Tomb of Horrors Character

[ExHunterEmerald]

One of the DM's in our gang has decided to run an ECL 15 game with a rogue, a cleric, a fighter, and a wizard. I'm pretty sure that's Tomb of Horrors. It's been discussed before.
I'm gunning for the rogue at the moment. My problem, though, is I've never played high-levels before.
What should I do for my rogue? Dex-boosting items, feats, abilities, and so on?

I don't want to be unbelievably superbly optimized, but I'd like to be an effective force.

Thoughts? And thanks.

[Pocket lint]

Judging from the novel, bring a 10-foot pole. *Lots* of 10-foot poles.

And max your trapfinding abilities as much as humanly possible.

[Swordguy]

Bring spare character sheets.

Oh, for the rogue, max out every trapfinding think you can do, and see if the party wizard can permenancy some stuff onto you (low-light vision, heck, try for true-seeing!). You'll want your saves as high as possible, because you'll be rolling a lot of them. Obviously, you'll get a lot of use out of your class evasion abilities.

Have UMD high and a wand of Knock, followed by a wand of dispel magic and a wand of mage hand. All of those are good remote trap-disarming tools.

I can't remember the name of the item, but they goggles that basically give you X-ray vision will help as well.

ToH is mean. This is one of those few times where I'd support optimization. Heck, depending on the DM running it, I'd support bringing Pun-Pun.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Bring spare character sheets.

Oh, for the rogue, max out every trapfinding think you can do, and see if the party wizard can permenancy some stuff onto you (low-light vision, heck, try for true-seeing!). You'll want your saves as high as possible, because you'll be rolling a lot of them. Obviously, you'll get a lot of use out of your class evasion abilities.

Have UMD high and a wand of Knock, followed by a wand of dispel magic and a wand of mage hand. All of those are good remote trap-disarming tools.

I can't remember the name of the item, but they goggles that basically give you X-ray vision will help as well.

ToH is mean. This is one of those few times where I'd support optimization. Heck, depending on the DM running it, I'd support bringing Pun-Pun.

...Oh man, this will be interesting. The DM's also said "no backups." You're dead, you're dead.

[Swordguy]

Actually, I think the quote your looking for is from Aliens.

"Nuke the tomb from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

[Quietus]

Super lethal and only one char? Sounds like a good time.

[Fax Celestis]

Hm.

Well, for survivability's sake as a rogue, forget Str and Cha. You won't need them here. If you're in a fight, have someone else do the fighting, and shoot into the battle from the sidelines with a bow or something.

Meanwhile, boost your Int and Wis. You want those skill points, and every spare mod you can get onto your Wis related skills is useful. I'd suggest a dip to Monk (or Ninja or Swordsage, if you can) for Wis-to-AC for extra survivability.

As far as an actual build? Monk 2/Rogue 5/Exemplar 8 would be my recommendation. You're a skillmonkey, and Exemplar helps that marvelously. Also helps some of your comrades also be slightly more skillish.

For gear, get Bracers of Armor if you use Monk, Mithril Breastplate if you use Swordsage. If you do go swordsage, get a pair of Bracelets of Spell Sharing (DMG-II) and put them on the party Cleric. Now all his personal-range spells affect you as well, halving the duration for the both of you. So what? If he's got divine metacheese: persistant, that means 12 hours instead of 24. You'll be lucky to live that long.

Get yourself some wands (and dorjes, if you can get Use Psionic Device) of a variety of spells you like. Sneak attack with them from the shadows. However, focus on spells that'll either put down an enemy quickly or make you incredibly hard to kill.

Rings of greater counterspelling (DMG-II), with flesh to stone and wail of the banshee in them. Three of those bags that make animals. Boots of flying. A greater cloak of displacement. A variety of potions.

[Swordguy]

Yeah, there are some completely unfair traps in there.

To give an example NOT from the ToH (but on the same level of lethality):

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!

[Quietus]

Dude. That's a bloody AWESOME trap.

*Wipes away the drool*

[wowy319]

Scrolls of augury & knock, a gem of true seeing, and top it off with a good cloak of resistance & a damn good pair of gloves of dexterity. And also, you might wanto to consider levels in thief-acrobat and/or dungeon delver. They'll do you good.

And be a halfling. those saving throw bonuses will be a boon.

[Ethdred]

Bring spare character sheets.

Oh, for the rogue, max out every trapfinding think you can do, and see if the party wizard can permenancy some stuff onto you (low-light vision, heck, try for true-seeing!). You'll want your saves as high as possible, because you'll be rolling a lot of them. Obviously, you'll get a lot of use out of your class evasion abilities.

Have UMD high and a wand of Knock, followed by a wand of dispel magic and a wand of mage hand. All of those are good remote trap-disarming tools.

I can't remember the name of the item, but they goggles that basically give you X-ray vision will help as well.

ToH is mean. This is one of those few times where I'd support optimization. Heck, depending on the DM running it, I'd support bringing Pun-Pun.

I agree that this is a sick sick dungeon - you really don't want to do this, but I suppose it will be cool to say you haev done it. As well as the wands mentioned above, take at least one wand of SM I - use those critters to go through every door before you do!

[Swordguy]

Dude. That's a bloody AWESOME trap.

*Wipes away the drool*

Yeah, Lankhmar had some really cool stuff in it. I keep thinking about ways to update the setting to 3.x, and then I think about how massively lethal the campaign was (all spellcasting times are increased by one step, so a 1 round casting time becomes 1 turn, magic traps with inherent suppress magic aura spells on them, NPCs with "instakill" special attacks - and I mean literally instakill, not just lots of damage).

Actually, this would be a good idea for a sticked thread: cool trap ideas as a tool for GMs.

[Quietus]

Yeah, Lankhmar had some really cool stuff in it. I keep thinking about ways to update the setting to 3.x, and then I think about how massively lethal the campaign was (all spellcasting times are increased by one step, so a 1 round casting time becomes 1 turn, magic traps with inherent suppress magic aura spells on them, NPCs with "instakill" special attacks - and I mean literally instakill, not just lots of damage).

Actually, this would be a good idea for a sticked thread: cool trap ideas as a tool for GMs.

Sounds like fun. I play in games with that kind of lethality quite a bit (though instakill tends to come in the form of damage; Kinda like sending a troll at a three-man party of average level 3), and while it's sad to see so many characters go, I do love never knowing if I'll "do it" or not.

[Darion]

I can count the number of players I know of that have successfully completed the ToH played as intended by the DM (ie- henious) on slightly more than both hands. I can count the number that have done it with a single character on one and have room to spare. It is a tough, tough dungeon.

My advice: in addition to your stats, YOU will need to be on the ball, paying attention to details. You should think about writing out your stats at levels 12-15, assuming that you'll die and (possibly) be brought back several times, and having solutions to the level loss on hand is not a garuntee. Invest in a significant number of utility spells and items, in addition to your character stats, you'll need all sorts of tricks to survive.

One bit of advice on something to avoid (that I don't think is a spoiler). My first time through the Tomb (yes, its good enough to play through more than once, after you've had enough time to forget many of the details), I had several "there's no way X will happen, its far too cliched" moments. What got me was that the Tomb of Horrors is one of the original adventures that helped define and create those cliches. So, in short, keep an open mind.

Good luck!

[ken-do-nim]

When I ran Tomb of Horrors, back oh like 100 years ago, I gave the party a save game option. The original module gave a 100,000 xp award for completing the adventure, and I told the players that every time they had to revert to their "saved game" that I would cut the award in half. The players only had to use the saved game once when there was a TPK. Beyond that, 2 characters died anyway.

I did make one rather significant DM screw-up though that perhaps should have led to more. C'est la vie.

[ExHunterEmerald]

Uh oh.

Okay, as it turns out, I've received more info:
1: No character stuff outside of the PHB.
2: This module was updated from first edition by the DM.

Thoughts? Bueller?

[Delcan]

Uh oh.

Okay, as it turns out, I've received more info:
1: No character stuff outside of the PHB.
2: This module was updated from first edition by the DM.

Thoughts? Bueller?

In the words of the immortal Calvin: "Hooray, we're dead."

Seriously. If the DM's doing the updating, count on some unfairness above and beyond the evil that is ToH.

Beyond minmaxing your character to the most egregious possible point, I suggest you not invest too much interest in your character. They ain't gonna last.

[Fax Celestis]

Monk 2/Rogue 3/Assassin 10, or Rogue 3/Wizard 5/Arcane Trickster 7.

[Arbitrarity]

Do what Ben did in Full Throttle. When in doubt, drop bunnies on the ground, have them hop in, and slowly follow the path of exploding bodies. Hopefully there's nothing left.

They were mechanical bunnies!

[ExHunterEmerald]

Monk 2/Rogue 3/Assassin 10, or Rogue 3/Wizard 5/Arcane Trickster 7.

Got to be a straight rogue. Also, no prestige classes at all.

[The_Snark]

Be a very devout rogue. Pray. Become friends with your cleric.

Buy him lots of diamonds.

[brian c]

Got to be a straight rogue. Also, no prestige classes at all.

Yeah you can't really do much of anything. Good luck though!

[Toliudar]

Scrolls of raise dead, for when your cleric dies.

Search for traps everywhere. Then, practice not complaining when you still don't find them.

I'd suggest halfling, with focus on dex, int, wis and con, in that order. Strength and Charisma will be irrelevant to you.

Without knowing the DM, a new update might not be a bad idea. If he's forcing you to straight archetypal characters, he's probably testing something out - which means that he too has a vested interest in this working.

[Fax Celestis]

No, wait, did he say "Straight rogue", or did he say "Only the PHB"?

Because if it's the latter, you can go Monk 1/Paladin 2/Rogue 12, and get Wis-to-AC and Cha-to-Saves, as well as three levels of slightly higher HD (and BAB, in the case of the Paladin).

[Mewtarthio]

Play a Centaur Barbarian. Run hell-bent-for-leather in the opposite direction of the tomb.

[ExHunterEmerald]

No, wait, did he say "Straight rogue", or did he say "Only the PHB"?

Because if it's the latter, you can go Monk 1/Paladin 2/Rogue 12, and get Wis-to-AC and Cha-to-Saves, as well as three levels of slightly higher HD (and BAB, in the case of the Paladin).

Both. So, rogue PHB only.

[Quietus]

So not only is he putting you into a specifically lethal setting, but he's also FORCING you to play a pure Rogue?

Limiting it to Core, I can see. Force-feeding players characters... well, I hope you're okay with that, I know I wouldn't be.

[Matthew]

Sounds like fun. If you really want to survive, don't go in, but if you want to have a chance of surviving, time to max out Search, Spot, Listen, Open Locks and Disable Device.

Elf Rogue

Level 01: Alertness
Level 03: Nimble Fingers
Level 06: Skill Focus (Search)
Level 09:
Level 12:
Level 15:

Search: [18 (Ranks) + 2 (Racial) + 3 (Skill Focus)]
Spot: [18 (Ranks) + 2 (Racial) + 2 (Alertness)]
Listen: [18 (Ranks) + 2 (Racial) + 2 (Alertness)]
Disable Device: [18 (Ranks) + 2 (Nimble Fingers)]
Open Locks: [18 (Ranks) + 2 (Nimble Fingers)]


You are going to want at least 14 in both Wisdom and Intelligence, but you are probably going to want to make Dexterity your highest Attribute. Invest in Magical items to increase these three Attributes.

Not much, but it's a start. How much Gold and freedom to choose Magical Items do you have? Is there going to be a party fund for Healing / Restoration / Resurrection Magic?

[Premier]

ToH is the sort of dungeon where all your bonuses, saving throws and cool abilities mean a lot, lot less than your discretion and circumspection as a player. With this in mind, the best advice I can give you is this:

- It CAN and WILL kill you just by you touching it. If you're not sure you want to touch it, don't.

- It CAN and WILL be hidden in some place where you'd never look for it. If you can search a place for interesting stuff without violating the previous advice, do so.

- Proceed slowly. Take a careful look at everything and commit what you see to memory. Don't be too macho to retreat and rest up.

- Follow the path of least resistance. If a certain direction looks potentially dangerous, problematic or weird, then don't take it until you have exhausted the other possible avenues of investigation.

[jjpickar]

Also, as a rule, hide all the time. Never let anything see you.