WIR S1 Tomb of Horrors [SPOILERS!! SPOILERS EVERYWHERE!!]‏

[MarkB]

Then again, without prior knowledge on the subject of demi-liches, is there any easy way to tell that the jewel-encrusted skull isn't simply another piece of treasure?

 

[Bullgrit]

Guys, why don't we hold the demi-lich questions and such for when we get to that area. We've got some more death and destruction to cover before hashing out the final trap.

Bullgrit

 

[shmoo2]

OK, replace one non-elf PC with an elf. The probability of not finding a secret door is: (5/6)*(4/6)*(5/6)^5, approximately 0.22. (The first two factors are the elf getting a roll just for being within 10' and a search.) If the door is concealed (not secret), the probability drops to: (5/6)*(3/6)*(5/6)^5, approximately 0.17.

This is probably a one-turn worst-case scenario, since the party might be larger (more PCs and/or hirelings), have more elves, or spend more time searching.

Sorry to necromancer an earlier section of this thread.

I think that the concerns about how easy/hard it is to find the secret doors in the Tomb are a result of the (also mentioned in this thread) linear design of the dungeon.

There are at least 8 secret doors in the Tomb that must be found, or the party can't proceed. This makes the party's ability to find secret doors, and the DM's reading of the rules about finding them to be vital. A DM who allows elves a chance to notice secret doors merely by passing by and allows rerolls to search for them actively will create a completely different experience in the Tomb from a DM who allows neither of those things.

Compare (again) Tomb of Horrors to Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan, which has lots and lots of secret doors, but only 1 (area 16) which must be found [and it's pretty clearly called out in the box text and illustration].

 

[jmucchiello]

My OD&D is a little rusty, but technically wasn't TOH written before the AD&D PHB? Based on how little editing seems to have been done on the adventure, could the number/frequency of necessary secret doors still reflect the older OD&D scheme of secret doors? Perhaps, also, the exploratory method of finding secret doors is still the norm. IOW, the players would tap walls looking for secrets and the DM would tell them when they might have found a secret door without regard to die rolls.

 

[shmoo2]

My OD&D is a little rusty, but technically wasn't TOH written before the AD&D PHB? Based on how little editing seems to have been done on the adventure, could the number/frequency of necessary secret doors still reflect the older OD&D scheme of secret doors? Perhaps, also, the exploratory method of finding secret doors is still the norm. IOW, the players would tap walls looking for secrets and the DM would tell them when they might have found a secret door without regard to die rolls.

Sure, though that's part of my point.

Some DMs will be using OD&D rules, some will be using portions of the AD&D rules (different portions for different DMs), some will be using only rulings about player ingenuity/ exploration with no rules at all.

Which rules (or ad hoc rulings) are being used for secret doors will have a big impact on how the Tomb plays at the table, since the dungeon is very linear, and also has MANY secret doors which must be found to proceed.

Both of those features are normally regarded as bad design.
In the Tomb of Horrors they are elements of the very specific experience created by this dungeon.

 

[Bullgrit]

the players would tap walls looking for secrets and the DM would tell them when they might have found a secret door without regard to die rolls.

I first learned about the concept of finding secret doors and pit covers by tapping with a pole, (or something), here on ENWorld, recently. During my BD&D and AD&D gaming years, I thought the way to find a secret door was the DM rolling a 1 on 1d6 after the Player said he was searching. That's what the rules described and said; I never saw anything that explained rapping with a pole to find secret doors.

I had always pictured/imagined secret doors and pit covers to be constructed of the same material as the rest of the dungeon -- usually stone, (like this Tomb). And I never thought that secret doors might be made of different stuff, or might be different thickness, or whatever, than the wall it was mounted in.

It never occurred to me, and no one else ever told me, that tapping a secret door/pit cover might make a different sound than normal stone walls. I thought a 10' pole was used in hopes of "tricking" a pit trap to open before anyone stepped on it, not to discover sound differences.

I knew/could imagine many uses for a 10' pole, but direct secret door detection was never one of them. <shrug> Maybe my imagination was weak. Maybe my knowledge of engineering was lacking. Surely I'm not the only person to not know of these concepts.

So, if I had run this adventure back in the day, the Players would have had to get a 1 on 1d6 to find a secret door. If they had gone around tapping the walls, I would never have mentioned that they hear a difference while tapping on a secret door. Not because I would have been hardass or anything, but just because I had no concept of "secret doors sound different."

Bullgrit

 

[jmucchiello]

Which rules (or ad hoc rulings) are being used for secret doors will have a big impact on how the Tomb plays at the table, since the dungeon is very linear, and also has MANY secret doors which must be found to proceed.

Both of those features are normally regarded as bad design.
In the Tomb of Horrors they are elements of the very specific experience created by this dungeon.

See, I don't think linear design is bad when you are using exploratory secret door rules. An old style dungeon is a place you go to grab some treasure, leave and return to later. Where the module is weird is the fact that it is a tournament dungeon so leaving and returning is a problem. But as a home adventure, reentry is more feasible.

Having mandatory secret doors (in a modern dungeon) that the party only expects to enter once is poor design.

 

[jmucchiello]

I first learned about the concept of finding secret doors and pit covers by tapping with a pole, (or something), here on ENWorld, recently.

How were you "taught" D&D? Old school dungeoneering was far more about testing the players than testing the characters. But somehow that game never really made it into the rulebooks. And I've always wondered why.

That's not completely accurate (but the following is entirely from memory): In the AD&D DMG, the sample dungeon shows the party finding the secret passage way in "room 2" by asking pointed questions and acting on the DM's responses.

Ignore my first paragraph, the issue is the rules don't make it clear that the results of logical actions take precedence over any abstract rules in the books. The 1 in 6 chance is there to cover the cases where the players aren't being specific about how they are searching for stuff. A secret door cannot hide from someone who persists in looking for it unless the trigger for the door is something the searcher is incapable of doing. IOW, if the bookcase swings around when you tip a specific book, clearing the shelves of all the books will do it too. And no matter how unobservant you are, if you clear the right shelf, the secret door is revealed.

I taught myself how to play D&D. And I always assumed the searching for secret doors was "automatic" if you could describe how you were searching and you were searching in the right place. My experience with coming here to ENWorld was to discover that was just how it was done. I didn't know there were grognards who didn't use these methods for finding dungeon secrets.

Didn't you ever have a chest with a secret compartment? We were always using a forearm or shortsword to make sure the outer and inner dimensions of a chest were similar.

 

[Bullgrit]

if the bookcase swings around when you tip a specific book, clearing the shelves of all the books will do it too.

The vast majority of classic D&D adventures do not explain how any secret doors actually open. Usually, there's just an S on the map and that's it. Most secret doors are in an otherwise blank stone wall. No bookcases, no torch brackets, nothing mentioned in the adventure text that can be pushed, pulled, twisted, or tested.

Sure, as a DM, I usually came up with a way to open the doors, even if simply "push the door and it swings open." But I rarely encountered a Player who would spend time going around systematically pushing, pulling, and twisting everything to find secrets. Sure, discovering a secret by testing everything can be fun, but 95% of the time, the experimentation was a complete waste of time, (no secret to be found).

In my experience, most Players would rather spend an hour advancing through half a dozen rooms with encounters and stuff to do rather than spend that time CSI'ing one room that probably doesn't even have any secret to find.

Plus, in the Tomb of Horrors, futzing about with a lot of stuff can have Bad results. The Agitated Chamber with the green slime tapestries, for example.

How were you "taught" D&D? Old school dungeoneering was far more about testing the players than testing the characters. But somehow that game never really made it into the rulebooks. And I've always wondered why.

I was taught D&D by the Basic D&D rulebook and In Search of the Unknown and Keep on the Borderland.

Bullgrit

 

[Stoat]

All this talk about secret doors is taking me back to Area 9.

There are 7 secret doors in Area 9. The module tells the DM that each door opens a different way. One door pulls down, one pivots, one slides up, etc. etc. etc.

But there's no description of the area in the module. We don't know what the walls look like. There's no furniture. There are no sconces or cressets to monkey around with. Just a bunch of little, apparently empty rooms. If the PC's start looking around, there's nothing in the text describing what they see.

I don't know how to run Area 8. I'm glad the PC's in my PbP game never got there. (They got stuck in the 2nd false entrance and the game mostly petered out.)