I'm gonna run The Tomb of Horrors for level 15-17 chars...

[VirgilCaine]

Preferring a kick-in-the-door style doesn't mean the players are stupid. It's just a play preference. I've gamed with hundreds of different people and I've never once met a stupid player. Stupid people are very, very unlikely to play D&D imo.

"Kick-in-the-door" is not what I was referring to. I like KITD style, it's the major component of the campaign I run. I like killing monsters and taking their stuff.

The Tomb kills overconfident players, those who are impulsive, rash, overly aggressive, greedy, grasping... in my opinion these are stupid players.

Errr.... that's not what I said.

As written, the Tomb is basically unwinnable for a party, if by 'winnable' you mean defeat Ascerak knowing nothing about the contents of the adventure. The adventure is an 'easy' thing to take on only if you have read the 1st edition entry on demi-lichs and have made extraordinary preparation based on that. For the parties of sample characters in the back of the book, the Tomb is an absolutely certain death trap.

Ah, you mean the ORIGINAL ToH, run in 1e D&D. Then you are correct. Except for the bit here it talks about Acererak being a death trap.

Assuming a group of five PCs including a secondary for each one, it should be possible for them to destroy the lich-skull. Because I could swear that nowhere is it said that it does anything but rise up, suck a soul, and then go back down. No spells abilities or whatnot.

However, playing that is unthinkable to me. Totally against my preferences.

I ran a mix of the 1e version and the 3.5 conversion, mostly the former converted on the fly.
The adventure was somewhat annoying...the 8 13th level characters (two for each person) easily handled most of the material, due to the greater power 3rd edition affords PCs.

Since most of the traps were poisoned (Heroes Feast) or relied on floorplates (Slippers of Spider Climb, Fly items, etc.), and the PCs kept taking the secret doors instead of going down other passages, they avoided two of the worst traps.

The four-armed gargoyle would certainly be a major threat to a party of 4 9th level characters (it gave my group of 13th level characters hell), and I could easily see a TPK if if downed the tank and the rest of the party didn't immediately withdraw.

 

[JustinA]

I was here defining 'defeat' to mean, "Destroying the demi-lich and recieving the 100,000 XP bonus for doing so."

Fair enough. But that's a fairly simplistic definition of "defeat" in a dungeon where you're supposed to be working your away around challenges discretely and intelligently, not throwing yourself at them recklessly.

The module even says: "If any character is so foolish as to touch the skull of the demi-lich..." Since that's the only way for a confrontation with the demi-lich to occur, you're requiring the PCs to behave foolishly in order to defeat the dungeon.

If that's the definition you want to use, go for it. But it's a fairly pointless and meaningless definition with no application in the actual practice of using the module.

I've only heard of one party that sounds like they could have legimately destroyed the demi-lich using the resources in the module, and that's the one that put the crown on the skulls head and then touched the incorrect end of the scepter to it. And even then, unless they'd already lost a character to experimentation with the crown, that sounds like metagaming based on what the party knows of the text of the module (which is I'm convinced what actually happened in that case). Even so, that's the only way I know of to truly 'win', and it involves what some might consider generous ruling from the DM (since the module does not explicitly say that the crown effects Ascerak himself, but that it doesn't explicitly say that it does not).

Or it could have just been an identify spell.

This technique explicitly doesn't work in the 3.5 adaptation, however. (The crown can't be removed from the throne room.)

Assuming a group of five PCs including a secondary for each one, it should be possible for them to destroy the lich-skull. Because I could swear that nowhere is it said that it does anything but rise up, suck a soul, and then go back down. No spells abilities or whatnot.

You are incorrect. After sucking 6 souls, the skull teleports anyone remaining several hundred miles away and strikes them with a nasty curse.

 

[Garnfellow]

The Tomb kills overconfident players, those who are impulsive, rash, overly aggressive, greedy, grasping... in my opinion these are stupid players.

I understand this is the theory, but in my experience -- and this after running this adventure many times in many different editions -- I have not found a strong correlation between careful play and success.

The most successful parties I have DMed were the most reckless, run-and-gun groups that basically ran whooping and hollering through the Tomb like loons, driving conjured animals and livestock before them.

The most cautious parties were the ones that I've seen really get whacked by the module. Maybe 8 or so different runs is too small a sample size, but that's been my experience, at least.

 

[VirgilCaine]

You are incorrect. After sucking 6 souls, the skull teleports anyone remaining several hundred miles away and strikes them with a nasty curse.

Riiiight.

Well.

That's Gygax for you.

The most successful parties I have DMed were the most reckless, run-and-gun groups that basically ran whooping and hollering through the Tomb like loons, driving conjured animals and livestock before them.

The most cautious parties were the ones that I've seen really get whacked by the module. Maybe 8 or so different runs is too small a sample size, but that's been my experience, at least.

Uh, that's a damn sight different from just running whooping and hollering through the Tomb. Not like there's anyone to hear them, anyway.

They are taking precautions...I don't know about the following the animals, but it's better them then the PCs.

...The careful ones got whacked by the module? How?

My guys looked at the arches and left them alone. They went through the secret doors since after two previous secret doors being the way out of the previous area...followed the trend.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Obviously you have never played it with non-idiot PCs or never read through it. It's only a TPK if you run around touching everything you can.

Or if you have a typical adversarial 1st edition DM. Pretty likely, given it was written in exactly such a fashion. (You think you know the rules? I'll change them and cheat! Look, I win! Nyah!)

Case in point, I used a 10 foot pole to probe the demon mouth with, and the DM running it ruled the anihilation effect traveled UP the pole and disintegrated me. This BS really caused much of my hatred of 1st edition and the attitude of those who played it.

It occurs to me that the Tomb is meant to show stupid, overconfident players what for. Of course, if you are not stupid and overconfident...the Tomb is an easy thing take on.

Yeah, because who wouldnt think to hurl gems at a skull that has gems for teeth. Its so blatently obvious! Because following the like to like rule of the crown and sceptre didnt result in death. Oh wait.

It doesnt follow rules. A fair amount is simply a mish mash of randomness. Honestly, the only clever part of the whole module is the bleeding wall trap.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Or if you have a typical adversarial 1st edition DM. Pretty likely, given it was written in exactly such a fashion. (You think you know the rules? I'll change them and cheat! Look, I win! Nyah!)

Case in point, I used a 10 foot pole to probe the demon mouth with, and the DM running it ruled the anihilation effect traveled UP the pole and disintegrated me. This BS really caused much of my hatred of 1st edition and the attitude of those who played it.

I have a term for this--"dick move".

Similar to when a GM ruled that a custom artifact's anti-magic emanation would travel up the rope to the magic flying carpet my brother planned to hang it from as the party traveled through the air.

You have my sympathy.

Yeah, because who wouldnt think to hurl gems at a skull that has gems for teeth. Its so blatently obvious! Because following the liek to like rule of the crown and sceptre didnt result in death. Oh wait.

Personally, one of my PCs used Ancient Mountain Hammer (Book of Nine Swords move that ignores DR and hardness) on the Demi-Lich skull and destroyed it in one hit.

It doesnt follow rules. A fair amount is simply a mish mash of randomness. Honestly, the only clever part of the whole module is the bleeding wall trap.

I never said anything about rules or cleverness.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Double post.

 

[Celebrim]

Ah, you mean the ORIGINAL ToH, run in 1e D&D.

I mean the real one, as opposed to one which doesn't reflect the challenge posed by the first one.

Then you are correct. Except for the bit here it talks about Acererak being a death trap.

I'm correct period.

Assuming a group of five PCs including a secondary for each one, it should be possible for them to destroy the lich-skull. Because I could swear that nowhere is it said that it does anything but rise up, suck a soul, and then go back down. No spells abilities or whatnot.

Well, you've already been corrected on this, but in addition in doesn't matter. In the original module, the skull is also virtually indestructible. The only straight foward ways to harm it are beyond the abilities of the PCs. The less straight foward ways are not only insufficient to take the skull down, but are so obscure as to not occur to anyone in the limited time that they have to survive unless they've prior contact with the text. And even if they have the abilities needed to take down the skull (+5 holy avengers for example), unless the players have prepared 3-4 forget spells, it will still TPK the party before they manage to do enough damage to take the thing down.

However, playing that is unthinkable to me. Totally against my preferences.

Well, when speaking of the module, it would be nice to think we were speaking of some official version of it rather than a house ruled one.

I ran a mix of the 1e version and the 3.5 conversion, mostly the former converted on the fly. The adventure was somewhat annoying...the 8 13th level characters (two for each person) easily handled most of the material, due to the greater power 3rd edition affords PCs.

Gee, you think? Eight 13th level characters against a module that had been converted to be a challenge to 9th or 10th level characters, and it wasn't quite a challenge? Somehow, I don't see how this is any comment on player skill or the difficulty of the module or anything else but your particular game.

The four-armed gargoyle would certainly be a major threat to a party of 4 9th level characters (it gave my group of 13th level characters hell), and I could easily see a TPK if if downed the tank and the rest of the party didn't immediately withdraw.

Gee, you took a tough CR 11 challenge (+2 above suggested character level) and threw it against a group of 13th level characters (now 2 below character level), and the module ran differently? Imagine that.

In the future, please stop referring to other people as stupid, foolish, overconfident, or rash or anything else because thier experience with the module is different than yours. I think it ought to be bloody obvious why there experience is different than yours.

 

[Jhaelen]

I've found the module to be a great campaign-ending device. After three attempts my players were fed up with it and were ready to move on to a new campaign

 

[DreadArchon]

It occurs to me that the Tomb is meant to show stupid, overconfident players what for.

Really? What occured to me was that it was written for play in a tournament and thus was meant to be (1) difficult and (2) unusual to keep things interesting and competitive.