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Message: <blockquote data-quote="merelycompetent" data-source="post: 2913296" data-attributes="member: 33830">Back then, we started having our spell casters assist with info gathering via the various divination spells (especially commune, legend lore and contact other plane) before our characters even left their home city. Based on the info we gathered about the location (or the objective, depending on the type of adventure) and any time constraints, we'd change our spell and magic item load outs. We were able to determine very early on that we wouldn't be in a combat-heavy adventure - for example: Are there more than 50 individual monsters in the tomb? No. Are there more than 25? No. Are there more than 10? Yes. Are there more than 20 tricks or traps? Yes. And so forth. This told us very early on that we were going on a trap-fest dungeon and not a hack and slash. So for the tomb, we initially went in with our spellcasters loaded with terrain-altering, info-gathering, healing, and defensive spells (in that order of preference). We used wands, scrolls and similar "cheap" items to cover detect magic, fireball, lightning bolt, and the utility spells. Understand, a lot of these spells had multiple uses - we dropped one of the critters into a quickie pit via passwall, and followed it with a dispel magic. Later on, we tunneled down to the entombed critter's head (IIRC, it was a gargoyle), chiseled it off, and then looted the body (we didn't find any more loot, but our RBDM was pretty irritated with us for winning a combat encounter in less than 1 round while taking little damage <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />. We adjusted our tactics with each foray into the tomb. So some of it was reactive ingenuity, while other parts were solely the result of the pre-adventure preparation. ToH was also where our group's wizard came up with a really cool low-level replacement for Knock on regular doors and gates. He used Enlarge, and would literally burst a door, gate, or portcullis out of its frame. That wasn't really reactive. It was finding a new application for the abilities within the rules.The main thing we did was use the time we were given before the adventure started to get an idea of what kind of obstacles we were going into. That allowed us to prepare more specifically for the adventure. This didn't work if we got railroaded into the adventure start (such as with the original Desert of Desolation series). And it also set us up for some serious problems if we didn't ask the right questions (such as on my second trip through the ToH, or Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth). Unless we were under a time constraint, we'd pull back early, re-equip and heal, then go back in. In our group (and later club), we got extra XP for coming up with new ways to use the regular spells.It also helped that we set up standard (and numbered) tactics that we used regularly. Someone would call out "Door-Three!", for example, and everyone - including the DM, knew that we would line up half the party on each side of the door against the walls, and the door opener would pull it open using it as a shield. So we didn't get bogged down in positioning our minis (we used them occasionally), or discussing who was going to be where. This left us more game time for role-playing, puzzle-solving, and other fun stuff. It also meant that we got hoisted by our own petard if the door turned out to be a mimic, the wall the door was on spontaneously turned into a massive black pudding (that one almost got us a TPK), or the door opener got teleported into a vat of boiling oil. (You could argue that the black pudding trap broke the 1E RAW, but doing so did make the adventures more challenging.) When our tactics backfired like that, yeah, it sure felt arbitrary some times. But we *could* have used augury, or we *could* have used a wand of Detect Magic on the wall, or we *could* have poked the wall with a 10' wooden pole (we preferred using spears or lances, since they could double as weapons and were more likely to reveal the mimic-imitating-a-chest after poking it for 1hp) and triggered the trap.I wonder how many players had a bad experience with ToH because they tried to do it all in one sitting, without pulling back to rest, recover, and adjust their approach.</blockquote>

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