How to play

Below is a lengthy article about many aspects of the game DUNGEONS OF CHAOS.

For more detailed SKILLS, SPELLS and other insights like CLASSES, see also the WIKI page.

And if you need more of a real walkthrough view of how others play the game, check out these walkthrough videos.

 

Dungeons of Chaos is an indie role-playing game: 2D, single player, multi-character, turn-based. If you love the old classic RPGs that provided incentives to explore non-linear locations, choices for player classes/skills/spells and tactical turn-based combat, then this game is for you. Unlike most big budget games these days it is not trying to maximise the ‘realness’ of graphics, instead it goes back to the basics of fantasy RPGs: pixel art + atmosphere + deep content + imagination.

This leaves a lot of choices to be made, however the game is designed to allow you to play it even in a simplified form in case you are new to RPGs.  The following topics cover the basic elements and indicate how the complexity and game engine works in the background.

CHARACTER CREATION

As you see in the story that is told at the beginning, Parnosz the archmage needs 6 volunteers to form a party and go on various missions that aim to secure the safety of the people and the realm they had to flee from.

You can choose to use a default party, or create your own 6 characters out of the following choices.

When you create a new character, 3 steps are performed:

• you ROLL the statistics (hit points, spell points (mana), strength, dexterity etc.)
• the outcome determines which of the 9 starter classes that character could be:
  FIGHTER (good with melee weapons, but also versatile and can use bows; various skills)
  BARBARIAN (really good with brutal weapons, not with bows. very good with a few skills like ‘rage’ but quite specialised overall)
  RANGER (a mixture of blade and bow proficiency, and a varied set of skills, a ranger always has something to contribute.  but he also not the expert in any of them)
  ARCHER (very specialised in the use of ranged weapons, and certain skills like ‘determination’ which make him a valuable member when you need to take out enemies from afar. but no spells and few skills make him a burden if a close range melee breaks out)
  ROGUE (very special skills that hardly anyone else can be really good at, comes in handy to pick the locks of doors and chests)
  MONK (can heal a companion but also use his combat skills to defend himself and others; with a powerful set of unarmed attacks if need be)
  CLERIC (a good companion to have when you are wounded, but also when you are fighting the forces of evil…)
  MAGE (a vast and versatile set of spells is available to a mage over time, making him an important player in most parties)
  DRUID (a druid has a no nonsense approach to adventure and combat: he can deal out physical damage if need be, but also has some powerful nature-based spells at his disposal)
• Once you have chosen a class (or re-rolled if you did not like the choices), you can supplement the character with a ‘feat’.  A feature or ‘feat’ is a special attribute that will drive the characters behaviour (and usefulness).  This could be as simple as ‘physique’ which gives a boost to the starting strength and hit points.  But it can also be as intricate and rare as the ‘dynamo’ ability to deal out low levels of electric damage in combat.

You should experiment and not shy away from forming a party you think is fun to play.  Ultimately, depending on the finesse you put into your way of playing, as well as experience with RPGs, you should go to the OPTIONS menu and set the right difficulty level for you.  There are 8 levels to choose from, the default is ‘normal'( 3).  If you have played many RPGs before you should play at 5 or 6.

CHARACTER ADVANCEMENT AND THE IMPORTANCE OF SKILLS AND SPELLS

As you solve quests and defeat enemies, you will gather experience points.  This will ultimately lead to a character gaining a level.  A shining ‘LEVELUP’ button will appear in the character screen when you gave gathered enough experience points, and a small blue sign also on the portrait in the overland mode.  If you click that button the character will receive a boost to hit points and spell points as well as ‘talent points’.  You will also receive another boost, that depends on the class of the character and changes each level as well (for example a rogue will occasionally get a bonus to evasion and crit hit, and a barbarian to strength and health).  You can spend talent points on:

• increasing your strength or dexterity.  The higher it is already, the more talent points it costs.  Strength has an influence on damage dealt, allows for heavier armour to be worn, and allows for bigger weapons to be wielded.  Also, while you may be able to wear a war plate with a certain strength and dexterity, boosting it further will reduce the negative speed and evasion factor that comes with such a heavy armour.  If you attempt to STUN an opponent using a blunt weapon, or a shield bash or shoulder bash skill, your strength also counts towards the strength and the intensity of the effect.  You can never have enough strength.  Dexterity drives many secondary stats like evasion, accuracy, even speed.  Being able to make your attacks hit the target, not be hit yourself, and act quicker than your opponent can not be overestimated. And dexterity also increases the chance to make a critical hit.
• improving your proficiency with a spell the party knows.  This means that as long as your party somehow knows the concept of a spell, a spell caster can start practising (and then using and improving) it.  Many spells are unknown to the party when the adventure begins.  The degree to which your spell proficiency improves depends on your starting proficiency, your ‘magic lore’ skill and whether you have any spell books about this spell.  Overall, mages have a much higher maximum skill level for ‘magic lore’ as they tend to study spells and then use them.  Druids are not that fond of this approach, and with a lower magic lore skill would benefit less from spending talent points this way.  Druids prefer to just use spells.  Usage will slowly but surely also increase one’s spell proficiency!  So in theory you can avoid spending talent points for spells, other than the initial first starting investment for a new spell.
• see a skill trainer and raise a skill.  Like spells, you can slowly improve skill proficiency purely via use.  To accelerate your progress though, unlike spells, there is no lore or books that will help you, you will instead need to find a trainer to leapfrog the long road of improvement by use only.  Trainers will more often then not request a fee be paid, on top of the talent points you use up as well in the process.  But to learn a new skill is a VERY powerful way to boost a party’s change of defeating tough enemies.  To be nimble when swarmed by many small enemies, or to be able to perform a holy chant when you are attacked by undead, can make the different between victory and defeat.  But similar to spells, apart from the initial first investment if the skill is new, you can also rely on the progress over time by just using it over and over.

PLAYER CLASS STRUCTURE

You will note that the player level is displayed in two ways: as a plain level next to the character name, as well as a class level.  So when you start a new barbarian called HULK he will show as:

Hulk ( Level 1 )

Barbarian ( Class Level 1 )

Once you have progressed deep into the storyline (away from the island you start out on), you will get the opportunity to change to an advanced player class.  The following are the theoretical possibilities.  Please note however, some classes will only be granted by completing difficult quests, performing deeds for powerful guilds or by finding a mystical teacher.  Be also advised that level advancement is slower when you are an advanced class, so assuming the same experience points are earned, a player remaining within the basic class will level up quicker.  However advanced classes categorically have access to better skills and spells, and/or higher proficiencies in them, compared to their respective basic class.  There are also two superior classes, however while gaining supreme skill and spell potential, their level advancement is particularly slower compared to other classes.

The classes and their progression tree are as follows (as the party discovers the opportunity for a class change, they will be advised of the benefits and characteristics of each):

FIGHTER – can develop into a WARRIOR or a KNIGHT or a SAMURAI.

BARBARIAN – can develop into a WARRIOR or BERSERKER.

RANGER – can develop into a WARRIOR, or MARKSMAN.

ARCHER – can develop into a MARKSMAN

ROGUE – can develop into an ASSASSIN.

MONK – can develop into a SAMURAI, EXORCIST or a PRIEST.

CLERIC – can develop into a PRIEST or EXORCIST.

MAGE – can develop into a WIZARD (and ARCHMAGE) or WARLOCK.

DRUID – can develop into a GEOMANCER, or WARLOCK.

The superior class of ARCHMAGE can be achieved by a WIZARD or MAGE.

The WARLOCK class can be taken up by a DRUID, MAGE, WIZARD or GEOMANCER.

As of now, no avatar class exists, this may only come in a sequel as the lore/story did not extend to include a virtue concept yet.

MOVEMENT AND INTERACTIONS – OUT OF COMBAT

In the main view, the party is displayed as a single hero icon in the middle of the screen.  You will see a landscape around you, at the start for example you are in a cave.  Any tile that is not visible from your position is blacked out, and as soon as it turns night you will notice that the light sources will not cover all areas and some will also fall into darkness.

Clicking on a tile will either

• result in the party moving to that tile, finding a way around obstacles; or
• result in no movement, either because there is no unobstructed path to get there or because the tile you clicked is a solid wall/obstacle itself, or because the tile is blacked out which means you don’t know what there actually is.
• result in an action being taken if an action indicator is present: this is a floating TALK or OPEN or USE sign.  they appear if you are in vicinity of a door, chest, NPC, fountain etc.

Clicking on any of the 4 directional buttons, or using directional keyboard keys, will either

• result in the party moving one step in that direction; or
• result in no movement, if there is a solid wall/obstacle.
• result in an action being taken if an action indicator is present: this is a floating TALK or OPEN or USE sign.  they appear if you are in vicinity of a door, chest, NPC, fountain etc.  For this to occur on the press of a directional arrow is an OPTION that is ON by default but can be deactivated in the options menu.
• result in the player running in that direction, and around corners thereafter, until he hits an obstacle, monster, or expansion in directional options (coming from a corridor into a room).  this is called the “dungeon run” mode and is triggered by the “DGN RUN” tickbox at the bottom left.  You can make the box disappear in the options menu if it bothers you.  Using keyboard controls, SHIFT and a directional key will induce running as well.

You can set the step speed/delay at which the party moves in the OPTIONS menu, which in the main view is displayed as a white option sign.  We recommend you play around with that as it gives a different feel depending on device, and the default may not be the most enjoyable setting on each device.

There are many things that you can do in this main view, and if you are playing on PC or Mac or Linux, pressing TAB at any time in any screen shows all available key controls. But let’s start with what you see first:

In the middle of the screen is a tiled display of your surroundings.  You can use the magnifying glass at the top left to make it larger, for example if you are using a phone and not a desktop and monitor.  It is a representation of what you see and what you know.  It can show you obstacles, items of interest, features of the land, monsters, entrances and exits, as well as chests and doors and NPCs (non-player characters with whom you can talk or trade or train).

On the right hand side you will see a message box and location name at the top.  Below that is a bit of space for 3 possible spells that are active in map view mode.  Below that are the 6 characters, with their health and mana bars (red and blue) which indicate the proportionate amount left.  Health and mana recovers over time, more quickly when resting compared to walking.  If you click on a player it will open the stats+inventory view, which we will explain in more detail below.

There are plenty more buttons, best explained visually in the HELP screens you can access from the main menu.  but here is something on the one more complex function:

LOOK – lets you put a crosshair on a tile and receive basic information about what you see.  Further, if adjacent you can click the tile (or the search button), which will let you search that tile (for secret passages, treasure etc.) if adjacent.  This has a high chance (depending on the party’s perception skill) to detect any secrets.  Passively walking past hidden things also has a chance of detecting it, but much lower.  A  ?  will appear on that tile if the case.

COMBAT – MECHANICS and MOVEMENT

In combat, each player and each monster move and act separately from each other, and many tactical options apply.  But first, the fight is introduced by showing:

• the number of enemies, by type;
• some basic knowledge that you gathered from previous encounters with that type, if applicable.  this would be key resistances and vulnerabilities, or characteristics such as speed and attack type;
• your gut feel about how it will go.  If you think this will be a ‘suicide mission’, trust that instinct and make plans how to run away without getting hurt too much. You can run away with each character to the edge of the arena once the fight starts, then a FLEE button will appear.

If you feel confident that you are way more powerful than your enemies, you can set your players to be all be on AUTO mode from the start.  Do that by having the “ALL ON” option clicked.  Or, if you had them on auto at the end of the last fight, leave “AS IS” ticked.  In fight, there is an AUTO switch/button next to each player (green=AUTO).

The AUTO SETTINGS button (before or during fight) opens a screen with the options you have to configure a player’s auto behaviour.  Note: players will never FLEE under Auto, and will never use daily skills or powerful magic.  There is an option to use defensive cooldown skills, and there is an option to focus on the basic magic attack spells.  You don’t want your druid to encounter rats and cast METEOR on them, trust me…

It is very useful to give the magic attack option a mana limit, either if the player also has healing abilities he will continue to use, or if you want to switch to manual and invest the mana in a more targeted fashion at some point.

 

You can also enter the inventory/spell/skill screen of any player by hitting their picture.  However you will not be able to alter your equipped items during combat.  But you can change your quick actions there for example.

Quick actions are the 9 buttons each player has which resemble skills and spells that he knows and that are relevant for combat.  Over the course of the game, any new skill or spell is usually added as a new quick action.  However, as you may gain access to many later on in the game, you may have to choose manually which ones to use in those 9 slots for quick access.  There is also a HELP button which gives a brief description on each.

Movement in combat is simplified:  wherever you click, the active player will make ONE step into that direction and then be active again when the time it takes to move has passed.  Every player and monster has a different speed, can use certain skills and spells to move faster, or even teleport.  When you have a possible target for the weapon you hold, monsters in range will show a highlight (close range) or a highlight with red circles (ranged attack).  Clicking on it will attack that target.  For a ranged attack, the more red circles the easier to hit.  Distance and obstacles make it harder to hit a target from afar, although it greatly depends on the weapon and your skill.  A war bow can fire over many tiles, whereas a sling has a comparatively short range.  Flanking is a powerful tactical element.  If a monster you target, whether with a melee or ranged attack, has another player next to it, than that hinders its ability to EVADE your attack.  If you ever find that a monster is really hard to hit, get up close with several players.  Unless he has a BURST/BLAST special attack, he can only kill one of you at a time, right?

If you select a skill or spell from your quick actions, the outcome varies.  Some take effect immediately, like ‘harden up’ which is a cooldown skill that prepares a battle worn fighter or barbarian for being hit over the next few rounds.  Other require you to select a target, close or ranged depending on skill.  Some let you choose a target square, like certain teleport skills or area effect spells.  Where you select some sort of target, you are able to ABORT the skill/spell use with the respective button, and not use up the turn/spellpoints etc.

As you fight your enemies, you may see your health points reduce dramatically.  If you are in AUTO mode, you can set alerts for any player that lets him revert to manual control if he is reduced to 25 or 50% health. Or alternatively if any player sinks below that, a setting suitable for a healer that otherwise may stay out of combat most of the time.  All such AUTO settings can be altered by clicking on any of the coloured AUTO settings to the left of the player pictures.

Note: while you can LOAD a game that you previously saved (from the options menu), the game also auto-saves every time you change location (move between maps).  You can deactivate this default setting though, in the options menu, if you prefer to manually SAVE whenever you feel necessary.  Please note if you fail to do so and exit the app, you would lose your progress.  So it is recommended to leave autosave ON and live with the consequences of your actions/ambitions.

COMBAT – DAMAGE, WEAPONS and TACTICS

Without giving too much away, there are a many different tactical ways to approach combat.  And the best approach clearly depends on your abilities and equipment and of course your enemies.  To best illustrate the factors at play, let’s look at a few example combat scenarios:

1. You encounter a flock of bats, including a few vampire bats.  They are very hard to hit, which is resembled in their evasion score.  If your ranger tried to hit them with arrows, they would possibly die right away.  However shooting a ranged weapon costs more time, if you miss two shots they would probably flown all the way up to your face and you would be in trouble.  Similarly, your buffed up barbarian with its heavy war hammer may equally take a lot of time to clear the ranks of the bats.  Once he is surrounded by them, he would grant flanking bonus to them which means he would be very easy to hit by them and loose a small amounts of hit points every other second and be bled to death in not time at all.  If you anticipate this, you would send in your fighter or monk with a very quick attack option: a dagger with some fire damage or in regards to the monk a simple unarmed attack, as an experienced monk possibly using his ‘swift punch’ technique.  You can select the technique at the top left of the screen.  The options vary on your skill for that weapon class, as well as the weapon itself.  For unarmed, the types represent powerful martial arts techniques.  A monk making 5 punches with high accuracy in the same timeframe a barbarian makes one swing with his hammer, makes a hell of a difference.  Similarly, a fighter with a swift dagger will cut the air and all that are in it in deadly slices.

2. Your party has entered an orc’s hideout.  With luck being on the wrong side of the fence today, you are attacked by two groups of orcs at once, so the fight starts with double the normal amount of orcs facing you.  You thought clearing out the hideout would mean easily taking out one group at a time, but now your lazy duck shoot has turned out a nasty challenge in an instant.  Orcs can take a punch, so to take the 7 orcs and 2 orc warriors down with fire columns will take a lot of time and not kill them before you have roasted each at least twice if not three or four times.  You have been cocky and not always regained all your spell points before moving on, so you started the fight on half SP and need to plan wisely. As an experienced party, you know what to do.  You have a deliberately unbalanced party at present. You spent all your loot to buy a rare frosty elven bow.  Your archer has also spent a lot of talent points boosting his ranged attack skills, so his attack type ‘quick shot’ will serve him well.  And the ‘frosty’ attribute will mean he deals extra frost damage plus freeze the enemy.  While not halting their movement, it does slow them down.  That buys more time to kill them before they are in range to unleash their melee attacks on you.  And in a cold state they are easier to hit as well.  But that alone would not stop 9 enemies of course.  You spend your SP wisely on two HASTE spells, which is very costly but will give your barbarian a fighting chance to maw down every orc that gets too close, and also let your archer shoot even faster.  And to shift the balance of power even further, your barbarian times his own skills wisely, using ‘harden up’ when the enemy is about to step into melee range, then ‘rage’ to boost his offensive abilities, turning him and his war hammer into a one-hit-kills wonder.  And with a to-stun chance of 50%, even if it does not kill it may leave the target stunned and just waiting for the second hit.

3. You have been careless and ran through some very deep woods.  Not all the trees are mere plants as you just found out.  One of them is giving you an evil stare, and soon enough he is throwing deadly boulders at you.  You know you could run as he does not seem to change positions at all, however you would cop some hefty hits on the way out.  You think it would make for a great trophy to take one of these ancient evil trees down, so derive a tactic to take him out.  First you need to use the battleground for your advantage.  Any ranged attack is far less likely to hit if you put a few trees between you and the enemy.  Since the tree or the party or both sat in a forest tile when combat was initiated, trees are also present on the battleground. So ‘staying out of combat’ for some of your party members does not have to mean running all the way to the edge.  They stay in far sight and would only have a slim chance of being struck by a boulder.  Then you aggravate the enemy: you noticed that once a player wounds him, he seems to focus his attacks on that player.  So you take the player with the best evasion, boost it with spells and skills, and let him be the target.  All the while you boost up a melee fighter.  With every step your fighter takes towards the tree, he passively receives boost spells from his party. Boosting armour class, speed, damage etc.  An evil tree is a fearsome enemy to go into melee combat with, but you soon realise that while he CAN hurt one of your players each turn, to do so means he can’t also focus on any of the others who come out of hiding, firing magical and old school projectiles at him, knowingly focussing on fire damage as his natural weakness.  And ultimately, while the tree has some great resistances to force and piercing damage, the slicing damage that the fighter’s axe ‘treebane’ produces will make all the difference… What a great plan!  Until the evil tree is reduced to half his hit points and let’s out an eery growl, which is answered by a pack of fierce wolves coming to his aide from all sides…

The above examples explain many important features:

• flanking reduces the difficulty to hit a target
• most ranged attacks get penalties to hit if the line of sight is impaired
• any attack has a damage type. This can be physical: pierce, slice, force;  or elemental: fire, cold, lightning, magic, poison; or something completely different like the life-draining ability of some monsters…
• there are by-effects to some attacks as well: some attacks freeze, some paralyse (which REALLY stops any movement or action), some stun (similar), some cause bleeding (which does not stop until healed or the fight ends), some cause poison damage (that stacks and only slowly reduces) …
• distance matters for a lot of things.  Blessed be those that have unlimited range spells that only need a basic sort of line-of-sight, like the ‘lightning strike’ spell, where you simply have to concentrate on someone you see to have him being struck.  Your opponent may have a fierce ranged attack, but if he starts out of range, he has to cop a few hits before he can retaliate.  This also means that you should choose your targets wisely.  Using auto-fight mode for example means you loose some advantage here:  manually choosing targets you can target and take out ONE particular monster first that happens to be your biggest threat, whereas in auto-fight mode your party may target a lot of monsters and not killing any particular one early which they could if they had focussed on one.
• timing is of the essence. ‘rage’ is a wonderful skill, but if you activate it too early it will run out before you have made the most important hits…

DEFENCES, SPEED, ACCURACY and EVASION

Superior tactics depend on a good understanding of the laws that prevail in combat, here are the basic ones and a bit of insight beyond that as well…

PHYSICAL DAMAGE comes in three forms: slicing, piercing and force/bludgeon.  It is hard to find a weapon that deals a lot of bludgeon damage without requiring a lot of strength, as it is strength that creates such damage.  Force damage in turn is the hardest to defend against.  When a golem punches you, there is not much your armour can do about.  However there are pieces of armour that try that, in particular when they are magically enhanced or ancient and rare, they can protect you just that bit you need to survive the blow.  Slicing and piercing is far more common, and intricate weapons can deal a lot of such damage.  However a thick hide as some monsters have, can hold up quite well against it. Then there are those (ghosts for example), that are totally unfazed by physical damage…

As to the exact effects: armour in any of the 3 categories halves damage for every 100 points of armour.  So 200 points of armour class (AC) vs. slicing means you receive only a quarter of the raw damage.  Pieces of armour are summed up directly to derive the total AC.

ELEMENTAL DAMAGE has many facets and resistances against any particular one depend for each foe.  You in turn will also have to prepare yourself well (before battle!).  Fighting a dragon with as many fire resistance bonuses as possible is a wise decision.  Note though that fire resistances do not stack like AC does.  It stacks relatively to the remaining damage:  if you wear two rings with fire resistance of 40% each, the 2nd one will reduce the remaining 60% vulnerability by 40%, so your total resistance is 64% with a vulnerability of 36% remaining.  Simply speaking: a ring with 80% fire resistance is MUCH more useful and rare than two rings of 40% each.  Firstly the two rings don’t give you the same resistance, and secondly they take up two equipment slots instead of one.  You could use the 2nd slot for a ring of LIFE (boost your health and regeneration…).

ACCURACY and EVASION work against each other.  In order to hit an enemy, your accuracy will be weighed off against the enemy’s evasion, and of course a roll is made which adds a randomised factor.  You will see that monsters that are very quick more often than not are also very evasive (=hard to hit), unless the monster is overconfident and does not give a damn.  You can to some extent produce that result by taunting the enemy.  And the same is true for players: if you put yourself in a RAGE with the respective skill, your evasion drops.   Evasion also drops dramatically if you are stunned or paralysed, and drops somewhat if you are frozen (=slowed).  There are some spells which do not need accuracy, for example a lightning strike.  This particular nature spell links the target and makes sure the lightning hits its mark.  Area effect spells impact everyone in range, however some evasion/resistance is applicable depending on the spell to account for the monsters reaction.

A monster or player that is STUNNED has the chance doubled that an attack hits him.  This can be powerful to overcome the evasiveness of a monster, or in turn can be your own downfall if you are surrounded by a few minotaurs who stun you every now and then with their mighty blows… Rumour has it that barbarians can advance to the BERSERKER class which has as its core skill the ‘berserker’s will’.  Over the life of the berserker he will effectively be able to withstand any STUN effect.  Note: STUN is the outcome of a physical force impact.  PARALYSE has the same detrimental effect but is caused by magic or other means, so berserkers will not gain immunity against that.

COMBAT TIPS (and DIFFICULTY)

The following are a few handy tips.  If you read through them you may note some address any particular issues you may have had.

1. If you are fighting on AUTO for all 6 players and quickly want to pause (for example to read back in the fight message log what attack the enemy just used), you just need to click on any player or the auto type letters to the left of them.  When ANY of your 6 players has their next turn, it will be on manual.  But only for that turn, as an interrupt.  The setting is still on AUTO and if you make his move the fight will continue on full auto.  You can use that interrupt to go through the log, check player stats (and there change quick actions if you need to), change the auto type settings, change weapon choices etc.

2. if you want to change a player’s AUTO setting (on/off) you can do so at any time when the fight is ongoing, you do not need to wait until it is a specific player’s manual turn.

3. if you tend to lose against a specific type of monster a lot on auto setting, try manual: maybe the use of your daily powers will sway the fight in your favour.  On auto setting, players do not use them at any time because they are precious.

4. Similarly, if you tend to lose on manual and are new to this type of game, activate the AUTO setting for all players and change to ‘M+’ for your fighters, “S” for archers and anyone using a ranged weapon, “P” for druid and cleric and “MF” for mage.  If that helps, set fight auto speed to a high setting in OPTIONS and learn what they do differently to you.

5. If you lose regardless, check the fight intuition when the fight commences, if it says “suicide mission” or “tough fight” maybe you should not engage this monster group at this stage, stay out of its lair/realm/area until you have leveled up a bit and/or wield better equipment.

6. If you are really desperate, just before you are adjacent to the monster group and the fight commences, go to OPTIONS and set the difficulty level to something lower…

7. If you think the game is too easy, do the opposite: set the difficulty to “SPARTA” and see how you fare.  Note that the difficulty affects many things: damage, monster hit points, experience required to level up, experience penalty for dying … many things are more difficult.  The only thing in your favour on high difficulty setting is that loot (monsters and hidden treasure alike) is better/more plentiful.

8. If you find that even if you level up you still don’t get much better, make sure you
a) search for loot in dungeons and even peaceful looking areas.  Loot means a chance to improve your equipment.  A “scorching ancient spirit sword of GIANTS” makes for a much better weapon than a “bent dagger”.
b) take all loot, always.  sell it at a shop that pays good money (not all do…).  Do not sell swords to a bow maker, he will pay scrap value only.  Try out the SPECIALS section which is not for super items, but rather for quick ways to sell or identify items.  Very handy if you got lots of loot on you.
c) make sure you take advantage of your improved weapon skills.  During a fight, click on the weapon in the top right and use the most advance fighting technique each player can do with that weapon.  Also choose weapons wisely.  You may get excited if an axe you found does 10 more damage than your current sword.  But if your sword skill is 50 and your axe skill is 10, the weapon attack types available to you for your sword easily deal double damage, so the axe is only an option in the long run if you REALLY want to raise a 2nd weapon skill one day (I suggest not).
d) thing hard about tactics how to boost your party for the particular fight at hand: you will find that your fighter may not last long against several zombies at once, but if both your monk and your cleric use “holy chant” at the right time (when the fighter is in reach to strike), you will notice that for the short duration he probably deals 3x the damage you are used to and takes out the zombies with one hit each.

9. Do not underestimate poison.  A ‘poison dart’ spell only deals a few points of poison damage, but it stacks.  If you have 2 players with the spell and you cast it quick enough, it will stack quicker than the effect fades.  Example: if a monster with no poison resistance gets hit with 4 poison darts but NOT in quick succession, his damage is: 4,3,2,1 + 4,3,2,1 + 4,3,2,1 + 4,3,2,1 = 40.  He will probably survive that. If he gets 4 poison darts hitting him at the same time, the damage is 16,15,14,13,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 = 136, almost 4 times the individual result!  Be mindful that the same can happen to you.  If you think spiders are lame, wait till you are surrounded by 4 of them.  Or you get spat on by a dozen ants dealing 3 poison damage each…

These are the hints that come up during Loading or Saving screen waiting times, it case they disappear too fast:

“SPELLBOOKS INCREASE THE IMPACT OF TRAINING SPELLS”,”LOOK AND SEARCH IF A WALL IS SUSPICIOUS”,
“CHANGE YOUR FIGHT TACTICS BASED ON YOUR ENEMIES’ WEAKNESS”,
“EVEN WHEN ZOOMED IN, THE WORLD MAP CARTOGRAPHES THE MAXIMUM RANGE OF VIEW”,
“WHEN RESTING, YOUR PERCEPTION SKILL HELPS DETECT APPROACHING MONSTERS”,
“WALKING PAST A SECRET PASSAGE, YOUR PERCEPTION SKILL HELPS SPOTTING IT”,
“WHEN YOU ABORT A SPELL OR SKILL, YOU DO NOT LOSE MANA OR SKILL USES”,
“FLANKING ENEMIES LOWERS THEIR EVASION ABILITY. ‘NO ESCAPE’ SKILL AMPLIFIES THAT”,
“THE ‘NIMBLE’ SKILL LOWERS THE IMPACT THAT BEING FLANKED HAS ON YOUR EVASION”,
“FLANKING AN ENEMY THAT IS HARD TO HIT CAN MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE”,
“DANGEROUS ENEMIES OFTEN NEED WELL-TIMED SKILLS AND SPELLS TO CREATE A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY”,
“THERE ARE RARE CHARACTER FEATS AVAILABLE DURING CREATION THAT CANNOT BE OBTAINED LATER IN THE GAME”,
“CHANGE THE DIFFICULTY OPTION IF YOU THINK THE GAME IS TOO EASY OR TOO HARD”,
“KEYS ARE NOT SHOWING IN YOUR INVENTORY OR STASH. IF YOU GET ONE, JUST CHECK RELEVANT DOORS TO USE THEM”,
“YOU CAN CHANGE THE WALKING SPEED AND FIGHTING SPEED (AUTO) IN OPTIONS”,
“DEATH IS NOT THE END. YOU WILL HOWEVER FACE AN XP PENALTY”,
“ALL PLAYER CLASSES CAN PROGRESS TO ADVANCED CLASSES IF YOU FIND AND APPEASE THE RIGHT GUILD”,
“INSIGNIA ARE ITEMS SPECIFIC TO ONE PLAYER CLASS, THEY CAN HOLD UNIQUE POWERS”,
“EVEN WITHOUT IMPROVING YOUR IDENTIFY SKILL, YOUR PARTY WILL EVENTUALLY REMEMBER RE-OCCURING ITEM PROPERTIES”,
“RESISTANCES STACK LIKE LAYERS: TWO ITEMS WITH 50% RESISTANCE EACH LEAD TO 75% TOTAL RESISTANCE”,
“ARMOR CLASS (DEFENSE) WILL HALF THE DAMAGE TAKEN FOR EVERY 100 POINTS OF DEFENSE”,
“SOME UNDEAD ARE IMMUNE TO PHYSICAL ATTACKS. ITEMS WITH >100% ‘VS UNDEAD’ HURT THEM EXTRA THOUGH”,
“WHEN FAILING TO UNLOCK A DOOR OR CHEST, READ THE HINT TO SEE IF IT IS WORTH A RETRY”,
“A SHOP OWNER WILL CHANGE HIS STOCK OVER TIME. ACT QUICKLY IF YOU ARE SAVING FOR A PIECE YOU LIKE”,
“MAGIC LORE LIMITS THE SPELL PROFICIENCY YOU CAN REACH WITH TALENT POINTS”

Any questions? Check out the support page.

Next: The Making of Dungeons of Chaos