How to skill Toorum?

[TomDeMy]

Now i started my Toorum Run .... bur how to skill this single Char?
I know later i need distance power,,, that means FireMagic.... but what is with the Sword or Axe Skill?
Dont know whatr to do..... please give me some tipps

[Encephalon]

Personally I gave some skill to Earth, just enough to learn Poison Bolt. At the start I took 2 points in fire just to get Fireflash against the skeleton quads, but I have not taken any more in Fire magic. I gradually skillet up Spellcraft to 5 so I could use Light and later to 7 for the Shaman's Staff. All the rest I spent in Axes as he started with 5 skill there, and I figured (correctly) that the strength gained from Axes Skill would be quite usefull. Armours skill I would keep at 8 as the heavy armor will likely be too heavy and limiting how much other gear you can carry.

I wouldn't bother with too much magic, as Toorum uses energy on ordinary (not just the special moves) attacks as well. Also, he must have a wand, orb or staff equipped to cast magic.
Currently my level 12 Toorum looks like this:
Armours 14 (on hindsight I regret those 6 points distributed)
Axes 34
Swords 0
Earth 9
Fire 5 (2 from start, 3 from Tome of Fire)
Spellcraft 8

[Disasterrific]

I think you've got a few good options for what you use for your main offense

Go Axe - I went for this because it matches with canon and I had already gone other routes so I wanted to max out axes and see how much damage I could do, the answer being a lot by the end of the game.

Go Sword - Toorum's natural speed bonus plus the double speed bonus at the top of the Sword skill tree make him absolutely devastating. There's a video on youtube to show how fast he can get and it's obscene... YouTube (of course you don't have an infinite supply of speed potions)

Go Fire - The area attack is powerful for much of the game but by the end you start losing out. You want to max willpower at every opportunity and make sure you're carrying boosting stuff when you level up otherwise you'll be running out of mana a lot. Bear in mind you're going to run into trouble with uggaurdians but you don't need to max fire early so you can get some poison and use the earth staff (though fire is your main damage dealer).

On hard most of your combat is going to be on the back foot because you simply can't take that many hits and evasion just doesn't cut it. I think it's worth hitting 16 for heavy armor and getting full valor so you've got at least enough staying power to blast through one side of being cornered. I can't really remember how I did the fighter's challenge but I don't remember it being too hard running to the corner with full armor, a few ice bombs and a good supply of potions (it's a looong fight, keep your character screen open so you can see your exact HPs).

Anyhoo:
You'll get 52 points from 13 level ups) + 15 book points + 3 fire by the end of the game + all the bonus starting points that toorum has at the beginning.
You almost definitely want
8 in Spellcraft for +2 Will Power (10 for the fire orb)
Boost initial 8 to 16 in Armor

Then 50 in Axes OR 50 in Swords OR 24+ in Fire and the rest spread to earth magic for a mage-y build or a weapon for when you run out of mana (often).

[Encephalon]

If you want to go for 16 Armours skill and the use of Valor you should really consider going full Axes skill too, to get the strength bonuses. The four pieces of Chitin armour weigh 16,0kg while the Valor equalent weigh 28,5kg. That's a differense of 12,5kg, with Valor gloves (2,5kg) and shield (6,5kg) not included. And you also have to carry around food, herbs and other necesities. It all adds up to sereous equipment management.

[Disasterrific]

The shield gives +2 strength btw.

Yeah a bit of extra strength may be good (i took 4 in swords just for that). You can still throw away most of the stuff you find and you need very little food. Keep your bombs in a crate stash and only take a few with you at a time. It's no big deal though imo.

[Hissssa]

Make sure you put your first two points into spellcraft so he gets extra energy. If you notice in that youtube video with the sword he runs out really quick. Willpower gives you more energy and over 12 or so levels it really makes a big difference (and is even further magnified by using three +wisdom items to level up. That being said only use one element or you are gimping yourself. Since you can carry resist items for when you need them (fire/cold/poison) you don't need to get to the shield passive as it only affects him instead of the whole party.

Personally I feel axes is the only way to go since you already have 8 points there. Axes also play more to his strength of moving around a lot and hitting for big damage.

With just one character I feel the only option is to go with:

16 armor 50 axes and the rest in fire/spellcraft

This will give you Valor armor, very powerful melee attacks and ranged killing power. It will also give you the ability to ignore fire damage (by swapping a necklace). Earth magic is complete crap compared to fire in the grand scheme of things. Poison damage is always extremely weak except from the mages at the end and at the very start of the game if you aren't good at dodging.

[Xanathar]

Personally the build I used was this:

5 - spellcraft
50 - swords

The rest in armor to go to heavy armors. If points are in excess (it depends on if you reach lvl 14th or not), just drop them on fire to gain resistances. Remember to get all the books, the one of fire included (with it, the shield of valor and the fire gorget of which I don't remember the name, I went to 94+ fire resist which means that a fireball deals 2 damage tops).

The only time I used ranged attacks was the final encounter and I dropped the whole inventory of bombs there. You move so fast you can draw circles around the spiders.

Really in my run I first raised armors and then swords.. but I really think I got it wrong - 50 swords on toorum is exceptional - it gives you double speed, which multiplied by the double speed of toorum himself, multiplied by a speed potion, multiplied by the -20% cooldown bracelet, you become a living God (for the short time of the potion that is). Also the armors are not really useful since they are too heavy and the encounters where you need it are very few (basically some places where you are against a crab and cannot go around it. Near the end I dropped most of my heavy armor and went back to chitin.

[waylander]

played similar to xanther,i spent everything on swords only giving 5 points on spellcraft with the book and wore chitin only until i got to 50 sword then spent on armours,think it was only last level i used heavy armour

[Thels]

8 in Spellcraft for +2 Will Power (10 for the fire orb)

Make sure you put your first two points into spellcraft so he gets extra energy. If you notice in that youtube video with the sword he runs out really quick. Willpower gives you more energy and over 12 or so levels it really makes a big difference (and is even further magnified by using three +wisdom items to level up.

Actually, +Willpower doesn't really give that much Energy, if you don't pick it at level 1. Every 2 points of Willpower gives +1 Energy per level. You start with 0 Spellcraft, so you won't be able to raise it to +2 Willpower until after you became level 3. That means you get 10-11 points of Energy out of it. I'm not saying it's bad to level Spellcraft to 8, but don't expect a huge return in Energy.

It does help to equip every single +Willpower item when you level up, as the Conjurer's Hat, Shaman's Staff and Orb of Light each grant +1 Energy during levelup, while Zhantul's Orb gives +2/3 Energy. Note that Loincloth might give you -1 Energy at levelup. The Huntsman Cloak gives +1 Vitality, so if you have 17 points in Earth Magic for whatever reason, make sure you have that equipped at levelup as well.

You have:

SpoilerShow

8 Armor
5 Axes
0 Swords
5 Earth Magic
0 Fire Magic
0 Spellcraft

+48/52 from levelups.
+15 from tomes.
+3 Fire Magic from tomes.

I would probably progress like:
8 in Spellcraft to cast Light, for the extra energy, and to be able to hold every staff/orb.
8 in Armors to be able to wear Valor.
2 more in Spellcraft to be able to hold every staff/orb.
45 in Axes to max it out.
4 in Swords if I manage to get to level 14 for the bonus to Strength.

[pask]

As the previous posts make clear, you can go a lot of different ways with Toorum. But I would avoid upgrading armour unless you do something to get serious boosts to your strength. I just finished a game with him using swords, but he was so loaded down he couldn't carry anything. So if you want the heavy armour, you probably have to go axes instead of swords. My favorite playthrough was using the four rogues, but Toorum is pretty good too.