D&D 5E Advice for running Tomb of Horrors with a twist (+)

[pemerton]

I don’t think that’s gonna work for me, since that leaves open the possibility of making the tomb impossible to complete.

In the original, that was when true seeing spells/effects, wands of secret door and trap detection, etc would be brought out!

Of course, if you run out of charges, or have your high-level cleric or illusionist die, then there is the possibility of non-completion. That is an aspect of Gygax-style "competitive"/"skilled player" RPGing.

I don't have think I have much advice on how to make this work in 5e, sorry. I don't think that ToH is a great venue for "rescue the prisoners"-type scenarios (which would make time matter). You could go with no retries, but then if the players run out of options they have to probe the aether for an answer (a type of deus ex machina) which triggers an encounter with demons as per the module, and when they defeat the demons the demons give them the answer/info they need? You'd need to tell the players up-front that probing the aether is a thing, but a potentially dangerous/costly thing.

 

[Charlaquin]

Weird question: the four-armed statue activates when three large gems are placed - one in each of its still-attached hands, at which point it crushes all three gems. 10 gems must be sacrificed this way to acquire the stone of true seeing from the fourth hand, and conveniently the gargoyle’s collar has 10 appropriately-sized gems on it. Great, cool, love that concept. Just one small problem: 10 isn’t divisible by 3.

Activating the statue 3 times would only result in 9 gems being sacrificed, but activating it a 4th time would bring the total up to 12. So even if the PCs get the gargoyle’s collar, they’ll need to sacrifice two additional gems (which they’ll either need to have brought with them, or backtrack to complete this puzzle after having found more gems deeper in the dungeon) to activate it the 4th time, right? But in that case, why specify that 10 gems need to be sacrificed rather than 12? As far as I can tell, there is no way to sacrifice exactly 10 gems. Unless the PCs are supposed to destroy two of the statue’s arms or something? Can anybody shed some light on this for me?

 

[MNblockhead]

If you are going lighthearted, take a page our of Paranoia. The powerful all-knowing computer--I mean lich--that lured the party to the tomb has a practically unlimited number of clones of each character. When a PC dies, the clone is teleported to the same spot to loot the body and continue. Start at a lower than recommend level, but with each cloning the new PC clone has a more XP. Heck, start them all at 1st level. For the first few levels, each clone will be one level higher. But once they get to, say, 5th level, it may take more than one death to before they have enough XP to come back at a higher level.

Have a variety of silly awards to give out to the players at the end of the dungeon. One for the player that used fewest number of clones. One for the player that used the most clones. One for the player who had the first PC death. Etc.

Do your players know anything about the adventure? Are they the type that might look things ups online and read about it? If so, make sure to mix things up a bit.

Some other thoughts...

Don't allow PCs who can fly at low levels.
Consider allowing only races that don't have dark vision.
Don't allow them to have retainers or followers--a classic way the beat the dungeon.
If you want to add a time challenge, but don't like to add to your DM record keeping by having to strictly track time, consider having some negative consequence for taking a short or long rest. Actually, consider not allowing any rest. Any time the PCs try to rest, shadows start attacking the party, but dissipate once the party starts being active again.
Consider doing away with death saves. 0 HP = death. New clone time.

I like the drinking game aspect, but it sounds like you might not have full buy-in for this (and if you DO have full buy in and go this route, make sure designated drivers are arranged). For those who don't want to drink, some other options...

Find items of clothing and wearables that are silly or embarrassing (within the comfort level of your group). Instead of drinking they have to put on one of the items (or exchange an item they are wearing for one of the silly items).

Have a list of strange play rules. Each time their PC dies, a new rule is applied to them. E.g.,

• instead of rolling a die, they have to roll another die into it (or have to use a dice roller from the game of sorry to roll d 6s), etc.
• they can only roll dice with their non-dominant hand
• when they role, the number the die rests on is the number that counts, not the number on top
• whenever they talk in character they have to talk like Elmer Fud (or Mickey Mouse, etc.)
• etc.

With carefully thought out rules it can get pretty crazy after a few deaths. Just make sure the rules don't slow things down too much.

When a character dies, they have to pay a dollar (or more or less depending on what your players are comfortable with). The amount collected can be donated to charity or put into a game-day snack pool.

Buy a bag of those jelly beans with disgusting flavors. When a character dies, they have to eat one.

Anyway, sounds like you'll have a fun game however you approach it. Cool idea.

 

[MNblockhead]

Weird question: the four-armed statue activates when three large gems are placed - one in each of its still-attached hands, at which point it crushes all three gems. 10 gems must be sacrificed this way to acquire the stone of true seeing from the fourth hand, and conveniently the gargoyle’s collar has 10 appropriately-sized gems on it. Great, cool, love that concept. Just one small problem: 10 isn’t divisible by 3.

Activating the statue 3 times would only result in 9 gems being sacrificed, but activating it a 4th time would bring the total up to 12. So even if the PCs get the gargoyle’s collar, they’ll need to sacrifice two additional gems (which they’ll either need to have brought with them, or backtrack to complete this puzzle after having found more gems deeper in the dungeon) to activate it the 4th time, right? But in that case, why specify that 10 gems need to be sacrificed rather than 12? As far as I can tell, there is no way to sacrifice exactly 10 gems. Unless the PCs are supposed to destroy two of the statue’s arms or something? Can anybody shed some light on this for me?

Yeah, not clearly written in either the 1e or 5e version. But the 1st edition reads a bit differently:

One meaning could be that after 9 gems are crushed, you can put a 10th gem into just one arm and INSTEAD of crushing it, the magic mouth with manifest. So even if the part has three more gems, as soon as they put one into one hand the mouth talks. If they put two or three in the hands at exactly at the same time, same result. The mouth appears.

But I think the intention is that the 10th will be crushed. I would read it to mean that after 9, you no longer need to place three gems to activate the crushing. A single will do. 10 gems is enough.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, not clearly written in either the 1e or 5e version. But the 1st edition reads a bit differently:

View attachment 266887

One meaning could be that after 9 gems are crushed, you can put a 10th gem into just one arm and INSTEAD of crushing it, the magic mouth with manifest. So even if the part has three more gems, as soon as they put one into one hand the mouth talks. If they put two or three in the hands at exactly at the same time, same result. The mouth appears.

But I think the intention is that the 10th will be crushed. I would read it to mean that after 9, you no longer need to place three gems to activate the crushing. A single will do. 10 gems is enough.

That is much clearer, thank you. How strange that it would be designed that way.

 

[LordEntrails]

That's not the only logical consistency error in the module. Just remember, you have to try to interpret the intent and not get hung up on the details. At least that is how I ran it.

 

[Charlaquin]

That's not the only logical consistency error in the module. Just remember, you have to try to interpret the intent and not get hung up on the details. At least that is how I ran it.

Yeah, this might be one thing I tweak. For the most part I’d like to try to run it as-written, but this isn’t a challenge, it’s a math error.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

The fun part of Tomb of Horrors is trying to solve the maze, and watching your characters get arbitrarily destroyed for not reading Gary Gygax's mind. Where it falls down for me is that it just does not support the sort of relationship I usually have with my player characters. The character is barely relevant.

The thing I found most disappointing about Tomb of Horrors as a player is that the DM had us roll up three high level characters each (not a quick process) and after all that work the adventure is basically designed around making 95% of character abilities useless. So you invest time, get excited about your high level character build, and then it hardly matters (he didn't tell us it was Tomb of Horrors). And, of course, it provides little opportunity for roleplaying, since the logical "in character" thing for most adventurers to to do is to just leave the place once they realize it's basically a bunch of coin flips with their life on the line.

So with infinite resurrections I would consider bumping it down to level 5 characters or so, or roughly whatever level your players are most accustomed to playing, and encourage them to play familiar character classes. Then they aren't spending a lot of time on character building or figuring out how an 15th level Monk works or whatever. I might make the whole thing some sort of lucid dream for existing characters of theirs. Or maybe everyone should roll up themselves as a D&D character, or their dog or cat, or something. Something that sets an expectation that this character will not function like a typical D&D character, with abilities and personality that actually matter, but rather as just the gamepiece and avatar of a player solving puzzles.

 

[Charlaquin]

The fun part of Tomb of Horrors is trying to solve the maze, and watching your characters get arbitrarily destroyed for not reading Gary Gygax's mind. Where it falls down for me is that it just does not support the sort of relationship I usually have with my player characters. The character is barely relevant.

The thing I found most disappointing about Tomb of Horrors as a player is that the DM had us roll up three high level characters each (not a quick process) and after all that work the adventure is basically designed around making 95% of character abilities useless. So you invest time, get excited about your high level character build, and then it hardly matters (he didn't tell us it was Tomb of Horrors). And, of course, it provides little opportunity for roleplaying, since the logical "in character" thing for most adventurers to to do is to just leave the place once they realize it's basically a bunch of coin flips with their life on the line.

So with infinite resurrections I would consider bumping it down to level 5 characters or so, or roughly whatever level your players are most accustomed to playing, and encourage them to play familiar character classes. Then they aren't spending a lot of time on character building or figuring out how an 15th level Monk works or whatever. I might make the whole thing some sort of lucid dream for existing characters of theirs. Or maybe everyone should roll up themselves as a D&D character, or their dog or cat, or something. Something that sets an expectation that this character will not function like a typical D&D character, with abilities and personality that actually matter, but rather as just the gamepiece and avatar of a player solving puzzles.

That’s some excellent input, thank you! I’m hesitant to go lower than level 11 but the point about feeling disappointed your cool high level abilities mostly weren’t of any use I’d a good point. Maybe it would be best to use pretend and make sure to select spells and abilities that are sure to be useful.

 

[Peter BOSCO'S]

What if it was all just a nightmare, and all the dead PC's wake up fine but their memories of the dungeon still give them XP's? Then it's an easy way to give "free" XP's.

 

[Charlaquin]

What if it was all just a nightmare, and all the dead PC's wake up fine but their memories of the dungeon still give them XP's? Then it's an easy way to give "free" XP's.

Well XP won’t be relevant cause it’s a one-shot. But that could be cool if using it in an ongoing campaign!

 

[Li Shenron]

I’m going to be running Tomb of Horrors as a stand-alone New Years Eve one-shot. I pitched it to the players as a lighthearted romp through D&D’s most infamous killer dungeon, with optional drinking game element: the suggested rule is to enjoy a drink of your choice at your own pace while playing, but if your character dies, you can finish your drink to resurrect them (but also I don’t want anyone to feel pressured to drink more than they want to, so it’s really just “infinite resurrections, and drink if you want to.”)

Now, I know to some, the idea of running a dungeon like Tomb of Horrors with the ability to freely resurrect your character may seem blasphemous, and to others the idea of running a dungeon like Tomb of Horrors at all may seem unfun, which is why I included the (+) in the thread title. This is the game I’m running, my players have all enthusiastically agreed, so if your advice is to not run this adventure or to not run it in this way, thank you for your input, but this is how it’s going to go. I am, however, willing to entertain revising the rules of the drinking game. Maybe instead of drinking when you die, you can drink to get a hint on a puzzle? I dunno, just spitballing there.

Now, with that out of the way, I’m seeking advice on how to make the most out of this premise. A big part of that will be hitting the sweet spot of just enough character deaths that people want to keep up the drinking game element, so what would be a good character level to facilitate that (assuming a party of 5)? I was thinking in the 11-16 range, but not sure exactly what level to go with. Also, starting equipment? I was figuring 2 permanent Uncommon magic items with the option to swap one or both for 4 Uncommon consumables each, plus whatever non-magical equipment people want.

Folks who have read more than a few of my posts probably know I’m big on a source of time pressure, and typically use wandering monsters to fill that role in dungeons. But wandering monsters definitely doesn’t seem appropriate for the Tomb of Horrors, so what might be a more fitting source of that pressure?

Something I’m not sure about is entering the dungeon. I don’t think poking around a hill with 10-foot polls to even get into the dungeon is going to start a party like this one off on the right note. But I also don’t want to skip over the possibility of finding one of the false entrances. Any ideas on how to handle that?

And of course, any general advice people might have on running Tomb of Horrors would be appreciated.

I think it's been done before with the resurrection-loop idea, and there's probably still an old thread around

I considered running ToH like that, with the idea being that the PC party gets magically trapped inside the tomb entrance so they can't get back but only move forward, and every time they die they are teleported back to the entrance. However, this would kind of work fine if it was always a TPK but not so well if individual PCs die. "Let's wait until Bob makes it back here" didn't sound nice to me. So I would have probably changed traps a bit and make them so that if triggered, everybody dies, or otherwise let the others continue but resurrection would only happen when the last one dies, forcing the group to consider whether it is riskier to continue ("will Bob ever resurrect if we get out without him?") than to let the rest of the party be killed in order to regroup.

 

[Charlaquin]

So, as I've been preparing for this session, another question came up. In the true entrance hall, there is a pit trap right in front of the "tormentor" door. Finding this door requires breaking the plaster covering it. How are the PCs meant to be able to accomplish this? From the other side of the pit with 10-foot poles? After using shims to wedge the door of the pit trap closed? I know that in B/X, traps usually had only a 2-in-6 chance of triggering, is that what's going on here?

 

[Charlaquin]

Also, RE: Infinite resurrections, I've decided on an alternative. Going with the @jdrakeh 's suggestion of the PCs having been hired by a famous archeologist to clear out the tomb, I'm going to have this character offering a sizable payment for finding Acererak's sarcophagus and clearing a safe route to it, as well as offering to pay above market value for any grave goods the adventurers manage to recover. This character will also arrange for the characters to be raised from the dead or reincarnated if need be, with the cost of casting being deducted from their pay. So, instead of infinite resurrections, it's about 4 resurrections each (fewer if you die in a way that necessitates Reincarnate, such as being annihilated by the green-faced demon), with recovered treasure buying additional resurrections. The challenge will be to clear the dungeon before running out of these functional extra lives. Instead of the "finish your drink to resurrect yourself" rule, players will be encouraged to drink if they fall for a trap. Twice if it kills them. Three times if their death doesn't leave enough intact to cast Raise Dead on. Considering having a hidden rule that you also drink if you get teleported naked to the entrance. Twice if your sex also gets changed.

 

[Zardnaar]

For special occasions a few drinks with D&D is a great idea.

Just don't expect to finish the session after a few hours gets a bit messy.

I like your idea anyway.

 

[pemerton]

So, as I've been preparing for this session, another question came up. In the true entrance hall, there is a pit trap right in front of the "tormentor" door. Finding this door requires breaking the plaster covering it. How are the PCs meant to be able to accomplish this? From the other side of the pit with 10-foot poles? After using shims to wedge the door of the pit trap closed? I know that in B/X, traps usually had only a 2-in-6 chance of triggering, is that what's going on here?

I just had a look at Book 3 of OD&D, and it has the same 2-in-6 rule. But ToH has its own rule here, which I think would supersede the normal one.

I think that players have to think of something like jamming the pit trap (as you suggest), or laying a plank across it, or levitating, or using ropes and pitons on the wall itself, etc etc.

This is the sort of thing that risks making ToH a bit tedious as a play experience.

 

[Charlaquin]

I just had a look at Book 3 of OD&D, and it has the same 2-in-6 rule. But ToH has its own rule here, which I think would supersede the normal one.

I think that players have to think of something like jamming the pit trap (as you suggest), or laying a plank across it, or levitating, or using ropes and pitons on the wall itself, etc etc.

This is the sort of thing that risks making ToH a bit tedious as a play experience.

I wouldn’t think coming up with such a solution would be a problem if they knew they needed to access the wall next to the trap. But yeah, without that knowledge I could see the situation being pretty confounding. Though, fortunately there are two other ways to get to the hall of spheres.

EDIT: Oh, what is the original ToH’s specific rule for traps? Do they just always trigger?

 

[Lanefan]

Question: are you using the 1e version or the 5e version of the module? From what I gather, the 5e version has undergone some neutering; for the full experience I'd recommend the 1e version even if it means some conversion work for you to make it 5e-compatible (then again, traps are traps and probably don't need much if any conversion).

A couple of possible ideas, depending just how gonzo you want to take this (were it me, as it's a drinking game, I'd go full-on gonzo as that's what it'll likely turn into anyway):

For the auto-resurrections, get your Jumanji on - a few moments after a character dies, with a loud "bing!" its clone replacement drops from the sky/ceiling with full memories of its previous incarnations - and one less black stripe on its wrist (they each start with three). If someone runs out of black stripes then come up with some sort of crazy-gonzo alternative for the fourth revival e.g. the character comes back as its own talking skeleton or whatever (and has secretly gained a level; in a game like this, repeatedly dying has to have some reward!). The exception would be for a TPK, there ain't no coming back from that.

At the beginning, to save time I'd just plant them in front of a cliff with all the entrances exposed.

When we ran ToH as a quasi-gonzo, for a few weeks ahead of time the DM ran a betting pool among our friends where you had to guess which room number would be our farthest point of advance before we TPKed. Nobody won: we made it all the way through and nobody chose that for their bet. If you want to add to the hype - and scare your players! - maybe consider doing something similar.

Most important, a pre-expectation almost has to be that they won't make it all the way through even if they can keep reviving, either due to getting stuck on something, or a TPK.

 

[pemerton]

what is the original ToH’s specific rule for traps? Do they just always trigger?

From the area 3 description:

All pits (except where noted to the contrary) throughout the Tomb are 10' deep and concealed by a counter-weighted trap door which opens as soon as any person steps on it. Thrusting with force upon these traps with a pole will reveal them 4 in 6 (d6, 1-4). Those who step up a pit lid will have a base 100% chance of falling, modified downwards by 1$ per point of dexterity through 12, and 2% for each point above 12, i.e. dexterity of 13 = 14% chance of not falling into a pit, dexterity of 14= 16%, 15 = 18%, 17 = 22%, and 18 dexterity = 24% chance of not going in. At the bottom of each pit are 5 iron spikes coated with poison. Roll d6 to determine how many spikes wound the victim; 1, 2 and 3 meaning that number of spikes have wounded the victim, 4-6 equal NONE HAVE WOUNDED the character. Each spike causes 1-6 hit points of damage, and the victim must make a saving throw versus poison for each spike which wounds him or her. Any failure means the victim is killed by the poison.​

 

[Charlaquin]

Question: are you using the 1e version or the 5e version of the module? From what I gather, the 5e version has undergone some neutering; for the full experience I'd recommend the 1e version even if it means some conversion work for you to make it 5e-compatible (then again, traps are traps and probably don't need much if any conversion).

Well I’ll be running it in 5e, and I have the version in Tales from the Yawning Portal. But I’m probably going to grab a PDF of the original as well, if only for the handouts. So yeah, I will probably be converting things where it makes sense to do so.

A couple of possible ideas, depending just how gonzo you want to take this (were it me, as it's a drinking game, I'd go full-on gonzo as that's what it'll likely turn into anyway):

For the auto-resurrections, get your Jumanji on - a few moments after a character dies, with a loud "bing!" its clone replacement drops from the sky/ceiling with full memories of its previous incarnations - and one less black stripe on its wrist (they each start with three). If someone runs out of black stripes then come up with some sort of crazy-gonzo alternative for the fourth revival e.g. the character comes back as its own talking skeleton or whatever (and has secretly gained a level; in a game like this, repeatedly dying has to have some reward!). The exception would be for a TPK, there ain't no coming back from that.

At the beginning, to save time I'd just plant them in front of a cliff with all the entrances exposed.

A couple posts upthread I posted the premise I’ve decided to go with (resurrections are also no longer unlimited, so there’s a good chance the players will run out of lives before making it to the end. I’ve decided that’s fine, we can always keep the option open to revisit it at a later date if we want to.)

When we ran ToH as a quasi-gonzo, for a few weeks ahead of time the DM ran a betting pool among our friends where you had to guess which room number would be our farthest point of advance before we TPKed. Nobody won: we made it all the way through and nobody chose that for their bet. If you want to add to the hype - and scare your players! - maybe consider doing something similar.

Haha that’s awesome!

Most important, a pre-expectation almost has to be that they won't make it all the way through even if they can keep reviving, either due to getting stuck on something, or a TPK.

Yeah, I’ve made peace with that.