Does 5e need its own, original TOMB OF HORRORS?

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I have zero interest in Killer Dungeons, classic or otherwise.

I would like something challenging to players and character sheets. Fewer PCs die in this edition than in 1e, I get it, it happens in my games as well. You are supposed to be bold and a hero, but the shared experience is spoiled if you have to fear that the DM is not being as least fair and impartial. The DM needs to enjoy the game as well, but he should not go out of his way just to kill the party.

A good dungeon should have challenges with handouts that the players can try to solve with some hints that can be fed to them with skill rolls. I find that the point of the module is to get through it and have fun. Some players will just leave and give up knowing that a hint will come along allowing everyone to get their trophy. Maybe a dungeon that actively turns parties away so only a few make it into the place or complete it. A party that gets stripped of magic and kicked out of the dungeon may not want to come back right away.

How about a module not made to be played in a linear playtime and meant to come back a few times over the campaign. Low level PCs can figure out the way to enter and eventually find themselves over their head, but know that they need to come back at 5th level before they proceed. Come back at 10th level and 18th to finally solve the whole thing may be a way to get more life out of the $50.00 adventure and get the players more involved. Players who think that they cannot die will find out that they can and eventually more of the others will want to leave and come back later.

This would be a great classic module. It doesn't need to be a TPK to be remembered.

A dead horse, humorously painted with the sign no hitting on it. If attack it explodes doing 50 pts of damage. Dex DC 20 for have damage. All within 60 feet make a DC 25 Con save. Taking 2 levels of exhaustion on a fail. 1 on a save.

6 a 20 by 10 hallway. Once the first pc passes the halfway point players with a passive perception score of 22 notice the walls are starting to close in. They gain advantage on a dex save. DC 22 Dex Take 76 blunt damage half if saved.

Flexor the Mighty! said:

Considering TOH was more designed to challenge the player rather than the character sheet how would they go about it in the age of "well I'll make a skill check"? It wasn't a hack and slash module due to there being not many monsters in it. Due to 1e rules it required the player to listen to what the DM described or showed him in the handouts, then go and describe specific actions based on that rather than saying "well I'll search the room and I rolled a....16!" I'd love it but I'm not sure a module that is aimed at the players noggin rather than their PC stats is all that stylish anymore, not so say that nothing makes a player think anymore but ToH almost demands the now dreaded "metagaming". Or is there a way to make it viable in that way under 5e? Not much in the way of save or die anymore.

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7 sheets of paper are included in the module with strange writing symbols etc. Players are assign sheets at random. Players have 2 minutes to fold the sheet into an animal with which show the answer to puzzle. Failure means PC takes 76 force damage.

I don't think we'll see a TOH type adventure from WotC anytime soon, even though I would like one. There are a couple of reasons for this.

1) WotC doesn't do short adventures. TftYP was close to that, but it's just reprints, not fresh adventures. They want to use APs, because they sell better. Something like ToH must be fairly short, by design, since the lethal nature of it would likely kill any party eventually (also, leveling wouldn't work in the adventure either).

2) WotC doesn't do lethal well. Standard encounters are designed for the players to easily win with minimal loss of resources. Even "deadly" encounters only have "a chance" of killing a character. As I understand it, ToA was pretty lethal, but it was done poorly, since the adventure precluded new PCs from joining the adventure once they entered the Tomb. If you want lethal, it either needs to be a one-shot adventure or have the ability to add in new characters, otherwise the first PC to die is going to have a boring night.

Shiroiken said:

I don't think we'll see a TOH type adventure from WotC anytime soon, even though I would like one. There are a couple of reasons for this.

1) WotC doesn't do short adventures. TftYP was close to that, but it's just reprints, not fresh adventures. They want to use APs, because they sell better. Something like ToH must be fairly short, by design, since the lethal nature of it would likely kill any party eventually (also, leveling wouldn't work in the adventure either).

2) WotC doesn't do lethal well. Standard encounters are designed for the players to easily win with minimal loss of resources. Even "deadly" encounters only have "a chance" of killing a character. As I understand it, ToA was pretty lethal, but it was done poorly, since the adventure precluded new PCs from joining the adventure once they entered the Tomb. If you want lethal, it either needs to be a one-shot adventure or have the ability to add in new characters, otherwise the first PC to die is going to have a boring night.

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Tomb of Annihilation has specific advice on how to work in new PCs when characters die.

I don’t think it’s possible.
The original Tomb of Horrors was popular/ infamous because it was frequently played. And it was frequently played because there were so few other adventures. There were less than a dozen other modules. Everyone wa playing the same few modules.

Now, even though there’s fewer full adventures, there’s updates of all the old modules and the Adventurer’s League plus content on the DMsGuild.
You can’t get everyone playing the same adventure at the same time.

5e can't have a ToH because 5e is so stacked to avoid death. ToH runs counter to everything 5e is about to the point that YP even took the most famous trap/encounter/set piece in D&D history and watered it down with some bogus INT check to let you avoid the trap. A travesty, really.