Really, there are only two tasks in Dungeons of Dredmor:
1) Survive.
2) Kill Lord Dredmor.


But those are extremely complex and multifaceted tasks, and each of them have several parts. Some parts are optional, some parts are not. I'm going to divide them up into:

• Actually mission-critical tasks.
  
• Very useful but not truly critical tasks.
  
• Things that it's nice to be able to do.

Actually Mission-Critical Tasks

• Be able to kill named, out-of-depth enemies, including Lord Dredmor himself.
  
• Be able to survive Monster Zoos.
  
• Have some method of accelerated healing and, if relevant, mana regen.
  
• Have some method of getting away when the **** hits the fan.

That's it! Every other aspect of the game can be skipped if you're determined, but you must be able to handle single ubermobs and vast groups of normal mobs, and occasionally both at the same time. Even with those abilities, however, even the most prepared adventurer can get overwhelmed by a lucky crit or two, so having a getaway skill (or three) is in fact a necessity. And if you don't have some way of healing and regaining mana other than "press space bar", you'll get repetitive-motion stress syndrome before you beat Dredmor.


Very Useful Tasks

• Be able to deal with traps.
  
• Be able to deal with spellcasting monsters.
  
• Have some method of incapacitating, distracting, or otherwise not having to fight the bad guys.

To be straightforward, if you can't disarm, knock, or obliterate traps, your game is going to be a lot harder; if you can't at least see them from more than one square away, it's going to outright suck. Spellcasting monsters have been the death of many an adventurer -- finishing of most of a zoo only to find out that the last dozen monsters just nuked you to death as you crossed the room is lame. And it's always good to have a backup, non-punch-them-in-the-face plan for dealing with monsters because sometimes another monster gets annoying while you're punching the first one in the face.


Nice To Be Able To Do Tasks

• Get items off of impossible-to-walk-to islands.
  
• Open secret walls.
  
• Uncurse yourself.
  
• Accelerate your XP gain.
  
• Steal from Brax.

None of these things are vital to winning the game, but they make it more fun -- it's never awesome to walk away from Chrzor the Corpulent Wheels because you couldn't get over a single square of water between you and it, or blast away the false walls between you and it. Uncursing yourself is always an option because you always find a Potion of Purity here or there, but being able to do it regularly is really a plus. Of course, extra levels and extra out-of-depth Brax items are always good, too.


So, now that we know what we need to do -- how do we make sure we can do it?

With the tasks from Part 1 in mind, let's talk skill selection. There are 41 skills in Dungeons of Dredmor that you can get access to without having to spend any money on the DLCs, and another dozen from the DLCs. Because this guide is intended for beginners and for the broadest possible audience, we're just going to stick to the base-game skills plus the 4 free DLC skills.

That gives us:

Warrior skills:
Swords, Axes, Maces, Staves, Polearms, Unarmed, Dual Wield, Master of Arms, Shield Bearer, Berserker Rage, Smithing, Clockwork Knight, and Battle Geology.

Rogue skills:
Daggers, Archery, Thrown Weapons, Archaeology, Burglary, Tinkering, Fungal Arts, Artful Dodger, Perception, Assassination, and Rogue Scientist.

Mage skills:
Magic Training, Ley Walker, Blood Mage, Golemancy, Fleshsmithing, Mathemagic, Psionics, Necronomiconomics, Viking Wizardry, Astrology, Promethean Magic, Wand Lore, Alchemy, Vampirism, and Warlockery.


Each of these skills fills a different role within your character's build. There are 'engine' skills that will be your character's main source of offense, 'fuel tank' skills that help your character stay alive and keep doing what s/he's already doing, 'turbocharger' skills that will improve the effects of your other skills, and 'toolbox' skills that give you access to some of the other tasks on Part 1's lists.

Every build needs at least one engine skill, one fuel tank skill, and one toolbox skill to get to Dredmor. Fortunately, you have seven skills to choose from, so that's not difficult to accomplish. Let's get to the skills themselves:

Engine Skills
Warrior
A Warrior's engine skills are Swords, Axes, Maces, Staves, Polearms, and Unarmed. Each of these skills accelerates your ability to kill things with weapons in melee, which is what Warrioring is all about.

Rogue
A Rogue's engine skills are Daggers, Archery, and Thrown Weapons. Rogues are much more known for toolboxy skills than engine skills.

Wizard
The Wizardly engine skills are Necronomiconomics, Viking Wizardry, Astrology, and Promethean Magic. Most wizard skills have some form of offense built in, but these are the ones that you can actually build around that can take out the majority of your enemies between here and Dredmor. Astrology in particular is hard to build around as an Engine skill because of the lack of low-level offense, but it's damage scales better in the endgame than any other core skill.


SIDE NOTE: Why Archetypes?
The reason why I'm dividing these skills into archetypes despite there not being any real limitation to how the skills are mixed-and-matched is that having multiple skills of the same archetype tends to be helpful to how the archetype's engines work. If you take a Warrior engine and then a bunch of Wizard support skills, your engine isn't going to be supported by your stat block. So in general, you want at least 4 of your 7 skills to belong to the same archetype as your engine(s).


Fuel Tank Skills
Warrior
Master of Arms, Shield Bearer, Vampirism**
OK, these should be obvious -- but Vampirism is a Wizard skill, isn't it? Technically, yes, but it belongs on Warrior builds, end of story. The Wizard stats are a 'payment' that a Warrior has to make in order to deserve the awesomeness that is constant in-combat healing of Vampirism.

Rogue
Artful Dodger
Not much to see here -- Rogues are best kept alive by staying OUT of melee combat, but if you can't avoid it, having Artful Dodger is significantly better than not.

Wizard
Magic Training, Ley Walker, Blood Magic, Fleshsmithing
Wizard fuel tanks aren't about staying alive -- they're about not running out of mana, because running out of mana means not killing the monsters before they reach you, which in turn means, you know, failing to stay alive. Fleshsmithing is here because it provides some of the best healing in the game and gives you throw-away pets that can distract even small hordes of enemies for the turn or two you need to nuke them with your engine's big AoE spell.


Turbocharger Skills
Warrior
Dual Wield, Berserker Rage, Smithing, Battle Geology
These simple skills take you from 'killer of things in melee combat' to 'extremely effective killer of things in melee combat'. Smithing adds to your Burliness and makes sure your gear is always up to a certain minimum standard. Battle Geology gives powerful options for softening up enemies from afar as well as some significant defenses.

Rogue
Assassination, Perception, Rogue Scientist
Assassination makes melee combat less dangerous by incapacitating enemies while hitting them; Perception gives more range for thrown and archery as well as giving lots of reagents if you take the various crafting skills (or even if you don't). Rogue Scientist is like Clockwork Knight for rogues -- decent ranged combat and even AoE options, but on cooldowns long enough that it doesn't quite qualify as an engine.

Wizard
Wand Lore, Warlockery
Wand Lore doesn't quite give enough utility to be a toolbox, but it does give a wide enough variety of non-offensive effects that it's not as limited as a fuel tank, so I guess it's a turbocharger. Warlockery is a weird skill insofar as you can't use it on it's own, but it makes everything about being a melee mage (read: using the Viking Wizardry engine or the middle half of the Necronomiconomics engine) much easier.


Toolbox Skills
Warrior
Clockwork Knight.
That's it, and it's questionable -- it could easily have been categorized as a Turbocharger much like Rogue Scientist. But it's the only warrior skill that lets you get items off of islands, open secret walls, and most importantly it's the only Warrior skill with a getaway (three different teleport skills!) That makes it the most toolboxy Warrior skill of all, so it goes here.

Rogue
Archaeology, Burglary, Tinkering, Fungal Arts.
These skills all offer several of the items on the lists of tasks to be accomplished. Many people refuse to play without Archeology because it's one of the best XP-accelerators in the game, and many people refuse to play without Burglary because it's got XP-acceleration, invisibility, teleport, trap handling, and theft all in one skill. Tinkering is the only skill that will have you disarming traps all the way through the 10th floor. And Fungal Arts offers the only non-Wizard pet skill (great for distracting enemies) as well as a nigh-limitless supply of healing, mana regen, invisibility, and enemy-confusion.

Wizard
Golemancy, Mathemagic, Psionics, Alchemy.
Wizard toolbox skills take a bit of thinking to use properly, but they do their jobs well. Golemancy's pets are wonderful for distracting foes, and being able to shape the dungeon with Unliving Wall and Digging Ray is amazing. Mathemagic's teleports, money-making DoTs, and the mighty magic-buffing power of Zenzizenzizenzic are quite nice. Psionics gives you sleep, charm, and push effects all at relatively cheap mana costs. And Alchemy is like the wizards' Fungal Arts -- it's almost every effect you could ask for from getaway blinks to invisibility and from healing to root effects.



So, to make a character that's going to have a great chance of getting to Dredmor, I suggest this mix:

1 Engine
1 Turbocharger and 1 Fuel Tank OR 2 Fuel Tanks for nuker wizards.
2 Toolboxes

and two skills of your choice, whatever they may be. Just try to remember the archetype note, and make sure that at least 4 of your skills match the archetype of your engine.



Samples:

The Bloodsucking Berserker
Engines: Axes, Viking Wizardry
Turbochargers: Berserker Rage, Dual Wield
Fuel Tank: Vampirism
Toolboxes: Clockwork Knight, Alchemy

Total archetype levels: 4 Warrior, 3 Wizard. The wizard levels from Alchemy and Vampirism will help make sure you have the mana and magic power to make Viking Wizardry working well. Clockwork Knight won't be able to build it's amazing armors without Smithing and Tinkering, but it's not here for that -- it's here for the actual skills it gives you.


Oliver Twisted
Engine: Archery
Turbochargers: Perception, Rogue Scientist
Fuel Tank: Shield Bearer
Toolboxes: Burglary, Tinkering, Alchemy

Total Archetype Levels: 5 Rogue, 1 Warrior, 1 Wizard. This is a pretty difficult build because it's main offense is based on crafting -- Tinkering builds Archery's bows and arrows, and if you just wontonly spam arrows at everything, you'll run out. You have to be brave enough to go toe-to-toe with normal solo mobs and skilled enough to balance kiting a small horde. But with perception to provide plenty of ingredients, you should be able to use Alchemy to produce enough potions to stay alive -- and with Alchemy and Tinkering in place, Rogue Scientist's weapon skills will be plenty strong.


Bastard, the Exploder Wizard
Engine: Promethean Magic
Turbochargers: Perception
Fuel Tanks: Blood Magic, Magic Training, Fleshsmithing
Toolboxes: Mathemagic, Archeology

Total Archetype Levels: 5 Wizard, 2 Rogue. Perception's crafting-oriented loot isn't going to be useful here, but the extra visual range is HUGE for a nuker wizard, who needs to kill enemies before they get up to him. Promethean is the offense, Fleshsmithing is the defense, and Mathemagic is the utility magic -- Blood Magic and Magic Training help make sure you have the mana you need to keep all that magic going.

Even if you don't take any craft skills, there are some items you need to pay attention to as you move through the dungeon.

• Any crafting kit -- keep one of each of these on you at all times.
  
• Plastic Ingot
  
• Empty Flask
  
• Aqua Vitae
  
• Brimstone
  
• Rust
  
• Saltpetre
  
• Oil of Vitriol
  
• Bituminous Coal
  
• Brass Mechanisms
  
• Leather Belt
  
• Swashbuckling Belt
  
• Fresh Steak
  
• Steak
  
• Aged Steak
  
• Grilled Steak
  
• Aged Cheese
  
• Brie Cheese
  
• Havarti
  
• Parmesan Reggiano

And Here's The Explanation:
Alchemy Box: making Mosolov Cocktails (Empty Flask, Aqua Vitae, Brimstone) [Also making Empty Flasks out of Plastic Ingots], making Potions of Lively Regeneration (Rust, Saltpetre, Oil of Vitriol, Aqua Vitae) [And finding the hidden recipe].

Smithing Kit: making Polymer Shell (3x Plastic Ingot, 1x Bituminous Coal) and Buckle Up (2x Leather Belt, 1x Swashbuckling Belt) encrusts

Elven Ingot Grinder: grinding Meat and Cheese.

Ingot Press: Pressing Ingots. Making Cheesy Omlettes (3x Ground Cheese, 1x Diggle Egg) and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (1x Bread, 1x Cheese) -- also Gaga's Glaze (Fresh Steak, Steak, Aged Steak, Grilled Steak), and Defensive Curds (Aged Cheese, Brie Cheese, Havarti, Parmesan Reggiano)

Tinkerer's Kit: making Makeshift Bombs (Black Powder, which is in turn made from Bituminous Coal, Saltpetre, and Brimstone) [great for opening up destructible walls], making arrows (Plastic, Bronze, Copper, Iron, and Steel) -- also Encoggling (Brass Mechanisms).



Other Useful Items:
Stony Wands and Stone Bolts: because everyone can use a well-placed wall from time to time.

Softballs: Not particularly strong in the early levels, but once you get some decent exotic damage bonuses going from gear or other sources, softballs are a great way to spend otherwise-empty turns while bad guys advance on you, and you can gather hundreds by the end of floor 2 if you put a tiny bit of effort into it.