Tomb of Horrors

[Zenos]

So, I've downloaded ToH, and am going to DM it, we're gonna play gestalt since it is almost certain it will not be mroe than two or three players, so we need any advantages we can get.
I only know the character of one player, which will be a warmage 9//warlock 9. The other player prefers to make ridiculously offensive fighter and arcanist builds. So my question is, how far would they get before being croaked, and any advice on playing ToH?

[Adumbration]

You need a rogue. Else you'll be dead after a couple of steps in. Most likely in a spiked pit.

Also, prepare for a lot of deaths, maybe even a couple of TPKs. Give them something they can resurrect each other with, maybe a Ring of Three Wishes that only resurrects and activates a Contingency: Resurrect when everyone's dead.

[SexyOchreJelly]

I defeated the final boss with a 1st level commoner.




Yeah... he happened to have +70 on all saves... so what?

[Zenos]

You need a rogue. Else you'll be dead after a couple of steps in. Most likely in a spiked pit.

Also, prepare for a lot of deaths, maybe even a couple of TPKs. Give them something they can resurrect each other with, maybe a Ring of Three Wishes that only resurrects and activates a Contingency: Resurrect when everyone's dead.

Okay. Also, the Warlock player has decided to be wizard instead of Warmage.

[TheThan]

I ran it over New Year’s weekend.

Don’t forget to tell your players it’s a thinking man’s dungeon. There aren’t a lot of monsters to fight, but there are an awful lot of traps and puzzles to solve.

[Zenos]

I ran it over New Year’s weekend.

Don’t forget to tell your players it’s a thinking man’s dungeon. There aren’t a lot of monsters to fight, but there are an awful lot of traps and puzzles to solve.

Don't worry, I m pretty sure atleast the warlock player is going to know it's got a load of wicked trap, since he looks on the Giant in the Playground forums. I am sure he's read atleast one thread where players weep over the wickedness of it.

[Witch]

You need someone that has Trapfinding as a class skill and maximal ranks in Search. Otherwise, you're dead.

[Attilargh]

Don’t forget to tell your players it’s a thinking man’s dungeon.

"Which door do you wish to open? Are you certain? Shall we lock the answer?

Behind... Door three... We find... Raptors! I'm sorry, better luck next time."

It's a paranoid man's dungeon. It's a dungeon for people who insist on carrying custom eleven and three quarter foot poles. It is a dungeon for folks whose preferred method of problem-solving is to Disintegrate a path through it. What it's not is a dungeon for rational people.

[Worira]

But not Ethereal Jaunt a way through it.

[FlyMolo]

Okay. Also, the Warlock player has decided to be wizard instead of Warmage.

That depresses me. Gestalt, wizards synergize BADLY with warlock. The warlocks forte is to wear light/medium armor and blast stuff to death and climb all over the walls. The warmage is the same, but more blasting and less climbing.

Also, where can I find ToH for download? Found it. Thanks.

Edit: Having looked over ToH, you are going to need that spiderclimb and dispel magic at will.

[Attilargh]

The tower of the pointy-hatted folks who live by the sea, of course: Linky.

[Zenos]

That depresses me. Gestalt, wizards synergize BADLY with warlock. The warlocks forte is to wear light/medium armor and blast stuff to death and climb all over the walls. The warmage is the same, but more blasting and less climbing.

Also, where can I find ToH for download?

I will tell him that.

[Ralfarius]

As far as character creation goes, I would actually suggest less complicated characters than gestalt. What your players probably want is a stack of throwaway characters, simple and without extreme emotional attachment.

'Cause they gonna die.

A lot.

[mostlyharmful]

But not Ethereal Jaunt a way through it.

Why certainly if you want the rapid ghost pirhana to get you....

[Illiterate Scribe]

Warlocks are surprisingly well adapted to the ToH, if they simply shatter everything that they see that could possibly contain a trap, and hover using flight.

[Xefas]

I downloaded it a while ago (end of November?) in preparation for running it as a special 1-shot break from my group's current campaign over the Christmas holidays.

However, after looking over it...I have to say it's really really lame. I say that with a heavy heart, as I'd gotten my hopes up for it being some great peerless machination of ages past.

You should tell the players beforehand that the puzzles are random and they're not suppose to figure them out. Just die continuously until something happens. Everyone play rogues with the best search and disable device modifiers possible, because the vast majority of "playing" in the Tomb of Horrors is making Search checks every five feet or everyone dies instantly. Don't touch anything nor attempt to gain any treasure whatsoever.

Hopefully they'll retool it for 4ed, because it looks like that edition will have better trap mechanics. As it is, 3.5's iteration is about as fun as playing Minesweeper blindfolded, but every time you hit a mine, someone carves one of your testicles out with a rusty spoon, and it grows back- repeat for 35 hours until the climax where you're force-fed boiling excrement while being molested by a clown.

Please, instead of DMing this dungeon, just call your players to your house, kick them in the groin, and shove them back out the door. It'll be WAY more fun for them (and you).

[Saph]

"It's a paranoid man's dungeon. It's a dungeon for people who insist on carrying custom eleven and three quarter foot poles. It is a dungeon for folks whose preferred method of problem-solving is to Disintegrate a path through it. What it's not is a dungeon for rational people.

This made me laugh. It's funny because it's true. :)

The Tomb of Horrors is not a thinking man's dungeon. Approaching the problems carefully, rationally thinking things through, then taking the most sensible course of action will result in you dying. Painfully.

What the ToH really rewards is cowardice. The best way to survive it is to never be the first one into a room. Or the second. Or the third. Actually, just let someone else do the whole dungeon for you.

If you absolutely have to go into a room or corridor yourself, the best approach is to use sheep. Sheep work very well. Use your sheep to scout out every square inch of the place, and watch to see what happens, drawing a map as you do. Periodically, you will have to leave to acquire more sheep.

The fact that a herd of sheep is an effective tactic should be your tip-off that this is an extremely silly and arbitrary place, which is best dealt with by staying far away. :)

- Saph

[FlyMolo]

I downloaded it a while ago (end of November?) in preparation for running it as a special 1-shot break from my group's current campaign over the Christmas holidays.

However, after looking over it...I have to say it's really really lame. I say that with a heavy heart, as I'd gotten my hopes up for it being some great peerless machination of ages past.

You should tell the players beforehand that the puzzles are random and they're not suppose to figure them out. Just die continuously until something happens. Everyone play rogues with the best search and disable device modifiers possible, because the vast majority of "playing" in the Tomb of Horrors is making Search checks every five feet or everyone dies instantly. Don't touch anything nor attempt to gain any treasure whatsoever.

Hopefully they'll retool it for 4ed, because it looks like that edition will have better trap mechanics. As it is, 3.5's iteration is about as fun as playing Minesweeper blindfolded, but every time you hit a mine, someone carves one of your testicles out with a rusty spoon, and it grows back- repeat for 35 hours until the climax where you're force-fed boiling excrement while being molested by a clown.

Please, instead of DMing this dungeon, just call your players to your house, kick them in the groin, and shove them back out the door. It'll be WAY more fun for them (and you).

This is amazing. The best way to DM playing this dungeon would be to fiat some way of getting the characters back out if they die. Like, they're all cursed to keep trying until they die. If you have particularly masochistic players who like puzzles, this could be fun. And I'm sigging the minesweeper blindfolded part.

[BardicDuelist]

If you are cowardly and paranoid, you can do it okay. I reccomend the Recharge Magic system in the SRD as it has the distinct advantage of keeping this from being a rest-and-continue type of thing. Granted, this kind of makes a warlock useless.

Really, if you have somone who can heal, somone who can summon hordes of easy monsters to walk over traps, and somone with trapfinding, it isn't that hard. The trick is to think everything will kill you (because it probably will).

A factotum with a some wands of cure and some of summon monster can do rather well.

Anecdote: I played an evil diplomancer bard who convinced a large group of children to walk through the first door (which was one of the false enterances, so it crushed them) as punishment on a town that kicked him out for burning down the town hall (while drunk).

[Jade_Tarem]

Much advice exists for TOH.... really I recommend you see this.

[Armads]

The Summon Elemental reserve feat from CMage is really handy in ToH, for endless disposable minions. So is a rogue with maxed Disable Device, Open Lock and Search.

[BobTheDog]

Guys, guys (and gals), you seem to forget that the OP is asking for advice on how to DM the Tomb of Horrors, not how to play it through.

To DM the Tomb of Horrors, you need one thing: a gargantuan sadism.

[Zenos]

If you are cowardly and paranoid, you can do it okay. I reccomend the Recharge Magic system in the SRD as it has the distinct advantage of keeping this from being a rest-and-continue type of thing. Granted, this kind of makes a warlock useless.

Really, if you have somone who can heal, somone who can summon hordes of easy monsters to walk over traps, and somone with trapfinding, it isn't that hard. The trick is to think everything will kill you (because it probably will).

A factotum with a some wands of cure and some of summon monster can do rather well.

Anecdote: I played an evil diplomancer bard who convinced a large group of children to walk through the first door (which was one of the false enterances, so it crushed them) as punishment on a town that kicked him out for burning down the town hall (while drunk).

Don't do that! The warlock player will read it and be prepared!

[Bayar]

wow...this made me laugh so loud...and I thinkI will actually DM a game like this...just to punish some of my "creative" players...

[SoD]

You need a rogue. Else you'll be dead after a couple of steps in. Most likely in a spiked pit.

Also, prepare for a lot of deaths, maybe even a couple of TPKs. Give them something they can resurrect each other with, maybe a Ring of Three Wishes that only resurrects and activates a Contingency: Resurrect when everyone's dead.

Ring of Three Extremely Limited Wishes: Can only be used to bring back a character from the dead. Does not need a body to bring back, creates a new body exactly the same as the previous one. It does not, however, recreate items. If the items are destroyed, or otherwise unreachable, they are still destroyed/unreachable.

One of the players lost his ring before he had a chance to use it...it got destroyed by the demon head trap. Another had his melted in lava. ''What?! I'm falling towards a pool of lava?! Wait, I know! I'll cast chill metal on my armour!''

He didn't survive long enough to take cold damage.