The first I heard of this someone saying "I just taught my dog Summon Skeleton". I was pretty much sold.
So now I'm around level 20, just got to the goblin place, and suddenly I am dying. I have an alchemist, mostly leveled pet-master style - five imps and a golem nearly at the brink of v3 I think, plus two slots of zombie-summoning that calls 3 each - who also shoots stuff with Ember Lance. I dual-wield wands - some unique fire one, and a slightly outdated lightning one that I don't want to upgrade from because it is lightning (I suspect it's the cause for why occasionally my spells explode into giant awesome clouds of lightning) and it has a slight critical hit boosting enchantment. I never actually attack with them, though. All beamspam, all the time.
I'm only on the first level, and I've died three times already. :\ Most recently, I got swarmed by goblins, and my health sorta just vanished. Another time some sort of fireball hit me, and my life depleted from 75% to dead. The first time happened with my FIRST enemy encounter - I was trying my new teleport spell out on them, and then I died horribly. Much like my third death, in retrospect.