[MENTION=1613]grodog[/MENTION], I always assumed it was -(X) per die of damage, assuming +X armour. And I don't think I just made that up - I think there is another rule in the book that implies it (but don't ask me where that would be - rings or cloaks of protection, perhaps, or is their effect on falling discussed only in the much later Wilderness Survival Guide?)
WIR S1 Tomb of Horrors [SPOILERS!! SPOILERS EVERYWHERE!!]
Area 15. Stone Gate
The title of this section is a little misleading. The text description includes both the Stone Gate and a series of pit traps beyond.
The Gate itself is a stone wedge, 4 feet high, ten feet thick, two feet wide at the narrow western end and ten feet wide at the eastern end. "It is impregnated with strong anti-magics which prevent its detection or removal or change to another form or substance." The text from Area 14(c) emphasizes this point, "It cannot be magically detected, nor will it open by physical or magical means . . ."
As noted in Area 14, there's a slot in the Stone Gate that's just big enough to fit a coin, a flat gem or a magic ring. If you put a magic ring in the slot two things happen (1) the Stone Gate sinks into the ground, allowing entrance to the areas beyond, and (2) your magic ring gets crushed to bits and is lost forever.
The module tells us that the Stone Gate opens easily from the other side, but it does not say if the Gate rises back up into place after the PC's pass through it.
Beyond the gate is a stairway down, and a hallway that runs to the west. The hallway is blocked with three doors, one after another. On the other side of each door is a 10' deep pit, just like the ones back in Area 3. The module suggests that anyone using force to open a door has a 1 in 3 chance of falling into the pit beyond.
There's a concealed door hidden at the bottom of the third pit. It's easy to find if you look for it, but the module assumes that the PC's will be expecting the third pit and won't look to closely at it.
IMO: The Stone Gate is where you "sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal." The riddle wouldn't be hard to figure out if it was written somewhere in Area 14, but I think the distance between Area 3 and here makes it harder. My first instinct if I was faced with the Stone Gate would be to put coins in the slot. And if I'd managed to figure out the deal with the 3-armed Gargoyle back in Area 11, I'd be prepared to dump a lot of coins down there.
"Two pits along the way will be found to lead to a fortuitous fall, so check the wall." That's the second part of Area 15. Pass two pits and then check the wall at the bottom of the third. Again, the tricky part is making the connection between Acererak's riddle and this part of the Tomb.
Note that the pit traps are dangerous. Each pit is full of poison spikes. Anybody who falls in has a 50% chance of being hit by 1 to 3 spikes, and each spike requires a save versus poison.
Another gag here is the idea that the players will think the doors are stuck and use lots of shoving and force to open them, when really the doors open easily, dumping the PC's into the pit traps like Moe in a Three Stooges bit. But how likely is it that the players won't check to see if the door is stuck first? My players check every damn thing in the world before they open a door. If they ever make it this far, they won't fall for this one.
Also, there are only a handful of normal doors in the module so far, and the text doesn't say if they are stuck or not. Is there a default expectation that any dungeon door would be stuck?
The title of this section is a little misleading. The text description includes both the Stone Gate and a series of pit traps beyond.
The Gate itself is a stone wedge, 4 feet high, ten feet thick, two feet wide at the narrow western end and ten feet wide at the eastern end. "It is impregnated with strong anti-magics which prevent its detection or removal or change to another form or substance." The text from Area 14(c) emphasizes this point, "It cannot be magically detected, nor will it open by physical or magical means . . ."
As noted in Area 14, there's a slot in the Stone Gate that's just big enough to fit a coin, a flat gem or a magic ring. If you put a magic ring in the slot two things happen (1) the Stone Gate sinks into the ground, allowing entrance to the areas beyond, and (2) your magic ring gets crushed to bits and is lost forever.
The module tells us that the Stone Gate opens easily from the other side, but it does not say if the Gate rises back up into place after the PC's pass through it.
Beyond the gate is a stairway down, and a hallway that runs to the west. The hallway is blocked with three doors, one after another. On the other side of each door is a 10' deep pit, just like the ones back in Area 3. The module suggests that anyone using force to open a door has a 1 in 3 chance of falling into the pit beyond.
There's a concealed door hidden at the bottom of the third pit. It's easy to find if you look for it, but the module assumes that the PC's will be expecting the third pit and won't look to closely at it.
IMO: The Stone Gate is where you "sacrifice aught but a loop of magical metal." The riddle wouldn't be hard to figure out if it was written somewhere in Area 14, but I think the distance between Area 3 and here makes it harder. My first instinct if I was faced with the Stone Gate would be to put coins in the slot. And if I'd managed to figure out the deal with the 3-armed Gargoyle back in Area 11, I'd be prepared to dump a lot of coins down there.
"Two pits along the way will be found to lead to a fortuitous fall, so check the wall." That's the second part of Area 15. Pass two pits and then check the wall at the bottom of the third. Again, the tricky part is making the connection between Acererak's riddle and this part of the Tomb.
Note that the pit traps are dangerous. Each pit is full of poison spikes. Anybody who falls in has a 50% chance of being hit by 1 to 3 spikes, and each spike requires a save versus poison.
Another gag here is the idea that the players will think the doors are stuck and use lots of shoving and force to open them, when really the doors open easily, dumping the PC's into the pit traps like Moe in a Three Stooges bit. But how likely is it that the players won't check to see if the door is stuck first? My players check every damn thing in the world before they open a door. If they ever make it this far, they won't fall for this one.
Also, there are only a handful of normal doors in the module so far, and the text doesn't say if they are stuck or not. Is there a default expectation that any dungeon door would be stuck?
FoxWander
Adventurer
I meant to mention this back in the discussion of area 10 but...
When my PCs found the riddle in area 3 they didn't assume any kind of order to its "warnings", thinking (oddly I thought) that any part of it was equally valid anywhere. They took the "two pits" part to mean there were two pits with something in them and made a point to thoroughly check the walls of all of them. They found the one-way secret door in the southernmost pit of area 3 using detect secret doors and then manage to open it with knock (I allowed both these spells to work because the module gives no reason why they wouldn't). So they managed to find a fourth way to reach the Hall of Spheres.
I just think its interesting the way you interpreted the "two pits" section (pass 2 pits and look in the 3rd) and the way my PCs did (2 pits have something "fortuitous" on the wall).
Oh- one more thing: I always thought it was odd that the magic ring used to trigger the gate gets destroyed rather than teleported into Acererack's treasure room. With so many other stripping teleport traps to collect treasure it seems weird that a similar treasure collector isn't used here.
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MarkB
Legend
Well, he is a demi-lich. He's a little short on fingers.
Bullgrit
Adventurer
This kind of magic-won't-solve-this-scenario crops up in several classic D&D modules, and it always seems like lazy design, to me. Designing and enforcing one and only one way to solve a challenge is usually considered bad design and poor game mastering.
And here, the flying-thief-on-a-rope trick will prove detrimental to moving forward in this module. Is there any other published module of the time with a concealed/secret door in a pit trap? I don't remember ever seeing one. I would think that unless the party, here, had found the poem in the path, (which we've discussed how unlikely that can be), would anyone think to search the pit traps for a door?
I find this text from the module, interesting:
He calls avoiding a pit trap "carelessness" because he placed a secret door in the pit.E. Gary Gygax said:
Rereading that part of the path-poem, yeah, that actually seems a perfectly reasonable interpretation. And it is correct.FoxWander said:
Bullgrit
Here's what tickles me. Nothing indicates that the rest of the Tomb is particularly immune to magic. I don't see any reason why the 14th Level pregen Wizard couldn't just Disintegrate the wall next to the invulnerable block and carve out a passage forward. I don't have my books, but if Dimension Door doesn't require line of sight, a gutsy wizard could just zap past the Stone Gate.
A
amerigoV
Guest
I do not recall a pit trap/secret door combo, but a well/secret door combo from ToEE comes to mind. I used that one to good effect in the Skrimshaw Murders AP.
Hussar
Legend
We played this thing once in 2e. By that time, casters were just getting gross with all the things they could do. We did almost precisely what you suggested for almost all the adventure.
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