Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post
And I read somewhere that the Tower of Eternal Flames is the hardest part of the game. That seems suspect, knowning about the bug temple for instance, but still. I'm cautiously hopeful that I'll get to see ... well, more. On the other hand, now that I've clearly jinxed it, I'll propably be done soon =)
Sian has the right of it - the bug temple doesn't really count because it's completely optional. That means you can go there anytime you want, or not at all. Haven't been there in ages.

The ToEF gets its reputation from the fact that it's really quite difficult, and gates off the deeper portion of the CoC behind the wall of eternal flames. You just run out of other places to go to prepare for it. That was especially true in ADOM 1.1.1, before the addition of random dungeons, the ice queen domain and other ways to gear up. Of all the locations in the game, it's the most likely to have even experienced players try to tackle it without being truly ready.

Fighting the Ancient Chaos Wyrm in melee is very dangerous - just because the outcome was fortunate doesn't mean you did a smart thing. If it rolls several crits in one turn you can easily be toast even with a substantial HP pool. It's probably better to fight it at range, despite its unresistable energy attack.

Post-ToEF, you get access to plenty of dungeon levels to explore at your leisure, and most importantly by far you get to the Casino. Power in ADOM doesn't come from levels, it comes from loot - and the Casino shop is the single biggest high quality loot drop you will ever see. You can still run into dangerous situations later, but you'll have high quality equipment and powerful items to match.