4e / GSL So, what is "4th Edition's Tomb of Horrors"?

[Maggan]

For me this is very interesting because the original Tomb of Horrors didn't work at all for me and my group. For us it was boring, repetetive, unchallenging and a complete disaster*. Basically the type of module I don't have the skill to make interesting.

On the other hand, I thought the same about D&D4e, and I'm having a great success with the current Scales of War campaign. So a revisit to the Tomb of Horrors for D&D4e is very interesting to me, to see if an adaption to the D&D4e rules will enable me to run the module sucessfully.

/M

* Please, please, please take note of the "for us" part of this sentence.

[Herremann the Wise]

We successfully completed Return to the Tomb of Horrors translated to 3E. We lost one character and had several close calls. The original tomb of horrors part of it, I cannot imagine being transcribed to 4E unless they want to give 4E some deadly teeth. It would be a shame to see this part softened or 4E-ized; that really was part of the charm.

As for the "Return to" part of the adventure, I could see this translating to 4E really well and would imagine that this would be the focus - with the inevitable "wuss-erizing" of the actual Tomb part.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

[renau1g]

Yes it would definitely required some "wuss-erizing" to avoid telling players ok roll that 20, ok you're dead. I don't see a big problem with that, I had a similar experience to Maggan (hey Maggan, if you have any tips for stringing the Scales of War together in a less rail-roady fashion can you shoot me an e-mail to my username at gmail.com?) and am not a fan of save or die. If a PC dies in combat, cool, they accept that, but if they die because they fail a fort save, less cool. This is why I houseruled save or die spells in my games and we all had fun still...

[Holy Bovine]

Originally Posted by Herremann the Wise

We successfully completed Return to the Tomb of Horrors translated to 3E. We lost one character and had several close calls. The original tomb of horrors part of it, I cannot imagine being transcribed to 4E unless they want to give 4E some deadly teeth. It would be a shame to see this part softened or 4E-ized; that really was part of the charm.

As for the "Return to" part of the adventure, I could see this translating to 4E really well and would imagine that this would be the focus - with the inevitable "wuss-erizing" of the actual Tomb part.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

Does `wuss-erizing` mean making the Tomb more fun to playÉ I ran the original 1E version and no one liked it. They were just using the PCs fromthe book but the tediousness of checking every square milimeter of the dungeon combined with the fact that so many of the traps are simply a roll a die or die and hidden so well that no one could find them and everyone was bored about an hour in. Fast forward to my 3E campaign 2 years ago and I ran the group throuhg ther TOH 3E - better but still felt like a long drawn out search fest. never have a asked for and been asked for so many search rolls in my life. At least we actually finished it this time though and defeated the demi lich (not Acerack just a minion of his - he did manage to mock and enrage the party though ) at the end.

Heres hoping the 4E version can breath a little fun and life into this tired old adventure.

[JeffB]

I'm all up for something that is more in line with the original. I was totally underwhelmed with the RttToH Boxed set (as I was with all the 2E "return to" adventures).


IOW- I really hope WOTC pulls a "dark sun" and goes back to the 1E version

[catsclaw227]

Originally Posted by Rechan

Wait.

From what I understand, Tomb of Horrors was basically 'Pick right or Left. You picked left? You die. You picked right? Okay. Pick right or left. You picked right? You die. You picked Left? Okay, on to the next coin flip..."

Simply put the deathtraps were rather instantaneous. Doesn't seem to be in line with 4e's philosophy, given they nixed the save or dies.

The 4e Tomb will have a mantra similar to the general 4e mantra of "Everything is Core".

Only, for the 4e Tomb, "Everything is Hardcore".

[Silverblade The Ench]

That was one adventure that was everything that was BAD about D&D, as others noted, ugh.
look, if you want to be open about it and say "Let's have a slaughterfest dungeon romp, make 5 characters each!" ok!
but otherwise, it just sucks for D&Ding...the 2nd ed mega-adventure tried to build on the entire lore, but failed as it was ok in parts, but disjointed, and keeping the original tomb in a proper campaign play style...*barf!*

Lots of deaths are only acceptable to most players when the know it's a fun "whack a rat a thon" but it's not ok when they are doing a proper campaign arc.
Would "Temple of Elemental Evil" be ok if say oh the moathouse was like Undermountain, hm?

Please note, there's a HUGE difference between Acererak's booby-trapped tomb, and Dark Sun: in Dark Sun characters died mostly because their players were dumb, not because you had an arbitrary "save or die" booby trap
Hey, in Dark Sun, characters can run the hell away, or, learn survival skills or carry lots of water, or bribe templars rather than give them backtalk....where as "Oops, you got disintegrated" merely for chosing badly isn't exactly the same, is it? hehe


Having said all that..if they worked more on the story of the creepy folk who built a cult aorund the Tomb, and Acererak's plans for apotheosis (becoming one with ALL undead), and his planar city lair (forget name of it off hand), hey..that could be fun

[hailstop]

Originally Posted by kitsune9

I had a really good time converting Return to the Tomb of Horrors to 3.0. I'm pretty sure that I'll look at the 4e Tomb and see if I can convert it Pathfinder. I do like those ubertrap dungeons.

It'll be interesting to see how they do it. I've run into a bit of a problem converting the Mud Sorceror's Tomb to 4e...namely the 'traps' that are interspersed between any encounters. It doesn't make a lot of sense unless the traps do massive amounts of damage.

This is mainly due to the fact that 4e got away from being an attrition type game to one where any individual encounter can be nasty. The in-between encounter damage is mostly pointless except as a source of reducing healing surges...and in that case the PCs would just take an extended rest. So it's not really that big of a deal.

[Doug McCrae]

Originally Posted by hailstop

It'll be interesting to see how they do it. I've run into a bit of a problem converting the Mud Sorceror's Tomb to 4e...namely the 'traps' that are interspersed between any encounters. It doesn't make a lot of sense unless the traps do massive amounts of damage.

This is mainly due to the fact that 4e got away from being an attrition type game to one where any individual encounter can be nasty. The in-between encounter damage is mostly pointless except as a source of reducing healing surges...and in that case the PCs would just take an extended rest. So it's not really that big of a deal.

To be fair, the original S1 isn't an attrition dungeon either, except for the teleport traps that steal all your equipment. Or rather it's a non-attrition dungeon that in some places gets confused and thinks it is. There's no time limit, nothing to prevent the 15 minute day, or the 15 minute week for that matter. Most of the traps are insta-kills IIRC however there are a minority that do low amounts of damage, like 1-6, which are completely pointless. On page 5, section 13, regarding such a trap, it is stated "a mere annoyance, but it erodes the strength of the party". No, Gary, it doesn't.

[doctorhook]

Originally Posted by Mortellan

Mind you I never liked the Return to's and the Expedition to's either. The more something is remade the less of the original feel it has. Where or what are the new classics?

Ah, someone who's interested in new adventures! I understand that, too.

3E had a few adventures that might deserve "classic" status now. Red Hand of Doom comes to mind, since it's the origin of 4E's Scales of War adventure path in Dungeon Magazine. I heard that the Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde was good too, though I've never seen it myself. The Sunless Citadel gave us Meepo, and the Forge of Fury was pretty cool too. My group also played through the DD series, of which The Sinister Spire was my favorite. There was also the free original adventures provided online, which I'm sure a lot of people used -- I've personally both ran and played-though the very first one (The Burning Plague) at least three times. (It was also the first adventure I ever ran, so it seems especially "classic" to me.) I also hear that Dungeon Magazine's Age of Worms campaign was pretty good.

In 4E, we've already seen nearly a dozen official adventures available in stores, some of which are pretty popular. For example, P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens just won an ENny. Also, probably half of the posters on this board have played through H1: Keep on the Shadowfell, so it's definitely destined to become a 4E "classic module". I'm sure there's been some other memorable ones in Dungeon Magazine, too.

[Doug McCrae]

Originally Posted by Mortellan

There's alot wrong with this idea. Most of it has been said already. Where's the horror in a mega-ToH I ask? The original did more to scare players in several dozen pages than an entire boxed set ever could, that's why its often imitated.

There was no horror in the original. The horror genre, when successful, takes time to make its protagonists real - to make you care about them. They have personalities and history and motivation. Not so with S1. This is old school play. It's a relentless treadmill of death. The players have a dozen PCs generated, they probably don't even bother to give them names. Your PC dies. So what? He didn't exist in any sense, anyway. Death is meaningless. It's a deeply videogame-y playstyle, reminiscent of learning a boss in World of Warcraft. The wipes don't mean that much, all you've lost is time.

[SkidAce]

Originally Posted by Silverblade The Ench

That was one adventure that was everything that was BAD about D&D, as others noted, ugh.
look, if you want to be open about it and say "Let's have a slaughterfest dungeon romp, make 5 characters each!" ok!

That is why it was originally a tournament/convention module.

We had fun with it. The DM sent in clones of ourselves that had mental links to the clones outside..so we kept updated. I think the cleverest player only suffered 2 deaths.

On a side note was when the clones completed the module and came out, there was a "difference of opinion" on who was the real character.

[ProfessorCirno]

I don't really get the sentiment of "I hope they completely change it and remove all the save or die aspects!"

That's...sort of the whole purpose.

Yeah, you don't like it. But a lot of people did. And if you get rid of that, the Tomb becomes...just another dungeon. With nothing special other then the fact that it shares the name of a radically different dungeon from older editions.

If you don't like that type of gameplay, don't play the dungeon. Don't demand it be changed to fit your tastes

[doctorhook]

Originally Posted by ProfessorCirno

I don't really get the sentiment of "I hope they completely change it and remove all the save or die aspects!"

That's...sort of the whole purpose.

Yeah, you don't like it. But a lot of people did. And if you get rid of that, the Tomb becomes...just another dungeon. With nothing special other then the fact that it shares the name of a radically different dungeon from older editions.

If you don't like that type of gameplay, don't play the dungeon. Don't demand it be changed to fit your tastes

Is the Tomb famous for being a dungeon full of traps, or for being an excuse for DMs to kill characters without explanation?

[jdrakeh]

Originally Posted by doctorhook

Is the Tomb famous for being a dungeon full of traps, or for being an excuse for DMs to kill characters without explanation?

Mostly the second. I rarely hear people discuss it in the context of a simple trap-filled dungeon. Conversely, I almost always hear people talk about it in terms of PC deaths. That said, it's a great convention scenario for that very reason.

[doctorhook]

Originally Posted by jdrakeh

Mostly the second. I rarely hear people discuss it in the context of a simple trap-filled dungeon. Conversely, I almost always hear people talk about it in terms of PC deaths. That said, it's a great convention scenario for that very reason.

In that case, was that the intention of the dungeon: to be an excuse for DMs to slaughter characters?

Obviously it's lethality is a big part of the "mystique" of this dungeon, and thus a part of what made it classic; you were free to play it without expectations, other than the expectation of character death. But is that really where the potential of this dungeon ends?

[jdrakeh]

Originally Posted by doctorhook

In that case, was that the intention of the dungeon: to be an excuse for DMs to slaughter characters?

Kind of. Back in the day, if I understand my grognard friends correctly, convention modules were run as competitive affairs with multiple groups trying to assail a given dungeon, the goal of each group being to penetrate deeper into the dungeon than their opponents. The winner would receive some kind of prize.

The easiest way to measure success for such competitions without resorting to complicated points tracking was simply to make the dungeons as deadly as possible. Then it was simply a matter of tracking of how far each group made it into the dungeon and how many characters they had left in their party when they made it there.

This is why you rarely see the kind of arbitrary deathtraps characteristic of convention modules elsewhere.

[doctorhook]

Originally Posted by jdrakeh

Kind of. Back in the day, if I understand my grognard friends correctly, convention modules were run as competitive affairs with multiple groups trying to assail a given dungeon, the goal of each group being to penetrate deeper into the dungeon than their opponents. The winner would receive some kind of prize.

The easiest way to measure success for such competitions without resorting to complicated points tracking was simply to make the dungeons as deadly as possible. Then it was simply a matter of tracking of how far each group made it into the dungeon and how many characters they had left in their party when they made it there.

This is why you rarely see the kind of arbitrary deathtraps characteristic of convention modules elsewhere.

Interesting stuff. It sounds like this now-classic module had pretty humble beginnings.*

Since we're engaging in the thought-experiment of deciding what the Tomb of Horrors should be in 4E, the most obvious question is how we should "open it up" to players, if we should at all. In the time since the original, Acererak has becoming something of an icon in D&D, and given that WotC plans on stretching this adventure out for twelve levels, they obviously think there's a lot of room to develop this guy, his machinations, and his dungeon.

*For some reason this reminds me of the story of the scepter that's used for official proceedings in the Alberta legislature: The official one used now is made from metal, and is what it looks like. However, the original scepter used in 1905 -- which looks nearly identical to the one used now -- had to be made in a hurry in order to be ready in time, and ended up being constructed from assorted junk including (IIRC) a brass bedpost and a toilet float-ball, all painted gold. If I remember the story correctly, that scepter ended up being used for quite a while.

[DracoSuave]

So, Return to The Tomb of Revisited Horrors 2: The Tomb Strikes Back?

[Pour]

Originally Posted by DracoSuave

So, Return to The Tomb of Revisited Horrors 2: The Tomb Strikes Back?

I wish I had something more constructive to lend to this discussion, but hahahahahahahaha. I move that be the title with a huge explosion flinging Acererak's screaming skull into a close up.