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

[Stoat]

This brings up a very interesting point. How lethal the Tomb is will REALLY depend on what system you run it in. The caster types at these levels just gain SO many options in later editions of D&D. In straight up 1e PHB AD&D, this dungeon is quite a bit more difficult.

As I've noted before, even in 1E the 14th level pregen Cleric can cast Find the Path (a 6th level spell), True Seeing (a 5th level spell), and Find Traps (a 2nd level spell). They can also cast Commune, Divination, Locate Object (on somebody's gear after they go through the bad arch), and Augury. Of course, the cleric also has the means to heal wounded, poisoned and even dead PC's.

The 14th level pregen Magic-User can cast Limited Wish, Disintegrate, Teleport, Stone to Flesh (literally carve through the dungeon!), Passwall, Stone Shape, Dimension Door (no line of sight required!), Wizard Eye, and Fly.

Some of these spells are less uesful than others (Divination, frex, isn't as cool as it sounds.) Some of these spells are heavily DM dependent (Limited Wish, obviously, but I'm not sure from reading it exactly how Find the Path is supposed to work, either.) Bullgrit has pointed out that most of the divinations are somewhat unreliable.

But, the spellcasters still have a lot of juice going into the Tomb. For the most part, there's nothing stopping the group from using Disintegrate, Passwall, Stone Shape or the like to bypass encounters in the Tomb. Aggressive use of divinations to detect traps and the use of spells like Fly and Telekinesis to avoid touching dangerous stuff will greatly increase the party's chance of living long enough to die in Area 33.

This may or may not have been true when the module was first played in 1975, but it became true as soon as the 1E PHB was published a few years later.

 

[Hussar]

Stone shape is in the 1e PHB.

More like, this is an example of DM interpretation determining how the encounter operates.

I would not allow that trick to work. The text is explicit that magic can't bypass the door. It seems pretty dumb to build an invulnerable door, and place it in a vulnerable wall.

Well, true. This specific spell was in the 1e PHB. Although, it was a Druid and not Cleric spell so, it's not as likely that the party will have it. In 2e, clerics gained access to almost all druid spheres, at least as a minor access, which granted them Stone Shape.

Casters have been gaining lots and lots of options with every edition. I'm going to stand by the idea that if you play Tomb with a 1e PHB only, and no Dragon magazine material and no Unearthed Arcana, it is a much more difficult module than in later editions.

Although, funnily enough, I just checked the OSRIC document and Stone Shape is a Magic User spell (5th level). I'm thinking that that's one that might not be high up on the "Must Have" list for wizard spell books.

 

[Bullgrit]

Can a thief do anything with/to this door?

Bullgrit

 

[FoxWander]

Stoat covered the spell options available in 1e to characters of the dungeon's recommended levels pretty well. Even the pregens for this dungeon have everything they need to make this dungeon relatively easy. If you make a 6 person party from the pregens you can have this mix of character options and magic items:

# 1, human mage 14, items: displacer cloak, +1 ring of protection, +2 dagger, and wand of magic missiles
# 2, human cleric 14, items: +3 plate mail, +3 shield, and +3 mace
# 3, human paladin 12, items: +1 plate mail, +2 shield, +1 flaming sword, and ring of fire resistance
# 8, dwarf fighter 7, thief 8, items: cloak of protection +3, ring of invisibility, +1 short sword, +1 dagger, and bag of holding (largest)
# 10, half-elf cleric 5, ranger 7, mage 6, items: +2 chain mall, +1 shield, levitation boots, and +1 mace
# 12, human mage 9, items: +4 ring of protection, wand of magic detection, and rope of climbing

The underlined bits are the most relevant aspects of this party. As noted, between 1 and 2 you have the spells. 10 and 12 are back-up casters to cover incidental healing and to load up on monster summoning for trap finding. 3 is one of the few character types who can physically harm the demi-lich. While he doesn't have the weapon necessary to do so (none of the pregens do) he does have a permanent source of magical flame to deal with the fake lich's webs- and anything else that needs burning. As for a weapon to hit the demi-lich with, he's got a 1 in 3 chance to grab the right one in the crypt- unfortunately he's screwed if he grabs the wrong one AND those aren't good odds.

Item-wise, in addition to the flaming sword, you've got a large bag of holding for all your loot OR any supplies/mining equipment you'd care to bring (it IS carried by a dwarf). Boots of levitation for floating over all those pits. A wand of magic detection for liberal, paranoid use (and subsequent disappointment/annoyance since it simply won't work half the frakking time!). Finally, a rope of climbing to act as a 60' hand extension, to easily snag any runaway floaters (which we'll cover in the next room), or to tie off those summoned trap-finders- in case the paladin has a problem with your trap-finding methods.

Finally, you've also got a dwarf and a half-elf for all their racial detection abilities. Half-elves are as good as elves at finding secret doors. I'd have preferred an extra elf-type, since finding those doors is so vital, but all the others have fairly useless gear compared to the ones I picked. Plus you have true-seeing AND knock available. Knock will open secret doors even if you haven't "found" them- for those areas where you'll know one is there.

 

[jonesy]

Can a thief do anything with/to this door?

A 1st edition thief? He could try hiding in its shadow.

Depending on whether you consider the slot system to be a lock you could allow one to figure out how it works. Or at least figure out that the keys are swords.


I described the door to a friend who'd never done the Tomb, and he said he would have assumed that there were three specific swords in the Tomb that the party would need to find, not just any swords.


Hmm. About the nature of the door:

24. ADAMANTITE DOOR: Although it is marked secret, it is very evident; the marking is simply to make certain that its actual nature is known.

The description of the Knock spell says:

The knock spell will open stuck or held or wizard-locked doors. It will also open barred or otherwise locked doors. It causes secret doors to open.

Is that what the description of the door is referring to?

Edit: probably not now that I think about it, since the timeline of the books being published doesn't really make it possible.

 

[Bullgrit]

And why is this marked "S" for secret on the map? "To make certain that its actual nature is known." What the hell does that mean?

I always figured that was referring to the fact that this wasn't just a normal door -- that the door itself was the numbered area, not the hallway. At the time this was written/published, D&D dungeon maps legends only had two door symbols -- the little rectangle and the S. (Later, they added a dot in the little rectangle to represent a locked door, which would have been good for this situation.)

But even so, using the S to show this is an unusual door is kind of silly considering there are other unusual doors in the Tomb that don't use the S -- they just use a number.

You know how when you are writing up an adventure for your own personal use, how you write information and descriptions and notes in sort of incomplete ways? You know the details in your head, and really all you need on paper in front of you at the game session is little reminders. You might have a locked door in one room, with the key hidden in another room. You might not write in your notes for either room that the door and key are related, because you just know it. You don't need that level of detail for your own use -- you *know* your adventure.

I think Tomb of Horrors suffers a bit from this kind of "writing for oneself" mindset. For example, I bet Gygax could exactly explain how he intended things like this juggernaut trap to work. But he was used to writing up dungeons for his own personal use, and so was used to writing up just napkin-sketch-like descriptions.

ToH was one of the very first he wrote up for use by others, so he probably didn't really appreciate the need for full detail, yet. It's obvious that he tried to write for an audience other than him, but he didn't go far enough.

D&D/RPG tournaments were still pretty new at the time of ToH. So what we're seeing here, with the vagueness of much of the write up for the Tomb is simply a result of the lack of experience (for *everyone*) with writing D&D adventures for use by a wide audience.

And again, this vagueness is probably all cool for a home game where most DMs just wanted a base frame to put their own details on. But for a tournament game, especially one billed as an ultimate test of Player skill compared to each other, the bare and vague information is actually a problem.

Bullgrit

 

[jmucchiello]

Can a thief do anything with/to this door?

He can state unequivocally that he doesn't think the door is trapped.

 

[Stoat]

This week is shaping up to be a heller for me, and Area 25 is complicated. I won't get to it until Saturday at the earliest.

So let me ask a subquestion: The Tomb of Horrors was originally a tournament module. A few posters have suggested that playing the module at a con might be different than playing it at home.

I've played any number of con games, but my only experience with tournament games has been playing the Cheesegrinder at Dragon*Con. What would the difference be between playing through the Tomb in a tournament and playing it through it in your basement. Obviously, there would be a time limit at the con, but is there anything else that would be different?

 

[Freakohollik]

I've never played in a con, but you'd be forced to use the PreGens. In a home game, you'd probably use your own character.

 

[pemerton]

I've played in con tournaments - both D&D and Chaosium games - but the criteria for scoring generally had heavy characterisation elements, and much more global success criteria than the detailed scoring rules I've seen in other early D&D tournament modules (eg the Ghost Tower).

I think the time limit would make a big difference, given what this thread has shown about the pedantic style of play needed to systematically progress through the tomb. But the pressure to adopt that style would be great, given that PC deaths, having PCs lose their equipment, etc are all the sorts of things one would expect to count against you in a tournament.