Tomb of Horrors is not working out (spoilers)

[blalien]

So I'm running the 4e version of the original Tomb of Horrors module for some friends. I made the mistake of overhyping it, telling them how scary and deadly it was when I played it a million years ago. As a result, a couple players have made extremely optimized characters, whose passive perception can detect any trap in the dungeon, and who are very hard to kill. They tediously search every corner for secrets, they agonize over every decision, and they refuse to take risks. They have just finished the battle against the False Acererak after two sessions, and so far there has not been a single player death. Any sense of immersion is gone, and since ToH wasn't really meant to be a straightforward dungeon crawler, it just isn't fun. The whole thing has boiled down to a big math problem. I'm wondering if anybody else ran into this issue. I have a few ideas:
*I could accept that 4e isn't a good fit for ToH and run it as a straight dungeon crawler.
*I could ban optimized characters. But that seems hard to define, since there's a thin line between optimized and simply good. I could at least ban hybrids.
*I could just make the rest of the dungeon harder, but I don't think a number tweak is really going to fix anything.
*Most drastically, I could dig up the old 1st edition version of the dungeon and run that. Since none of us actually know how to play 1st edition, it would be a lot harder to optimize.
Have any of you dealt with this issue personally, and how did you handle it? I don't want to punish my players, since they haven't really done anything wrong, but I can't just tell them to change the way they play either.

 

[Neverfate]

It's hard to say. You're complaining about players being overly careful. That's something you can't really compensate for. If the players are out-thinking the traps and monsters that is great, right? And ToH is the hardest dungeon crawler. If fact that was it's designed purpose.

I think you first need to ask is, "are you players having fun?". If not, why? If so, you've got nothing to complain about.

To me it sounds like a typical ToH game. Though my friends are risk takers and just don't care sometimes so we did see some character deaths. So we weren't making optimized perception checks for every square we moved. For some people that's fun. For others it's not.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Yeah, the 'pump passive perception' can be a problem in 4E, if the total gets too high

In my games there is no such thing. The dice are meant to be rolled, people!!!!!

 

[Shadus]

I agree with the Neverfate. As long as the players are having fun then there is no need to be worried. I mean, you'd have a bigger problem if the players weren't be cautious and running getting killed right and left like a bad horror movie. DND isn't DM vs PCs.

However, if the players are finding it too easy and not having fun, then try to find the weakness in there characters and exploit them. Sounds like they have great perceptions, therefore throw something at them that can't be seen or that would require of other skills to defeat. Perception is Wisdom based, even with training they'd need a good score in order too see every trap like they seem to be. Maybe add something Intelligence or Dexterity based. For example, they may see a magical object, but without a proper Arcana check they won't know it's dangerous.

 

[blalien]

Two players (they're a few years younger than the rest of us) are having fun, because they have fun just in having optimized characters. The other two don't seem too enthused. I could try adding in more lateral challenges that can't be solved with a good die roll. Maybe beef up a few rooms that just have traps. (The chapel...ugh)

I tried getting rid of passive perception. It just ended up with a hundred perception checks in every room.

 

[delericho]

Tomb of Horrors is very much a "challenge the players" kind of dungeon. As such, allowing passive Perception to detect the traps at all is going to cause you a massive problem.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that ToH is just a bad fit for 4e (and 3e as well) in general - the original also had a lot of "save or die" (or even "no save, just die") traps, and those are not really supported by the newer editions at all - players these days generally expect the rules to at least give their characters a fighting chance.

If people are having fun, I would suggest just running the rest of it as a straight-up dungeon crawl. If people are not having fun (including yourself), then just tell your group it's not working out, and run something else.

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

Yeah, the 'pump passive perception' can be a problem in 4E, if the total gets too high

In my games there is no such thing. The dice are meant to be rolled, people!!!!!

Yeah, I often "forget" about Passive Perception entirely. The rare time I have used it is to trigger an allowance of the perceptive character to use an active perception (or more salient skill) check. Even that is somewhat clunky.

 

[GameOgre]

If the encounters are too easy and not challenging enough add a trap that you have used before intot he next encounter. Have the minions or whatever standing right in front of a pit trap. The party charges them and righ tinto the trap. Not only would passive not work there but they should get a penalty! Hard to keep a eye out for traps while watching where that blade is going ehh?

If that isnt more challenging then start adding a few more monsters. Remember the guides tell you how to create a balanced encounter for a balanced party!

If the players bend the rules towards creating super characters then just bend them right back!

Add a Solo monster to the next encounter and see how that floats there boat! A solo that could be run away from would be nice in case you goof it!


Remember in 4E you are not trapped by the rules! They are a rough guideline and I love them but if the encounter,adventure,game isn't working for you.....then feel free to fix it!


Next time they have a passive perception detect a trap add a extra trap that they didnt see! Then run them over with a (random) encounter in the middle of dealing with those traps!

This dungeon is all about feel! Keep them guessing and scared.

IMHO if your players are playing Tomb of Horrors and you have not killed one yet then you are not doing the adventure right! It's the bloody Tomb of Horrors!

Start tunring the encounters up till someone dies! Then make it a little harder and then you will have it.


Killing pc's for no reason isnt cool,fun or good for your game but either is not challenging them or running the Tomb of Horrors like a normal adventure!


The good news is this. Right now in the adventure they have only really been in the (fake) Tomb! use the advice and whats left of the adventure to retune it to be a death dealing machine! Characters made up just to beat the Tomb do NOT deserve a fair chance!

 

[blalien]

So I guess I was a little cranky last night because one player didn't show up with no warning. It turned out she had a good excuse, but I didn't know that at the time.

I think the real problem is the passive perception. If I use passive perception and spoon-feed them the traps, there will be no challenge. But if I don't, they're going to check every square-inch for traps. I am tempted to allow passive perception, but rack up the DCs so high that they don't detect half the traps. Or just ban perception altogether and make them use their own intuition.

 

[chitzk0i]

One solution I've seen is to allow passive perception to alert the PCs to the existence of a trap, but they have to roll active perception to actually find the individual pressure plates and whatnot.