D&D 5E Converting Tomb of Horrors to 5E

[Jake Johnson]

We were discussing Tomb of Horrors the other day, and came upon the idea of running it with our new 5E group, maybe in October, as a Halloween experience. I really haven't had exposure to the module since the 80s. Upon cursory review, there appear to be several possible starting points for bringing this infamous adventure to 5E, all of which would require conversion from an earlier version of the rules. My question is, which source version would be best to start with, and offer the most straight-forward path to 5E, given existing or soon-to-be-available conversion tools?

Options for conversion:
OD&D version -- Not sure if the original version is available
AD&D version -- May be available through online sources as a PDF
2E version included with Return to the Tomb of Horrors -- May be available through online sources as a PDF
3E version -- Freely available from WotC?
4E version(s) -- There seem to be a few options here

Our goal would be to have a playing experience close to the AD&D module many of us remember from our youth, without the additional material added on to some of the later publications.

I an interested in your thoughts and experiences.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I actually have a villain whose goal is to bring the Tomb to the world in question, so that he can join his soul to Acerekak's.

 

[qstor]

First off I'm not sure where the traps info for 5e. I think that's the hardest part.

I'd take the converted stuff from 3e and convert it to 5e. I think things like the demilich are all in 3e and you could "pare" down from there. Also part of the module was designed just to kill characters and I think the other conversions have changed focus a bit while keeping most of the original parts intact.

I don't think you'll need to do multiple conversions to get to the 5e version. Mike Mearls has said WotC is doing a conversion guide in the next few months so depending on your time frame you might want to wait too until the conversion guide comes out.

Mike

 

[Irondrake]

In one of the last Dungeon's there was a 5E conversion of the Tomb of Horrors.

 

[Kinak]

You could probably run the original AD&D version converting on the fly. It definitely focuses on testing the players rather than the characters, so there's never really been a lot of dice rolling there.

There's actually a new print version that came out last year. If you don't have copies of the original adventures, it shouldn't be hard to pick up.

In one of the last Dungeon's there was a 5E conversion of the Tomb of Horrors.

Could be useful! Any idea how faithful to the original it is?

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Irondrake]

I think its VERY faithful to the 1E Tomb of Horrors, but it doesn't have all the added fluff of the 4E expanded "Return" series. I was pretty sure they gave it away in the playtests at some point too, but I might be mistaken there. I do know it was in Dungeon Issue #213. Here's the Table of Contents blurb:

Tomb of Horrors
By Gary Gygax

Welcome to the dungeon that has killed more adventurers than all other dungeons combined. Let’s see if your D&D Next characters fare any better! This adventure is designed for D&D Next characters of levels 10–14 and includes 4th Edition conversion guidelines for characters of levels 14–16.

So this was during playtest time, the Monster Math may need a little work.

 

[Ichneumon]

The "minus max hp" death threshold makes the Dragon 213 Tomb a lot less deadly. I think, though am not totally certain, that it was written when a PC died at minus (Con score + level). As a result, if you run it now, PCs will often be knocked unconscious but rarely killed.

Also, the big bad guy at the end sorely needs a legendary template applied.

 

[TerraDave]

The best 4E conversion is the "RPGA" one. The book is something else.

The Dungeon article mentioned is also good, probably the best source.

Some conversions do touch on the 2E "return to" material, but its very easy to ignore that, impact is very small.

The original is your touchstone in any case...the thing about it is that it is so focused on player choice, versus mechanical issues, that it could be very easy to convert. Maybe too easy.

If you want deadly, set some default DCs. Have things like finding secret stuff work as per the module, but always assume minimal impact on the PCs part. Monsters require some conversion, though things like damage are almost in the ball park as is. When something kills you in the module, well, it kills you.

Think through how resting, ritual casting, and spells that can allow escape or bring aid work (this is very important with high level parties). The original module had some restrictions, including a demon gating in under certain circumstances.

Now, if you want to tone certain things down and be a little more formal in converting things, take a look at the 4E RPGA module and the recent dungeon one (and the 3E one doesn't hurt).

You can also just have some rules of thumb, instead of auto death, drop to 0 hp, for example, where appropriate.

Finally, for the big little skull, don't overdo it. The point is that it is deadly in a very horrible and straight forward way. Try to stay in the spirit of that, even if you don't want it to kill the whole party. Again, take a look at the conversions for this, though some of them add a little too much zazz at the cost of the real horror.

 

[Bumamgar]

In the later playtest packets there were statistics for all of the monsters in Tomb of Horrors. You could use those pretty much straight up along with the original module. Keep in mind, however, that monsters have been tuned a bit since the playtest. For example, the Ochre Jelly in the DnD Next playtest Tomb of Horrors packet differs in a few subtle ways from the Ochre Jelly in the D&D Starter Set (has fewer HP in the Starter Set, but does more damage per attack).

 

[Plaguescarred]

Some conversion of ToH can be found on the web i saw a 3E one the other day. The D&D Next conversion from D213 is pretty good too if you can get your hand on it...