1st-level characters in the Tomb of Horrors

DM_Matt said:
The fact that this is even debatable is a testament to how bad the module is, in that its so grossly unfair and arbitrary that the actual rules of the game have minimal impact on the mechanical outcomes.

Actually, its my feeling that Tomb of Horrors is the least arbitrary module ever written, precisely because we can have this argument. The outcome of Tomb of Horrors depends almost entirely on what you choose to do, and almost not at all on how the dice fall.

Modules like 'Nightfang Spire' and 'Return to the Tomb' of horrors are more arbitrary and to a certain extent IMO more unfair because even if you play well, at some point your fate is going to be solely in the hands of a single dice throw. Roll well, live. Roll badly, die. Rince and repeat about 10 times in succession. Claiming this is more fair is like claiming that craps or blackjack is more fair than chess or checkers.
 

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DM_Matt said:
Call me a newfangled ruleslawyer munchkin with no respect for the rules-light simulationist good old days where DM power made outsiders mistake them for cult leaders and the standard adventure was a dungeon with separate rooms and levels with no coherant ecosystem, no coherant story, and often ,creatures in rooms they couldnt fit through the door to get into, but...

Ok. You've got no respect. That's pretty apparant. Your lack of respect for what is considered by many to be one of the finest modules ever written doesn't become you.

...the existance of consistant rules is important for a functioning game.

Yes, but the ToH does depend on consistant rules. It's one of the easiest and fairest tournament modules you can run because everything that can happen is spelled out. By comparison, most modules are impossible to run in a fair fashion because any two DM's rulings will be so different. Thus, ToH doesn't in fact depend much on DM whim.

Without rules, everything is a railroad because everything is DM whim.

Pretty much everything is at some level DM whim.

...parts of the module are unavoidable flat random chance unfairness, such as the juggernaut.

I've already in this thread described the simple and wholly reasonable procedure that successfully gets you past the juggernaut even if you miss the secret door (which you shouldn't, because you aren't under time pressure, remember?).

...parts of the module are quite arbitrary.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. In fact, the module is quite deterministic. That and the fact that it is harsh (its a tournament module at its heart) may be your problem with it.

...parts of the module are not about being smart at all. They are about simulating the kind of physical reactions that saving throws and ability checks are for, such as everyone must do this before you count to five in your head or all the PCs die garbage.

You're simply wrong. And thinking fast and decisively is about being smart.

...character power should matter for outcomes for the world to make any sense.

In the real world, frequently it doesn't.
 

DM_Matt said:
Call me a newfangled ruleslawyer munchkin with no respect for the rules-light simulationist good old days where DM power made outsiders mistake them for cult leaders and the standard adventure was a dungeon with separate rooms and levels with no coherant ecosystem, no coherant story, and often ,creatures in rooms they couldnt fit through the door to get into, but...
Matt, it looks like you're singlehandedly working to get the ban on edition war posts reinstated. Let's not do that.

Sarcasm is beloved by many, but you're going out of your way both to insult the older editions and the people who ran them. I see little reason to tolerate that. Rein your posts back, please, and express yourself without the associated insults.

As always, if this is somehow a problem, please email me.

Everyone else -- you're free to agree or disagree with Matt's opinion, but please don't turn this into a personal argument by attacking Matt himself. That's not okay, either.
 

DM_Matt said:
...the existance of consistant rules is important for a functioning game. The lack of rules is simply an excuse for DM powertripping. Without rules, everything is a railroad because everything is DM whim.
As well as not applying much to S1, this is just paranoid. Of everything that happens in an RPG campaign, very little of it depends on the rules. Geography, what groups and individual NPCs exist, what their capabilities are and what they do, the layout of dungeons, is all 'DM whim'. And unless the DM is incompetent, or the campaign follows a model in which players have greater say over settings and events than D&D assumes, that's just how it should be.
 

Piratecat said:
Matt, it looks like you're singlehandedly working to get the ban on edition war posts reinstated. Let's not do that.

Sarcasm is beloved by many, but you're going out of your way both to insult the older editions and the people who ran them. I see little reason to tolerate that. Rein your posts back, please, and express yourself without the associated insults.

As always, if this is somehow a problem, please email me.

Everyone else -- you're free to agree or disagree with Matt's opinion, but please don't turn this into a personal argument by attacking Matt himself. That's not okay, either.

Sorry about that, I didn't read that recent spate of edition wars threads so I kinda forgot it was a touchy subject.
 

Celebrim said:
Ok. You've got no respect. That's pretty apparant. Your lack of respect for what is considered by many to be one of the finest modules ever written doesn't become you.

I am going to avoid continuing a flame war about this by not going point by point or anything like that. I will say though that a while back, after a bunch of ToH controversy threads, a poll on Enworld showed pretty divided opinion on whether or not it is a good module.
 

OK, having just skimmed through the module (which, since it's only 12 pp, didn't take long) I spotted the following things that would make this module as-written impossible (or at least practically so) for 1st level characters:

1) the 4-armed gargoyle in area 8 -- this thing has way too many hp and does way too much damage for a 1st level party to have any chance against it in combat; there are a couple of ways to bypass this area (ending up in area 7 and taking the secret passage to area 13, or going through the archway to area 11), but I don't consider either of those alternatives particularly realistic, because they both involve messing around with the archway, and IME a party foolhardy enough to be doing that is also likely to be doing other risky/foolhardy things that will get them killed sooner or later. A party that manages to avoid this area has done so by being lucky rather than smart (IMO), and luck will only take you so far in this module. Through this room and area 9 (#2 below) is IMO by far the safest/"smartest" route through the dungeon.

2) the magic bolts in area 9 -- each round spent in this room a magic bolt unerring strikes a random character for 1-6 damage unless he saves vs. spells; this is only a minor annoyance to high level characters (so long as they don't dawdle here), but is likely fatal to 1st levels (even if they're able to solve each secret door in a single round (very unlikely) that's still 7 attacks). This area can (theoretically) be avoided in the same ways as #1 above.

3) the stone gate in area 15 -- requires a magic ring to open; 1st level characters aren't likely to have a magic ring (unless they retrived it from area 13 -- but doing so would mean they'd foolishly have exposed them to the dangers of that room, which would almost certainly have killed them) whereas high level characters probably have at least one such ring, even if they're smart enough to have avoided room 13

4) the magical secret door in area 17 -- requires a gem of seeing (which can be gotten from area 11) or similar magic to "pinpoint the magic aura" and then a dispel magic or remove curse spell (both of which are well beyond the capabilities of 1st level spell-casters, and aren't found on any scrolls within the dungeon) to actually open -- this is the one truly insurmountable obstacle, because while 1-3 above are possible (if unlikely) for a 1st level party to successfully avoid/pass, this isn't -- you either have to have a cleric or magic-user of high enough
level to cast 3rd level spells or go home.

5) Acererak himself in area 33 -- a 1st level party doesn't have access to any of the spells that affect the demilich, and while conceivably a paladin could use the +4 sword found within the tomb and a thief could sling gems, considering the skull's -6 AC it's extraordinarily unlikely they could kill it before it had killed the entire party; however, while a 1st level party can't "beat" Acererak in combat, they can easily avoid combat with him -- steal his treasure and leave; which, for a party of 1st level characters in a level 10-14 module is certainly "victory enough"!

I distinctly remember fudging #2 when I ran this module for 1st level characters back in the 80s (I made the damage 1 point per bolt instead of 1-6); I obviously must've fudged #4, and probably fudged #1 and 3 as well, but I don't remember doing so specifically. My decision to fudge #2 was based on the fact that I wanted the fate of these characters to rest on their own decisions rather than arbitrary dice rolls.

The key to these players' success was that they were very careful about searching for traps and secret doors (and did so in ways that didn't rely on random die-rolls to succeed), and very good about avoiding red herrings and taking unnecessary risks. As I said before, I was fully expecting the module to kill these characters off in nothing flat (I rather assumed they wouldn't even make it past the first corridor -- and might not even make it to the first corridor!), and was amazed at how well they did -- which I'm sure is why I decided to fudge area 17 and allow them to keep going even without the necessary spells, because by that point they'd so exceeded my expectations that I was excited and wanted to see how far they could go, and didn't want to antclimactically and arbitrarily halt their progress over something completely independent of their level of play.

So, to answer the original question: no a party of 1st level characters can't "win" this module as-written, absolutely because of #4 (and very likely because of #1-3 and 5), but those are the only reasons, and only one of them is truly absolute -- everything else in the module is fully within the capability of well-played 1st level characters. And, probably needless to say, I definitely count myself as one who considers this a sign of how good the module is, not how bad it is.
 


T. Foster said:
The one issue that actually stands out most in my mind as needing nerfing for 1st level characters is the room very early on where the party has to open a series of secret doors and every round a magic missile strikes one of the party members for automatic damage.

Why the crap does this seem to happen every time the ToH is brought up?
I swear to God, gamers have more myths and misconceptions than gun nuts. A Desert Eagle/12 gauge pistol will break your wrist if you fire it one handed. The ToH has lots of no-save traps.

Those are supposed to be arrows, not magic missiles. Magic missiles could be stopped by a Shield spell or a brooch of shielding.

Edit: And what's with this idea that there's all these no save traps around? IIRC, everything in the module gets you a chance to avoid it somehow. It seems a lot of people had :):):):):):):) DMs who modified the module.

The false entrances might kill you, but if you're of high enough level, you'll probably only be killed by an unlucky amount of damage on the crushing ceiling trap, and you can run back from it.

Well, except the juggernaut, but there might be another path you can take...
 
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VirgilCaine said:
Those are supposed to be arrows, not magic missiles. Magic missiles could be stopped by a Shield spell or a brooch of shielding.
You did see the post two above yours, right? Where the same poster already specifies that they're bolts?

Cause, y'know, just checking.
 

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