I don't know what pack your playing that has those things in a ThaumCraft tower, but the only thing that spawns in that chest is 1xGlowStone Dust, 1-3x Glass bottles, 1-2xKnolage fragments, and the ThaumCraft book. I have Played SOOO many pack with that mod in, and never seen armor or tools in any chest, and on a rare chance I have found no more than 2 thaum/ingots. I am up to 26 worlds loaded and have explored ruffly 1000+ in multiple directions on each one looking for the Obelisks, and the other Taumcraft world gen and still as of yet to find either. While exploring all the worlds I also looked though 127+ random chest just to see what loot spawn in them, and have seen no more than a single essence of any type which means you will still have to do the quest in order to get the rest needed to make a seed,(that are repeatable).
I'm just trying to understand, because I have read every post on here, and as for the pack thephoenixloge said "Villages have been a common criticism I've been receiving. Originally I didn't disable them as there wasn't really any harm in leaving them - the pack wasn't necessarily meant to hardcore, so having plenty of food wasn't something I really considered progress breaking. As it was, the loot tables were tweaked so nothing particularly progress breaking was really easy to find, but things like some of the essences required to craft initial seeds are still obtainable through dungeon loot for those who might not want to play with the quests for some reason or another."
It wasn't until a small number of people complained about it that it was disabled. So for the people who say it doesn't fit for the pack theme I would like to know s are we talking about, yours or the person who is taking the time to maintain it. I will agree that the smeltery can give you a leg up, but that can be disabled. I don't know, I just don't think someone can say it doesn't fit with the pack when the creator them self was fine with it, but only turned them off because a small number of people wanted him to change what he was ok with.