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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 264683" data-attributes="member: 4937">Eww.... that was fun.I wish to summon the Shameless Plug Beast again.There are a couple of things to consider with Tomb of Horrors.  First, it was designed to be a Gencon Tournament module (it might have been Origins, anyhow), and as such had to defeat 99% of the parties that went up against it.  I'm assuming it did that, if those parties used the pregen characters from the module, especially without being aware of the unique nature of the challenges in the module.However, those unique challenges are defeatable by the pregen characters (who are 8th to 14th level), especially if you select carefully.  For instance, within the constraints of 10th to 12th and six characters we might select characters #3, #5, #8, #9, #10, and either #11 or #12 and expect to do quite well.  A party of careful and experienced players can defeat ToH with 10th to 12th level characters on thier first encounter with the module.  This is because few of the challenges are luck or dice dependent.  A party equiped with what is now considered 'normal' ammounts of magic items, gets through most of S1's challenges without alot of difficulty (Demi-Liche aside).  A few Potions of Flying (as an example) do wonders in S1.If you know the challenges ahead of time, you could get through with a party of quite low level - provided you don't want to try to destroy the Demi-Lich (which you don't).Conversely, unless you are used to dungeon crawls and take your time, being high level isn't necessarily a defence - because so many of S1's challenges don't allow a saving throw!  I'd put S1 against 75% of the player's who started in 2nd edition (who through no fault of thier own expect to be pampered or challenged only by combat) with 18th level characters and still expect to kill them.On the other hand, White Plume Mountain (or Ravenloft for that matter) requires a great deal more combat and needs characters of a certain level as well as good play.  Even if you know the whole module cover to cover, you can't beat I6 with 4th level characters.  I actually find S2 harder than the more (rightly) famous Tomb of Horrors for this reason.  And S4 is ridiculous given its suggested levels and the fact that you really can't avoid the challenges.  (It's also the worst designed of the S series, and as much an example of bad dungeon design as S1 is an example of good design.)</blockquote>

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