Return to the Tomb of Horrors....what say you?

[Narfellus]

I have some great memories from that adventure. In a slight modification of the module, i stripped our resident female monk of all of her clothes, posessions and magic items, and teleported her alone to a random sealed off section of the Tomb. Of all the characters, she was the only that could actually fend for herself while naked and weaponless.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Bring daerns instant fortress for sleeping/studying spells. Or Leomunds secret shelter.

My magic-user, Pinudon, had a whole series of spells like these because of a DM that delighted in tormenting the party at unexpected times . . .

 

[Rudar Dimble]

I would laugh in the face of danger, IF it was a one shot adventure.
If I'm going to play it with my character that I have been playing for some years now, I would ask the DM to make it fun and not a TPK-fest.

 

[Falkus]

My character in an ongoing campaign would no more go inside the tomb of horrors than he would stick his head in gullotine then pull the lever to see what happens.

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Trust the DM, even if everyone dies they normally have a plan!

(or at least I do)

-Ashrum

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I'd have to disagree - I'm not saying there aren't, but I can't recall any traps or encounters that were merely "save or die" affairs with no chance to avoid the situation - but the level of paranoia your character would have to exhibit would be on the level of a soldier in a "hot" war zone - which is something most players are not used to doing.

It's the kind of philosophy of play that

--has characters carrying whole bundles of 10 foot poles for testing
--makes you question the motives of every NPC you meet
--has you examine every single situation and be never afraid to retreat from a threat or NOT touch something
--that has multiple sentries with magical detection enhancements posted night and day on your party's perimeter, and always planning your sleeping spots well

...In other words, like soldiers behind enemy lines.

Word.

 

[Altalazar]

I think it could be fun to play, but not in the middle of a long campaign. TPK just kills campaigns. And in the long term, that's not fun.

And if it truly is a meatgrinder that often does TPK, then that just means the level requirement is wrong and needs to be adjusted.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I think Nemhan (the freaked out player's character) now has the DM's target on his head though. RttToH is not a great place to be in when the DM's looking for a little reverse karma :\

So what you're saying is, the DM is indeed running this adventure so he can kill off the characters? Especially the character of the player who suspected that the DM was trying to do this?

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Lich lords.

I had it. I ran it. It had three glorious PC deaths that I am guitly of recounting a bit more than I probably should. Mainly because two of them were, well, mainly self inflicted.

1) The innocent one. Lich casts slay living on the well protected paladin who somehow fails to manage all his resistance rolls.
2) The slighly doughheaded one. I describe a chill shield surrounding a lich. The ubered-up monk charges to the attack and does buku damage. In those days, fire shield did double damage inflicted to the attacker.
3) This one was the most painful to watch, because it was practically suicide. A lich threw up a prismatic sphere which perturbed their efforts to do anything to it. The druid/mage who has a 35% MR from a familiar decided to chance walking into the PS to get at the lich. The player neglected to think of the fact that, in those days, every csater level below 11th was -5% to SR. Also in those days, liches were at least 18th level. 35% - (18-11)x5% = 0%. The character was zapped and disappeared as in a bug zapper.

The party somehow prevailed (I forget how), but some characters had to squander the wishes they received as awards to bring them back.

See? That doesn't sound so bad.

 

[spectre72]

I'd have to disagree - I'm not saying there aren't, but I can't recall any traps or encounters that were merely "save or die" affairs with no chance to avoid the situation - but the level of paranoia your character would have to exhibit would be on the level of a soldier in a "hot" war zone - which is something most players are not used to doing.

It's the kind of philosophy of play that

--has characters carrying whole bundles of 10 foot poles for testing
--makes you question the motives of every NPC you meet
--has you examine every single situation and be never afraid to retreat from a threat or NOT touch something
--that has multiple sentries with magical detection enhancements posted night and day on your party's perimeter, and always planning your sleeping spots well

...In other words, like soldiers behind enemy lines.

And the problem is that most current adventures do not require this mindset.

Players (and their Characters) are used to challenges that do not exceed their ability.

Traps are few and far between and most PC's pick up everythign that isn't nailed down.

Buttons are meant to be pushed and levers are meant to be pulled.

That is why PC's die in TOH.

Well that and the bad A$$ bad guy at the end