FoxWander said:
How hard the riddle is to discover depends on how the DM plays it.
Yeah, this is an unfortunate aspect of this whole module. How the DM adjudicates the material – how much he deviates from the text as written, how easy or hard he makes it – can have a lot of influence on how well the PCs do in the Tomb.
FoxWander said:
If every "trick and trap requires taking precautions and protections, and then just testing" how is that not figuring things out?
True, but see below.
FoxWander said:
I counted at least 18 save-or-die obstacles (mostly poison- either spikes or asps, but a few others) which isn't really deadly given the saves at this level. But there are at least three TPKs that simply require making the wrong choice or getting unlucky. That's a lot of near certain death for one dungeon.
Good point. But I was taking issue with “
utterly unmerciful and unforgiving.” Utterly = entirely, fully, wholly, totally. There’s a lot of non-lethal tricks and traps in the Tomb.
FoxWander said:
It's VERY possible to go thru the entire Tomb with hardly a scratch
Really, “VERY possible”? Maybe the one coward of the group, who hangs back and doesn’t actually do anything but follow the others after they’ve done the dangerous trial and error work. I just don’t see how it is even remotely possible . . . unless we have drastically different ideas of what is “hardly a scratch.”
FoxWander said:
I'd say, a lot of whether one thinks this is a "thinking person's dungeon" (as the module claims) depends on if one considers the "bomb-squad thinking" as a sufficient level of thinking to fulfill that claim.
Yeah, I’ll agree that bomb-squad thinking is thinking. But then, tactical thinking in hack-and-slash combat is thinking, too. It’s just that the “thinking” vibe the intro to this module gives, and the “thinking” hype that people who hold this module up as a brilliant masterpiece give, seems completely different to the “thinking” actually required by the adventure.
I mean, my idea of “thinking” is that given two doors, the Players can figure out from clues and hints and such which is the correct door to open and move through. But the “thinking” in this module is not in figuring out which door to open, but how to mitigate all the potential traps both doors will spring on you.
FoxWander said:
This dungeon is set up to give the players NOTHING. They will have to think and try and test at every obstacle to move forward.
Yes, I agree. But the quotes I was responding to above all suggest, (or outright state), that the dungeon is set up to give the Players EVERYTHING, and they just have to pay attention and figure out the clues/riddles/hints.
Stoat said:
Would you count the poem held by the gargoyle in Area 8 as a "riddle"?
I forgot about that one. Probably because we couldn’t figure out if it was actually a clue riddle or non-sense red herring.
Stoat said:
Most of the folks who were advocating that Acererak plays fair seem to have dropped out of the discussion. I'd really like to hear from them. I would love it if there was an over-arching pattern or series of hidden clues or whatever that would allow cunning PC's to solve the ToH. But so far, I'm not really seeing it.
Yeah, I noticed their absence, also.
Bullgrit