• Documentation
• New player guide

Under Construction

ATM it's just a basic kind of framework.

comments in [] indicate things I intend to put in, but haven't got around to yet --TheFalcon

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Introduction

This page contains a basic guide to the complex world of ToME for the complete beginner.

Even if you're starting playing ToME from another roguelike game, you might still want to read this guide.

If there's anything else you feel would be useful to new players, then feel free to suggest it in the chatter section below.

Overview

So you have decided to become an adventurer, seeking riches and taking on evil (Or maybe dipping into some refreshing evilness yourself). Well then, what now? You are going to need to know how to travel. And it might be a good idea to know where you are going, too! Of course, on your adventures you may just find some mysterious treasures; what should you do with them, and what are they? And surely those treasures are guarded by fire-breathing dragons, life-draining vampires, and booby-traps. Of course, what adventure would be complete without the involvement of a princess in distress?

This document will attempt to help set your foot on the right path, and get you the player interacting with the game world.

Starting a new character

Creating a character is the first step on your adventure. For your first time, just choose whatever catches your eye. You will be dying often in ToME, especially while learning your way around, so for now we are just learning. Your first choice will be gender, which is just an aestetic choice.

After you choose a gender, you are prompted to choose a race. Now is a good time to notice what options you have. Throughout the game, possible choices will often be listed on the screen for you. Here, we can see:

Choose a race (a-v), * for a random choice, = for options, 8/4/2/6 for movement

Get comfortable with this, the choices are very self-explainatory, but you will save yourself a lot of headaches by paying attention to what choices you have throughout the game. There are many choices, and you can get information on any class by pressing '?'. Also note the general information given when a possible choice is highlighted, such as 'Quite strong but not very smart.' when highlighting Orc.

After your race is chosen, you are prompted to choose a race-modifier, or sub-race. Classical is the default choice. All choices but LostSoul result in a normal game. LostSoul will begin you in a very dangerous dungeon. Guides and help can be found on the sub-races elsewhere, for our purposes we will move on with the assumption of a non-LostSoul game.

You are now presented with a choice for your basic class. Again, there are many guides on classes elsewhere. Just choose whatever suits your mood, and move through the remaining class menu, then select a god. Information on all choices, as always, can be accessed through '?' while highlighting the choice you want information on. When your god is selected, you have the choice to modify your options or not.

Not sure if this is the place to talk about those options or not, up to you guys. Need a short explaination of princess quests maybe, not sure again. StormcrowWiki

The map

You now have a character created, who is displayed by a '@' on your screen.

The ToME world is shown in an overhead map...[link to symbol info etc.]

ASCII...

While ASCII is the default, you can pick graphics instead...

Objects

Weapons

Weapon notation is very similar to that of other roguelike games (and some other RPG's). The best way to show this is to work through some examples:

A Dagger (1d4) (+2,+4)

Here we have a normal dagger. The first set of parentheses give an idea of how much damage the basic weapon type can do. Here, it is 1d4 - meaning 'take one four sided die, roll it once, that is the base damage'. The second set of parentheses are bonuses for your chance to hit, and a bonus amount of damage added for each blow that hits the target. So here, you have a '+2' chance to hit your target. The '+4' adds directly to the damage - so instead of doing 1-to-4 damage, this dagger will be doing 5-to-8 damage. (Although your personal skills of to hit and damage will also influence that. This is the amount that is innate to the weapon.) These numbers can be either positive or negative - where 'negative' numbers penalize your fighting.

A Two-Handed Sword Defender (3d6) (+7,+11) [+4] (+3 to stealth)

Again, we see part of this that makes sense straight off: this is a Two-Handed Sword. And the first set of parentheses again describe the base damage of the type of weapon - 3 to 18 damage. (Take three six sided dice, roll, add the results.) The 'to hit' and 'to damage' numbers in the next set of parentheses are quite a bit higher than with our dagger - +7 to hit, and a damage of 14-to-29. The brackets and the third set of parentheses are tied up with the word 'Defender'. Although the dagger above is a magic dagger and feels good to use, this sword is quite a bit more powerful, and would feel excellent. The word 'Defender' describes a whole class of benefits focused on defending the wearer. Part of that is in the brackets - the +4 is an increase in your Armor Class. Another part is in the last set of parentheses, '+3 to Stealth' allows your to walk more quietly, and perhaps avoid more monsters, should you so desire.

Any time an item's description in complex, it implies that the item itself has more than a single innate ability. So the simplest methods of testing and evaluating items won't apply - you'll need to seek out more learned sages, or seek more puissant magic than is available in Bree.

Armour

Armour is so some extent similar to weapons...:

A Small Metal Shield [3,+2]

Shields come in different sizes and construction materials. As with the weapon, the brackets represent Armor Class. Here, the item provides protection even if it were not magical. The first number is the base amount of protection provided by any normal small metal shield - 3. The second number in this case is a small magical bonus, so on the whole this item would raise your Armor Class by 5 points.

A Hard Studded Leather Armor of Resist Cold (-1 to accuracy) [7, +7]

Again, the brackets are the base Armor Class and the magical bonus to the same. The first part of the description just describes what the item is 'Hard Studded Leather Armor'. The 'of Resist Cold' part means that you will take substantially less damage from cold based attacks. All heavy armors negatively affect your 'to hit' numbers due to how bulky they are, and how much they slow you down. Hard Studded Leather is the lightest of these 'heavy' armors, and it reduces your 'to hit' by one point. Still, this armor will make a beginning adventurer substantially harder to hit.

Scrolls

Potions

Wands, staves and rods

Equipment and inventory

Character screen

Combat

Melee

Ranged

Magic

Skills

Powers

Abilities

Exploring

Dungeons

Quests

Wilderness

Towns

Chatter

Content and other suggestions welcome.

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TheFalcon: Should I direct the player to the dungeon or to the theive's quest? I'm guessing the dungeon though, since that's really where they'll end up anyway...

StormcrowWiki: Don't point them anywhere IMO, just tell them the options. You have the thieves quest, Maggot's quest, the dungeon, and the overworld. Just the flat basics; you start in Bree, you can go do any of these four things first with varying difficulty depending on your class, I would think.

TheFalcon: Yes, I guess that's probably sensible.

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TheFalcon: Hmm, it's almost doing two tutorials, one for basic warriors, and the other for mages and other things. I think I'll just do the mages here, and then give a few pointers at the end of choosing other classes and things for what you might like to try next, and a bit at the end of the main tutorial for how to use other classes, and maybe something on commands like C m U N p ... (hmm, maybe that's a bit too much, so I could just link to the commands page)

StormcrowWiki: I really think instead of doing anything in-depth (Like seperating warriors and mages and such) you should just give a broad view of what you are able to do. Just let them know what obstacles there are; identifying, traps, monsters/combat, and quests. After they know what obstacles there are, let them know how to overcome them.

• Identifying can be done through magic-devices, scrolls, services at some shops, or your own spell. That opens the door to give a brief overview of how those things work. After they see how to recite scrolls and target the ground, inventory, or equipment, you move on to staves and stores. Then you get more complex and explain that different spells identify, that you need a school of the corresponding spell up to a certain level, you need the spellbook, and then how to actually cast the spell. Now, you've covered a lot of ground in very little time, all on how to do one very basic thing every class needs to do. Following up with traps uses the same steps, but shows that different wands/staves/scrolls/spells have very different roles, and not all spells are in the same schools. You get to combat, and the ways to deal with monsters which are much the same as identifying. Magic-devices, boosting yourself from scrolls/potions/spells, damage from spells, which being ranged leads well into damage from archery. With archery you can tell them about stats on weapons. I'd save melee for last, cause while it's perhaps the easiest thing to grasp, weapon and armor stats can get a little complex. Anyway yeah I ramble.

NeilStevens: Hold up... we already have lots of beginner's guides, tutorials, hints, and advice. What we need is a straightforward description of the game rules and interface: How do attacks work, how does armor work, how does magic work, how do skills and abilities work, and so on are what we need. Writing yet another tutorial is pointlessly duplicative of other tutorials others have written.

This description should be entirely independent of player class, because it's just describing the rules of the game. Don't give advice, don't give hints, just stick to the facts and rules.

TheFalcon: I don't believe that there are "lots of beginner's guides", but I do see your point.

(The new structure I've given it is probably way too long at the moment, and is beginning to resemble Exploring the Dungeon. I think I'll condense it to be more like what Stormcrow suggests above.)

StormcrowWiki: Falcon, I put a short 'overview' near the start, maybe that could give some direction to the guide. I'd be happy to lend a hand, if that overview isn't what you or Neil were thinking, rip it out.

Atarlost: How much detail should be given on combat? It's probably not appropriate to give the exact formulas, but would it be appropriate to give, say, the normal range for plusses to various things or an approximation of how much +n to hit effects your hit/miss ratio as a function of monster armor? Do we want to just let new players learn on their own how much +1 to hit is worth? Similarly, how much detail do we want to give about how your armor effects monsters' ability to hit you?

NeilStevens: I wouldn't even give 'normal' ranges. Just describe what (+x,+x) means, what [+x] means, what (+x) means, and that kind of thing. "Accuracy increases your likelihood of hitting, and damage is an automatic bonus to the damage you do when you hit." Explain how slays and brands apply differently to different kinds of weapons, and how different slays and brands have different multipliers. Describe how extra shots, extra blows, spread blows, extra might, free action, hold life, resistances, and the like affect the player.

I consider these the rules of the game. What you do with them is up to you, and how you find out which rules are important when is, too.

brass: I second what NeilStevens said. I'm new, and it would be nice to know what all the (+x,+x) mean. I am starting to get a fuzzy idea, but thats about it.

brass: Ah, great!, Thanks so much for filling that in.