Is the original Tomb of Horrors a well-designed adventure module?

[Lazybones]

When I first played ToH, I was in Jr. High, and I had a "name level" 1e cleric with 20 low-level followers. I don't remember what characters the players had, but I do remember springing a bunch of instant-kill traps with those guys, who were fanatically loyal. Supposedly the cleric was Lawful Good.

I remember we allowed the survivors to accrue some XP; IIRC the cleric had a handful of 8th level followers after the module, which came in very handy in the Demonweb.

To answer the poll, I said "No". While ToH can be fun as a one-shot with one-shot characters, I'd never run a regular group through the mod without an extensive rewrite. At the very least, the "you can't open the door 'cause I said so" and the "you can't detect the trap until it hits" would all have to go.

 

[Melan]

He explained it in one of the early Dragon magazines; it was to humilate and frustrate players who thought they were experts at the game.

Geoff.

This is loaded language. Indeed, the Tomb's purpose was in part knocking down the egos of some players - those types who boasted about 30th level super-munchkins with galaxy-killing swords. The Tomb made a good job of separating these people from those who "earned their badges", so to speak... Let's not forget that at the time, normal characters in the longest running games were only 12th or 14th level in ability, including Mordenkainen and Co.!

 

[Gentlegamer]

*post deleted*

 

[lukelightning]

"Honorable armies"? "Heroes"? Plenty of people are put into very bad situations by their commanders all of the time. "No honorable armies ..." sounds nice when you say it, but it's not based on history, especially some of the nastier and better documented moments in history like the Vietnam war.

The real world doesn't have to deal with alignment issues. It's fine for Mr. Magely McAmoral to send his minions to their certain doom. Goodkind the Cleric of Pelor doesn't have that option, unless he doesn't mind committing evil acts and losing his class abilities (note: I'm talking about hirelings/followers, not summoned creatures).

Not that I have anything against the cannon fodder strategy, but sending people to their certain death in D&D is not the same as doing it in real life. Unless you have a legitimate case of "for the greater good" in D&D, sending followers to die in the tomb rather than risking your neck is, in my opinion, an evil act.

 

[gizmo33]

As for using hirelings/henchmen in general in this manner - if the 1E DMG guidelines were followed it would be pretty hard (and get harder as you went along) to convince them to do things like be the trap checkers in the ToH.

No doubt. I'm not arguing against more nuanced statements like this. I'm arguing against what I saw as the unwarranted (and so far unsubstantiated) use of the word "ridiculous".

I am also curious where the condescending "newer gamers who don't like the ToH must have been coddled and/or aren't up to the challenge of real adventuring" comments are coming from. How does not liking the ToH lead to those conclusions?

Sorry if I missed it but (fortunately) I haven't seen anyone say this on this thread. I've been suspecting that some folks have a chip on their shoulder from some previous battle in the edition war where ToH was thrown in their faces. I suspect that the reaction has been to attack the "design" of the module to discredit this argument. That's an awful long way to go logically to try to accomplish this.

I wouldn't say that ToH represents some sort of standard as far as level of difficulty. IME was very exceptional in it's level of difficulty. I would be surprised (and skeptical) if someone said "ToH is how our group played every time and anyone who doesn't play the game in that style is coddled". IMO that's crazy.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Unless you have a legitimate case of "for the greater good" in D&D, sending followers to die in the tomb rather than risking your neck is, in my opinion, an evil act.

Yup, Robilar was lawful evil . . . he even had to slay one orc in front of the others for them to comply.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

No, and I love it.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

It was a simpler, and very gamist, world. In that paradigm ToH was a work of genius.

1e D&D was totally colour-coded. If it said "evil" under "alignment", you were allowed to kill it, and there were no moral repercussions.

If you accept that paradigm as valid, all the rest follows:

Your mages load up with Monster Summoning spells, and your clerics load up their third level spell choices with Animate Dead. The summoned monsters (which are evil and therefore disposable) are the ones that explore ahead and die to the instant death-no-save traps.

Then you animate the bits and send them forward again. If they meet a trap or a monster then they die (of course) but you gain information.

Then once you've got some minions which have walked ahead and stayed alive, you send your thieves forward, armed with the knowledge they've gained from how the monsters died, and the thieves scout and reconnoitre. If they meet a creature, they run back to the party which fights the creature in a safe and cleared area.

Your clerics stay right back in previously-cleared areas, or even outside the dungeon; if anyone dies or needs healing, they're brought back to the entrance. Clerics never come forward, not even if there are undead to fight: never.

Beating dungeons like ToH is achievable if you follow those guidelines carefully.

 

[Mycanid]

If I remember correctly Robilar's stats, etc. were printed in the Rogues Gallery and yes - his alignment was LE.

Nonetheless I must admit that I never really bought the idea of the insane wizard fashioning a death-trap maze to chew up and spit out people. Talk about expensive. But that's just me....

But I still went through it and enjoyed it, like most!

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Nonetheless I must admit that I never really bought the idea of the insane wizard fashioning a death-trap maze to chew up and spit out people.

If a justification is needed, you could use the one that Bruce Cordell fashioned in his Return to the Tomb of Horrors; I thought it was a decent approach. (I also appreciated that he kept the original Tomb adventure intact, and built around it).