Tips?

[Moving Pictures]

Alright, I got sucked into the TOME void, moving over from Angband for giggles and grins.

Many deaths. It seems like TOME is vastly more complicated than Angband, and mucho deadlier - or is that my learning curve.

Looking for general tips/advice on how to tackle the TOME learning curve.

[PowerWyrm]

Alright, I got sucked into the TOME void

I hope you didn't forget your Cloak of Air

As a general tip, I'd say play something tanky or a pure spellcaster if you want to have an easier game.

[Derakon]

Is this the modern ToME that's available on Steam, or ToME 2, the old ASCII-fied version? I haven't played the former. For the latter, I'm fond of playing Hobbits, who have good luck (so long as you don't pick an undead variant), good stats, and a small XP penalty. I'd also strongly advise playing a magic-using class, because ToME 2 gives some amazing utility spells to casters that you don't want to be without. In particular, the Conveyance realm has a targeted teleport and a controlled fast-travel spell, and the Earth realm has a wall-creation spell (that becomes targeted at high levels).

Melee characters are viable (and noticeably stronger than they are in Vanilla), but they miss out on all that juicy utility, and several of the special levels are horribly punishing if you don't have a way to obstruct line-of-sight.

That said, I wouldn't recommend playing a Sorcerer when learning the game, as their primary skill directly penalizes their HP and their physical stats are pretty horrid. Instead I'd recommend going for the class that gets Temporal/Conveyance/Divination as primary spell realms, and then pick one or two secondary realms (comedy option: go for Thaumaturgy) for your actual killing-things spells.

[EpicMan]

In the 'C'haracter screen, you can change Explore and Tactics mode to change speed vs searching and to-hit vs AC. Switch to "Running" to escape and Running+Berserk to give yourself some beginning-of-game killing power.

[AnonymousHero]

the class that gets Temporal/Conveyance/Divination as primary spell realms

That would be the 'Warper' class.

[Derakon]

Oh yeah, as for skillpoint placement: most spellcasters won't be able to max out all their realms. You should decide on a goal for each realm (e.g. "get Stone Prison up to the point that you can target it" or "get Identify up to where it identifies everything in your pack / on the local ground") and stop there, to save on skillpoints that you won't strongly benefit from. Only max out the realms where you get a corresponding return on investment.

The skill spoiler and spell spoiler are also invaluable, so you know what you're actually getting out of your points.

[Moving Pictures]

This isn't ASCII, but something compiled for linux - not yet version 1.5.x, because apparently that's the upgrade. I have no access to any of the funky classes, just the mundane ones - and they alll die fast, it seems, as in, way faster than Angband. Almost like the coders just don't like anyone going past L3.

[Philip]

Ah, that's Tome4 then. It's a fun game, but quite far from its angband roots by now. A good place for tips would be the tome4 wiki or forum at te4.org, I suppose. I think there's also a discord or an IRC or something where you can ask questions and get prompt answers.

[PowerWyrm]

You also have the option of playing an alchemist, try to survive to level 40 then make yourself a weapon that gives infinite hps, sps and attack