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

[jonesy]

There's also the "Low and high for gold, to find a tale untold" riddle from Area 8. Back in the summer, Celebrim and Raven Crowking had essentially opposite interpretations of that one. Anybody want to try and parse it out now?

It goes:
“Look low and high for gold, to hear a tale untold. The archway at the end, and on your way you’ll wend.”

Celebrim's interpretation was basically that it was about the arch in area 5, and that it was itself a puzzle (which it is).

RC's version was that it's about the gold sphere leading to area 11, and also a warning about the arch in area 10A.


Well, what golden things are there in the Tomb?
- The gold sphere in area 10, which leads to area 11.
- The gold (but plate over iron only) chest in the chamber of the three chests, with the snakes.
- The mace at the foot of the stairwell to the false crypt.
- The solid gold couch in the false crypt.
- Golden key halves in area 19.
- The tapestries in the agitated chamber. (they are both green and gold)

There are others, but they are so late it mostly likely has nothing to do with them.

I think RC's interpretation hits closest to home. There's both a golden thingy and an arch in area 10 (and the arch is 'at the end').

But whether the party realizes that the arch is a trap from the clue is another matter. As warnings go 'The archway at the end, and on your way you’ll wend' is as vague as you can get.

 

[Stoat]

It goes:
But whether the party realizes that the arch is a trap from the clue is another matter. As warnings go 'The archway at the end, and on your way you’ll wend' is as vague as you can get.

I can't get behind the idea that "on your way you'll wend" is any kind of warning. It's too vague.

 

[Stoat]

Area 33. The Crypt of Acererak the Demi-Lich

Huzzah! The "stone-sheathed adamntite slab" from Area 32 slowly descends into the floor, revealing at long last the fabled Crypt of Acererak. What horrors lurk within?

"The smallish 10' x20' burial vault has an arched ceiling with a 25' peak. There is absolutely nothing in the room."

Oh.

There is a divot about two feet square and a few inches deep in the middle of the floor. If you look close, you'll see a tiny keyhole in the middle of the divot. Maybe you should put the FIRST KEY there?

BOOM! Using the FIRST KEY causes a devastating explosion! You are blown smack up against the ceiling Wile E. Coyote style, taking 5d6 points of damage. That'll teach you to put keys into keyholes!

To open the divot, put the SECOND KEY (the one from Area 28) into the keyhole.

Turn the SECOND KEY three times to the right. If you don't nothing will ever happen. If you do, the floor underneath you will buckle and pitch upward at tremendous speed! All but the northernmost five feet of the room is rising toward the ceiling, fast. The DM should count to 5. Anybody who hasn't moved to safety at the end of the count is smooshed up against the ceiling.

Turns out there was a mithril vault under the floor. It is 10 feet wide and 15 feet long. The door to vault, I absolutely kid you not, is unlocked and untrapped. You can pull it open at absolutely no risk to yourself. Go ahead, quit screwing around and open it.

Inside, is this:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ToH_Gallery/ToHGraphic33.jpg

There's loot here: Gems and a ton of magic items. All of your stuff that you lost in the teleporting arches is here too. Also 2 cursed swords and 1 cursed spear of backbiting, because Acererak is not going to not screw you over at the last minute.

If any of the treasure in the crypt is touched, the dust in the crypt swirls into the air and forms the shape of a man. It advances and threatens the party, but does not attack. It never will attack. It just goads the PC's into attacking it. If they whale on it enough, the dust turns into a ghost. The 14th level pregen cleric can turn the Ghost if he rolls 7 or better on a d20. Otherwise, IIRC, ghosts are pretty nasty monsters to fight. So leave it alone and just scoop all the loot up into a sack.

Finally, Acererak himself is here. Ain't he handsome?

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/ToH_Gallery/ToHGraphic33a.jpg

Acererak won't bother you if you don't bother him. Let me repeat that. Nothing bad will happen if you leave the skull alone. However, "if any character is so foolish as to touch the skull of the demi-lich, a terrible thing occurs." The skull floats up into the air and automatically drains one PC's soul. The PC dies. Acererak settles back down, "sated." He will only attack a second time if you keep hassling him. Every time anybody touches or attacks the skull, it pops up and murders somebody. But it only attacks in retaliation. If you leave it alone, you can loot the tomb in peace.

Acererak can only be killed by a handful of spells that I would never think to cast and by a handful of magic weapons that can't be found in the Tomb. If anybody ever killed him, then either (a) they entered the Tomb twinked out with powerful magic weapons; or (b) they straight up cheated.

IMO: This business with the FIRST KEY and the SECOND KEY wears me out. Sometimes trying a key blasts you across the room, sometimes trying a key is the only way forward. There is never, ever any indication which it is. AND if you guess wrong, Gary Gygax will make fun of you.

I don't know that there's much to say about Mr. A. Take the loot and leave him alone. The skull is blinged out with all kinds of valuable gems, so it makes sense that somebody would try to grab it. But after the skull kills one PC, why keep fooling around with it? Oh, it killed two of you. Why not leave it alone? Whoops! Three down. It's the same sort of "stop hitting yourself" dynamic that causes entire parties to feed themselves to the GGD.

And Acererak's vulnerabilities are weird. A ranger with a Sword of Sharpness can hurt him. A fighter with the same weapon is screwed. A magic-user casting Power Word Kill is wasting his time, unless he becomes ethereal or astral first. Then, the spell will automatically kill Mr. A.

So that's it. I have a few concluding thoughts about the module. I'll post them next week. Y'all have a Merry Christmas in the meantime.

 

[jonesy]

And so, into the crypt stepped the remnants of the late paranoid wizards party.

A cleric, a fighter, and the rogue who'd barely escaped the wizards fireball staff rampage in the vat room.

All through this time the fighter had done nothing to contribute to the exploration. This was because he'd been carrying something between his hands that he'd found earlier in the Tomb. Something he'd sworn would prove to be useful. Something he himself had been cursing ever since he'd stepped into it. Earlier he'd had the wizard help him remove it onto a blanket, which he'd then been carefully holding.

But all this was fine with the cleric and the rogue who'd managed to survive the entire way while their party got smaller and smaller. They'd outwitted the Tomb, they'd survived.

And then the cleric died from opening the door to the crypt.

And then the mountain of wisdom and luck that the rogue had been up to this point goes and picks up the skull. And the fighters player is shouting "No! No! Put it down!"

And the rogue stumbles back, and the skull rises, and then..

..the fighter throws the web that was impervious to everything except magical fire and wishes over the skull. The web, and the blanket he'd been carrying it plastered on.

And then we had to stall the ending of the game as we pondered whether Acererak could see through the blanket or not. Or if he'd even react to the web being on him as the text talks about someone touching or striking. Could he brake free? He doesn't have access to wishes or he'd done something with them. Can he cast fire spells? No mention of anything like that. The web was stuck over him, and the blanket over them. Can you blind a demilich? But he might still be able to sense the characters through them, and do the soul sucking thing. The text in the module was very little help.

In the end it was pointless when we realized that it was the fighter whose soul Acererak wanted, and he acts instantaneously (since he chooses a mage over a fighter over a cleric over a thief).

So, interesting idea and all, and good job getting the web there and trying to use it, but the moment the skull rose the fighter went down and so did the web, and got stuck to the floor and itself.

And the rogue ran and never looked back.

 

[Votan]

A magic-user casting Power Word Kill is wasting his time, unless he becomes ethereal or astral first. Then, the spell will automatically kill Mr. A.

I always found this to be especially odd. Does power word kill normally work on undead? And what is this astral/ethereal stuff? Few magic users are going to be 18th level and have memorized this spell to fight a Lich. To go astral you really need two ninth level spells . . .

It seems mostly to be have been included to be able to say "there is at least one way to kill the demi-lich with a single action".

As for other approaches, even with a boa load of magic weapons does it really seem likely that the party will outlast the demilich? Unless you happen to know precisely what to do, experimentation will be disasterous.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Don't forget the crown and scepter solution!

 

[jonesy]

I always found this to be especially odd. Does power word kill normally work on undead? And what is this astral/ethereal stuff? Few magic users are going to be 18th level and have memorized this spell to fight a Lich. To go astral you really need two ninth level spells . . .

Astral Spell (Evocation) is a ninth level spell.

Astral Spell (Alteration) is a seventh level spell.

 

[Bullgrit]

Area 33. The Crypt of Acererak the Demi-Lich

This is perhaps the worst case of Wall of Text in all D&D module history. This is one of the most complicated encounters in D&D publication, and it is explained in only a few dense, long paragraphs, filling a complete full page, (two columns).

"The smallish 10' x20' burial vault has an arched ceiling with a 25' peak. There is absolutely nothing in the room."

Oh.

Yeah, kind of anticlimatic after the designer said about opening the previous door, "There can be no real doubt that the end of the adventure -- one way or another -- is near."

Turn the SECOND KEY three times to the right.

If the riddle/poem at the beginning of the Tomb were useful, (made sense), the combination here should be turning two times to the left. But no.

The door to vault, I absolutely kid you not, is unlocked and untrapped. You can pull it open at absolutely no risk to yourself. Go ahead, quit screwing around and open it.

LOL!

Inside, is this:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/To...HGraphic33.jpg

There's loot here: Gems and a ton of magic items. All of your stuff that you lost in the teleporting arches is here too.

*Here* is where the earlier note belongs. "There can be no real doubt that the end of the adventure -- one way or another -- is near." This area looks like the end.

If any of the treasure in the crypt is touched, the dust in the crypt swirls into the air and forms the shape of a man. It advances and threatens the party, but does not attack. It never will attack. It just goads the PC's into attacking it. If they whale on it enough, the dust turns into a ghost. The 14th level pregen cleric can turn the Ghost if he rolls 7 or better on a d20. Otherwise, IIRC, ghosts are pretty nasty monsters to fight. So leave it alone and just scoop all the loot up into a sack.

I think the odds of the PCs fighting this thing depend on how the DM describes and plays the scene, especially compared to how he has described and played monster encounters before, (in this Tomb and in his campaign). And how intent he is on tricking the Players/PCs into fighting it.

Acererak won't bother you if you don't bother him. Let me repeat that. Nothing bad will happen if you leave the skull alone. However, "if any character is so foolish as to touch the skull of the demi-lich, a terrible thing occurs." The skull floats up into the air and automatically drains one PC's soul. The PC dies. Acererak settles back down, "sated." He will only attack a second time if you keep hassling him. Every time anybody touches or attacks the skull, it pops up and murders somebody. But it only attacks in retaliation. If you leave it alone, you can loot the tomb in peace.

To put the temptation in perspective: the jewels set in the skull are worth a total of 130,000gp. That's a pretty hefty gp and xp score in a pretty small, (and easily portable), package.

And then the mountain of wisdom and luck that the rogue had been up to this point goes and picks up the skull. And the fighters player is shouting "No! No! Put it down!"
<snip>
In the end it was pointless when we realized that it was the fighter whose soul Acererak wanted, and he acts instantaneously (since he chooses a mage over a fighter over a cleric over a thief).

Acererak's choice of "most powerful" classes is kind of odd. In A's, (Gygax's?), estimation, magic-user > fighter > cleric > thief. Is it ironic that the class most likely to disturb A's skull is the last to be targeted for destruction by the skull?

But after the skull kills one PC, why keep fooling around with it?

I think this will again depend on how the DM describes and plays the skull rising and draining. The text says the skull rises and scans the party before draining, and then goes back to rest. If the DM describes the skull going back to rest immediately, I could see it killing only one PC. But if the DM has a pause between the soul drain and the going to rest, I could see the Players/PCs assuming it will continue to kill unless it is stopped. In that case, I could see a TPK coming from the battle. (Does touching with a weapon or spell count to activate the skull's retribution?)

What if the PCs scoop up the skull in a bag of holding or something? I'm picturing an Indiana Jones slight of hand maneuver, <swip> "Got it. Let's go."

And Acererak's vulnerabilities are weird. A ranger with a Sword of Sharpness can hurt him. A fighter with the same weapon is screwed. A magic-user casting Power Word Kill is wasting his time, unless he becomes ethereal or astral first. Then, the spell will automatically kill Mr. A.

Yeah, the very specific weaknesses of the demi-lich are really weird. Not only the spells, and the fighter-ranger-paladin weapon choices, but a thief using a crypt gem does 1 hp damage per 10,000gp value of the gem -- but only one of the 3 gems found in the crypt, (valued at 10k, 50k, and 100k, so a total of 16 hp damage possible that way)?

Bullgrit

 

[Hussar]

Acererak's choice of "most powerful" classes is kind of odd. In A's, (Gygax's?), estimation, magic-user > fighter > cleric > thief. Is it ironic that the class most likely to disturb A's skull is the last to be targeted for destruction by the skull?

Funny how even in 1976, it was recognized that wizards were the top of the heap for power.

IIRC, didn't a holy avenger or +5 weapons do full damage? It's been many, many years, but, we did this adventure after doing G/D/Q and my paladin had a holy avenger and a hammer of thunderbolts (hey, sue me, we were like 12 years old ). As I recall, we smooshed the skull in one round. Hammer dumps out like 50 points of damage in a hit and at +5 (plus another 3 for gauntlets plus another 4 or 5 for girdle of giant strength which the hammer lets you stack) the odds of me missing were very, very small.

 

[amerigoV]

F It's been many, many years, but, we did this adventure after doing G/D/Q and my paladin had a holy avenger and a hammer of thunderbolts (hey, sue me, we were like 12 years old ). As I recall, we smooshed the skull in one round. Hammer dumps out like 50 points of damage in a hit and at +5 (plus another 3 for gauntlets plus another 4 or 5 for girdle of giant strength which the hammer lets you stack) the odds of me missing were very, very small.

I cannot XP you, but a legit roll on the treasure tables resulting in a Hammer of Thunderbolts for my PC later resulted in the DM putting big "Xs" through much of the DMG treasure system

Good times.

Merry Christmas Acererak!