Im about ready to give up on this game...

Haldurson's got the idea. You play to learn, and enjoy learning. If something doesn't work out exactly right, take a look at what happened and figure out why it happened. You'll only know and understand the tools you have available by using them. I'm taking the last build you listed as examples:

Math: This has a (too dangerous to use) random teleport, debuff spell, some single-target damage,a self-buff that helps spellcasting power, and a great targeted teleport. This skillset works best as support for another magic school on mage characters, preferably one with Area-of-Effect spells.

Piracy: Extra money, tons of for 4 turns, stealth and dodge, a very good debuff, and ranged damage. Also adds some bonus health. This is a good "toolbox" skill for any melee character, and fits what you want to do well.

Daggers: Better damage with daggers and all that. Note that if you use wall of blades and swashbuckling from piracy, you have 100% .

Dodge: It's... well it's a lot of dodging. Dodging doesn't do anything against spells or area attacks, and wearing light enough armor to get the full benefit of this makes it that much more likely that any hits you DO take will do serious, potentially fatal damage to you. You also get a very dangerous chance on dodge to teleport you into more monsters, and knightly leap which you already have covered better by mathemagic's teleport, or burglary's teleport. (This really isn't a very good skill for anyone in my opinion).

Burglary: Lots of bonus XP from lockpicks, free loot from vendors, invisibility, teleport. Also some bonuses to dealing with traps.This is good on anyone.

Perception: The is good. isn't that useful for what you want, because you aren't trying to shoot or throw at stuff very often. The from this has the same problems as above: Heavy armor lowers its effectiveness and relying on it will eventually get you killed. The added loot doesn't help you much since you don't have any crafting skills to take advantage of it.

Archaeology: I really never saw the appeal of this skill. You get extra XP, a mediocre hat, and two skills that can curse or wipe out the modifiers on your items. So... XP and a hat? It doesn't help you survive or kill anything, so the points could be better spent elsewhere.

So, looking at all that, you have very low health for melee because you didn't take any warrior skills, 3 skills with similar escape abilities, no guaranteed method of healing yourself in an emergency, and an over-reliance on a single defense mechanism that's unreliable if you're in sustained melee. Also, four of your skills are being taken up by stuff which is either niche or not great for you (dodge, math, archaeology, perception).

I'm going to remove those 4 and replace them with skills that sound like what you're trying to do. This leaves you with Daggers, Piracy, and Burglary (which is a great start!). Here are some options:

Communism: More health, a vanishing attack at rank 1, and self-healing at rank 2. If you go farther (which is optional), you also get a magical Area attack on hit, the ability to remove debuffs and replace them with very manageable communist-themed debuffs, and two VERY nice sets of melee buffs. Don't take the last skill in this tree; it's a one-shot throwing weapon that isn't that great.

Dual Wielding: Taking a weapon skill without this is almost never a great idea. Plus it gives you a lot of to boost blade wall stance from daggers, and provide more than just to protect you. Counterattacks not only negate melee damage, but you also get a free attack on the enemy turn!

Assassination: More killing power from and chances to stun enemies on attack starting at level 1. This and dual-wield would make all those guerrilla strikes from Communism much more powerful.

Master-at-Arms: This gives you lots of (to augment bladewall stance), to mitigate melee damage, absorb more, and heal more. All this basically gives you the benefits of heavy armor without the or penalty that you'd get from actually wearing it. It also doesn't force you to use a shield to get a lot of so you can dual-wield with it no problem.

Tinkering: More trap handling, ranged solution to take out those annoying casters and things that hit you too hard in melee to be worth stabbing personally. Also, the encrusts can help diversify your daggers' damage.

Psionics: A decent, -independent heal out of combat to let you save up on food and potions until critical moments.

Fungal Arts: Healing, invisibility, melee damage buffs, armor buffs, and a pet, all at level 2.

Don't feel forced to take all of a skill tree before you take skills from another tree. Don't feel like you have to take all rogue skills in order to "play like a rogue."

 

Ok so my question about your post is the build I made can't defeat the endgame boss on easy? What if I get resistances and by lvl 20-25 have a dodge of 100?

Those are very good ideas and especially communism which I was originally considering. My main thing is I am more prone to finishing up this char. I wont do that if this build doesn't work however.

From now on, I will clear my thoughts and not TREAT the game as an rpg. I think that is what the issue lies in, because Im expecting the game to behave the same way a normal rpg would which I should not have brought on myself.

 

Dodge of 100 does not mean 100% to dodge. Enemies have EDR.

 

Iccorp2 has it right, the enemies have the same ability that players do. I should have directly mentioned that sooner, so my fault there. is more of a bonus than a focus in this game.

I have no idea how Dredmor is on easy, so unfortunately I can't help you there, either. I will say that enemy will probably make your life very hard at the lower floors in any case. My advice, though, is to try it for yourself and see how it performs, then make a few posts about it on the forums for the next time someone comes along with the same questions that you have. It's no big deal if you die, there are always more eyebrows to be made.

I decided to try out a build I mentioned earlier: Daggers, Dual-wield, Master at Arms, Piracy, Communism, Burglary, Fungal Arts. I'm in floor 4 in Going Rogue/permadeath and have had no problems so far. I'll post a screenshot later on.

 

You can make up for almost any amount of deficiency in a build with good gear and good play. And of course, a good deal of luck will push things more into your favor. You can't win just by virtue of having a good build, nor are you likely to lose solely because you had a bad build. Your build is just a way of taking some of that luck factor out of the equation, and having a greater tolerance for when things get difficult.

 

I've beaten Dredmor on easy/permadeath/15 floors with a dodge/counter build. Since counter is basically another dodge roll before your actual dodge roll it works pretty well - I rarely got hit even at the bottom. It is actually one of my more favourite builds - up there with dual-shield kicky crossbow man. I just started playing on Going Rogue recently (after finally beating the game a few times) so I don't know how well it works on the higher difficulties, but on easy it is very effective.
If I recall correctly the build was Swords, Dual-Wield, Artful Dodger, Perception, Burglary, and then I think the last 2 were generally Archaeology and Piracy, but those can be easily switched out for more useful things.

The two main things to be careful of are getting stuck in large groups (I get my knight jump and teleport pretty early though) and therefore to funnel them towards you - don't rush. The other one is that when something eventually does hit you on a lower floor it will hurt a lot so be prepared to run and heal.

 

Lately I've been enjoying Dagger/Rogue style builds, but I use a variety of mods, Faxpax's Dastardly Scoundrel along with assassination adds nice stealth bonuses. For a new player I'd recommend checking out a few runs with some crafting skills, Clockwork Knight, Smith and Tinkerer seems like a huge portion of your skills (and it is) but it will easily help you clear the first few levels if you get some decent materials to work with. My own Leather mod adds a skinning knife, and with 5 Tinkering some fairly nice Cybernetic Ninja armor, that I'd consider balanced. It takes a bit of effort and iron to make enough skinning knives (they're wands, I didn't want to make my mod take up a skill) and you'll have to horde Sewer Brew and Dr. Sanin's in order to make boiled leather for the armors my mod adds. The resources required and Tinkering skills it takes to make the armors makes me feel like they're not unbalanced, they don't add a ridiculous amount of any stat, but they all add a little counter attack capability and nimbleness and I find it a bit more helpful than any gear I've found for a character focused on counter and dodge.

 

Mostly everyone has been right, but I had to point out that you don't need a point in Alchemy if you have Fungal Arts (Inky Hoglanterns), Burglary (Invisbility), or even a few activateable teleports in a row to get out of range (Burglary + Clockwork Knight + Dodge; or just Math.) Basically, you can totally have a melee build as long as you have a solid getaway plan and the ability to either heal with skills or tank long enough that you can save your healing items for the big D.

I've personally meleed Dredmor to death, a long time ago, before it was made easier through a few small changes, so I know it's possible.

 

Ok so Im going to restart the game with Daggers, Artful Dodger, Piracy, Perception and 2 others. I want to make this a strictly rogue fighter class that heals back to full health to return to the fight. If anyone knows some other healing skills to aid in this too choose would be good. I just want to be able to heal, fight, dodge and what not. I don't want armor skills, or fighter skills other than maybe communism for regenerate. This character will be like a rogue/healer.

So fungal skill is the only healing skill?

 

Fungal doesn't do healing directly -- just through the mushrooms. IF you are counting indirect skills like that, then you also might want to count Paranormal Investigator's Xenochemistry, which can transmute one type of potion into another, and it does count as a rogue skill.

Alchemy used to be a rogue skill, but is now (I believe) a mage skill.

 

Im looking for healing direct skills like a minor heal or something like that in a eschalon game or whatever.

 

There are several different skills that have heals, but none of them count as rogue skills. Some examples include
Fleshsmithing -- a real heal
Emomancy -- a real heal, but can debuff you
Communist -- a heal over time
Egyptian Magic -- A small heal, and some significant health regen
Vampirism --Drain health from some creatures (Animals, Demons, or Other), also can eat any corpse for a small heal
Psionics -- maybe not exactly what you want -- summon crystals around you that heal you when you walk on them
None of the above are considered rogue skills. I may have missed one, but If so, I can't think of what it is.

The indirect heals include Paranormal Investigator, Alchemy, Fungal Arts, and Blood Magic (from Haematic Phylactery)