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Your Nemesis
2010-02-06, 03:20 PM
Hey, my group is in the tomb of horrors (GAH!) and I am seeking some strategies some of you may have used to get through it.

We have just defeated the false lich by bashing it with the enchanted mace, if it helps.

Roland St. Jude
2010-02-06, 03:24 PM
Keep bribing your marshmallow of a DM with whatever you're bribing them with. :smallwink:

drengnikrafe
2010-02-06, 03:26 PM
Due you really want to ruin all the suspense of not knowing what's going to come with specific strategies? I'll just go with general ones.

Brought a whole bunch of small animals in a bag of holding, kept alive by a bottle of air. Had them walk down hallways 20 feet in front of us.

Asked really politely, and had the DM agree to let our characters die 7 times before we were really dead. We needed the lives, too.

Shishnarfne
2010-02-06, 03:27 PM
What? Hints? And spoil the fun? :smalltongue:

Honestly, if you're able to get that far, you've probably used a nice mix of luck and caution (with perhaps some key thinking at a couple points). I can say that you seem to be on close to the right track and as long as you continue to think clearly, you should be able to make progress.

Again, if you're not doing it already, assume there are traps everywhere, that caution and thought trump firepower, and that there's no reason to hurry needlessly.

I'd prefer to avoid giving spoilers, of course, since that's part of the fun of the place.

Edit: Oh yeah, and listen to Roland's advice! Making the DM unhappy with you in the Tomb is going to drastically reduce useful hints that he shouldn't be giving you.

Your Nemesis
2010-02-06, 03:28 PM
Actually, the DM generally feeds us...

In any case, we have had only one death (stupid full attacks from four-armed gargoyles) and my cleric has survived falling into almost every trap possible, including the slick-floored lava pit.

Actually, it is in fact the (Ghasp!) most fun adventure we have had so far, with lots of lols as a result of my cleric's door-stealing antics.

Hallavast
2010-02-06, 03:34 PM
Hey, my group is in the tomb of horrors (GAH!) and I am seeking some strategies some of you may have used to get through it.

We have just defeated the false lich by bashing it with the enchanted mace, if it helps.

What makes you think it was a false lich?

Your Nemesis
2010-02-06, 03:38 PM
The facts that:
1. It is in the tomb of a demilich, and demiliches are floating body parts, not full bodies.
2. a lich would probably not die in one hit from a mace we picked up in the next corridor over.

Jack_Simth
2010-02-06, 03:39 PM
Hey, my group is in the tomb of horrors (GAH!) and I am seeking some strategies some of you may have used to get through it.

We have just defeated the false lich by bashing it with the enchanted mace, if it helps.
Umm...

Well, as you've probably already found out by now, the Tomb is basically just trap piled on trap, piled on trap, topped off with traps for good measure, plus a few more traps, and a small smattering of creatures. And many more traps.

Anything that can dicelessly defeat traps over & over & over again is your friend, as it cuts out 90+% of the annoying parts of the Tomb of Horrors. You're already in the tomb, so character building advice isn't useful - however, spell selection can be (you can rest whenever you want). Summon Monster is extremely useful, as is Detect Magic/Arcane Sight, and something for ranged damage; depending on the DM, you may also need Tongues. With the combination, you can disable traps dicelessly (throw the summons way out in front, have them run ahead, tripping the traps - when a summon dies by trap, you know where the trap is, and used ranged damage to reduce it to rubble). Likewise, use the summoned critters to manipulate anything that needs manipulating. Further, stay well away from anything you're having a summon manipulate (opening doors, turning spigots, picking up loot, whatever) - preferably from another room.

Your Nemesis
2010-02-06, 03:44 PM
We are good in terms of detect magic/detect evil, as we have a warlock and holy liberator in the party.

As for the traps, I have noticed. we generally scout by using our spiderclimbing cat-sized warlock to check out things on the ceiling, so we generally are not too suprised (at the monsters at least). :smallsmile:

Our Party consists of:
A Gnome fighter-holy liberator
A Rogue 8/wizard 1
A straight wizard 9
Me, a cleric 6/ Radiant Servant of Pelor 3
A Warlock 9
And one other character whom I cant actually remember the class of.

penbed400
2010-02-06, 03:57 PM
My player's are running through the Tomb of Horrors right now, they're up to 8 TPKs and 4 single party deaths. They're all having fun and great hilarity has been strewn throughout the dungeon. Just run through it, you'll have fun.

Hallavast
2010-02-06, 04:03 PM
My player's are running through the Tomb of Horrors right now, they're up to 8 TPKs and 4 single party deaths. They're all having fun and great hilarity has been strewn throughout the dungeon. Just run through it, you'll have fun.

This was similar to my experience. Of course, I had my players make characters specifically for this dungeon (so they wouldn't agonize over losing real characters). That was a fun Halloween.

Akal Saris
2010-02-06, 04:10 PM
My PCs managed to duo the 3.5 version without dying, but they lost 3 NPC henchmen and both went to lower than -5 about 5-6 times, so it could easily have been 4-5 TPKs with a little less luck.

Their smartest idea was flooding pit traps and the like with their decanter of endless water.

Jack_Simth
2010-02-06, 04:14 PM
We are good in terms of detect magic/detect evil, as we have a warlock and holy liberator in the party.

As for the traps, I have noticed. we generally scout by using our spiderclimbing cat-sized warlock to check out things on the ceiling, so we generally are not too suprised (at the monsters at least). :smallsmile:

Be warned: Not everything will miss the invisible warlock on the ceiling. But I suppose that's what Flee the Scene and a good initiative is for.

But you'll still want to use lots of summons - there's a number of things in The Tomb that:

1) Will hurt/cripple/kill you if you manipulate them wrong.
2) Will hurt/cripple/kill you if you don't manipulate them right.
3) Do not have a search/disable device DC to find/disarm... and they'll hurt/cripple/kill you if you don't do the puzzle correctly.

Hence Summons - if the Summon gets Hurt/Crippled/Killed, well, you just Summon another and try again; summons don't actually get killed when they get killed, they just go home. As a Cleric-9, you're set in that regard, as Summon Monster, Tongues (if needed), Detect Magic, and a few choice direct-damage spells are on your list.



Our Party consists of:
A Gnome fighter-holy liberator
A Rogue 8/wizard 1
A straight wizard 9
Me, a cleric 6/ Radiant Servant of Pelor 3
A Warlock 9
And one other character whom I cant actually remember the class of.
Pretty balanced party; you've got the meatshield, the skillmonkey, the blaster, the healbot, and two others. Warlock can handle ranged damage and magic detection ... and apparently scouting, as well ... so toss in a bunch of summons and you're good to go on the Trapsmith (or dungeonsmasher) approach.

amaranth69
2010-02-06, 05:51 PM
My advice: break out the dice and start rolling up the new characters for the next campaign. lmao

Amaranth69

Your Nemesis
2010-02-06, 05:59 PM
Thanks for the advice on characters. An yeah, I will have monkeys open all of the doors. In addition to this, I have made heavy use of stone shape to shape doors out of their doorjambs and take them with us...sell the doors lol.

In any case, what I am really looking for is a way to haul the richly decorated rooms at the end out of the Tomb. Particularly the adamantine block and mithral crypt...advice?

Jack_Simth
2010-02-07, 12:46 AM
Thanks for the advice on characters. An yeah, I will have monkeys open all of the doors. In addition to this, I have made heavy use of stone shape to shape doors out of their doorjambs and take them with us...sell the doors lol.

In any case, what I am really looking for is a way to haul the richly decorated rooms at the end out of the Tomb. Particularly the adamantine block and mithral crypt...advice?

As you're already in the Tomb, that's a problem; most such advice in that regard relies on equipment you may not already have. Basically, though, ask for things by their weight, calculate the volume based on the material's density, then grind it up into small chunks and put it in a portable hole. A portable hole has a LOT of volume, being some six feet in diameter and some ten feet deep. That's a pretty big cylinder. Also, check with the Wizard to see if he's got Shrink Item; that'll help out quite a bit.

Do bear in mind, though: it might not be quite what you think (although nonmagical metals are still your safest bet for treasure in there).

Lawless III
2010-02-07, 01:08 AM
My party managed to get through it without any deaths through sheer dumb luck. We always seemed to pick the right handle and never landed on the wrong square. It pissed the DM off to no end. We were being pretty reckless too. The only cheese we had was a staff of summon celestial monkey, but that got taken away pretty quickly. What a great prom night.

LurkerInPlayground
2010-02-07, 01:17 AM
Expend lots of cannon fodder.

Lots.

Also:
Everything Is A Trap That Will Kill You (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070725)

TheStillWind
2010-02-07, 03:48 AM
Concerning carrying things. Get a portable hole. For 20,000 gp it has a ten foot depth with a 6 foot diameter. That is around 283 cubic feet of storage. Then get, for 4000 gp each, Nolzur's Marvelous pigments. they allow you to draw things that become real. You use multiple cans to paint space. You now have rooms in your portable hole and have turned it into a portable house. Each can holds enough paint for 1000 cubic feet of stuff. You can fill the hole with anything portable and valuable, that can fit through a 6 foot diameter hole. Protip: Adamatium hacksaws make everything portable

MickJay
2010-02-07, 05:52 AM
See, this is where people get it wrong. You don't play ToH in 3.x, you play it with the original rules it was designed for. You then get much fewer fancy skills, spells and options that could help you in survival.

Regardless of the system, though, you can always do what the original players did: hire a few dozen peasants and let them fall into the traps, so that your characters don't have to. :smallbiggrin:

subject42
2010-02-07, 09:48 AM
Look up the "Survival Pouch" in the MiC. Make sure that *everyone* in the party has at least one.

Our game is on hold for a while, but spamming the dungeon with summoned donkeys has worked pretty well so far.

Jack_Simth
2010-02-07, 01:32 PM
See, this is where people get it wrong. You don't play ToH in 3.x, you play it with the original rules it was designed for. You then get much fewer fancy skills, spells and options that could help you in survival.

Regardless of the system, though, you can always do what the original players did: hire a few dozen peasants and let them fall into the traps, so that your characters don't have to. :smallbiggrin:
Well...

The Tomb of Horrors was originally designed for convention play, where a high death count was a good thing, as it got people moving on to the next game faster.

Even then, though, Detect Magic, Summon Monster, and direct-damage effects have been in the game since basically the start, and could be used exactly the same way in the original Tomb. It's a badly-designed module, in that it's one thing (with some variations) over & over & over again, with just a small amount of other stuff tossed in. You find a way to deal with that one thing reasonably cleanly, and the module is a walk-through.

Ashram
2010-02-07, 02:14 PM
We are good in terms of detect magic/detect evil, as we have a warlock and holy liberator in the party.

As for the traps, I have noticed. we generally scout by using our spiderclimbing cat-sized warlock to check out things on the ceiling, so we generally are not too suprised (at the monsters at least). :smallsmile:

Our Party consists of:
A Gnome fighter-holy liberator
A Rogue 8/wizard 1
A straight wizard 9
Me, a cleric 6/ Radiant Servant of Pelor 3
A Warlock 9
And one other character whom I cant actually remember the class of.

Ha ha, same exact character I played on my run-through with Tomb. I believe I died only once. Then again, it was also in the colored spheres room (I'm sure you know which one by now) that our rogue "forgot" to check a sphere for traps and the magical spear trap behind it rolled three 20s in a row and permanently took my cleric's left eye. >.>

Aside from the general warnings to be cautious, I'll give you this hint:

Don't touch any strange jewelry.

Your Nemesis
2010-02-07, 02:37 PM
Hows about: don't touch anystrange anything until it has been gone over by a horde of celestial monkeys?

CTLC
2010-02-07, 02:48 PM
get the monkey to bite it, if you arent laughing, its safe.

ericgrau
2010-02-07, 05:39 PM
You're already in the tomb, so character building advice isn't useful....
You honestly think they won't be making new characters? :smalltongue:

Jack_Simth
2010-02-07, 06:51 PM
You honestly think they won't be making new characters? :smalltongue:
Hmm... there is that.

Well, there's the Trapsmith build:

Full caster (Cleric, Wizard, Druid, or similar - all can pull this off)
You need:
An at-will ranged direct-damage effect that affects objects (Acidic Splatter or Fiery Burst; both Complete Mage; there's a few other ways as well, but those are generally the simplest)
The Summon Elemental Reserve Feat (also Complete Mage)
An at-will Detect Magic effect (Permanency and Detect Magic, the Magic Sensitive Reserve Feat from Complete Mage, Persistent Spell (complete Arcane) and Detect Magic... there's quite a few ways on this one)
A way to survive without air indefinately (racial pick, a Necklace of Adaptation, a Bottle of Air, an Iridescent Spindle Ioun stone, or similar)
A portable hole (or lots of them)
Terran, Ignan, Aquan, and Auran (spend the skill points to get them as known languages, or get a constant Tongues effect from somewhere)
A way to see past things (Ring of X-Ray vision, Third Eye Sense (Expanded Psionic Handbook, also the Psionic section of the SRD)

Method:
0) Make sure you've got a couple combat-monkeys with you to deal with the handful of overpowered opponents in the module.
1) Be a bit paranoid (and then some).
2) Don't touch anything personally. Instead, order a Summoned Elemental to do it (reserve feat).
3) Before you move, have an elemental of each time go it's maximum possible distance along your intended path of travel (to detect traps... by tripping them - the Summon Elemental Reserve Feat makes the elementals vanish if they end their turn more than 30 feet from you... but an Air Elemental, running full out, goes some 400 feet in a turn; even at a hustle, the lowly Earth elemental can move 40 feet - and starting at the summon range of 30, that's a full 70 feet advanced warning - plenty of room)
3A) If anything hurts the elementals, demolish it with ranged direct damage, and check again with the elementals.
4) Before you move, detect for magic on everything in sight.
4A) If a movable object detects as magical, have an elemental put it in your portable hole. Do not touch it yourself.
4B) If a wall, door, archway, or other thing that can't be put into the portable hole registers as magical, demolish it from range.
5) Do not open any doors. First, see what is behind them (ring of X-Ray vision, third eye sense, or similar). If you decide you wish to go through that door, demolish them with direct damage, instead of opening it. From a distance.
5A) Have your Summonened Elementals throw the scraps from the door into your portable hole. These are your primary lootables.
6) Do not go into anything where you cannot immediately see the results. Blast the walls into submission, instead, until you CAN see the results. Then send a few elementals through, first.
7) Do not manipulate anything yourself. Anything that needs manipulating can be done by a Summoned Elemental at 30 foot range. That's what they're for. Many things will hurt/maim/kill you when you pick them up or attempt to use them.
8) After exhausing steps 0-7, take a five-foot step along your intended path of travel.
9) Goto 1.

That'll deal with roughly 95% of the 3.5 version of the Tomb. There's a related method for a 5th+ level AD&D Wizard, but it involves a lot of resting. Likewise, you can replace almost everything on the needed list with regular spells (Summon Monster, Arcane Sight, almost any blasty spell, Clairvoyance/Clairaudience), as you can rest up to replace them whenever you want.