D&D 4E Updating Tomb of Horrors to 4e...and 4e seems to wussy.

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think a 4e Tomb of Horrors is likely to be a really excellent adventure personally. There are quite a few ways to potentially structure an adventure of this type in 4e.

Each encounter could be individually super deadly. This would be the most simplistic approach. Traps can be seriously over level, highly deceptive, etc. Effectively this would be a direct translation of the old ToH where there are plenty of insta-kill effects.

The Tomb could trap anyone entering it within. This IMHO would be more interesting. Its a one way trip. Once you enter the dungeon there is only one way out, go forward. This will create a lot more tension. The encounters can still be in the insta-kill style but instead you can make a much more interesting and tense version. Simply make it urgent that the adventure be completed in relatively short order. Maybe the whole dungeon is pervaded by necrotic energy which negates the benefits of an extended rest. Maybe remaining in the dungeon drains healing surges. NOW the traps and such can be of the more subtle attrition kind. All sorts of things can be used, slow acting poisons, diseases, etc. Maybe the difficulty of combat encounters simply increases based on the amount of time the party remains in the dungeon. You CAN rest, but is it really worth it? Another option would be some moderately expensive ritual that is required in order to avoid death. Every day you remain within the dungeon drains the party of more resources which they cannot easily replace.

Heh, I could come up with 100 more similar ideas and not even break a sweat. The beauty of the attrition approach is its much more fun. Nobody gets killed off right away, all the players get to squirm in their seats as the clock ticks away and every time they enter another room a few more surges get peeled away, a few more powers are expended, another PC gets an effect on them that will eventually kill them unless they can overcome the dungeon's hazards in time.

Anyone who thinks 4e can't do a better ToH than the original needs to engage their imagination.

 

[Zinovia]

The level range on the 4E Tomb of Horrors is going to be something like 10-22. As was mentioned a few posts ago, it's intended to be an ongoing plotline that you weave into your normal campaign. So you find something about the Tomb around level 10, and do part of it, then go on with your other adventures. Then you revisit it later, over a number of trips, interspersed with whatever else you may be up to. I like that idea.

It is my understanding that it is not going to be as deadly as it was originally. For me, that's good, because it might make the adventure usable as part of an ongoing campaign. On the other hand, it's less true to the step-and-die philosophy of the original. If you want a truly killer dungeon for use with one-shot characters, maybe doing your own conversion would be better. Maybe the published adventure will include suggestions on how to raise it to that level, although it does seem unlikely.

If you like the good old 1E version (and who doesn't? ), then just run that. I have fond memories of getting out of there with a rogue and a druid as the sole survivors out of 10 starting characters (we each went in with 2). My druid cast stone to mud on the ceiling as we were running from the demi-lich, turning a massive amount of corridor into mud behind us. We lost at least one person to traps on the way out, but two of us survived. This run was deliberately done with no use of meta-game knowledge. We didn't go in prepared to fight a demi-lich. That monster was invented for this module IIRC, so there was no way the characters would know the very limited and specific tactics needed to take it out. It was essentially unbeatable. It was fun, but did break some rules. The monk was pissed when he touched a tapestry and immediately died and turned to green slime. He had another character, but sulked anyway.

 

[pascale]

I agree that ToH is the anti-thesis of 4e. And the system, as designed and released, simply won't be able to do justice to ToH. I have resigned myself to having to house-rule-DM-foo to get the feel and spirit of ToH right. I still want to do as fiathful a job translating ToH properly, which means I will need a way to make single shot traps, like pits and the like as deadly as I can. To that end I've decided to double and even triple damge expression, while keeping the DCs all at the hardest diffiuclty advised in the DMG. As for the slow acting things, like poison, I'll go with attacks versus fort and then have take away healing surges, and for endurance checks or loose more. Further to that end the pioson effects will stack, so if you fall in spiked pit trap and get 5 spikes, thats 5 separate attacks, each capable of removing a healing surge, every minute. The instant kill stuff, like the server of anihaltion is also really easy-you step in that you are instantly destroyed, no attack roll no save, just gone. And that is definately in the spirit of ToH, a wrong/bad choice can and will kill you. the way to aviod it is to not make that chioce.

I disagree that the point of ToH is to be an excersize in futility. It is hard, and in places unfair. But thats not the point. Hell if that was the point I'd through them up against party +20 encounters all day long. No, TOH isn't about a masochistic romp through suicide park to see just many times one can die. Although if thats your thing... The point of ToH is to test yourself against the best. It's about earning the victory, and truly earning it. Its about problem solving and working your way through puzzles that are really deadly and that the wrong answer is very painful.

I appriate that poeple are suggesting some truly devilish traps and things that show of 4e's conditoonal and ongoing effects. But that isn't the point of the excersize either. I could do that, and more. But then I wouldn't be updating or running ToH. I'd just be recycling a map. And that just defeats the hoile purpase of updating ToH, I might as well just make my own dungeon at that point.

I know that WotC is planning on releasing something called ToH. But I also know that it will be a poor proximation at best. Frankly the is no way a WotC will be able to do anything like ToH. They have successfully cast the ritual WotC's Mass Gygax removal, and while it did produce 4e it also precludes any form of Gygaxian D&D with out total house ruling. Again ToH is not heroic fantasy. It is not about Hereos triumphing over the evil Demi Lich Acererack. ToH is a gritty, brutish and tough. It is hereos barely surviving, or not at all. It is about hard thinking and hard nocks, where single bad turn spells desastor. You make it through ToH and thats something to be proud of.

yes I've heard about the KoSF and the impossible crap in there, but there is a difference between that and what ToH is about. That is just plain silly encounter becuase the designer wasn't thinking. Again any idiot can make suicide park with impossible encounters. Thats not ToH.

 

[Zinovia]

ToH is entirely a suicide park, as you put it. Many of the hazards there cannot be detected or reasoned through. You take the wrong step, and you die. The demi-lich *cannot* be defeated without meta-game knowledge. It was new when this module came out. No one had seen one before, so no one knew anything of the obscure and complex methods needed to defeat one. It is *unbeatable* without knowing in advance that you would be fighting one. Yes, some of the things needed to beat it are present in the module, but you need to use a very specific method to do so, and have the right spells and mix of characters, all doing very specific tasks. ToH is fun, but it's not a fair test of the players' reasoning. It's just a killer dungeon, albeit the greatest of them all.

 

[Zinovia]

IThe instant kill stuff, like the server of anihaltion ...

The server of annihilation scores a critical hit! All your data are belong to us!

 

[Flipguarder]

If you want to make ToH have a true sense of threat and exitement you'll need to add a lot of active traps and hazards in 1 go and make a houserule to get rid of the resting as reboots.

Or just make the tomb that you are trapped in collapse in 6 hours, so they don't have TIME to rest. Also, every trap is different in 4e. Sure the trend has been that traps do less damage, but there is no reason they can't add in 50 new traps that all do 1/2 of a pcs life in the TOH.
All Wotc needs to do is put a little more power behind their trap and monster dungeons for this adventure, it's not all that hard.

 

[keterys]

Even a sphere of annihilation in 4e terms might easily be:

You take your bloodied value in hp. Make a saving throw.
Failed Save: You are dead. Make a saving throw.
Failed Save: Your body is destroyed. All of your possessions are reduced to residuum.

Or something similar. Along with a corresponding sidebar for things like 'and your hand is disintegrated. And your arm is disintegrated.' and a special 'If you poke your head into the hole, then you die no matter what, the saving throw just determines if only your head is destroyed'

 

[Skallgrim]

It would be nice if you would actually be honest.

Running through a ToH won't work because characters can hardly die in 4e. You get tons of health, a dozen healing surges and if you run out of that you simply take a rest and regain it all back. The players are nigh un-killable by the many traps. ToH is one big death trap by design and danger and threats lurk in every step you make. Now all danger and threats are removed and you can simple walk through it.

Whittling down HP and Surges...Sure you can make cool rooms with many traps to show of the many cool effects. But you still have the issue of taking a rest which basically resets the characters so that they re-gain all their resources and can walk through the Tomb without any real sense of danger. Where is the excitement in that?

First, given the number of postings here and elsewhere about TPKs in 4e, your statement that you can 'hardly die' must either be viewed as woefully uninformed, deliberately false, or as a claim that many posters on multiple boards are lying through their teeth about TPKs.


Second, I own the original Tomb of Horrors. There are many, many points in the tomb where the party can backtrack and simply rest. I believe, in fact, that it might be ASSUMED that you were doing so to recover and prepare more spells. I don't think there would be any chance that the party would have the specific sequence of spells needed to kill the demilich (since it was a new monster), and I think it would be even less likely that the party would STILL have all of those spells available after moving through the entire dungeon. I don't know any group that didn't either rest, repeatedly, or go into the dungeon with a HUGE party (10+ characters). The original TOH doesn't scale the adventure to your party size, unlike the suggestions for 4e, so you could have simply gone through the adventure with 15+ characters had you been so inclined. So the issue of 'resets' which completely invalidates TOH in 4e would seem to exist in the original module, which would mean, apparently, that the original module was itself invalid.

Third, if, for some reason, you do feel the need to run TOH in such a way that it is done "all in one run", despite that being contrary to the original edition, all you have to do is deny the party an exit (the doors close behind you) and deny them rest (the ghostly atmosphere of the tomb prevents you from getting more than a moment's (a short ) rest). Poof. Now they have no ability to recover daily powers, no ability to recover used healing surges, and no ability to recover daily magic item charges.

Finally, and this is not directed towards you, if the goal of rewriting Tomb of Horrors is to slavishly replicate the exact mechanics of the original module, why not just run the original module in the original game? If the 'rewrite' isnt' going to take advantage of any of the features or differences between AD&D and 4e, and is instead going to actively downplay the differences and change the game to make it more like AD&D, wouldn't using AD&D be the better, simpler option?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Finally, and this is not directed towards you, if the goal of rewriting Tomb of Horrors is to slavishly replicate the exact mechanics of the original module, why not just run the original module in the original game? If the 'rewrite' isnt' going to take advantage of any of the features or differences between AD&D and 4e, and is instead going to actively downplay the differences and change the game to make it more like AD&D, wouldn't using AD&D be the better, simpler option?

This really is rather a valid point. Given that you can't use the original ToH as part of a campaign in any realistic fashion (unless you are just planning to end the campaign right here) it is certainly a valid option to just do a one shot using 1e.

On the other hand there are certainly perfectly valid reasons why someone wouldn't be able to do that, like not having the 1e books, just plain wanting to use 4e rules, etc.

To be honest I think the original ToH was fine as a tournament dungeon, but I never found it to be THAT interesting used in a regular play group. There was no scope for any real RP or any reason why you would want a character that wasn't optimized to the gills for that type of adventure.

Basically I guess it might be fun to see a conversion for the sake of nostalgia, but the game has moved on. I think that becomes pretty clear when you look at the distance between the way the 4e rules are designed to work and what you want in classic insta-kill ToH. 4e can mechanically support it with no problem, but it seems a waste when so much more can be done.

Hmmmm. Now this is just all psyching me up to consider building something very terrifying and very very nasty. hehehehe.

 

[DracoSuave]

4e can mechanically support it with no problem, but it seems a waste when so much more can be done.

To be fair, any system can handle 'You touch it and you die.' It's not an effect requiring a lot of rules support.