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Criz Reborn
2008-10-13, 09:26 AM
So this halloween my group is going to run the 3.5 Tomb of Horrors. Ive never played it, but have heard its mostly traps and puzzles and I will hate my DM by the end of it. Im thinking of building a rogue or something with a lot of skill points, so my question is- should I go straight rogue or multiclass?

AKA_Bait
2008-10-13, 09:29 AM
I'd say it depends upon what your options are and if you want the ToH to run as intended (and kill a bunch of yall) or not. Factotems are the best option, ime, if you want to avoid much death.

Of course, stupidity will get you killed in the ToH regardless of class.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-10-13, 09:35 AM
Go Cleric or Paladin. That way, you've got a bit of hope for the afterlife.

Otherwise, if you want to survive, don't be the Rogue. Your party will expect you to be the one walking in front searching for traps. Let some other idiot do that. Be a Conj Wiz with a bunch of protective spells and wards, take the Abrupt Jaunt ACF, and the Summon Elemental and Firey Burst reserve feats. Have the corpse(I mean Rogue) search for traps in any square, then try to disable them. Then everyone backs off 50', you summon the Elemental 30' away, and have it move forwards 20. Once it's dead, do it again. Then have the Rogue search again. Then step forwards and repeat. If anything hits you, you Abrupt Jaunt away before the attack resolves and leave your allies to die. You still won't make it halfway, but you at least won't die in the first entrance.

AKA_Bait
2008-10-13, 09:53 AM
If anything hits you, you Abrupt Jaunt away before the attack resolves and leave your allies to die. You still won't make it halfway, but you at least won't die in the first entrance.


OP, ignore the spoiler if you want to be surprised by some stuff in the ToH.
Wouldn't Abrupt Jaunt set off the Demons? Or am I misremembering the rules for triggering that.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-10-13, 09:54 AM
OP, ignore the spoiler if you want to be surprised by some stuff in the ToH.
Wouldn't Abrupt Jaunt set off the Demons? Or am I misremembering the rules for triggering that. I thought it was only Ethrealness that did that...

Mr.Bookworm
2008-10-13, 09:56 AM
Warlock, Warlock, Warlock.

There's a few invocations you can get (can't remember which ones, AFB) that you should spam like crazy.

UglyPanda
2008-10-13, 10:09 AM
OP, ignore the spoiler if you want to be surprised by some stuff in the ToH.
Wouldn't Abrupt Jaunt set off the Demons? Or am I misremembering the rules for triggering that.
I thought it was only Ethrealness that did that...
It's ethereal jaunt.

If you're going to play it, you should keep in mind that it has old-school design aesthetics. Traps are going to be obvious if you explicitly try to look for them; You'll have to pick up every item that's worth a description, barring rubble; Several no-save traps that can be completely avoided; etc.

Criz Reborn
2008-10-13, 10:11 AM
Go Cleric or Paladin. That way, you've got a bit of hope for the afterlife. ...
You still won't make it halfway, but you at least won't die in the first entrance.

that bad, eh?

Meat Shield
2008-10-13, 10:19 AM
Well, the title of the adventure is one of the clearest examples of 'Truth in Advertising', so yeah, it can be that bad.

It is continuously upheld as the most lethal module ever.

Coplantor
2008-10-13, 10:25 AM
Well, it depends on the rest of the party. Sometimes you will need a tank, sometimes you will need a skillmonkey. After trying ToH twice, this is what I've learned:

1) Stupidity, curiosity, sense of adventuring and sometimes normal behaviour WILL kill you.
2) No undead characters, NEVER!
3) If you survived the entrance, pay attention to the warning Acererak gives you, it helps, A LOT.

Note/question about undead characters:
The door that takes away all your inventory and sends you naked back to the entrance would send an undead with the inventory, right?

Starbuck_II
2008-10-13, 10:26 AM
I'd say it depends upon what your options are and if you want the ToH to run as intended (and kill a bunch of yall) or not. Factotems are the best option, ime, if you want to avoid much death.

Of course, stupidity will get you killed in the ToH regardless of class.

Actually, not-metagaming gets you killed faster.

Pronounceable
2008-10-13, 11:20 AM
that bad, eh?

Nah, it's worse.


Note/question about undead characters:

Yes. Also, it occurs to me a whole party of undead can skip most of the tomb and go face the "lich" this way. Of course, that'd mean a crapload of metagaming.

Coplantor
2008-10-13, 11:30 AM
Probably, but we havent finished the tomb, so I wont risk into doing an undead party, I dont know if I need something from the rest of the tomb to defeat the lich, plus, isnt acererak trying to control all undeads? Does he have any undead controlling power he can use?

And, what level did you guys played the tomb? Because:
When we tried to do it with 9 level characters, the gargoyle killed us instantly, the second time, we were 10th level and I played a tank who'se sole purpose was to defeat the gargoyle (metagaming, I know). Of course, that time we had no skillmonkey, the guy thought that ranger 5 and rogue 5 was a nice build, and his only spell was "animal messenger".

Chronos
2008-10-13, 11:30 AM
What resources are available to you? If it's just core, then you'll absolutely positively need a straight rogue in the party, since any of the other core classes would dilute your skillmonkeyness to the point where you have no chance at all of success, instead of only a very slim chance. If you have other books available, the skillmonkey role benefits greatly from dips into many different skillful classes. My sig has more suggestions.

SoD
2008-10-13, 03:32 PM
Well, the title of the adventure is one of the clearest examples of 'Truth in Advertising', so yeah, it can be that bad.

It is continuously upheld as the most lethal module ever.

Here's how to beat it: play a bard. Get the glibness spell. Max out your bluff, including with insane charisma, synergy bonuses, and feats. Convince your party not to do ToH. Then tell everyone that you did, and with +60 to bluff, they might beleive you did it without being killed.

But in seriousness: give each player a ring of 3 wishes, the catch: each ring can only be used to bring a character back to life, no matter what killed it. However, if the equipment is destroyed/lost/etc. it doesn't come back.

chiasaur11
2008-10-13, 03:36 PM
Here's how to beat it: play a bard. Get the glibness spell. Max out your bluff, including with insane charisma, synergy bonuses, and feats. Convince your party not to do ToH. Then tell everyone that you did, and with +60 to bluff, they might beleive you did it without being killed.

But in seriousness: give each player a ring of 3 wishes, the catch: each ring can only be used to bring a character back to life, no matter what killed it. However, if the equipment is destroyed/lost/etc. it doesn't come back.

Or, you could make a hulking hurler, pick up a rock outside the tomb, and throw it in such a way as to destroy the place entirely.

That might sorta work.

For a little while.

AKA_Bait
2008-10-13, 03:56 PM
It's ethereal jaunt.


Just checked. Yall are right. I think I houseruled it the other way when I ran it since I had only two players and upped their level to compensate and wanted a way to keep them from just teleporting out of trouble.


Actually, not-metagaming gets you killed faster.

I actually disagree. Metagaming without foreknowledge of what lurks inside is, to me, what gets so many people killed in the ToH. For example:

What person, in character, when roaming a lethal dungeon sticks their arm inside of a pitch black demon heads mouth? It's the metagame notion that "the DM isn't going to kill me utterly and destroy all my stuff for doing what in character should really be a totally ludicrous idea. There's probably something nifty inside!" that has kept that maw of annhilation deadly all these years.

Vinshwitz
2008-10-13, 04:14 PM
I would go with a rogue so you can check for traps and stuff. And also maybe multiclass in ranger to make you even better than the ranger rogue bonuses. But it also depends on what you other friends?players are too, its good toi have a balance.

Ganurath
2008-10-13, 04:18 PM
Warlock is a must. Get the invocation that lets you fly so you never have to touch anything. Get the invocation to shatter so you can get stuff out of your way that you can't fly around.

Criz Reborn
2008-10-13, 05:12 PM
What about a pixie factorium? fly, greater invisibility, +8dex, +6int, +4wis, bonuses to spot and search, etc.

Kurald Galain
2008-10-13, 05:23 PM
I actually disagree. Metagaming without foreknowledge of what lurks inside is, to me, what gets so many people killed in the ToH. For example:

That's a good point. TOH is, to my knowledge, the only dungeon where the hints were actually placed by the BBEG. Which, if you think about it, makes far more sense than inexplicable useful hints on all the dungeon walls.

Rei_Jin
2008-10-13, 05:37 PM
If I was going into the Tomb of Horrors, I'd be using the following build.

Race: Human
Class Build: Rogue 1/Warlock 2/Barbarian X
Special: You must take Able Learner as a feat and your two invocations are See the Unseen and Baleful Utterance

You can now Disarm Traps, check everything for magic before you touch it, have 3 decent saves, and a lot of hitpoints to help you when you do get hit.

You can also pick up Destructive Rage and Instantaneous Rage for more help with destroying doors/surviving traps. In a pinch you can use Baleful Utterance to destroy things as well.

This is what we call "The Dungeon Destroyer" build. Or, perhaps Conan the Librarian

Jayngfet
2008-10-13, 05:42 PM
Lift everything with mage hand, every hallway should be crossed by summons.

Be level 1 using all xp on those spells, or fly and touch nothing.

Detect spells too.

Jack_Simth
2008-10-13, 07:20 PM
If I was going into the Tomb of Horrors, I'd be using the following build.

Race: Human
Class Build: Rogue 1/Warlock 2/Barbarian X
Special: You must take Able Learner as a feat and your two invocations are See the Unseen and Baleful Utterance

You can now Disarm Traps, check everything for magic before you touch it, have 3 decent saves, and a lot of hitpoints to help you when you do get hit.

You can also pick up Destructive Rage and Instantaneous Rage for more help with destroying doors/surviving traps. In a pinch you can use Baleful Utterance to destroy things as well.

This is what we call "The Dungeon Destroyer" build. Or, perhaps Conan the Librarian

Me? Wizard-X.
1) Get Detect Magic (or better, Arcane Sight) Permanencied (designed for 9th+ - this should be doable).
2) Take two reserve feats - specifically, Elemental Summoning, and either Acidic Splatter (if you've got better than 6th level spells available - range is 5 feet per spell level held in reserve - so 7th level spells give a 35 foot range) or Fiery Burst (if you don't have 6th level spells available - flat range of 30 feet) (again, designed for 9th+ - this is doable)
3) Get a flying familiar (good maneuverability, at a minimum; Bat will do nicely).
4) Use Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability to give your familiar Floating Disk (Extended, ideally).
5) Get a Hand of the Mage (or a Ring of Telekinesis, if you can afford it).
6) Get some way to survive without air (Necklace of Adaptation, that Ioun stone, a good racial pick, et cetera).
7) If you can, take a few copies of Analyze Dweomer with you.
8) Get a portable hole (not a bag of holding).
9) Get immunity to poison and fear (a friendly cleric compatriot with Heroes' Feast). If you can swing it, you also want to be immune to teleportation (Dimensional Shackles?) and transmutation (... I got nothing). Mind Blank will also be handy, but is likely out of reach.
10) Learn all four elemental languages (for ordering around the Elemental Summoning elementals for non-combat tasks)
11) Get a few obedient expendable drones fellow party memebers for the small handful of combat-related tasks.
12) If you must bring a Divine caster, make sure the caster worships a True Neutral deity, and is one-step away from their deity (NG, LN, CN, NE).
13) Take enough ranks in Knoweledge(Nature) to recognize if your familiar is suddenly a subtly different animal.
14) Be prepared to roll up another character.

How it works....
1) You don't touch anything. Ever. Anything that needs manipulation? Done by Mage Hand, Telekinesis, or an Elemental from Elemental Summoning reserve feat, always from as much range as you can manage. Your familiar flies, you ride on the Floating Disk that follows it. If you pick something up to take it out, you put it into the Portable Hole without ever touching it this way. You don't open a single door. You BURN THEM ALL (acid does burn stuff).
2) See magic? Either identify what it is (Analyze Dweomer), or destroy it utterly from maximum range (Acidic Splatter, Fiery Burst).
3) The elemental precedes you to it's maximum range. Before your familiar takes so much as a five-foot step in the air (and the disk you're riding follows), you use the Elemental Summoning Reserve Feat to Summon an Earth elemental, to have it run along the intended path (a Small earth elemental has a move of 20 - at a run, that's 80 feet in a straight line- and with the Summon range, that gives you a 110 foot heads up on basically any trap. Sure, it disappears if it ENDS IT'S TURN more than 30 feet from you, but it still gets that turn, and it still gets that far). It's a magical Conjouration(Summoning) effect, so it triggers anything triggered by magic. It's a living creature, so it'll still suffer any nasty effects. It's got some 80 pounds of weight (for a small Earth elemental - 750 for a medium if you have access to 6th level spells) so it'll trigger basically any floor trigger you would (oh yeah, play a halfling, gnome, or get Reduce Person Permanencied). Before you even consider entering a room or hallway, have an Earth Elemental cover every single square in range on foot. Then follow it up with an Air Elemental, a Fire Elemental, and a Water Elemental all doing the exact same thing (except that the Air Elemental is in the air, of course, and goes much further). You repeat this, fully, for each five-foot step (yes, if I'm going through a 20-foot room, that room gets canvased.... about 200 times, give or take, as I start the canvasing long, long before I enter the room). Anything happens to the elemental, utterly destroy whatever caused it. Then repeat a few times to make sure it's clear.
4) If anything happens to your familiar (nothing *should*, but you never know), abandon the dungeon. Immediately.

The immunity to poison, fear, teleportation, transmutation, no-air conditions, and mind-affecting effects? They're all for when you goof up with something (not if, when - the Tomb does not play fair). Make sure your fellow party members have similar protections, and have their own Floating Disks to ride.

Note: My wizard would be reasonably content partying with Conan in the Tomb.


That's a good point. TOH is, to my knowledge, the only dungeon where the hints were actually placed by the BBEG. Which, if you think about it, makes far more sense than inexplicable useful hints on all the dungeon walls.
Oh, a hint or two makes an amount of sense, for the same reason that hidden bypass switches and buried keys do. Even cheaply replaceable, low-int minions get expensive if you lose enough of them.

Edit:
Hmm... Halloween is on a Friday this year - makes me itch a little to test the build out on it by OpenRPG.... but then, I'd need to find someone else to DM....

Edit2: And yes, thanks for the reminder Sstoopidtallkid - specialist Conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt is a must - take Obtain Familiar at 3rd for the flying familiar to tug you along.
Edit 3: Ah, Abrupt Jaunt is useless with the Dimensional Shackles. Hmm....

Dr Bwaa
2008-10-13, 07:40 PM
Rogue 1/Monk X, not even joking over here. You still won't win, and maybe you won't even really contribute, but you'll stay alive. The reason you only have one level of Rogue is so that someone else can be the "party trapfinder," while you just grab the ability to double-check their work on your way through.

If you have the money, get Arcane Sight permanized on you.
Bring some wands of CLW. Since you're the monk, put a pule of points into UMD, and use these wands to keep your allies alive if they end up in a battle (they should attempt to avoid this).

There's also a feat tree for monks someplace, that includes "Ki Blast." Get this. It allows you to make Force damage attacks from 60' away. I'm sure you can see how this is a good thing.

Plus, being a monk means you're still exactly as useful as before if you lose all your equip!

Turcano
2008-10-13, 07:41 PM
Probably, but we havent finished the tomb, so I wont risk into doing an undead party, I dont know if I need something from the rest of the tomb to defeat the lich, plus, isnt acererak trying to control all undeads? Does he have any undead controlling power he can use?

The final boss is not actually Acererak, but a construct.


I actually disagree. Metagaming without foreknowledge of what lurks inside is, to me, what gets so many people killed in the ToH. For example:

What person, in character, when roaming a lethal dungeon sticks their arm inside of a pitch black demon heads mouth? It's the metagame notion that "the DM isn't going to kill me utterly and destroy all my stuff for doing what in character should really be a totally ludicrous idea. There's probably something nifty inside!" that has kept that maw of annhilation deadly all these years.

A person who would think that obviously doesn't understand Gygax's philosophy of dungeon design.

Rei_Jin
2008-10-13, 07:44 PM
You've just given me the most EVIL idea... running Tomb of Horrors over Halloween.

With the right set up, it would be a helluva lot of fun

Jack_Simth
2008-10-13, 07:50 PM
You've just given me the most EVIL idea... running Tomb of Horrors over Halloween.

With the right set up, it would be a helluva lot of fun
Got OpenRPG (http://www.openrpg.com/)?

Rei_Jin
2008-10-13, 08:01 PM
I'm in Australia, time zone differences means that something like that would leave us working at different times.

Jack_Simth
2008-10-13, 08:22 PM
I'm in Australia, time zone differences means that something like that would leave us working at different times.

Which means it's a little after 12 pm on Tuesday (give or take a few hours, Austrailia is a fairly large place) your time as I write this - a little after work on Friday for me is about 9 am Saturday for you.

But then, you wouldn't be running the ToH on Halloween...

Rei_Jin
2008-10-13, 08:28 PM
Unfortunately, that is correct. Always been the problem for me with online gaming, the majority of people on the websites I frequent are in the USA, thus making it hard to do anything other than PbP

BizzaroStormy
2008-10-13, 08:29 PM
There is one quick way to survive tomb of horrors. Play a commoner. Then at the beginning, before you enter say "I don't go in at all."

Criz Reborn
2008-10-13, 08:30 PM
You've just given me the most EVIL idea... running Tomb of Horrors over Halloween.

With the right set up, it would be a helluva lot of fun

Thats what were doing- for our gamers' guild's halloween party

Haikiah
2008-10-13, 10:53 PM
Unfortunately, that is correct. Always been the problem for me with online gaming, the majority of people on the websites I frequent are in the USA, thus making it hard to do anything other than PbP

I've stayed up till 4am, just to finish an online game I was playing with an american friend at the time... Fear my West Australianess.

But yeah, being Australian does tend to make online d&d games a lot harder to organise. I'm still looking for a way for myself. :smallfrown:

Jayngfet
2008-10-14, 01:20 AM
Be a wizard. Pound it to dust from the outside.

Ricky S
2008-10-14, 02:48 AM
Best Idea ever! Just each buy a bag of tricks then send the animals in first to set them off! That way u never have to worry about traps again... (you can buy bags of tricks? can't you?)

Ganurath
2008-10-14, 03:55 AM
Best Idea ever! Just each buy a bag of tricks then send the animals in first to set them off! That way u never have to worry about traps again... (you can buy bags of tricks? can't you?)More cost effective to buy a bag of holding and stuff it full of either riding dogs or guard dogs, whichever is 25 gp a pop. Let them die, then use the corpses for the lesser invocation The Dead Walk.

NephandiMan
2008-10-14, 01:39 PM
More cost effective to buy a bag of holding and stuff it full of either riding dogs or guard dogs, whichever is 25 gp a pop. Let them die, then use the corpses for the lesser invocation The Dead Walk.

"Barky! You came back!"

BizzaroStormy
2008-10-14, 01:45 PM
That or a sack full of rubber balls. Chuck one down every hallway you come across and watch the pitfalls fly.

Duke of URL
2008-10-14, 01:56 PM
So this halloween my group is going to run the 3.5 Tomb of Horrors. Ive never played it, but have heard its mostly traps and puzzles and I will hate my DM by the end of it. Im thinking of building a rogue or something with a lot of skill points, so my question is- should I go straight rogue or multiclass?

Best advice: Run away screaming and never even utter the words "Tomb of Horrors" again.

Next best advice: Make up, oh, about 5 character sheets in advance. That'll get you through the first couple of rooms.

Doresain
2008-10-14, 01:56 PM
or be a kobold expert with leadership and dig your own tunnel to all the loots...

chiasaur11
2008-10-14, 02:08 PM
or be a kobold expert with leadership and dig your own tunnel to all the loots...

Most dungeons, that works.
This one, replace "expert" with "paladin" and "leadership" with "leadership and manipulate form."