Thoughts on *band balance

[PaulBlay]

The emphasis seems to be very firmly on the equipment. I suppose that's obvious from the number of posts asking which items they should be using, but I've been using wizard mode in ToME to debug stuff and that's really brought it home to me.

I just wanted to do some world map travel without being bothered so I edited all stats to 50, level to 100 and stuffed combat / swords skill full of points. However I got my ass handed to me (about once per round :-P) by a bunch of water trolls.

Level 100 cheat + starting equipment = Crap (<= level 25 + decent equipment?)

It's a bit disappointing for me really, I'd prefer it if equipment made up about half the whomph a character has. I suppose the emphasis on equipment/inventory increases the efficiency of diving tactics.

Out of Depth equipment + low level character = Strong ?

So what does everybody think about where the balance should lie between equipment enhanced vs base character strength?