Tomb of Horrors, Alignment Change and Gender Bending....*sigh*

[Brace Cormaeril]

I'm part of a group who has made the descent into the Tomb of Horrors. We've made significant progress through the dungeon, but we ran into a major stumbling block last night. After passing through a mist-shrouded doorway, our characters were... altered. On failed saves, or genders and alignments were changed. Ok, Gygaxian gender bending...ugh, but that's like, whatever. This dungeon foray has been more mechanistic than roleplay. However, when our LG Paladin/Monk/Exalted Fist/Wizard w/VoP, et. al. became CE, his character was effectively neutered, in more ways than one. Worst part about this was he was a savings throw machine, even with the ridiculous DC's we've encountered, he should've made the save... but Nat 1's have a way of monkey wrenching a game.
Any way, I'm looking for advice. What should this character do in this situation? We are determined to get to the bottom of the Tomb, and we are very close to a level up, so Blackguard has come to mind, as well as setting up a retraining camp here in the dungeon.
Once again, any help on this matter is greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[Herzog]

Since his character was altered this much:

I assume the character was using some rules from the book of exalted deeds? then let him/her replace those with similar feats from the book of vile darkness.
Dragon Compendium has a chaotic monk IIRC, that could be used to replace the now useless monk levels.

All in all, treat the change in character as a 'mirror universe' change: not only his aligment (and sex?) was changed, but his classes too....

might be fun to roleplay a complete reversal of the character he's been playing up to now as well..

 

[Physiker]

If you are mobile enough, get out of the tomb search for a cleric who can cast atonement, pay him for his service, go back and finish the tomb.

 

[Brace Cormaeril]

I have considered a full evacuation, although we have noticed that each room of the Tomb "reactivates" every 24 hours. If we were gone longer than that, all the monsters, all the traps, etc. would re-spawn. I believe it would be possible to, using Greater Stoneshape, tunnel straight up out of the tomb, and an atonement would take care of the alignment shift, but I believe that once an exalted vow has been broken, it cannot be regained, even if breaking the vow was completely involuntary.
Regarding the bizarro-verse idea, while I like it, I don't think the DM, being quite pleased with himself, would be willing to violate his RAW paradigm for the sake of this player. In addition, I want to defeat the Tomb of Horrors fair and square, so significant deviations from the rules is out.

 

[Shin Okada]

That is the infamous Tomb of Horrors. You should have been expecting something much worth. In the dungeon, usual combat prowess does not help adventurers much. Basically, only the luck helped in 2.0e or older editions. I guess, with 3.0e/3.5e rules, your party can do much better with the heavy use of various divination spells (FYI, I played EN-world converted version of ToH in 3.0e, without no PC dead nor seriously damaged).

Anyway, you would better discuss with your entire group to how to treat now-evil character. That will be more important than simple by-RAW class power changes.

Some play group loves to have such "suddenly turned to evil" character as it is. Some play group don't like it and try to mend the character.

Also, if you continue to play that module, your play group must expect some permanent loss of characters or TPK. Your play group must discuss what should you do when such occasions happen.

 

[Brace Cormaeril]

We are indeed relying heavily on divination magic, and a rogue who has significant search/spot/disable. Shin, and those of you who are familiar with the tomb, we have just gotten past a "Church of Evil" within the tomb, where the aforementioned Gate of Gender and Alignment Bending resides. We have, hereto fore, had no party deaths, taken very little damage, and have been underwhelmed by the experience. Inter-party roleplay in minimal, as the Tomb has been basically and mechanistic experience. We are a party of 4 10th level characters, due to two drop-outs early in the game. If one of out 4 members is neutered beyond recognition, we are in serious trouble, hence, RAW adaptation to this paticular players new circumstances are far more important than the fact that he is now evil.

 

[Shin Okada]

Hmm, then, Hezrog's "Evil Twin" idea seems to be one of the best choice.

But the mod was originally not meant to be cleared without party member loss (or even some TPK) and IIRC even suggested players to prepare "replacement" PCs beforehand.

Regarding party tactics regarding the delve. In addition to the heavy use of divination spells, we also used a lot of sommon monster spells, figurine of wondrous power and such. Then let critters walk the corridor or let them go beyond the next door before we actually step in. I remember dozens of celestial dogs/monkeys died (though not truly, because they are summoned critters) before we have cleared the dungeon

Those days we were afraid of that something like celestial PETA will try to seek us for punishing

 

[Brace Cormaeril]

I have heard of this, "driving summoned creatures/cattle" to their deaths approach to dungeon clearing, but we have gone another route. Our party rogue consistently hits 40's and 50's on search checks, and is an elf, so finding and disabling traps has not been a problem. The monsters in the Tomb, hereto fore, have not proven to be a challenge, including a lich (which we one-shotted) who claimed to be Acerak, the creator of the Tomb.
Any other suggestions as to how this neutered character can be built back up would be greatly appreciated.

 

[pawsplay]

LOL! Sounds like an amusing reversal of fortune. I have three suggestions:

- Get an atonement.
- Take a level of Blackguard. Since VoP grants bonus feats and such, you are really only behind by one VoP feat plus the benefits of Exalted Fist.
- Roll a backup PC and see how far the existing PC can get under the circumstances.

 

[Herzog]

Ok, I misinterpreted your request. Retry:

There are two ways to handle such a drastic alignment change. (ignoring the gender change, since it doesn't have any rule inpact)

1. Roll with it. This means: he's now an ex-Paladin and ex-Monk, as well as an ex-Exalted Fist (I assume. Couldn't find that particular PrC. Is it homebrew?) Ex-Monk is no problem, since you retain all your monk abilities. Ex-Paladin has blackguard as option to make use of his now useless paladin levels.
I'm not too familiar with VoP, but I would think retraining would be in order. (And by RAW, that doesn't take any time at all. Because the retraining cost is an optional rule)
Can't help you with any other options until you post a complete current build here.

2. Fix it. As mentioned, Atonement should do the trick, assuming you have a cleric or druid in your party capable of this.
Boring, but it should get you going