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

[Maggan]

What is the assumption with this adventure?

I always assumed that the PCs were but the next victims following the failures of countless others.

But that might be just what I assumed.

/M

 

[Zombie Toast]

Area 23. False/True Door

As mentioned before, the hallway leading from Area 21 eventually reaches a four-way intersection. Area 22 is to the east. A trapped false door is to the south. Area 23 is to the north.

This area starts with a false door. -- a normal-looking door that opens onto a blank wall. The module doesn't say if its trapped like the other false doors in the Tomb. The blank wall is actually a secret door. It opens onto a 10 foot wide hallway running north. There's a staircase and a door leading east at the end of this hall.

The stairs and door are a decoy. The right way forward is a secret trap door set in the floor immediately past the secret door. The trap door leads to a narrow tunnel that eventually takes the PC's to Area 25. The Pillared Throne Room.

What if you miss the secret trap door and head north? As best I can tell, the stairs are a dead end. The east door leads to a short hallway with a pair of double doors facing north at the end of it.

Opening the double doors triggers a trap. Sleep gas fills the area and everyone instantly falls asleep for 2-8 turns. There is no saving throw. Each turn the PC's are asleep, the DM rolls a d4. On a roll of 4, this guy:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ToH_Gallery/ToHGraphic23.jpg

comes out of a room to the north and trundles 1d6x10 squares along the hallway. Everything the juggernaut passes over is "squashed to a pulp."

IMO: Here's an answer for why PC's might decide to explore the mists of Area 22. They miss the secret door at Area 23 or the secret trapdoor behind that, and they backtrack to see if Area 22 is the way forward.

The correct path requires the PC's to find a secret door hidden behind a false door and then to find a secret trap door behind that. Acererak's riddle hints at this with the phrase, "If you find the false you find the true." I'm not sure that hint is worth much, however, mostly because there are any number of false things in this part of the Tomb: a false lich in Area 18; and a a false door south of Area 23 for starters.

On the other hand, if the false door at Area 23 isn't trapped, then it's different from other false doors in the Tomb, and that might be a hint for observant parties to notice.

Even if the PC's are thinking to look for secret doors, finding them is probably a matter of luck or magic. The module doesn't specify any particular means of finding the two secret doors, so that leaves rolling to search (Luck) or using spells to detect them (magic).

Is there any warning or clue about the juggernaut in the module? I don't see one. And I'm not really sure how that part of the encounter is supposed to work.

First. There are two corridors past the False/True door. The first is an east-west hallway that's 30 feet long. A single door is set in the west wall. A pair of double doors is set in the north wall at the end. Those doors open onto another hallway -- one that's 40 feet long. The module says that a "passage full of sleep gas [] is reached by the east door." When the double doors are opened, "everyone in that passage will instantly collapse into slumber." Which passage are these two quotes talking about? The first passage that leads up to the double doors, or the passage behind the double doors?

Second, when the juggernaut shows up, it rolls 10 to 60 feet, crushing all in its path. Then what? Does it keep going or does it stop?

Third, what about elves? Aren't they immune to magical sleep?

I'm genuinely confused, and I'd like to hear how folks who have run this encounter approached it.

It is one of the more confusing areas. In my case I assumed the sleep gas is the vertical, north south hallway and it will affect everyone in the horizontal, east-west hallway. Elves are immune, same with anyone who is somehow immune to poison.

As far as clues, I make sure to describe the doors in this hallway as unusually large...although they're not described that way they're marked on the map as double doors...and they'd have to be huge wouldn't they? To let the juggernaut through.

The juggernaut rolls out of it's room, south, then west, then north, down the random flight of stairs where it comes to rest.

I also personally replaced the steamroller juggernaut with a giant rolling boulder in the shape of a demon's head. It's much easier for me to imagine a boulder turning those tight corners rather than that elephant/steamroller.

What is the assumption with this adventure? Are the PCs the first to explore the Tomb? Or have there been others, (and will be others), and the Tomb gets "reset" after each attempt?

There are several areas in the Tomb where either the PCs are the first to come in or the environment has been reset since the last invasion.

Bullgrit

There's several places including past victims. Some are obviously fakes created by Acererak but a few (like the chamber of Hopelessness) seem like genuine past adventurers. So it seems to me like the place must get reset, which certainly isn't that big a stretch considering the effort it took to create in the first place. But I also don't imagine that was a concern when it was written.

 

[Stoat]

What bothers me most about the Juggernaut portion of Area 23 is the vaguely worded description of the trap coupled with the fact that its a no-save, no-appeal PC killer. Consider:

If the sleep gas pours out of the double doors to the north and fills the east-west hallway (which is how I read the text), then the PC's will fall asleep in the east-west hallway. Only PC's close to the double doors need to worry about the juggernaut, it can't move far enough to threaten the entire east-west hall. (If the DM rolls a 6, the Juggernaut makes it to the middle of the east-west hallway)

On the other hand, if the gas pours out of the 20' square room and fills the north-south hallway (Jonesy's read) then the PC's fall asleep in the north-south hall and much more likely to be crushed. The guy who opens the door is absolutely doomed. AND if this is how this encounter works, does the gas also fill the east-west hallway? If not, PC's who hide there stay awake and can try to save their comrades.

AFAICT:
(a) There is no clue, hint or warning to the players that Area 23a is a potential deathtrap. (b) The only way for the players to avoid the deathtrap is to stay out of it. If they explore too far, they fall asleep and risk being pulped.
(c) The text of the module is unclear about where the point of no return lies. The DM must decide.

I don't like any of that.

On the other hand, I do like the picture of the juggernaut. IMO, it is one of the better illustrations in the module.

 

[Bullgrit]

On the other hand, I do like the picture of the juggernaut. IMO, it is one of the better illustrations in the module.

The elephant's face looks angry. The whole thing seems to be glowing. But it's the smears on the floor that push this illustration into the awesome zone

Bullgrit

 

[Joshua Randall]

What is the assumption with this adventure? Are the PCs the first to explore the Tomb? Or have there been others, (and will be others), and the Tomb gets "reset" after each attempt?

I suppose some other parties must have explored the tomb (and survived!) in order for there to be rumors about it.

FWIW, Return to the TOH makes the "reset" explicit. Unlike the original tomb, if you leave the RttTOH Tomb for long enough, when you come back, the traps etc. will have been reset.

Hmm. That raises an interesting question about the original Tomb. I wonder what was the longest period of game-time that passed between a party's ventures therein? Were there any weird/slow/jus' diff'rent parties who allowed (say) 6-12 game-months to elapse between forays into the Tomb?

 

[Freakohollik]

Of the entire module, this is the part that I dislike the most. If you miss the secret door in the floor you're dead.

This is one of the main reasons I was asking about secret door detection odds upthread. If they're anything less than 100%, you could die here on a failed roll. That is absolutely not in the spirit of the dungeon.

 

[Freakohollik]

What is the assumption with this adventure? Are the PCs the first to explore the Tomb? Or have there been others, (and will be others), and the Tomb gets "reset" after each attempt?

There are several areas in the Tomb where either the PCs are the first to come in or the environment has been reset since the last invasion.

Bullgrit

The module mentions at the beginning that there are demons that periodically reset the dungeon. While not stated, I think it's implied that the PCs are not the first group to the tomb. But it's irrellevant as the demons will reset everything. Actually I think they even reset the treasure. Could a clever group do the tomb several times to get the treasure over and over? There's no risk once you know the correct route.

 

[jonesy]

Could a clever group do the tomb several times to get the treasure over and over? There's no risk once you know the correct route.

You mean, clever enough to convince the DM to allow it?

 

[Stoat]

The module mentions at the beginning that there are demons that periodically reset the dungeon.

The 3E conversion available from WotC.com says this, but the original module does not. It only says that demons will attack PC's who become astral or ethereal in the Tomb.

Area 18 specifically says that "Acererak will see to the righting of things eventually," so it is implied that at least parts of the Tomb will be reset.

 

[shmoo2]

If the sleep gas pours out of the double doors to the north and fills the east-west hallway (which is how I read the text), then the PC's will fall asleep in the east-west hallway. Only PC's close to the double doors need to worry about the juggernaut, it can't move far enough to threaten the entire east-west hall. (If the DM rolls a 6, the Juggernaut makes it to the middle of the east-west hallway)

I think the wording is not clear, but this is the interpretation I've always thought the most likely.

But as you note, that placement with PCs asleep in the east-west hallway makes the trap much less deadly.
In fact it makes this area most likely to do nothing at all but give the PCs an hour long nap:

The average sleep duration in 5 turns.
The juggernaut shows up 76% of the time within this period. [24% of the time the party wakes up before it shows up]
Of that 76%, the juggernaut will only roll 10-40 feet and stay in the north-south hallway 2/3 of the time [so 51% of the time, the party wakes up after the juggernaut shows up, but doesn't touch them]

So, 75% of time, on average the PCs wake up after a nap with no one hurt.

Of the last 25%:
12.5% of the time, the juggernaut crushes only those within 10' of the double doors. It's very unlikely someone wasn't standing back a little farther.

12.5% of the time, he juggernaut crushes those within 20' of the double doors. This might be a TPK.

I really don't know if this is all intentional.
It seems weird to set up this elaborate trap, which is most likely to result in:

PC: OK, I open the double doors
DM: The huge doors creak open, and gas billows out to envelope all of you! You all instantly drop to the floor, asleep! No, there's no save, suckers. [rolls some dice] Ummm, and then you all wake up an hour later. So, what do you want to do now?