Tomb of Horrors - your experiences?

[The Grumpy Celt]

Never plays ToH. I am interested in Return to the Toh. What is its story and how hard is it?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

There is a map the party will find on the body of a dead cleric in the current adventure. It will show a tomb and be splattered with old, dried blood. They can go there if they want, but I'm not going to make them do it.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Best Module Ever

I have been DMing since 1980, well, I took some time off during the whole 2nd edition thing, however, I love this adventure.

As a player, I had a rogue named Robillard who hired Ogres as henchmen, along with the rest of a standard party, and out of 11 PC's and 8 Ogres, we managed to walk away with myself, the two fighters and a mage, who waited outside during the final battle since he was wounded and the cleric died fighting the fake lich.

As for running it, I love it, not because it is a death trap, but because it is a thinking persons module. By the time your characters get to a level were they can even begin to compete, they are most likely overloaded with gear that you have given them, to much loot is a common problem and modules like this are perfect ways to destroy the one or two items that you should have known that they should not have. It is also a good time to up grade their equipment with treasure rewards for good play and style. I personally add to the module a few rooms of my own, but I greatly increase the treasure at the end.

If I allow them to use their main characters, I offer them the chance to get henchmen and I also give them a strike or two, unknown to them, to help them along, so if they die, it is like a second chance. It is also a good chance for the characters to bond because, now more than before, they have to work together and think of solutions that they have not come up with before.

As a notice of warning to DMs planing on running your characters through this, give them a few items that will come in handy for the final battle, if you notice the sample characters in the back, none of them have anything that could even hurt the thing. Also, don't try and upgrade the Lich to that presented in the Epic level handbook, they will just die that much faster.

The Return To the Tomb of Horror is a hoot. I have yet to run anyone through it, but I have read it, it is just as hard and as note worthy as the first. Basically, the demi-lich is not dead, you have to travel to the home demi plane of the lich to kill him. It is a good story and looks like fun to play/DM, if you can find someone willing to go there after they have cheated death in the first one.

Everyone so far has declined.

 

[Orius]

Never plays ToH. I am interested in Return to the Toh. What is its story and how hard is it?

Here goes:

[sblock]Long ago, a balor named Tarnhelm impregnated a human woman named Valinda. acererak was that child. While he was still a child, mother was murdered, and he was only able to survive because of his fiendish heritage. He become a powerful wizard and eventually a lich.
Eventually, he learned of a way to merge his consciousness with the Negative Energy Plane, and by doing so he would be able to control all undead everywhere. In order to ascend to this state of being, he needs to use essence of 2692 souls, and he has almost all the souls he needs at this point. The Tomb is only the first part of an elaborate process he's using to weed out the weakest souls; only the most worthy make it to the heart of his Fortress of Conclusion, the unworthy die in the Tomb, Moil, an evil city that was long ago cursed by Orcus, and the Fortress. He also learned who his demon father was, and he has Tarnhelm imprisoned in the Fortess, and through him he controls a number of demonic servants. These include the demons that show up if you go astral in the tomb, other demons have the task of resetting his traps for each new group of adventurers that find his tomb.
Because Acererak is so close to becoming one with the Negative Energy Plane, the area near his tomb is becoming charged with a lot of negative energy. As a result, a group of evil necromancers called the Black Academy have set up shop right outside the tomb, where they have a small city built. They are unaware of Acererak's plot, though they know it's his tomb. The actions of the Black Academy is the hook that draws the unfortunate PCs into the adventure[/sblock]

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

The Return To the Tomb of Horror is a hoot. I have yet to run anyone through it, but I have read it, it is just as hard and as note worthy as the first. Basically, the demi-lich is not dead, you have to travel to the home demi plane of the lich to kill him. It is a good story and looks like fun to play/DM, if you can find someone willing to go there after they have cheated death in the first one.

The thing I notice with Return to the Tomb of Horrors is that the rules aren't bent and broken in favor of the tomb nearly as much...like, for example, from one thing in the original, "See Invisibility does not work to see this invisible item."

Brad

 

[Zappo]

So, it's an unfair, frustrating death trap with lots of spectacular ways to get killed and little else. Uhm, is there a 3e conversion somewhere?

 

[Davelozzi]

My experience with this module was very short. This was when I was very young (probably about 6-7 years old) and didn't yet have any D&D stuff of my own but I knew some older kids who played and always wanted to. A friend & I begged and pleaded his older brother to run a D&D game for us but he didn't want to. Finally, he relented -- sort of. He had us roll up first level characters (I remember my friend crying when he rolled a low intelligence score and his brother told him he was stupid). Then he sent us into the Tomb of Horrors. Actually, we never made it inside the real tomb. We went into one of the false entrances and were instantly killed, and the adventure was over as soon as it began.

A year or two after that I bought some D&D stuff of my own and never looked back, but I never owned Tomb of Horrors until I got the facsimile copy in Return To.... I quickly read the original module at that time but never ran it. I should pull it out and re-read it to form a more educated opinion.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Okay, for all thos fans of The Tomb of Horrors, I have a special treat for you. My campaign that I run is having the PCs run through this right now. They are about a fourth of the way through it now, and I am taking notes, as I always do, of the sessions. You can read the past sessions notes here:

The Tomb Of Horrors

The first fifteen posts are story like session notes leading up up to The Tomb of Horrors. I have just begun to sort through the notes for the actual Tomb, so tune in and read them when I post them. There has been some changes that I made, added in traps and such, and yes, there has been death.

Anyway, see how they do, check in from time to time. We play every other tuesday night, so once I get the thread updated to where they are now, you can just check back every two weeks for updates. Hope you enjoy, I know the PCs hate it.

 

[Plane Sailing]

My friend pulled it out in the 80s, we made characters, then he said "I can't run you through this, there is no point to it. Its just random no save death traps with no ways to figure them out leading to a party screw ending." So I came close but never entered the tomb of horrors.

I bought it but never really ran it becaue I felt the same as your friend. (I did a half-hearted attempt once that ended up with a lot of naked characters)

The most fun I had from it was colouring in the pictures in the picture book with my coloured pencils.

(Hey, I like colouring.)

 

[Lord Ipplepop]

I both played and DM's this. My post is the same as everyone else's. Many a favored character was sent unto his/her deity.
This is, by far, my absolute favorite module of all time. I hated the work up WotC did on it, and spent the time to do it myself.

I do an after school group with the local middle school doing 2ed. I am going to end the campaign with this one.