4E Tomb of Horrors

[DDRNick]

What do you guys thing about it since it recently came out?

I haven't read it yet because we are planning to start it up next week but could anyone tell me if there are a lot of "save ends" against the characters in that module?

[Tyndmyr]

I would be disappointed if there was. That's generally not in the spirit of the original tomb of horrors, where, if you are lucky, you get to save for your life to not end.

[sambo.]

it's been a good long while since i traipsed through the gygaxian death trap known as The Tomb Of Horrors (i'm talking 1ed).

i ran a group through it in 2ed and havn't been in there for 3ed.

from memory, the 1ed and 2ed versions were basically identical. i'd be very peeved if the ToH has lost any of it's insane levels of nastiness.

it's the module a DM reaches for when he either A: wants to teach the PCs a lesson or B: wants the acmpaign to end so they can start afresh.

if you venture in there, i suggest investing heavily in wands of Find Traps and wands of Find Secret Doors.

use them with abandon.

[Lhurgyof]

it's been a good long while since i traipsed through the gygaxian death trap known as The Tomb Of Horrors (i'm talking 1ed).

i ran a group through it in 2ed and havn't been in there for 3ed.

from memory, the 1ed and 2ed versions were basically identical. i'd be very peeved if the ToH has lost any of it's insane levels of nastiness.

it's the module a DM reaches for when he either A: wants to teach the PCs a lesson or B: wants the acmpaign to end so they can start afresh.

if you venture in there, i suggest investing heavily in wands of Find Traps and wands of Find Secret Doors.

use them with abandon.

You wouldn't like 3e tomb of horrors, and I'd guess you wouldn't like 4e tomb of horrors. Haven't looked at it, but instant death and save or die are foreign concepts to 4e.


Edit: The Sphere of anihilation is no longer an instant kill. Yep, they ****ed it up.

[cupkeyk]

You wouldn't like 3e tomb of horrors, and I'd guess you wouldn't like 4e tomb of horrors. Haven't looked at it, but instant death and save or die are foreign concepts to 4e.


Edit: The Sphere of anihilation is no longer an instant kill. Yep, they ****ed it up.

But MM1 has a monster with a death on hit. The Oni soul eater is a heroic level monster with a death on hit, too. You just haven't playing enough.

Anyhoot, ToH4e is designed for 4e. It is not DM vs. PC, and the DM's goal is not to kill as many players as possible. That said, yeah the save or dies are gone. And so are the instadeath traps. But if the party does not cooperate they will deplete their resources very fast.

It has a lot of Fire and Necrotic Damage, for some odd raeson. So a tiefling and deva party will survive better than any other, but that's probably a fluke.

[Lhurgyof]

But MM1 has a monster with a death on hit. The Oni soul eater is a heroic level monster with a death on hit, too. You just haven't playing enough.

Anyhoot, ToH4e is designed for 4e. It is not DM vs. PC, and the DM's goal is not to kill as many players as possible. That said, yeah the save or dies are gone. And so are the instadeath traps. But if the party does not cooperate they will deplete their resources very fast.

It has a lot of Fire and Necrotic Damage, for some odd raeson. So a tiefling and deva party will survive better than any other, but that's probably a fluke.

Yeah, I pretty much only play during encounters. It's still few and far between.
Plus, I heard Acererak was taken down a few levels.

And the sphere of gygax? They made it not insta-death? Really?

"You fell into a sphere of anihilation... er, roll a save at the end of your turn"
"11"
"FFFFUUUUUUUU-"

[Blackfang108]

And the sphere of gygax? They made it not insta-death? Really?

Yeah. Just look at DMG1, where the sphere was printed. (This is OLD NEWS, people.)

[Katana_Geldar]

The sphere is in a different statues mouth in a different dungeon, and as far as I recall it's three failed saves and you turn to dust.

But I like the super adventure Tomb of Horrors, that statue packs quite a wallop and one of my players thought that the encounter with the tents (to which I added a homebrew gazebo to up the XP) was a joke until I let him peep at the notes.

I am enjoying running this module more than I have enjoyed DMing before and think it goes back to what Gary was trying to achieve in making the players think and second guess. After the statue encounter, they were too terrified to choose a direction to go in next without poking the walls of the cave with a long spear.

What I love is how all the "mythology" surrounding the ToH has been more or less combined, even to the point where this Deadly Dungeon of Doomy Dooms actually existed many years ago. I added that it's a story many adventurers tell each other but no one is sure what to believe or even if it's true.

[RebelRogue]

Yeah. Just look at DMG1, where the sphere was printed. (This is OLD NEWS, people.)

6d6 + 10 damage and ongoing 15 damage (save ends) isn't exactly a picnic, either.

[Lhurgyof]

6d6 + 10 damage and ongoing 15 damage (save ends) isn't exactly a picnic, either.

But nothing beats a "You're character is dead and nothing short of a god can save you... get some d6's" to petrify a player.

[WitchSlayer]

I've heard that 4e has given Tomb of Horrors a bit of it's fangs back after the 3e version. That said, I briefly read through the module and there are a LOT of things that makes your equipment disappear and teleports it to the final room, which can really screw you over. Also there's something that changes your alignment and gender, which is priceless.

[DeltaEmil]

Playability means almost survivable damage. If you are comfortable with it, you can still make every dangerous encounter in 4th edition an instant-death no-save as it were in older editions if you want (just as you will do in 5th, 6th, 7th and all the other future editions).

Keep in mind that in most cases, instant-death no-save situations aren't fun for the majority anymore, they're just annoying after a few times.

[Lhurgyof]

I've heard that 4e has given Tomb of Horrors a bit of it's fangs back after the 3e version. That said, I briefly read through the module and there are a LOT of things that makes your equipment disappear and teleports it to the final room, which can really screw you over. Also there's something that changes your alignment and gender, which is priceless.

Both are in the 3e module.

[Katana_Geldar]

Playability means almost survivable damage. If you are comfortable with it, you can still make every dangerous encounter in 4th edition an instant-death no-save as it were in older editions if you want (just as you will do in 5th, 6th, 7th and all the other future editions).

Try a +19 attack with 3d10+11 damage in the second encounter. Not fun...well for players, I found it hilarious.

[Katana_Geldar]

Here it is, as I thought it would be.

Page 65, encounter S1, the blind devourer which is a sphere of annihilation. 4d6+5 damage and 10 ongoing save ends. If it reduces you to 0 hitpoints you are dust. The attack is a trigger whenever someone enters it.

Best part? You actually need to disable it for each player so they can go through the doorway behind the sphere and it reforms within a round as there's no other way out of the room.

[WitchSlayer]

Both are in the 3e module.

I didn't say 3e didn't have those, I'm saying that I heard 4e increased the lethality of Tomb of Horrors after 3e. I'm saying those are great. I'm actually running my players through the Tomb once they get to paragon tier

[Katana_Geldar]

You want to make it a challenge for them? Start them in the module before they hit Paragon. I have 8 players going through it at level 10.

[WitchSlayer]

You want to make it a challenge for them? Start them in the module before they hit Paragon. I have 8 players going through it at level 10.

I only have 4 players, but that might be an idea, although I'm planning to have them hit Paragon after the first part of the adventure I'm putting through is done. I'm also somewhat worried about them, as they've had some trouble with surviving. I'm not making the encounters too hard, just a combination of bad rolls and bad placement causes them to get slaughtered.

[Kurald Galain]

What do you guys thing about it since it recently came out?

Well, it's an interesting adventure, but it doesn't feel like the Tomb of Horrors. Mind you, this may be a good thing. There's very little in the adventure that is actually lethal.

Note that there are two TOH adventures that came out more or less at the same time. One is a short-ish heroic-tier module sent for free to all RPGA DMs; the other is a longer paragon-tier adventure available in stores. They're not identical at all.

could anyone tell me if there are a lot of "save ends" against the characters in that module?

Not all that many, honestly. I had a leader character and didn't get to use my "make a save" power all that often.

[DDRNick]

You want to make it a challenge for them? Start them in the module before they hit Paragon. I have 8 players going through it at level 10.

Yeah that's what we're doing, we're taking 4-5 people in at 10th level.
I'll just go warden and run down the hallways

[Katana_Geldar]

That way when they hit Paragon, they have some idea of what is in store for them. Of course, they don't find out about Acererak until the third dungeon with the aforementioned devourer.

[ninja_penguin]

Our group is playing. There are no instagibs in a 'you are dead' manner, but we've apparently missed one trap that would have vaporized all our gear and teleported us into another room with monsters in it.

Also, our Drow Rogue solved a puzzle where he had two options. He picked the one that opened a door. The other lead to a 100 foot drop (10d10 damage), and this is at level 10.

My Dwarf Cleric and the Half-orc Barbarian also barely managed to avoid from falling down a shaft that was on fire that apparently lead to a 'you die if you touch this' portal to the plane of elemental fire.

[Katana_Geldar]

You sure you're playing the same module? I'm talking about the Super Adventure or is this the conversion?

[Kurald Galain]

The other lead to a 100 foot drop (10d10 damage), and this is at level 10.

A 10th level character has a minimum of 54 hit points (10 base + 8 con + 9*4 for level), so this fall cannot kill him and will on average not even knock him unconscious.

That's what I meant when I said that "there's very little in the adventure that is actually lethal." And mind you, I think that's a good thing because the you-arbitrarily-die-haha spirit of the original TOH doesn't strike me as fun for anyone but the DM.

I'm also reasonably certain that the "vaporize your gear" and the "die if you touch this" traps do not actually do that, but rather "remove your gear (save ends)" and "take 10 damage per round if you touch this until you die", or something like that.

[Katana_Geldar]

Funny, I got a different message from Gary from the original. You only arbitraily die if you rush in and act without thinking first. And poking stuff.

[Sir_Elderberry]

Your gear isn't vaporized, it's teleported into Acererak's room.

[ninja_penguin]

Your gear isn't vaporized, it's teleported into Acererak's room.

Well, or DM is messing with us, or is not spoiling things for us.

And well it's true that 10d10 doesn't automatically kill you, you're still down a 100 foot shaft.

[Katana_Geldar]

Oh dear, you seem to have fallen down a 100ft shaft, are you all right?

[Skorj]

Funny, I got a different message from Gary from the original. You only arbitraily die if you rush in and act without thinking first. And poking stuff.

In the 1E ToH, was there any way to defeat the end boss without peeking at the DM's notes?

Spoiler

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I recall you needed a sequence of basically arbitrary spells to kill him, and I don't remember any clues about the spells to use available anywhere. Weren't they SoL spells in an edition when no one took SoL spells?

[Katana_Geldar]

There were a rather specific number of ways you could hurt Acererak. I don't have them in front of me but there were a few ways you coulc chip away at his fake hp.

The best one I think was the Paladin with a vorpal sword.

But is was basically trial and error...and hope Acererak didn't try and eat you soul before you smashed him.