A shadowblade needs nearly all stats, but the point allocation depends on your playing style: Str/Dex for the attack chance, Dex/Cun for dagger damage and most rogue talents, Con for hit points, Mag for spells, Wil for stamina and mana.

If you want to use stealth and to heavily rely on the magic spells, then don't use the heavy armours. Just put a point in Heavy Armour Training for a full choice of helmets and boots but keep an eye on your fatigue.

If you use a melee approach, put a point in Heavy Armour Training and use the best light or heavy armour available. In the end game plate armours are probably too expensive in term of invested strength points.

Good starting armours of any type are Grounding / of Stability for the stun resistance, later all blue ego armours.

Good artifact light armours are Behemoth hide, Skin of Many, Rogue Plight and Chromatic Harness.

Even found the blood but that didn't keep me alive. Lost quite a few lives vs the house boss. I see what people were complaining about. He's not hard if you have a good tank fighter but otherwise he isn't beatable without at least 1-2 deaths. Ended up again stripped of lives and unable to continue playing without dying so I chose to try and get the tempest unlocked. Forget that... will never happen. Impossible for someone of my meager skills.

Archmage is a tough class to play though having the versatility of lots of different spells is interesting it ultimately fails due to not being powerful enough ironically. I say ironically because it seems to me that the caster monsters in the game are the hardest most vicious unfair mobs. Where as it seems the melee monsters tend to be beatable though some are quite difficult like the (X) and (P) throwers.

Again frustration sets in. Makes me want to punch someone that I spent so much time leveling the character to only have it die all at once on one thing. So, enraging and aggravating. What is the point of the extra lives if they don't help? *shrugs* This is what I hate about roguelikes in general.

Everyone does not play at the same level. (Obviously.) Those who are expert tend to expect everyone else to be. And so the games get ever harder and more frustrating for those who aren't. Even after years I am still clearly a novice with these games. Shamefully dying to things everyone else just walks over.

Bitterness sets in.

I think the problem is you have high fatique if you wear heavy armor and the benefit isn't all that great, and since your stat gains are mostly in dex, cun, and con you won't want to spare points for wil so your stamina will be running out a lot. Particularly if you run any sustained abilities. So I'd say not.

I'm slowly but surely working on a Guide of New Players along with Character Builds while also starting a Zone by Zone strategy bit for general game play and possibly for specific classes [though don't hold your breathe on the last one] and have also contributed to the Wiki. The wiki isn't all spoilers and should be check by everyone.

Give me and the other people working on these things some time - they won't be complete until T4 is complete, and as any developer will tell you, a true game is never complete.

This stuff is optional, it wouldnt make sense for you hear somebody call for rescue, wait a few months and then come to the rescue, obviously the girl is long dead by then :)
The popup should warn you that it really looks dangerous, and maybe I'll up the min level a bit

Atrophy the alch version 3 just met the crypt at level 20.

Had resists all 35-60%, saves at 38 / 52 / 29 respectively...

Encountered a cultist. Took a hit, but thought I was fine considering hitpoints still over 400.
Hit rejuve, to make certain I'd live.

I was very wrong.

It's response was 3 hits over 150 each, as well as a disease and some other affliction - single round.

This death really sucked.
All my gear seemed to add stats and resists, including saves as well.
I'd just found the Spydersilk robe (10arm/10def, 30% nat resist, 5con, -2wis,... and something else), and imbued a lvl 5 gem into it.

Next time I hear a voice crying out to be saved in the crypt, and I'm still only level 20, I think I'll just tell a patrol if I see one :p

Might give the game a break for a couple of days, else try a different difficulty setting until I can unlock the class I really want to play.

you got the crypt from level 7ish? That's pretty amazing...I have yet to get it in the current builds. My guys die too often.

The NE cave - full of frost giants and other frozen mobs.

See an X come through the wall, and send the Golem in, with explosions and shock.

Seconds later, another X appears, and another.

3 killed and another 5 creep in. They're getting tougher.

Golem almost dead. Regen and mana runes on cooldown. I'll Phase out.

Explosion, shockwave, run. My life becomes a simple cycle of actions trying to live. 4 left. 3 left. 2 left... o dear.

The X has reformed with full life. AoE, it's knockback saves me. Regen applied. Explosion, shock, fire stave! It's low on health, but I'm lower... can I survive?

Cornered near the exit, trapped in a dead end. I know I can kill it in 3 or 4 rounds. I stay and fight. It smiles, drops its left shoulder and follows through with the right knocking me senseless and leaves me with an option "use blood to survive, or dump char".

I rise from the dead and smite the boss. My final rising from the grave expended, but a heroic fight that was incredibly fun. A stave and heavy armour in the loot from a lvl 31 mob... I ask for a Scrying... o dear... it's a reward I would have loved at lvl 5, but at lvl 19 it's only worthwhile as a toothpick.

That same problem affects a lot of games. Quite funny if you aren't the victim of it but thoroughly depressing if you are. I, too am glad to hear that. Thanks for bringing it to attention.

I agree that seemingly instadeath situations are bad and should not happen like that.
If you played since the early betas you'll know that I'm working toward making the game more fair and balanced. Always :)

That said, loosing high level chars is also the very definition of game with permanent death, that can not be denied (and ToME is nice on that account, you can ingame ways of resurrecting and the extra lives is easy/normal mode).

As for your comments gandolfo I certainly welcome them, only through such things can the game improve :)
About the keybinds though I do not really agree, what more would you like ?
Quaffing potions/reading scrolls is useless since there are no more. So really you only need one command to use the odd activable item or to inscribe an infusion/rune.

As for shoot, it should not be a specific key. Why ? Because it's a ranged attack like any others, why should it have a specific key? If it had, then manathrust should too, and Flame, and Lightning, and Drain and ... :)
Now if the problem is that you'd prefer to shoot by pressing 'f' that I can understand and it's easily doable. Say you put you Shoot on hotkey 1, just go to the keybind menu and bind hotkey 1 to 'f' and you're done. You can also bind items to hotkeys BTW and you do get 36 hotkeys, which should be largely enough for all classes.

Thanks for your comments, hope youre back soon!

Just lost my lvl 23 Alchemist to a monster summon trap. 1 second, no monsters. Next second, I'm surrounded by 15 mobs that use AoE effects, breath weapons and multiply. Tried out Gem Portal to get out of the mess, as supposedly it's meant to move you up to 10 squares... didn't move at all. Used a shock then to push mobs out to hope to get to run to door, but just led to there being another 7-10 mobs. Regen and Shielding couldn't cope with the 300+ dmg/rnd. My 600hp golem was killed in one round.

Really sucks to lose a well geared character that was progressing very well to another monster zerg from a trap or effect that gave no warning - even with talents/gear to show traps/invis etc; combined with a broken game mechanic. Documentation really sucks if you want to do any reading on talent trees or spell usage.

I'd removed my Phase rune after it repeatedly put me in a worse scenario that I wanted to get out of. Found a magic scaling shielding rune that up until the death point, easily got me out of any bad situation.

So now ultimately, I still have no idea what mechanic of the game led to there being so many mobs instantly appear at once at certain locations. Cannot avoid or handle differently the unknown.

After playing roguelikes since basically their inception, and experiencing most which exist, I'll easily say this is one of the best in how it looks and plays. Facing 30%+ of a total zone's mobs as you first enter was tough. How easily a well geared, experienced stat/resist balanced toon can be wiped in 3 rounds is just disappointing.

I am not sure I completely agree with you, though I do think it would be good for tome to accommodate different peoples tastes and difficulty degrees.

I have an idea (I need to propose it to DarkGod), which I think would be an improvement, and add a great deal more customization to difficulty levels.

Yes, escort quests are hard, but they are worth it. I am able to save 90+% of mine though escorts on the boss levels are pretty much doomed.

I would agree that in Maj (not the far east) that melee monsters get weak to you fast (unless they are skellies), but in the far east they are still harder. I guess it really is because most melee monsters in Maj do not use weapons, so their damage is restricted some.

Confuse is a pain and one of the best resistances to get, I do think that it could be improved on more (mental save is the hardest one to increase)

All that said... don't stay away too long.