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vanyell
2007-08-30, 06:40 AM
I'm a relatively new DM, DMing for a group of newish players.

I have heard about the tomb of horrors module, and I would like to run it for them, as they tend to be a more thinking type group. do you have any suggestions, as to make the module as fun for them (and easier for me) as possible?

thanks in advance

Attilargh
2007-08-30, 06:49 AM
Print a lot of spare character sheets and fill them in advance.

Kurald Galain
2007-08-30, 06:50 AM
Newish players (and new DMs) should stay far, far away from the Tomb of Horrors. It is written for high-level characters, presupposes reasonable experience with the system, and is an absolute killer with a guesstimated PC death rate of 70%-100%

I'd suggest getting a dungeon module on level-3, or thereabouts. After you've played for several months and the PCs have leveled up many times, you might want to consider TOH.

Evil DM Mark3
2007-08-30, 06:50 AM
Even I hesitated about running the Tomb of Horrors.

Then they sassed me.

3 TPKs.

vanyell
2007-08-30, 06:55 AM
I have read it over, I know that there are going to be player deaths. I have already informed the players to make about 6 character sheets each, and I have suggested they use any splat book they can get their hands on.

as for being a new DM, I have played on the other side of the screen for quite a while now. I have DMed about 3 or 4 large scale modules, and during these modules, my players were usually unhappy about simple combat encounters. I thought the tomb would be good, with it's no random encounters, and reletivly few, powerful, monsters. it makes them think.

thanks,
any more advice is sill appreciated
van

Ashtar
2007-08-30, 07:18 AM
Well, my memory of the tomb of horrors is that there is not that many monsters in it. It's more a genre DM vs Players with dirty stuff that will happen to them if they are not careful.
Some places are like: If the players do anything, they are screwed. In fact some of the best way to survive is to take no action, to stop and think and do nothing in precipitation.

Also, I must say, my group got a bit bored of it, we took something like three or four (maybe more my memory is fuzzy - wait more because there's the tower stuff after the tomb... ugh!) session to get through it, I think and by the end we were like... over with the tomb.

Citizen Joe
2007-08-30, 07:35 AM
Thinking doesn't really help in Tomb of Horrors. Sheep help... sheep help alot.

I'd bet a small army of mining dwarves would also rule. Might be a bit slow, but you simply dig in where there isn't anthing and keep going until you hit an opening. Dire badgers might help with that too, assuming the tomb wasn't cut out of solid rock.

Kurald Galain
2007-08-30, 07:38 AM
it makes them think.

Contrary to popular belief, the TOH does not making people think, because the traps and kills are so arbitrary and random that thinking about them doesn't actually help.

It's the D&D version of Paranoia.

Saph
2007-08-30, 08:34 AM
Yeah. Tomb of Horrors advertises itself as a 'thinking player's module', but it really isn't. If you enter a room in the Tomb, think about if for a while, then take the course of action that seems reasonable, you'll probably die.

What it actually is is a 'coward's module'. The best way to survive is never to go into a single room yourself. Send in other PCs, followers, summoned monsters, NPCs, pets, animals, and anything else that's mobile and heavy enough to set traps off. Don't enter any room until your pawns have thoroughly swept it.

- Saph

Zim
2007-08-30, 08:52 AM
Playing a creature with regeneration helps too. Imps make great PC's for this character killer. So do trolls. Other than that, you'll need a stack of characters.

Not a good adventure for characters that you're attached to or inexperienced gaming groups. Try Sunless Citadel or one of the new Gamemastery modules from Paizo; I hear they're fantastic!

Ethdred
2007-08-30, 08:52 AM
I have read it over, I know that there are going to be player deaths. I have already informed the players to make about 6 character sheets each, and I have suggested they use any splat book they can get their hands on.

as for being a new DM, I have played on the other side of the screen for quite a while now. I have DMed about 3 or 4 large scale modules, and during these modules, my players were usually unhappy about simple combat encounters. I thought the tomb would be good, with it's no random encounters, and reletivly few, powerful, monsters. it makes them think.

thanks,
any more advice is sill appreciated
van

Yeah, don't run the module. It's rubbish, except for a one off for some really experienced and possibly even jaded players who will appreciate the fact it's so different without complaining about how rubbish it is. And will have enough sheep. And even then TOH is the only problem that sacrificing minions can't (completely) solve

Darrin
2007-08-30, 10:21 AM
I'm a relatively new DM, DMing for a group of newish players.

I have heard about the tomb of horrors module, and I would like to run it for them, as they tend to be a more thinking type group. do you have any suggestions, as to make the module as fun for them (and easier for me) as possible?

thanks in advance

Wizards updated the original module to 3.5 and it's available as a free download on their site:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20051031a

It was supposed to coincide with the release of Libris Mortis, and includes some updated monsters that I think only appear in Libris Mortis. However, I think it should run just fine without the Libris Mortis material, although purists may bemoan certain encounters have been reworked.

Something I thought was odd was the recommended levels were scaled back to 9th. When I ran the original un-updated version with 3.5 characters, I stuck with the 10-14 levels suggested on the cover. Given how unforgiving the module can be, I do think the recommended average level, even with 3.5 rules, is in the 12ish rather than 9ish range.

As far as suggestions... every player will need a handful of ready-to-play characters. Let them know beforehand that instant death will be unapologetically arbitrary. Give out prizes for most interesting death, fewest deaths, highest deaths, etc.

What surprised me most was my players figured out an extremely clever way to destroy the demilich using his own artifacts. Just brilliant. I'm still puzzled why Gygax didn't think of it himself.

The worst part of the module by far, though, is being forced to read Gygax's poetry... ugh, Vogons wouldn't touch it.

Lapak
2007-08-30, 10:42 AM
Contrary to popular belief, the TOH does not making people think, because the traps and kills are so arbitrary and random that thinking about them doesn't actually help.

It's the D&D version of Paranoia.It is decidedly not a thinking player's adventure. It is a thinking villain's adventure - a villain who understands how adventurers work. It is full of false clues that are just difficult enough to work out to lull people into a false sense of security about acting on them, no actual clues that allow for safe navigation of the Tomb, and situations where a minor mistake cannot be taken back and leads to immediate death.

Honestly, in an actual world that had ancient evil liches and adventurers in it, I'd expect more adventures to be like the Tomb of Horrors than otherwise, but that wouldn't be much fun at all. Yet again, 'realism' isn't worth it.

fireinthedust
2007-08-30, 10:51 AM
I remember reading it and thinking the coolest parts had been written by Bruce Cordell in Return to the Tomb. The original module is just something that seems thrown together. The re-make was great: a city of necromancers on the surface, (the not-so great Gygax original), then a demiplane city of Moil sticking out of killer mists with the monsters, etc., un-living in crumbling towers... that was way cool. Libris Mortis saw him re-make his new critters for 3.5. tres-cool.

I played n64's Legend of Zelda the other day. That style of game would be cool for a module: puzzles you solve in a Zelda-style dungeon. There was a free-download off the Necromancer Games' website that I thought was cool, and it was kinda like that.

Harold
2007-08-30, 11:05 AM
ohh my group played that quest and in 10 minutes two people died so as Attilargh said make extra characters it is the toughest quest I've ever played. if your lucky only 3 people will die.

Matthew
2007-08-30, 03:24 PM
Here are some links to previous Threads on the subject.

Anubis1179 and the Tomb of Horros (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52323)
JMalone and the Tomb of Horrors (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47309)
ExhunterEmerald and the Tomb of Horrors (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36229)
Krimm Blackleaf and the Tomb of Horrors (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36285)
RobbieOC and the Tomb of Horrors (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20372)
Don Beegles and the Tomb of Horrors (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22213)
Aenerb and the Tomb of Horrors (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23261)

It is not for everyone, but that doesn't mean it is a bad Adventure Module.

Citizen Joe
2007-08-30, 04:04 PM
I just read through the 3.5 update. I must say that a pack of dire badgers and the mining dwarves and some archaeologists would make for an interesting run on it. Just imagine prying up flagstones and murals, packing them up and shipping them off to a museum or to various collectors. Then finding all the poisoned spikes and harvesting those as well.

I also think that the ending can be quite different if it were set in Eberron and a powerful warforged got in there first.... there are certain traps that would backfire HORRIBLY with a warforged.

Grug
2007-08-30, 04:13 PM
unfortunately, digging won't work.

There are bound demons that roam the halls and repair everything constantly. Anyone who tries to dig their way in gets a face full of Full Attack. Not to mention a single cloudkill from the final boss would kill all of them.

Citizen Joe
2007-08-30, 04:58 PM
Spoiler that... just in case.

they don't 'Roam' the halls but they do fix things up when you leave. However, I'm talking about digging in from above. Until you actually poke through the ceiling or come through the masonry wall, its no big deal. They don't like you coming in ethereally though.

On the other hand. I think 2nd edition declared that a city or something was built on top. Those guys might be perturbed if you start digging into their sacred shrine.

Another spoiler would be to take a step into the place and do Commune with Nature. Find the nastiest unnatural thing (the demilich). Using that information direct your summoned thoqqua to burrow right into the heart (even through stone). Drop in a sunrod and a spy bird (owl). When it reports back, just have the thoqqua drop a one ton block of stone on the skull.
Resources:
Druid level 9
1 Commune with nature spell (Drd 5)
1 Summon Nature's ally IV (Drd 4) 2 thoqqua
1 sunrod (1 gp)
1 Summon Nature's ally I (Drd 1) 1 owl
1 speak with animals (Drd 1)

All done... half hour's work for one druid level 9 Plus 1gp sunrod (not entirely necessary since owls have low light vision). :smallbiggrin:

martyboy74
2007-08-30, 06:14 PM
This is something that has been running around sigs for a while:


Sample ToH Encounter EL "9" (bull).

Player 1: "I inhale... There isn't a trap on the air, right?"
DM: "Wrong, make a fortitude save vs. poison. Is it a natural 20? Too bad."
Player 2: "Gahh! I hold my breath and cast remove poison on Player 1!"
DM: "Devil Monkeys fly out of the rear end of the statue in the center of the room and counterspell your remove poison using advanced laser technology. Also you turn into a flounder."
Player 2: "What the f-"
DM: "And explode."

Premier
2007-08-31, 06:19 AM
Spoiler that... just in case.

Another spoiler would be to take a step into the place and do Commune with Nature. Find the nastiest unnatural thing (the demilich). Using that information direct your summoned thoqqua to burrow right into the heart (even through stone). Drop in a sunrod and a spy bird (owl). When it reports back, just have the thoqqua drop a one ton block of stone on the skull.
Resources:
Druid level 9
1 Commune with nature spell (Drd 5)
1 Summon Nature's ally IV (Drd 4) 2 thoqqua
1 sunrod (1 gp)
1 Summon Nature's ally I (Drd 1) 1 owl
1 speak with animals (Drd 1)

All done... half hour's work for one druid level 9 Plus 1gp sunrod (not entirely necessary since owls have low light vision). :smallbiggrin:

Plan wouldn't work for a number of reasons:

- Acererak's resting place is encased in mithril, and the Thoqqua description on the SRD says nothing about digging through that. The Thoqqua doesn't have the key needed to open the crypt, and even if it did, it's irrealistic to suppose that it would be able to figure out how to open the crypt properly on its own. But even if it did somehow, it would still probably get crushed by the rising vault.
- Thoqqua description says nothing about the ability to chuck around 1 ton blocks of stone. A STR of 15 isn't quite enough to do that.
- However, the Thoqqua's messing around WILL awaken Acererak. With no PC guidance (or even with PC guidance, if the PCs haven't fought demiliches before), the Thoqqua wouldn't even recognise the actual demilich, and would keep pounding away ineffectually at the dust form while Acererak Death Ray-s and Trap The Soul-s it dead.

Citizen Joe
2007-08-31, 07:01 AM
Plan wouldn't work for a number of reasons:

- Acererak's resting place is encased in mithril, and the Thoqqua description on the SRD says nothing about digging through that. The Thoqqua doesn't have the key needed to open the crypt, and even if it did, it's irrealistic to suppose that it would be able to figure out how to open the crypt properly on its own. But even if it did somehow, it would still probably get crushed by the rising vault.
- Thoqqua description says nothing about the ability to chuck around 1 ton blocks of stone. A STR of 15 isn't quite enough to do that.
- However, the Thoqqua's messing around WILL awaken Acererak. With no PC guidance (or even with PC guidance, if the PCs haven't fought demiliches before), the Thoqqua wouldn't even recognise the actual demilich, and would keep pounding away ineffectually at the dust form while Acererak Death Ray-s and Trap The Soul-s it dead.
Actually it wouldn't work, but not for those reasons

Thoqqua burrow by melting through stuff. They are denizens of the elemental plane of fire. Mithral isn't unobtainium, it is an alloy. Alloys are made by melting together multiple types of metal. Apply heat and it will melt.

The 1 ton block of stone I'm referring to is made when the thoqqua burrow all around the supporting ceiling causing it to collapse.

The thoqqua wouldn't touch anything in the tomb so the trigger wouldn't be fired awakening the demilich (and ghost... there's two creatures in there btw). Even if it did, the thoqqua is a summoned dismissable creature (I'm not entirely sure if it has a soul) but its death is kinda meaningless.

The reason it wouldn't work is the time needed to carefully weaken the ceiling. The thoqqua are around for 9 rounds. Probably two rounds are needed to burrow down. A couple more rounds for inspection and then they can start mining. They make holes 1 foot in diameter and up to 40' long per round, thus not enough time to properly undercut the ceiling.

Also the tomb itself rises up from the floor, which means there is space above it. The thoqqua would have burrowed into that space and the spy bird would have found nothing.

Assuming they figured out that they really needed to go deeper, the configuration of the ceiling (peaked), combined with the 'roof' being relatively thin means that you're not going to be able to drop a concentrated 1 ton block. It will be deflected and no way of guaranteeing a hit on the skull.

Instead we'll just stuff a rust monster into the hole to eat the entire vault :smallbiggrin:

Evil DM Mark3
2007-08-31, 07:10 AM
the only reason to run TOH is the nostalga value. The thing is famous.

DraPrime
2007-08-31, 01:04 PM
Do make sure that your players won't be pissed of with the massive amounts of dead characters. It's really fun to be done with the ****ing thing, but they just might stab you for killing a bunch of characters.

Jade_Tarem
2007-08-31, 03:17 PM
This is something that has been running around sigs for a while:

Qwaahh? That's MY quote! No one thought it was funny at the time...:smallfrown:

martyboy74
2007-08-31, 04:37 PM
Qwaahh? That's MY quote! No one thought it was funny at the time...:smallfrown:

Really? You summed up ToH pretty well.

Swordguy
2007-08-31, 05:08 PM
This is something that has been running around sigs for a while:

Curse you! I came here to make that quote! I didn't say it anyway. Someone else did, and I quoted them in the ExHunterEmerald v tOH thread. Evidently, people are attributing it to me. I suppose I should read through threads more regularly, as I would have seen it and been able to correct them.

EDIT: After reading the whole thread, it was evidently Jade_Tarem. Now you know. That's half the battle.

Very well, if I can't quote that, I'll quote something I DID say when giving an example of the style of trap found in ToH:



In the Lankhmar Campaign setting, there is a particular adventure, in which you have to penetrate a tomb filled with nasty traps to get at a dead spellcaster and master trapsmith's loot.

The trap in question is a 100' long, 10' wide hallway, with an indentation in the floor exactly halfway through. There is nothing to differentiate this hallway from any other hallway in the complex, except for the indentation. A Detect Life spell with a 5' radius was cast on this indentation. This is the trap trigger. If life is detected in this area, the trap goes off, with the following effect:

Take your hands and place them (with the thumb and forefinger at a 90-degree angle) right over left, so the 2 right angles form a square (thumbtip to thumbtip, and the thumbtips should meet in the lower left corner of the square). This is the cross-section of the corridor. Now, slide your right hand over your left hand, and rotate the square 90 degrees to the left (so your thumbtips would be on the lower right corner), and bring the webbing of your thumbs together in the center while you do.

This is the action of the corridor. Anything inside the corridor is squeezed out the ends in a liquid mess with no saving throw (no damage rating, you're just dead) unless you're 5' from the ends - in which case you would make a Dex check (REF save now) to jump back or have a body part lopped off by the closing action.

Have fun!

Death is pointless and arbitrary in the ToH. Make sure your PCs know that. ALSO make sure they know that many of the cliche's gamers try to avoid today are actually GOOD in the ToH, because that's what started them into being a cliche in the first place.

Starbuck_II
2007-08-31, 05:41 PM
Contrary to popular belief, the TOH does not making people think, because the traps and kills are so arbitrary and random that thinking about them doesn't actually help.

It's the D&D version of Paranoia.

"The Computer thinks you should open that door, citizen".
*Opens door*
"The computer changes its mind, opening that door shall get you punished."

Repeat ad nauseum. really, the Tomb is damned if you do: double damned if you don't.

Citizen Joe
2007-08-31, 06:13 PM
OK cheap way to beat ToH.


1. fall into the first pit and survive. Climb out and lock pit open.
2. Wait for demon to come along to reset all traps.
3. Capture demon and use mind reading techniques to find out where all the traps are and how they work. Or at least how to reset them (use deduction to figure out how to avoid them.)
4. Avoid traps.

The demons that reset the traps need to know where the traps are in order to reset them.

daggaz
2007-08-31, 06:15 PM
[QUOTE=Swordguy;3126681] Now you know. That's half the battle.QUOTE]

Heh, the other half was always violence, at least according to GI-Joe. :smallfurious: :smallbiggrin:

Jade_Tarem
2007-08-31, 09:09 PM
Now you know. That's half the battle.

Heh, the other half was always violence, at least according to GI-Joe. :smallfurious: :smallbiggrin:

Don't shoot! I'm not even a member of Cobra anymore...

Swordguy
2007-08-31, 09:12 PM
Y'know...misquoting like just there is probably how this mistaken ID thing got started...

UglyPanda
2007-08-31, 09:42 PM
I found the original post. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2077936&highlight=horrors#post2077936)

Never shove new players in a paranoid situation, it leaves them paranoid for life; even with DMs whose intentions are incredibly obvious.

Feralgeist
2007-09-02, 04:33 AM
oh god. OH GOD NO!!

I remember playing this......so much death......why wont it stop!!


2 party members jumped into that sphere of annihilation, thinking it was a portal :P

Aquillion
2007-09-02, 04:11 PM
Actually it wouldn't work, but not for those reasons

Thoqqua burrow by melting through stuff. They are denizens of the elemental plane of fire. Mithral isn't unobtainium, it is an alloy. Alloys are made by melting together multiple types of metal. Apply heat and it will melt.

The 1 ton block of stone I'm referring to is made when the thoqqua burrow all around the supporting ceiling causing it to collapse.

The thoqqua wouldn't touch anything in the tomb so the trigger wouldn't be fired awakening the demilich (and ghost... there's two creatures in there btw). Even if it did, the thoqqua is a summoned dismissable creature (I'm not entirely sure if it has a soul) but its death is kinda meaningless.

The reason it wouldn't work is the time needed to carefully weaken the ceiling. The thoqqua are around for 9 rounds. Probably two rounds are needed to burrow down. A couple more rounds for inspection and then they can start mining. They make holes 1 foot in diameter and up to 40' long per round, thus not enough time to properly undercut the ceiling.

Also the tomb itself rises up from the floor, which means there is space above it. The thoqqua would have burrowed into that space and the spy bird would have found nothing.

Assuming they figured out that they really needed to go deeper, the configuration of the ceiling (peaked), combined with the 'roof' being relatively thin means that you're not going to be able to drop a concentrated 1 ton block. It will be deflected and no way of guaranteeing a hit on the skull.

Instead we'll just stuff a rust monster into the hole to eat the entire vault :smallbiggrin:

Er, there's a much simpler reason why it won't work in the 3.5 edition. (MAJOR spoilers below.)
Per Return to the Tomb of Horrors, the demilich ain't really there. There's nothing for the Thoqqua to focus on, and no reason to think that the second false demilich would read as the most unnatural thing in the tomb (there's lots of CL 20 effects in there, after all.)The real way to beat the ToH easily is to hire a huge number of commoners and other minions, then run an excavation from the outside. Your spellcasters can cast things like overland flight on them to give them slightly better chances, too. One PC, a skill-monkey, should enter to search for a secret door whenever the commoners get stuck--but only after the minions have already tried and failed to find the secret door themselves, have touched and triggered everything, etc, and all the dangers are mapped. After finding one secret door (but before touching or opening it), the skill-monkey retreats and lets the minions do their thing.

Justin_Bacon
2007-09-03, 12:46 AM
I have heard about the tomb of horrors module, and I would like to run it for them, as they tend to be a more thinking type group. do you have any suggestions, as to make the module as fun for them (and easier for me) as possible?

Many years ago (prior to Bruce Cordell's update of the adventure), I updated the adventure to 3rd Edition. I got rid of the random insta-kill traps and made everything work according to the rules, while maintaining the Tomb's lethal rep.

But, perhaps most importantly, I included boxed text. This is an adventure where it's vitally important that you give the PCs all the information they should have, without giving them any information they shouldn't. This is dreadfully difficult with Gygax's original, as all the information is thoroughly mixed together.

You can see it at: http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/creations.html

No matter what you do with the Tomb, though, the most important thing is for the players to know what they're getting into: Let them know the rep of the Tomb. Play it as a fun little one-shot.


I'd bet a small army of mining dwarves would also rule. Might be a bit slow, but you simply dig in where there isn't anthing and keep going until you hit an opening. Dire badgers might help with that too, assuming the tomb wasn't cut out of solid rock.

Locate object and passwall were the secrets of success for the last group I ran through the Tomb. (And the only group I've seen who has truly succeeded at vanquishing the Tomb and claiming its treasures.)

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

Citizen Joe
2007-09-03, 06:29 AM
Some of the most valuable stuff inside the tomb is the tomb itself. I would TOTALLY take all those murals in the first room and other rooms and ship them off to a museum.


Some of the doors were adamantine or mithral (there's some jokes in there where the repair demons had to replace them with simple steel door).

All those poisoned spikes in the pits... yoink!
Magically created spear traps when you open a door... Yoink! Attach to seige engine.

Aquillion
2007-09-04, 02:56 AM
That's hard to do in 3.5, though. Almost all the magic stuff says explictly that it stops working if detached or removed from the tomb, while almost all the valuable walls, doors, and so on are specifically described as being merely mithril-foiled or whatever.

Sure, you could sell the spears and spikes... but honestly, any other dungeon is going to have stuff that's worth just as much and isn't as annoying to get. How many people are honestly going to be willing to crawl into the friggin Tomb of Horrors to harvest non-magical wooden spears that they can sell for a handful of coppers?

(On top of that, don't forget that the tomb resets itself. This would be nice if there were really valuable things you could farm, but isn't so helpful when you're going in to get minimal profits from wooden stakes.)

Citizen Joe
2007-09-04, 07:53 AM
I'd like to point out how ridiculous mithral foil is. Foils are made out of soft metals because they can be beaten or rolled flat, into ultra thin sheets. A sizing (type of glue) is applied to the object to be foiled and then small (less than 6x6) sheets of the foil are lifted onto the surface (usually using static charge on a brush). It is then dabbed in and the excess foil is collected to be reformed later.

Mithral is twice as hard as steel. This could not be worked into a foil. Considering that it looks 'silvery', you'd be better off just foiling with silver. Even if you could 'foil a door in mithral' is would not add any strength to it.

Plating is possible but that leaves an actual valuable removable thing that could be farmed. See also the adamantine doors that are so popular to DMs. ToH also has some semiprecious stone objects, which were probably meant as fluff, but the shear size of the objects make them highly farmable.

Poisons are apparently outrageously expensive, probably as an attempt to keep them out of the hands of the PCs. However there are poisoned spikes available all over the place in ToH. They aren't magic and apparently they will be replaced, thus repeatedly harvestable. They aren't immediately usable as a weapon, but could be sold to a trapmaker.

My point is a cautionary tale to DMs not to use expensive fluff and arbitrarily expensive items to keep PCs out. Instead, imagine yourself the owner/builder of the setting with a fixed budget. Every gold piece you put in that vault door, is one less gold piece in the vault. Do all your walls need to be Mithral? What's wrong with paint? Stucco? or even linen draperies? Do you make two great doors out of solid Adamantine, or make full plate armor for fifty troops?

Aquillion
2007-09-04, 08:27 AM
That would be true for a normal dungeon, but this is, like I said before, the friggin Tomb of Horrors. Excessively overwrought, absurdly deadly traps are the entire point of the module. Can you really imagine Acererak worrying that much about expense? He built an entire illusionary copy of the dungeon, just so he can blow it up to annoy adventurers. He built multiple fake, heavily adorned entranceways whose sole purpose is to trap and kill visitors. He put CL 20 effects on just about every surface. He built whole corridors whose sole purpose is to collapse into a pool of lava... can you imagine how much it must cost to keep a molten lava flow available, without damaging the rest of the dungeon? For that matter, do you know how much a Sphere of Annihilation of the size he uses is worth? And he employs demonic servants to replace each and every part of this for him if it gets damaged... that can't be cheap.

The point is that Acererak has style. He's that one BBEG in a million willing to spend the extra dollar just to make sure that the PCs die with that extra touch of irony.

Duke of URL
2007-09-04, 08:42 AM
I'm a relatively new DM, DMing for a group of newish players.

I have heard about the tomb of horrors module, and I would like to run it for them, as they tend to be a more thinking type group. do you have any suggestions, as to make the module as fun for them (and easier for me) as possible?

thanks in advance

I don't think you're supposed to play Tomb of Horrors for fun... I thought the whole point of the module was for the DM to pull it out whenever the players accuse him of being "unfair" just to show what an evil DM/module designer could really do.

:smallbiggrin:

Kurald Galain
2007-09-04, 09:22 AM
Can you really imagine Acererak worrying that much about expense? He built (yadda yadda yadda)

And that is precisely why he didn't have money remaining for full mithral doors. Or for the water dungeon, for that matter :smalltongue:

Citizen Joe
2007-09-04, 09:57 AM
That's also why, for the most part, his tomb is empty of treasure. Seriously, the only treasure in there is whatever previous explorers brought in.

Here's another fun exploit:

That 3 armed gargoyle statue... It creates Gems of Seeing by crushing nine gems of 100 gp value. The gems are lesser gems so basically equivalent to a single casting at level 12 (12 total minutes of use). That would normally cost 1750 gp (twice that if you consider it body slot less). This item would normally cost 750 gp in raw materials plus the material cost for the True seeing spell (250 gp).

The room is within 30' of the outside, which means you could dimension leap into it and then back out. No limit is listed for the number of times you could do this trick per day, but since it would be reset by the demons, you could assume a worse case scenario of once per day. If these gems are considered no body slot affinity (instead of eyes) then they would have a market price of 3500 gp. Which you could sell for 1750 gp... of which you spend 900 in gems... for a total of 850 gp profit for each transaction. If they are body slot items, you'd only get half price so you'd lose 25 gp per transaction, so you're better off just hoarding them.

Obviously, this is cheesier if you can do it multiple times per day. And just like all the other infinite wealth cheese, it requires sufficient buyers.

EDIT: oops, my base multiplier was off... single use, use activated would be 50gp base... so 3250 gp item for 900 gp of gems. Or 6500 gp for no body slot. Greed urge rising...

TimeWizard
2007-09-04, 06:36 PM
Acererak is a real demi-lich's demi-lich. I mean, eternal unlife, limitless power, bottomless resources... how is a soul-less perversion of nature supposed to keep himself entertained? He must have been laughing his fleshless skull off at the humorous deaths. Up until he was killed and banished out into quasi-existance as an un-undead spectre in a non-existant plane outside of even divine reach as what is commonly called a Vestige, or even more commonly called a Lovecraftian Horrific Nightmare.

Yvian
2007-09-04, 08:13 PM
I'm a relatively new DM, DMing for a group of newish players.

I have heard about the tomb of horrors module, and I would like to run it for them, as they tend to be a more thinking type group. do you have any suggestions, as to make the module as fun for them (and easier for me) as possible?

thanks in advance

I belive that Tome of Horrors was made for GenCon for the finial round - back in the day when you could play for points and advance. I not sure if they do that already.

There are a couple of nice things about TOH for the new DM and players. You can play high level characters which you have no emotional attachment. The rules and situation is clear cut, so role playing is easy and the PCs don't wonder off someplace the DM has yet to map. In short, if you want to learn the mechnaics of DnD this is a not the 1st module I would run, but it would be in the 1st 10.

Shatteredtower
2007-09-04, 09:25 PM
I belive that Tome of Horrors was made for GenCon for the finial round...Origins, actually, not GenCon. Two groups even completed it.


What surprised me most was my players figured out an extremely clever way to destroy the demilich using his own artifacts. Just brilliant. I'm still puzzled why Gygax didn't think of it himself.He must have, since the group that beat Acerak in that fashion was declared the winning team, after it was confirmed with him that that trick would work.

He just didn't see the need to spell it out for people within the module. He wasn't always about limiting the options available to a player, as would be the case if the only solutions that worked were the ones he specifically wrote down.

Kurald Galain
2007-09-05, 02:32 AM
He wasn't always about limiting the options available to a player, as would be the case if the only solutions that worked were the ones he specifically wrote down.

Well, that does cover most of the module - do what is written down or you'll die. Isn't this from the guy that wrote the Prismatic Wall spell, witht he ludicrous and entirely arbitrary ways of bypassing every single layer?

Shatteredtower
2007-09-05, 03:46 PM
Well, that does cover most of the module - do what is written down or you'll die.Actually, it was:

A. Do x and die.
B. Do y and live.
c. Do z, which is not explicitly stated in the module, and let your DM make the call.


Isn't this from the guy that wrote the Prismatic Wall spell, witht he ludicrous and entirely arbitrary ways of bypassing every single layer?Until one has done the scientific research into why a certain formula produces a certain result, the means by which the results are achieved will often seem arbitrary, even ludicrous.

Prismatic sphere teaches people the lesson, "Don't push the button if you don't know what it does." A spell with a combination lock? Since most wizards would prefer something like that in their high level magic to something that could be cracked with a single much lower power spell that nearly every spellcaster will prepare, it makes perfect sense to me. It doesn't take a fireworks wizard to figure that one out, nor to realize that if you don't know what it does or how to shut it down, you should get out of there. It's not like it's that hard to research the solution to the spell either, assuming the sense to know when to walk away.