[Update] All Donkeyed Up and Nowhere to Go - Tomb of Horrors Session 1 Recap

[subject42]

For those of you who read my last thread on the matter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129589), you'll remember that our DM decided that we were going run the 3.5 Update to the Tomb of Horrors to take a break from or normal plot-and-characterization heavy campaign. Since that spawned some lively debate I thought I'd post up the results of the adventure so far.

The Setup
None of us had ever run the ToH before and all we knew of it were whispered legends by the beardiest of our beardy mentors in the D&D community. We had heard that there were three different ways to die before you even entered the dungeon. We had heard that the hallways were littered with no save, just die traps.

The DM wanted us to play for a full evening, so he and I haphazardly generated 34(!) 8th level PCs and declared that the ToH was part of a "Mandatory Team Building Exercise and Picnic" for "Acquisitions Incorporated", a high-fantasy holdings and trust megacorporation that got creative with downsizing. The thought was that we would play until we ran out of characters in a few hours.

The Cast
We each started by pulling a character randomly from the pile.

I got "Old Tex Hannigan", a mulleted human warlock who was bittter about working on the janitorial staff for 20 years before recently being promoted to mail room duty.

Our resident rules expert and hilarious role player got "Arwyn Blacklilly", a stereotypical goth lesser drow duskblade who worked in marketing to support her true passion of poetry writing.

The player who has a hard time with the rules and remembering class and race features ended up with a "Colleen", the pixie rogue who's entire inventory consisted of survival pouches and feather tree tokens.

Our brand new, never before played D&D player at the table got "Yanamamo Tlingit", a Jungle Elf Sorcerer who worked in "Undead Resources".

The First Room
We started out by digging the left-most hole and entering a room with two doors. One door had a wolf's-head knocker and the other had a tiger-head knocker. Colleen the PIXIE pulled out a mule out of the survival pouch and sent it a few feet ahead of her while she looked around for traps. Of course, the mule triggered the trap and a heavy stone wall started crashing down. The PIXIE player made her reflex save and the DM asked which way she would like Colleen to jump?


"Would you like to jump toward the doors or toward the rest of your party?"

"Toward the doors!"

Colleen quickly leaped forward and had just enough time to watch a five foot wall of stone slam shut behind her, leaving her stuck in total darkness.


"I pull a campfire out of my survival pouch!"

"You and the donkey are now looking at each other over a cheerily crackling campfire. The donkey looks anxious. He seems more anxious when you and he both hear a loud mechanical grinding noise and the ceiling begins to inexorably lower its way to the floor."

At this point the rest of us just sat around and decided to wait until the trap finished doing its thing. Maybe we could loot her body or something.

Right around this time Colleen's player got excited and said "I activate a tree token!" and quickly threw one on the ground.

At that point the tree and the ceiling got into a bit of an arm wrestling contest and the ceiling lost. When the rest of us heard the gears grind and strip, we figured that we might as well try to lift the stone wall. Between the three of us, ten foot poles for leverage, and a mule from my survival pouch we were able to pry it open and get her out after finding out that both doors were fake. We crawled back out into the daylight, dismissing the donkeys back to their elemental plane.

[Tyndmyr]

Elemental plane of donkey?

[subject42]

The second room.
Three of the four of us decide that we should dig out the large central area, with Yanamamo going off on her own to dig out the upper-right entrance.

Apparently necromancers are really handy with a shovel and she managed to break through the upper right room before we finished the central entrance, so "Arwyn Blacklilly" and I decided to follow her in and look around. We ended up in a long hallway with spider-web covered ceilings and a single door at the end.

I'm still not quite sure what was going through the new player's head at the time, but she looks at the DM and says:


"I walk up to the door and open it."

That's when the ceiling collapsed. Both Yanomamo and Arwyn failed their respective saves and ended up in negative hitpoints and bleeding out. I managed to make my save (Yay Dark One's Own Luck) and simply got horribly injured. I picked my way through the rubble and blew a few healing belt charges to keep the two of them alive to open doors another day.

When the three quarters of the party crawled out of the opening, horribly battered and bruised Colleen the PIXIE looked at us and said "See! I knew it! It's always the hardest entrance." A food break was had, and her player made a point of rubbing it in.

After that we broke into the third room and decided to bed down for the night.

[Bayar]

And it is proven once again that no task is impossible without a Tree Token.

[Another_Poet]

Awsome. Please continue this. :)

[subject42]

The Third Room (or Main Entrance)

Looking around the room, our intrepid adventurers found a cryptic poem on the floor of an elaborately painted hallway. I will not reproduce it here, but suffice to say that colorblindness could be a huge problem in the ToH.

Momentarily ignoring the HUGE GREEN STATUE at the end of the hall, we found a box built into the wall about halfway down the hallway. After some inspection, we noticed that it was trapped with a poison needle. Yanomamo's player got excited and said:


"I hit it with my shovel!"

The steel head of the shovel smashed the needle and depressed the button in one shot. The bottom of the box opened, revealing a pull handle, of sorts.

Paranoia had finally set in, so we decided to devise a crude pulley system out of poles, weights and ropes. Standing 45 feet away, we triggered the lever.

The ground dropped out from beneath the lever. Huzzah! We had successfully detected and outsmarted an inanimate object!

Still concerned that we could die at any moment, we decided to pull the lever again, just to make sure that it would trigger in the same place, rather than in the section of hallway just before or after it. Success! The scientific method reigns supreme in the dungeon!

We poked around the trap, disabled it, and found a pair of "goggles of day" at the bottom. We handed them to our resident Drow goth.

Trap averted, we begin to throw things into the mouth of the statue from as far away as we can manage. Eventually we tossed in the end of a rope section and noticed that something bad was happening in the statue, so we left it alone.

Somewhat confused, we pulled out another donkey and sent it down the hallway, just to make sure there weren't any other traps.

The donkey ambled about ten feet past the now-disabled trap and suddenly plunged through the floor. We heard frantic braying, squishing noises, and a loud *POP* as it quickly dematerialized. (Survival pouches are TOTALLY worth the cost.)

We disabled that trap as well and started to look around. We noticed that the wall next to us with an elaborate prison door painting on it was made of plaster, rather than stone.

Yanomamo, being Yanomamo, began furiously beating the wall with her shovel, exposing a secret door.

(More to come later. This time with PC death!)

[Animefunkmaster]

I agree, more please.

[Bayar]

Yeah, if you read OotS, you would know that messing with the statue can be dangerous.

[Evil the Cat]

The donkey ambled about ten feet past the now-disabled trap and suddenly plunged through the floor. We heard frantic braying, squishing noises, and a loud *POP* as it quickly dematerialized.

This part had me seriously laughing, LOL.

[subject42]

The Fourth Room, Or "The Despair of My Existence is Soothed By A Blanket of Eternal Repose"

We entered the new room and found a short hallway with a door at the end. Going all Warlock invisible, I crept up to the door and gently pried it open just enough to peek in, only to be greeted by SEVERAL TONS OF SLASHING TEETH AND CLAWS BARRELING THROUGH THE DOORWAY.

A horrendous four-armed monster charged at Yanomamo and delivered a vicious blow.


"Wings of cover! Yay!"

Yanomamo (the new player) managed to get off one shout before initiative started.


"Re-engage the trap and lure it into the pit!"

We managed to lure it into the trap through some selective withdraw actions and invisibility toggling, but the poisoned spikes in the pit couldn't penetrate its massive DR.

Both my and Arwyn's readied actions went off simultaneously, smashing the now flat-footed creature with a scorching ray and a maximized eldritch blast, dealing a total of 70 points of ORGAN WRENCHING ARCANE damage. That was almost twice as many hit points as most of our party members.

The creature did not look terribly phased.

Colleen was up next on the initiative and her face brightened.


"I throw a tree token in the hole with it! Maybe it'll get smooshed."

The creature did not get smooshed, but it did get wedged up against the side of the trap hard enough that it would take some effort for it to get out.

Arwyn was up next and she unloaded a full attack with her mighty spell storing adamantine war pick. The gargoyle took a bit of a hurtin' and got walloped with 8 strength damage.

It did not look concerned.

I tried to hit it with another maximized eldritch blast and rolled a 1. Bummer. I was out of the fight for a while.

GARGOYLE'S TURN! OH CRAP!

The gargoyle grabbed Arwyn and commences to claw her, claw her, rend her, bite her, and gore her. Arwyn is now at -40 hitpoints, and dead.

We mark the top of Arwyn's character sheet and put a skull and crossbones at the top with the legend "Gore-goyled." The player then began familiarizing himself with his new character.

Now it's Yanomamo's turn. She looked at her character sheet and said "so, what does "shivering touch" do, exactly?" After explaining ability damage to the player, she decides to use it and rolls 11 points of dexterity damage.

This ONE SHOTS the Gargoyle. We spend the next several minutes all trying to coup de grace through its damage reduction. Eventually we succeeded and found a note in its collar. None of us could read the magic runes in which the writing was inscribed. What now?

Right about that time we heard a squeaking noise and saw a truly ancient elderly elf lady in a wheel chair carefully make her way down the hallway.


"Oh my goodness! It looks like you have been having a hard time down here too. I remember the last company picnic, back in aught two when we went into the palace of the vampire queen for a three legged race, you see when I was younger I was quite a sprightly lass and I was paired with this handsome young archmagus in the department of... oh wait, he's dead now, but no matter. What nice goggles! I remember when every young elf dandy was wearing goggles like that...

This is how we met Cleopatra, Chaotic Cloistered Cleric of Kord (Knowledge, Luck, Good, and Alliteration Domains). She continued to ramble until one of us interrupted her and we made our introductions.

She then raised Arwyn as a Zombie to push her wheelchair for her.

(More later. This time with DOORS)

[subject42]

Chapter Five, or I Lose Track of Rooms at This Point

Luckily for us, Cleopatra, Chaotic Cloistered Cleric of Kord happened to have read magic prepared for the day. She recited another cryptic riddle about "night's brave color" or something to that effect and went off on another off-topic story that didn't really go anywhere. I think at one point she may have mentioned something about putting an onion on her belt.

(Side note, recapping sessions gets confusing when the gender of the player and the character do not match).

We examined the room that contained the gargoyle and discovered two doors. We deliberated for a moment about how to open the door when Cleopatra's player yelled:

"What? I have FIFTEEN hitpoints?! Which one of you made this character?"

At that point we decided that I would open the doors. The pixie and I listened at both doors and didn't hear anything. We didn't find any traps either.

I picked a door at random and opened it, and as usually happens when you open a door in the tomb of horrors, something terrible happened.

I was suddenly shot by a magically animated homing missile that wrenched itself out of my torso and started tracking whichever party member was closest, invisible or not. Initiative time.


"Colleen, you're up."

"I pull out a donkey!"

"Yanomamo, you're up."

"I grab the arrow."

"Ok. You grab the arrow, but the force behind it is so incredible that you doubt that you can hold onto it when it starts moving again. Cleopatra, you're up."

"I cast meld into stone and let these strapping young lads and lasses sort this out."

"Ok then, you're up Tex."

"I look into the room. Anything in there? <Spot check>"

"Yep, there's a hidden door!"


This process continued for about 234523421 rooms until we reach the end, with a wall of donkeys and the two characters with damage reduction leading the charge. We started feeling kind of bad at this point, since the donkeys were actually crying and pleading with us to stop in humanlike voices.

Lucky for us nobody had the good alignment.

The last room had an arched doorway with seven gems in it. Yanomamo (lever-puller extraordinaire) burst in on the back of a donkey and started poking each gem in turn with her trusty shovel. The door flipped open on the last gem and smacked her on the back of the head as it spun open.


"Alright it looks like it hits and you take -"

"No I don't. Wings of Cover."

"No, this is a trap."

"Here are the rules. It looks like I can just say "No" eight times a day."

"Well I'll be darned. That's kind of broken.


That's where we called it for the evening.

[Thorcrest]

Nice. I totally agree with more Please. Laughed the whole way through:smallbiggrin:

[Bayar]

She then raised Arwyn as a Zombie to push her wheelchair for her.

LOL ! I mean, that is a reallygood use of a dead body that happens to be your former PC. Although it would have been better to ressurect him and have him as a trap monkey cohort.

[subject42]

And it is proven once again that no task is impossible without a Tree Token.

I'm looking forward to seeing Cleopatra get in a fight. Her entire non-spell arsenal consists of 18 tree tokens and a sling. I had to write "DM Fiat" in the damage column of the character sheet.

[Fluffles]

Best. Thread. Ever.

And how long did it take for the two of you to roll up 36 characters?!

[subject42]

Best. Thread. Ever.

And how long did it take for the two of you to roll up 36 characters?!

Longer than I'd like to admit.

To be honest, though, some of the characters are a little ridiculous. There's an artificer in there that has a portable hole and 18,000 bronze daggers.

Another one of them spent his entire wealth by level on a ROD OF THUNDER 'N' LIGHTNIN'.

[Akal Saris]

You have a very amusing style and your group is approaching this dungeon with the right spirit of "we'll beat this thing if it takes a thousand donkeys and trees to do it!" Congrats, and please post more when you play next :)

As a sidenote, when I ran this dungeon my PCs managed to land 2 criticals on the gargoyle for maximum damage and slaughtered him. But another time that my PCs fought him, he brought 1 of the 2 PCs to negative hit points, 3 of the 6 NPC sidekicks also to negative hit points, and killed 1 NPC (Will, the plucky fighter from Hillsfar). It was pretty ridiculous, and really set the mood for a tense evening.

By the way, my PCs outsmarted the pit traps by filling them all with their decanter of endless water (or half-orc piss, as it were).

[Sliver]

Interesting stuff, I must say. Will keep following..

It also made me think about running it myself.. Would you mind uploading all those character sheets?:smallbiggrin::smalltongue:

[subject42]

Interesting stuff, I must say. Will keep following..

It also made me think about running it myself.. Would you mind uploading all those character sheets?:smallbiggrin::smalltongue:

If I could get my hands on an autofeed duplex scanner I'll see what I can do.

[Tyndmyr]

Interesting stuff, I must say. Will keep following..

It also made me think about running it myself.. Would you mind uploading all those character sheets?:smallbiggrin::smalltongue:

I would like to second this suggestion. If you're lacking for hosting space, I've got a server.

[Akal Saris]

Perhaps a new thread might also be a good idea, in which OoTS forum-goers can submit additional character ideas or sheets to a pool for potential Tomb of Horrors players? I could see it being a hit for nights when people feel like some old-school D&D but don't want to roll up an 8th level character.

I know I can get my hands on the sheets for Oilak and Groilak, half-orc brothers and tomb desecraters extraordinaire.

[Starbuck_II]

This process continued for about 234523421 rooms until we reach the end, with a wall of donkeys and the two characters with damage reduction leading the charge. We started feeling kind of bad at this point, since the donkeys were actually crying and pleading with us to stop in humanlike voices.
Lucky for us nobody had the good alignment.



This is my favorite part. I like the Recap.

[subject42]

I would like to second this suggestion. If you're lacking for hosting space, I've got a server.

I have hosting space, but the character sheets are all pencil and paper. I'll see if I can't beg a scanner off of a friend and see what I can manage.

[Coidzor]

Yes, the donkeys begging was a nice touch.

So hitting the gems deactivated the PC-seeking missile?

<_< I'd love to see what happens when someone pulls what that artificer pulls with a portable hole/bag of holding full of weapons on someone's head/pushing them into it...

But I don't think there's many places such tactics would be useful in this particular adventure.

Might be able to fill in a small hole with the daggers though.

[subject42]

So hitting the gems deactivated the PC-seeking missile?

It sure did. I'm sure we'll find something deadly in the next room, though.

[Radiun]

I think you said in the prior thread that the characters were 9th level?
Well then I hope a character sheet has used Animate Dead and some 900 gp to bring their own army of 36 skeletons.

[subject42]

I think you said in the prior thread that the characters were 9th level?
Well then I hope a character sheet has used Animate Dead and some 900 gp to bring their own army of 36 skeletons.

8th Level, unfortunately.

We'll have a fifth player sporadically showing up for sessions, so we set the party at level 8, except for two absurd ones that are well above 8th level due to monstrous hit die and LA.

That being said, we do have a character in the pile with 30 some-odd exploding zombie chickens.

[Radiun]

8th Level, unfortunately.

We'll have a fifth player sporadically showing up for sessions, so we set the party at level 8, except for two absurd ones that are well above 8th level due to monstrous hit die and LA.

That being said, we do have a character in the pile with 30 some-odd exploding zombie chickens.

Bah, so 32 skeletons instead of 36, and 100gp back.


I understood zombie
I understood chicken
I understood exploding
But putting them all together made my brain melt.

[Coidzor]

But... But... you get more chicken undead if they're skellies.

Or do chickens get limited flight in their zombie form?

[Radiun]

But... But... you get more chicken undead if they're skellies.

Or do chickens get limited flight in their zombie form?


Maybe the exploding needs flesh?

[Coidzor]

Maybe, I can't remember the text of the relevant corpse-crafter tree feat to recall exactly.

I do know they explode based on their HD, so maybe the chickens needed to be zombies to be 1 HD to get a proper damage die out of it?

1/2d6 would be annoying, I imagine.

[Lycan 01]

This thread is awesome. :smallbiggrin:


Sooo... Is there a 4e ToH? :smallconfused:

If not, I might just get a decent grasp of 3.5e, find a ToH guide, make a bunch of random characters, and then invite some friends over for an all nighter. :smallbiggrin:

[Coidzor]

Hmm, the only thing that'd be difficult would be giving 4e characters an ability to do anything to the boss*, since the few venues of attack on it from 3.X no longer exist in 4e, so something would have to be worked out by comparing the methods of fighting it available in 1e and 2e as well for inspiration.

You'd have to convert the gargoyle and maybe one other monster and the rest are traps which will either not need conversion (green devil, pits, etc.), or are relatively straightforward (poison spike, at least, I hope that one's fairly simple)

*discussion will lead to spoilers of spoilers of spoilers of well published and fairly common knowledge available freely.

Can guys in 4e even go ethereal to meet the... architects?

[Fluffles]

I take it there is no chance you are going to continue this?

(Not necromancy yet! One more day till it would count as that :smalltongue:)

[Grifthin]

MOAR please. For a kitten perhaps ?