3e Tomb of Horrors any good?

[Ozreth]

Compared to the original at least? I'm considering running it for some friends but dunno if I should go for the original instead.

Is it just as deadly? From what I gather there were no saving throws in the original but the 3e one offers a save for just about everything? Does it make up for this in any other deadly way?

Thoughts? Concerns? Advice? Thanks!

(Also, dont be surprised to see this around some other forums as well).

[Yora]

I've heard compared to the original, it has been seriously defanged. You can't just make a new character in 5 minutes and with the 3rd Edition Search and Disable Divice skills, it is a lot of rogues rolling dice while everyone else waits.

[Ozreth]

and with the 3rd Edition Search and Disable Divice skills, it is a lot of rogues rolling dice while everyone else waits.

I thought about this, but then AD&D has both find and remove traps as rogue skills as well.

[some guy]

I've ran the beginning two times (once as a drinking game).

Saving throws: well, not everything offers a saving throw. Some things are just if you make a bad decision, you die. I had people barely surviving the poisoned spiked pit traps. Also the DC's are pretty high.

The rolling for traps or secret doors is a bit of a shame. I had people tell me how they were searching and disabling devices, giving bonusses based on description (bonusses ranged from 'Yes', +4, +2, 0, -2, -4 and 'No'.). There is one corridor filled with secret doors, finding the doors is no problem (even without rolls), how the doors are opened is the problem.
There are enough traps that are still interesting with the inclusion of 'Disable Device' and such.

My players only encountered 1 monster (the gargoyle) in the dungeon, it took 2 characters in the negatives but was dispatched. It could go worse for them.

Warn your friends beforehand that it will be a deadly, puzzle like dungeon without a lot of combat. In the two groups I've ran it for some people loved it and others hated it.

What Yora said about the character creation speed is a very valid argument. Creating a character in 3e, especially a ninth level one, takes a lot of time. I had pre-gen characters the second time I ran it and the people responded better to the deadly threats than in the first group where everyone created their own character (which took a lot of time).

Overall I would just recommend playing it in the system you and your players know the best.

[Ozreth]

We've never had an issue creating characters quickly. We don't think about "builds" and only use core. Also, our skill list is cut in half and we use level based skill checks, no skill points.

I'd likely have pregens anyways.

[Cisturn]

Have you guys ever added anything to make it more deadly? I've ran the 3.5 version a couple times, and the only thing that my PCs have really had a hard time with was the gargoyle. Though we've always had to end the game shortly after that.

[frasmage]

I actually had a great experience running it for my players. It helped that none of the players were outstanding at disable device, so their options for traps were usually try to avoid it/play smart or take it to the face. They did a lot of the latter :P

Casualties (Lets just say the cleric was kept busy.):
-1 to the gargoyle
-1 to a combination of the viper chest and betrayed by a dominated ally (via the brain in a jar)
-1 change of gender (which happened to the funniest possible character)
-1 to the fiery gem in the throne room
-1 touched the wrong end of the rod to the crown
-1 genius took the broken archmage staff out of the antimagic field
-1 crushed in the key chamber
-2 to the crystal skull


All in all the group had a great time with it. I found the key was really giving every room and thing a lot of description, which gives them far more room to plan, experiment and freak themselves out over nothing.

[CTrees]

Wonder what the module would be like if players were banned from training Disable Device? Allow searching, but force them to be more creative (probably set off every trap in a "safe" manner instead...)

[Ozreth]

Well, with Disable Device, I think it's fun that there is still at least a chance for them to fail at that, and then setting off the trap.

Having them describe in detail how they go over the whole trap and figure out how to disarm it might prove to be really long winded and dull, it would also be hard to judge success or failure this way.

[Akal Saris]

As mentioned, there is a lot for the party trap-finder to do, and a bit for the spellcasters, but the full BAB types are going to be standing around doing nothing for very long stretches of time.

I ran it for 2 PCs (they went cleric and ftr/rogue) and they enjoyed it, but the barbarian PC who joined every few sessions didn't really like it at all.

Spoiler:
The gargoyle was quite dangerous for my party, and brought 1 PC to -9 and the other PC to 3 HP before it went down. The Bleakborn was even more dangerous and took both PCs out, leaving their L6 NPC hirelings to barely defeat it. Otherwise the PCs weren't in serious danger for most combats, even though I ran it with just 2 PCs.