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View Full Version : DnD3.5e - Preventing Tunneling



Cyperphobe
2010-01-13, 10:48 PM
WARNING, TOMB OF HORRORS SPOILERS BELOW

So I'm considering running the updated version of the Tomb of Horrors for my group, and knowing them, they will try and avoid as much as possible. So I'm sitting here, thinking up what they will try and attempt to cheat the system. I've already outlawed herding cows and/or villagers through the Tomb, but I stumbled across a problem.

I know the Tomb has defenses against etheral jaunting through and such, but besides the fact that the majority of it is made from granite, what is to stop them from tunneling through? Encountering some of the trap rooms while tunneling would be bad (lava room anybody?), but a team with adamantine shovels and picks would be able to avoid 90% of the traps.

Is there something I can do to keep them from doing this? I considered making the place adamantium-lined, but then they would just mine it to sell and claim a victory.

Help with other common things to cheat through the tomb would be appreciated. Just mention them and let me know if/how you dealt with it.

Thanks

DragoonWraith
2010-01-13, 10:50 PM
OK, if they're going to try to avoid as much of the Tomb as possible.... why are you running the Tomb of Horrors?

It takes a very particular group to enjoy the Tomb of Horrors. Most groups aren't going to enjoy it. Most of the advice for playing the Tomb is to break the Tomb - the Summon Elemental reserve feat is a choice one, for example. The Tomb of Horrors is a module that is pointless unless the group really enjoys that kind of thing and plays it straight.

Penitent
2010-01-13, 10:56 PM
3 dimensions is a lot of space.

I recommend you really just let them go.

If they start tunneling, odds are they will pick a direction that has rocks going to infinity. And after say... a day or so, they might decide to go back to the path.

Now, you may be constrained by the map of the Tomb, I don't know, but I'd say if so just have all the "floors" be misaligned but in ways that make sense, so that digging down from floor X probably isn't going to get anywhere useful.

I_Got_This_Name
2010-01-13, 11:05 PM
Isn't sending disposable minions in first the way you're supposed to beat the Tomb? Like, aren't some of the traps things that kill you if you look for them?

Anything can be breached by a well-equipped and patient burrower. There's really nothing you can do to keep people from just Disintegrating a passage through if they're able to get enough disintegrate spells. There's nothing that can stop a miner with an adamantine weapon that isn't itself worth a huge amount of money as treasure or made of magical arbitrarium.

Now, if you're looking to have your players come up with a non-obvious way of cheating through, then the important thing is that its defenses aren't completely comprehensive, that your players can know all of them, and that they're consistent. If you outlaw some exploit with that goal, then you must explain how everything you're denying is denied, so that it's a situation to solve, not simply things being arbitrarily taken away.

On the other hand, if you're looking to railroad them through playing the adventure exactly as written and facing all the deathtraps, the big thing I can say is this: don't do it. The Tomb of Horrors is the worst of the arbitrary deathtrap adventures.

So, assuming you're looking to have them find a novel solution and want to eliminate the obvious, I've heard Summon Monster I wands are a popular way to check for traps.

Eldariel
2010-01-14, 01:50 AM
Anything can be breached by a well-equipped and patient burrower. There's really nothing you can do to keep people from just Disintegrating a passage through if they're able to get enough disintegrate spells. There's nothing that can stop a miner with an adamantine weapon that isn't itself worth a huge amount of money as treasure or made of magical arbitrarium.

Actually, I could see the bound Demons that make Ethereal Travel A Bad Idea there see to excessive burrowing too.

potatocubed
2010-01-14, 02:22 AM
I'm pretty certain that the bound demons' mandate includes upkeep and repair on the walls and traps as well as eating ethereal travellers. I'd just make them variant demons of their type, replacing one of their 3rd-level SLAs with stone shape and maxing out their Craft (traps) skill in place of one of their others.

On the subject of minions, one of the first people to 'win' the Tomb of Horrors did so by shovelling orc minions into it to disable the traps, so it's got precedent.

Tehnar
2010-01-14, 03:57 AM
I solved the problem with tunneling in general:

You can use weapons to bash through or destroy walls up to 5 ft in thickness. After that you need to make profession(miner) checks to see how much you tunnel.

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-01-14, 07:44 AM
Make the non-connected parts of the Tomb extraplanar, so there's no way they can get ot them by tunneling?

This would also mess up divination and transport spells without resorting to DM fiat.

Roderick_BR
2010-01-14, 08:11 AM
Somthings to remember: Tunneling can help them avoid doors... but not traps on the walls themselves, and in the rest of the room, including the floor, ceiling, pillars, the like. Doors should be the least of their concerns. Remember that the traps and monsters will still attack them, no matter how they enter a room.

Foryn Gilnith
2010-01-14, 08:57 AM
You can use weapons to bash through or destroy walls up to 5 ft in thickness. After that you need to make profession(miner) checks to see how much you tunnel.

Yeah, after a point, it ceases to become simple bashing and you need to actually do some mining-related maintenance. This is coming from a player who loves bashing.

2xMachina
2010-01-14, 08:59 AM
Remember that long tunnels without support usually collapse...

Dimers
2010-01-14, 11:35 AM
Er, how about all the walls have walls of force inside them?

Sstoopidtallkid
2010-01-14, 11:41 AM
Tunneling isn't actually hard enough to require checks, though...oh, you meant if the players dug? Yeah, no, SNA for a Thoqqua or SM for an Earth Elemental to carry you or something. Manual labor? You're a PC, not a peasant.

Optimystik
2010-01-14, 11:47 AM
Or summon a mole, or turn everyone into one, or hell just use Jack's Trapsmith Wizard. ToH isn't scary if you can google.

Telonius
2010-01-14, 12:00 PM
Unknown to most people, the Tomb is actually built directly on top of a portal to a plane that deals damage to all creatures, living, nonliving, or undead. Attempts to tunnel under it result in catastrophe.

kjones
2010-01-14, 12:02 PM
Remember that long tunnels without support usually collapse...

This. After the second or third cave-in they'll get the picture.

If they want to start shoring up their tunnels... that's the point at which you start beating them with the rulebooks until they snap out of it.

Flickerdart
2010-01-14, 12:06 PM
And if they have ready access to Walls of Force such that they can line tunnels with them, then they're not really appropriate level for the Tomb.

graeylin
2010-01-14, 02:26 PM
tunnels typically require a lot of time, and earth removal and disposal.

time means more random encounters. more random encounters means more nicks, cuts and spells used.

tunnels may develop a distinct lack of air, or methane pockets... or hit water, or get muddy, or collapse...

tunnels require engineering, or they collapse... or go crooked, and miss their target.

they take time... lots of time. they also are noisy, send tremors that many monsters can sense/come explore, give warnings to others, and make a nasty place to be trapped.

Imagine 5 adventurers in the tunnel, shoveling dirt back, and a single fireball comes down... or a create water spell, or a prismatic ray.... where's your dex in a 3 foot ditch?

Slayn82
2010-01-14, 03:43 PM
Digging on D&D is too easy with polymorph to an Umber Hulk or a Bulete. You can choose to leave an tunnel in most cases. Where does the extra earth go? To the sides, of course....:smallamused:

Tomb of Horrors isnt about acomplishing something on the history. Its about an atrition war between the PCs and the traps. Its about finding some way to bypass it cheating to push ahead. Its about sending minions to discover a trap, and then dig around it to continue on your way. While sometimes finding a demon that tries to eat your face. Its the Ghouls n Ghosts of RPGs.

Cyperphobe
2010-01-14, 05:07 PM
Hmmm... I'm liking the idea of collapsing tunnels on them if they go too far. Its a legit way of using Rocks Fall You Die with an explanation for it. Where do I look for rules on Proffession(mining)? Its not in the PHB is it?

Anyway, I was just brainstorming ways to figure out how to tunnel-proof any subterranean enclosure. Walls of Force around the important parts is an interesting idea. Hella expensive, but effective.

Plus I was more worried about them avoiding the tomb in the first place, by divining where the treasure rooms would be in relation to the surface and going straight down.

I think they'll be a fun bunch to take through the tomb as long as I cut back on the shennanigans I let them pull.

I've actually had players (a druid) wild shape into an octopus, dig himself a hole, create water in the hole, and just grapple anything within his range before. He even spent a feat on being able to use shovels in octopus form. I didn't wan't him to resort to that again.

Thanks for your help.

Signmaker
2010-01-14, 05:23 PM
Lava. Arbitrary amounts of it. Completely justified in that there's also a room with lava.

Lysander
2010-01-14, 05:30 PM
Who says that a clever dungeon designer wouldn't put buried traps in the soil and stone around their excavation that are specifically designed to be triggered by tunneling attempts? You don't avoid traps by tunneling, you just encounter different traps :)

Lapak
2010-01-14, 05:49 PM
In this particular case, there's a simple solution that would be a natural addition to the Tomb's existing defenses:

There are a number of earth elementals bound to protect the Tomb. Their orders are NOT to engage anyone attempting to tunnel into the Tomb, but rather to remain melded with the earth and undetected until there is enough tunnel to collapse on the diggers, do so, and then retreat through the earth to safety.

Tehnar
2010-01-14, 06:02 PM
The rules for tunneling are in races of the dragon, page 98. Basically progress is measured in 5ft cubes per day. So if they start digging, it will take a really long time.

So feel free to include random encounters, tunnels collapsing into lava, earth elementals, etc...

Burrowing creatures generally can't tunnel through rock, nor do they leave a passable tunnel behind them, so that is a option is nicked in the bud there.

Penitent
2010-01-14, 06:34 PM
Burrowing creatures generally can't tunnel through rock, nor do they leave a passable tunnel behind them, so that is a option is nicked in the bud there.

Except for all the ones that say they can. Like Thoqqua, that you can get at level 5. They explicitly burrow through rock, and explicitly leave usable tunnels.

So yeah, long story short, Tunneling a large amount is easy. It's tunneling in the right direction that's hard.

Jack_Simth
2010-01-14, 07:06 PM
Or summon a mole, or turn everyone into one, or hell just use Jack's Trapsmith Wizard. ToH isn't scary if you can google.
Ah, I got a reference!

Cool.

As to the OP:
There are demons bound to the task of maintaining the tomb. They don't repair the room you're in. Walls aren't rooms. If you're in the middle of a wall at the instant when it's repaired, what happens to you?

As to the Tomb of Horrors:
95+% of it is one trick (traps), repeated over & over & over with some variations. As a DM, if you had a party that ALWAYS used lots & lots of mind-control spells, would you start throwing monsters at them that were effectively immune? Probably. As a DM, if you had a party that ALWAYS used lots and lots of acid attacks, would you start throwing monsters at them that were effectively immune? Probably. As a player, if your DM is throwing a module at you that is just variants on the same thing over & over & over, do you make a build that can handle that reliably? Yes.

The Trapsmith Wizard (or Cleric, or Druid, or Sorcerer or ... basically any Full Caster can do it, by RAW, by level 9, as can some pseudo-casters and a couple of partial casters - if built that way) is basically just to illustrate a fundamental flaw in the Tomb: It's essentially a one-trick pony. Find a way to reliably neutralize that trick? It's a cakewalk (other than the handful of non-trap encounters). It's a bad module. A regular module has a wide variety of encounter types - and thus aren't nearly so easily neutralized.

About the only way the Tomb is "fun" is if you have a group that loves puzzles, and is sufficiently in-tune with the designer to make it through, but not so in-tune with the designer that it's trivial. Which is... rare.

Otodetu
2010-01-14, 08:45 PM
In dnd the best defense is active guardians.