D&D 5E Tomb of Horrors: Is All Poison Save or Die?

[Luz]

Dungeon Magazine issue 213 had a conversion of Tomb of Horrors to D&D Next (the 5e playtest rules) done by Chris Perkins. You might want to check that out if you can't wait for Tales from the Yawning Portal. (It treats poison traps with varying amounts of poison damage.)

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD!
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I DM'd a 5e party through this about a year ago and it was okay. Some of the updated material was an improvement from the original and made certain areas more fun to play (room #2, for example). I kept some of the original ToH's lethal traps in it tho, because I also found some of the watered down areas did not do justice to the Tomb's reputation (the "Agitated Chamber", for example). I used the demilich stats from the 5e MM, including the additional "Trap Soul" ability in the Acererak sidebar, but modified it to be as deadly as the original Acererak (one target, no save).

Needless to say, nobody survived. The party did make it to the Acererak's true tomb, but by this point they were reduced to three characters and were thoroughly depleted. They were no match. Even if I hadn't modified the demilich, it just toyed with the party until they were all dead. Fortunately for my players, we played this as a one-off game with different characters from our main campaign. It was a lot of fun regardless.

@Sands999: If I were you, I'd rule that players cannot choose the Dungeon Delver feat for their character for this module. One of my players did and, honestly, it really takes some of the fun out of playing the Tomb of Horrors. Save yourself the headache and just veto it.

 

[machineelf]

I worry a little about the conversion of ToH that we will see in Tales of the Yawning Portal. Modern players are too used to getting things their own way - instant and irretrievable death is quite hard to come by after the 1st few levels.

Tomb of Horrors has a reputation to keep. It is meant to strike fear in the hearts of any prospective player. It was THE hardest 1E adventure, even tougher than the original Ravenloft, and that is saying something. It was designed to grind cocky players into the dirt, and should never, ever, ever have been dropped into a campaign where the players were using long term characters.

It was quite simply THE best module for a one shot game though. Bar none. Anyone who argues differently is plain wrong.

So if there is any watering down of the difficulty for 5E then it will cease to be the Tomb of Horrors. The previous 5E conversion was abysmal for this reason. There must be sections which cause instant death (no save), there must be multiple instances of save or die. There must be explosions which do twice the average hit point damage of an on-level Wizard. There must be puzzles which requires serious inventiveness to solve.

And Acererak needs to be a lot tougher than he is the MM.


I DMed it twice for my 2 groups using the original 1E rules. I created a specific party for the adventure including a 13th level Cleric, a 14th level Mage, a 12th level Monk, a 12th level Paladin, and a 7/7/9 1E Bard. They had top drawer magic items - A Staff of Power, a +4 Defender Sword, Wings of Flying, Slippers of Spiderclimb, and many more - their spellbooks and initial spell selections gave them massive hints as to what spells they would need - Commune, Forget, Shatter, Find Traps, Teleport, Locate Object. I created a group of spare characters who would wait outside the Tomb to replace the inevitable casualties.

Acererak never even got scratched on either occasion. One group lost all 5 of their starting characters, didn't use any of the spares. The other group used some of the spares, one original character (the Mage) survived - he fled the Tomb naked having seen all his companions blown up, squashed, dissolved, impaled, and entombed.

11 dead PCs, 1 traumatised survivor, the Demi Lich continued to sleep soundly - untouched. And that's the way it should remain.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of this.

Sent from my VS990 using Tapatalk

 

[Quartz]

IIRC there's a force alignment change trap in the module. I'd excise or change that; I never did like forced alignment changes. Consider changing it to a Geas: "Bring them to Acererak".

 

[ccs]

IIRC there's a force alignment change trap in the module. I'd excise or change that; I never did like forced alignment changes. Consider changing it to a Geas: "Bring them to Acererak".

Yeah, that one won't have much effect on a 5e party. On a 1e party though it can wreck certain characters - for example Paladins & Rangers.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Tomb of Horrors: Is All Poison Save or Die?

Save? Wot, no Type XX poison?

 

[pemerton]

It was quite simply THE best module for a one shot game though. Bar none. Anyone who argues differently is plain wrong.

People have been "arguing differently" for over 40 years now - there was a very critical review of the adventure, by an Origins attendee, published in Alarums & Excursion #4 September 1975.

 

[MechaPilot]

Save or die is weak. What's the fun in poison if it kills instantly? The expectation of death is so much more enjoyable.

In my homebrew setting I have a poison that doesn't immediately kill you and doesn't deal HP damage. My players have seen it in action once, and they are terrified of it.

Naricium
Naricium is a brittle, purple-pink mettaloid that grows in crystal formations. Sages speculate that in places rich with magical energies, especially necromantic energies, the magics corrupt already poisonous substances like arsenic into naricium, though no one knows for certain. Naricium is incredibly deadly. Only the Darve* are skilled at fashioning naricium into viable weapons. Such weapons are incredibly expensive (When naricium is made into coins, one naricium coin is worth 100 platinum pieces). When wounded with a naricium blade, the metal is rapidly absorbed into the blood, dissolving part of the weapon in the process.

A creature struck by a naricium weapon must make a DC 20 Con save. Failure means the target accrues one failed death save and suffers from naricium poisoning. At the end of each day, the poisoned character must make a DC 10 death save. A failure will accrue another failed death save; a success will remove one failed death save. However, even if the character succeeds on this death save while having no failures to remove, the character remains poisoned. Apart from the incredibly rare antidote known only to the Darve, only a greater restoration spell cast with a secret focus can cure naricium poisoning. A character with naricium poisoning who is raised from the dead remains poisoned and must still have the poison magically removed.

A naricium weapon is good for five successful strikes before it has dissolved enough to be unusable as a weapon.



*The Darve are the dark elves of my homebrew setting.



Edit: I nearly forgot, the Darve also tend to coat their ranged weapons with a DC 15 poison that on a failure imposes disadvantage on poison saves for one minute (it does an additional 2 damage instead on a successful save).

 

[JonnyP71]

People have been "arguing differently" for over 40 years now - there was a very critical review of the adventure, by an Origins attendee, published in Alarums & Excursion #4 September 1975.

Like I said, anyone who claims differently is wrong.

Roughly 18 months ago I was asked by a local shop-owner if I could DM for a new group. Some lads had come into the shop looking for an experienced DM to help with their experience of D&D. They'd tried running a few games amongst themselves with varying degrees of success from what I could gather, but they were generally new to the hobby.

Over the course of the next few months of DMing for them, I found them to be a group who enjoyed pranks, who were starting to get to grips with roleplaying, and who had varying degrees of confidence. They had 2 weaknesses though - they were limiting themselves by the list of skills on the sheet, and their teamwork was patchy.

So we took a break from that game for a few weeks. I turned up with Tomb of Horrors and my selection of pregen characters, ready kitted out. They looked at the sheets - 'where's the list of skills?', 'I don't know the rules for this version!', 'How do I know what I can do?'

'You can do what the hell you like.'

The next 2 sessions were a revelation. 2 of the quieter players came to the fore, analysing the puzzles. They learned teamwork. They learned to think outside the box. Most importantly, they learned that the only real constraints on them were the limits of their own imagination.

Tomb of Horrors taught them that better than any other published module could have. Yeah they still like joking around, but the extra degree of inventiveness has continued and they are more confident to just 'try things'.

 

[Henry]

In my homebrew setting I have a poison that doesn't immediately kill you and doesn't deal HP damage. My players have seen it in action once...

I love that poison. Great innovative use of existing mechanics, in addition to being a plot element as well.

 

[Sands999]

I worry a little about the conversion of ToH that we will see in Tales of the Yawning Portal. Modern players are too used to getting things their own way - instant and irretrievable death is quite hard to come by after the 1st few levels.

Tomb of Horrors has a reputation to keep. It is meant to strike fear in the hearts of any prospective player. It was THE hardest 1E adventure, even tougher than the original Ravenloft, and that is saying something. It was designed to grind cocky players into the dirt, and should never, ever, ever have been dropped into a campaign where the players were using long term characters.

It was quite simply THE best module for a one shot game though. Bar none. Anyone who argues differently is plain wrong.

So if there is any watering down of the difficulty for 5E then it will cease to be the Tomb of Horrors. The previous 5E conversion was abysmal for this reason. There must be sections which cause instant death (no save), there must be multiple instances of save or die. There must be explosions which do twice the average hit point damage of an on-level Wizard. There must be puzzles which requires serious inventiveness to solve.

And Acererak needs to be a lot tougher than he is the MM.


I DMed it twice for my 2 groups using the original 1E rules. I created a specific party for the adventure including a 13th level Cleric, a 14th level Mage, a 12th level Monk, a 12th level Paladin, and a 7/7/9 1E Bard. They had top drawer magic items - A Staff of Power, a +4 Defender Sword, Wings of Flying, Slippers of Spiderclimb, and many more - their spellbooks and initial spell selections gave them massive hints as to what spells they would need - Commune, Forget, Shatter, Find Traps, Teleport, Locate Object. I created a group of spare characters who would wait outside the Tomb to replace the inevitable casualties.

Acererak never even got scratched on either occasion. One group lost all 5 of their starting characters, didn't use any of the spares. The other group used some of the spares, one original character (the Mage) survived - he fled the Tomb naked having seen all his companions blown up, squashed, dissolved, impaled, and entombed.

11 dead PCs, 1 traumatised survivor, the Demi Lich continued to sleep soundly - untouched. And that's the way it should remain.

I totally agree with everything you said about ToH needing to remain as deadly as it was originally in this new and upcoming version. Without the level of deadliness it normally entails, it's not the same at all. When I looked through the 4E version of ToH this is exactly how I felt. It seemed like a random adventure that just used the title "Tomb of Horrors" as a selling point. It wasn't a bad dungeon adventure. It just wasn't ToH.

I do have to respectfully disagree with inserting this into a campaign though. Gary Gygax himself states in the original S1 module, "The startling information for the module depends on whether you are using the Tomb as an insertion into your own campaign, as a section of THE WORLD OF GREYHAWKTM fantasy setting, or simply as a one-shot exercise for your players." It was originally considered to be something you could place into a campaign to use.

That said, I feel it should be done responsibly. That's what I am doing in my campaign right now. Last night we played in ToH and the players made it half way through the dungeon. It caused a lot of strife for the players... but no one outright died (yet). There were several reasons for this, but one main reason (at least in one situation so far) is because I had the instant death poisons in the game, simply drop the PC to 0 HP with automatic death saves being made instead. It's a small change that makes a big difference. The second reason they're doing okay so far is because they have a ton of magic items and are well equipped higher level characters. The third reason that no one has died yet is because they are actually making good choices! A little bit of luck on their part really.

If I were running this as a tourney style RPG game I would've kept the instant death. But this is a campaign I am running for fairly overpowered players. My fault their overpowered, but I like to see the PCs win. That all said, ToH is proving to be a humbling experience for the group. The general player reaction at the moment is that they like the change of pace from our regular hack and slash games, but that it is causing stress. I feel that they will be able to survive the rest of this dungeon if they continue the way they have been and that in the end they'll all be talking about their experiences with ToH for the rest of their lives!