These exploits will cary you through the game

[acqsen]

--Exploits--

Stairs. The all time winner of all ToME exploits
If you're in danger, leave the level through stairs leading back. Heal, buff then enter and retry.
Drawback: feels like cheating.

Skillpoints swaps the last words are: Last 4
Assign, cast, unlearn, re-assing. Can have a lev4 fire/cold/lighting spell with just 4 skillpoints. In case you meet someone resistant to your favourite damage type.
Drawback: time absorbing clicking dumbness

Corner aoe Archmages vanity source
Spot monsters hiding behind corners. Nuke their lazy asses to death
Drawback: slower then all out attack. Constant need for eye spell.

Rest abuse. Never fight unprepared
There is no time race in ToME.
Drawback: A small chance someone else will grab an alchemist quest reward.
ZyZ: "It (loosing alchemist reward) has nothing to do with time."

Re-Dress. Weapons are not the only thing you can switch
So is armour, rings, gloves etc. In just one turn you can become immune to blindness, or get 30% resistance to light. Usually more then any skill can do.
Drawback: heavy backpack.

Skip boses. I don't think you were supposed to do that.
Don't go to boss floor until you can handle. Go somewhere else.
Drawback: One has to remember who where is, was, and should be.

Enter and leave.
All monsters on the level you have entered will stay that level even if you level up and come back later.
Possible uses include Subject-Z or Celia. (posted by: Matanui3)

Unlock solipsist with yeek alchemist
As yeek you get 100% chance Dogroth Caldera will spawn. Alchemist's golem will kill cats and zombies.


--Almost exploits--

Far teleport rune. As the saying goes: dwarves are overrated.
Aside from the typical: "push to survive" function, if used inside vault will always teleport you out of it (read: teleport you to safety)
Drawback: not much useful in final battle.

Inspect creature. Ultimate knowledge hidden under your right m-button.
Not an exploit neither but v. useful. Better to know beforehand if something is resistant to stun, but not confusion.
Drawback: reading is boring to most.

Greater darkness. Listing only to make the list look big.
Not much useful but the monsters inside greater darkness, forget about you. Will not come to you.
Drawback: rare and uncontrollable.

Experience penalty/bonus. Sometimes a penalty is really a bonus. And i am not talking about a yeek.
Skeleton has slower exp gain. That is bad... wait it is not! An example: a skeleton has to dig through 12 dungeons of loot to get lvl 20. Yeek has to dig through 7 dungeons of loot to become lvl 20. Who will have better gear? Slow skely.
And the monsters are so kind to adjust their level to yours.
Drawback: so much math.

Arena. Max level cheat mode.
Much quicker leveling-up compared to campaign. Use it to test builds.
Drawback: cant finish the game in there.

Uber classes
Never played but game chat writes: solispist op, oozemancer op.
Drawback: hard to unlock.

Skill combos.
Race+Class(+item)
Berserkers immortality + Shalore extended buff duration.
Summoner is heard to be near immortal with correct skill choices.
Speed buffs + flurry(?) Met some odd creeps that could hit 14-17 times per turn, might be undoable for a player.
A skeleton berserker with some correct items can get immune to most status ailments
Drawback: if you want to be famous you need to discover your own combo.

Vault item transfer.
So powerful some intentionally decide not to use it. Simply transfer your best gear to a new char.
Drawback: costs real money. Transfer curses some items with lvl requirement.

Certain magical items.
*A staff can summon live crystals. Which drop jewellery as they die/disappear. A recipe for richness?
Well, not really, because...
Drawback: its takes lots of time.
*A sword that can "steal" skills of slain enemies. Don't have a particular combo for you, but there must be some. An ability like this is a recipe for disaster.
Drawback: where is the exploit?!

Three alchemy. 1+1+1 is more then 3.
Not an exploit at all but most people don't know about this. If you give all 3 items to an alchemist he will reward you with something special as a bonus.
http://te4.org/wiki/Alchemist_Quest
Drawback: become an errand boy.

Builds Vault.
What is the difference between a build of your own and a build you discovered on the net?
It depends which one won. Not much else.
http://te4.org/characters-vault
Drawback: more reading?

Save scumming.
This is an outright cheat, but since ppl are doing it, i'll make it public here.
Find your save file. Copy it to safety. Die. Restore the file along with your life.
Drawback: cheater.

Ctrl+Alt+Del Crush
Another outright cheat. If something that you are not happy with, but game did not save. You can crush your game, then restart and load a save from before that something happened.

And if you still die it might be because, unlike others you don't: flee, murder, steal.
This game does not reward crystal morality. That poor peasant you didn't kill was a sack of xp and gp that you omitted.

Darkgod is probably gonna hate me for this topic. But i needed to write it for all dead-end players who felt inferior but were just too orderly.

-----Edited
Grammar, ZyZ info, modified Far Teleport info.

Moved to Spoilers. ~Faeryan

[ZyZ]

Drawback: A small chance someone else will grab an alchemist quest reward.

Fix this It has nothing to do with time.

[The Revanchist]

"Madgod"?

[HousePet]

Most of these aren't even exploits and won't cary you anywhere.

[acqsen]

ZyZ: thx for info. And even though your self esteems seems to indicate you know this better then i do, i would like to hear Madgods verdict on "does abusive increase chances other npc parties will grab alchemist rewards" Listed your info in my initial post.

HousePet: i tend to disagree. Thanks to "stairs" and "far teleport out of vault" i've cleared the room of death, and survived mostly unharmed until finale.

[cttw]

From your exploit list, the only exploit is the skill point swapping, which I have said before should be completelly removed to help the OCD people who can't not play the game perfectly. It is well intended but it is used for everything except what it was intended for.

The stairs could also qualify, I guess, but it is the most classic of all these exploits.

A lot of what you posted is very useful information and new players should definately read this.

[Marson]

Just for clarification: there are several debuffs that will prevent you from using the stairs, so it certainly isn't a failsafe. It comes in handy at times, but if you get in serious trouble, you may be staying put.

And ZyZ is correct: the alchemist quest only progresses when you turn in ingredients. It's all hooked into the chat sequences. You could make your first turn-in at level 50 and none of the other alchemists will have gotten any ingredients yet.

[Faeryan]

Re-Dress. Weapons are not the only thing you can switch
So is armour, rings, gloves etc. In just one turn you can become immune to blindness, or get 30% resistance to light. Usually more then any skill can do.
Drawback: heavy backpack.

Don't think this is true. No one else not commenting this before me makes me a bit hesitant though.

[Marson]

Re-Dress. Weapons are not the only thing you can switch
So is armour, rings, gloves etc. In just one turn you can become immune to blindness, or get 30% resistance to light. Usually more then any skill can do.
Drawback: heavy backpack.

Don't think this is true. No one else not commenting this before me makes me a bit hesitant though.

You can't use quick-swap for more than weapons, but if you see a bunch of fire drakes, you can spend a turn or two to open your inventory screen and put on some fire resist gear. I'll bet this is overlooked by a fair number of people. I tend to stick with an all-around load and would probably increase my survivability if I swapped gear more. Maybe not in the middle of a fight as each piece takes a turn to swap, but at least have dungeon specific loadouts. I do for extreme cases, but not as a regular thing.

[Mewtarthio]

Obviously, it's most useful when combined with some decent scouting. If your Arcane Eye or Track picks up a pack of Luminous Horrors on the other side of the door, you'd be a fool not to swap in some light resistance gear if you have any.

[Matanui3]

What about the exploit used with Celia's Crypt/Subject Z, where you rod of recall as soon as you enter to set the level of the place, then come back later when you are stronger?

[acqsen]

@Marson. Apparently i wasn't clear on the switching. I was writing about switching gear, which takes turn, not quick-switch.

@Matanui3. Yes it is a slick little exploit that i should have mentioned.

[Ragnarok]

Being able to win the game above nightmare = exploit
But to be honest alot of them are either scummy, intended or just not exploits at all.

Some of them are though.