Teleport should do the trick.

Also, you might want to do some other zones first or play something with a lower XP penalty, because you should probably be more than level 11 by the time you get through the abashed expanse and the six starter zones and the old forest is generally of similar difficulty. I think the sand drakes have a minimum level higher than that so going early isn't helping you. Also, as an archmage there are some very nice utilities you might want before going there: vision and pulverizing auger. Get Auger and you can go places the RNG is keeping the tunnelers away from, and vision lets you find those rooms. You want 4 auger ideally to get the mana per tile dug down since you'll be casting it a lot to travel long distances, and one point of vision. It makes things a lot less of a hassle and they're handy for any archmage, though some people advocate only 1 point in auger long term so you might want to float those points.

I wouldn't do Sandworm Lair before getting super digging and detection on a class that can get super digging and detection/mapping without jumping through hoops even if I'm remembering wrong about the minimum level on sand drakes. There's no point putting yourself through the authentic sandworm lair experience if you don't have to.

Did you have a shield up? An archmage of that level should be able to keep shields up continuously. Then they shouldn't be able to one-shot you on normal difficulty.