James McMurray, share your notes with me! :D (CYRDA PLAYERS, STAY OUT!)

[the Jester]

Damn, I got a straight answer outta hong!

Thanks, hong!

 

[Geoff Watson]

Any questions in particular?

You should modify the traps, particularly in the original section. The undetectable/no-save/auto-kill trap is overdone. Work out search DCs,
disable device DCs, saving throws, and damage for the traps.

Feel free to make them very high, as the PCs can rest/heal whenever
they need to.

Some of the monsters were updated in the Epic Level Handbook, but they may be too powerful for the PCs. (I severely downsized the ELH Blackball/Umbral Blot, but even that version was less powerful than the one in the module.)

One thing I added was a Unhallow/Dispel Magic combo to the original tomb, so the PCs couldn't just buff like crazy.

Geoff.

 

[the Jester]

I'm mainly interested in

Spoiler

what you did with Moilians and the vestige.

 

[the Jester]

Okay... last night my group threw themselves in head-to-head battle against the demilich (no pun intended).

Spoiler

Given that they had the riddle-

the face of the fiend does more than devour
with the least of my form tis the gap to power-

I figured they'd realize what they needed to do, do it and avoid more than a round or two of battle against the demilich. WRONG. My question here is, was that an unfair expectation? They totally failed to figure it out, even given several glaring hints. Most of them lived, by the way.

 

[Joshua Randall]

If the PCs aren't using copious amounts of divination magic at this level, and in this adventure, they're being dense. They should be able to use legend lore, commune, contact other plane, and massive bardic knowledge checks. If they can't personally do that (?!) they should be hiring sages to do it for them, or asking friendly NPCs for help.

In other news...

Somewhere I have a 3.5 conversion of both the original Tomb of Horrors and the Return. If you're interested, e-mail me (check my profile).

 

[the Jester]

That's how they got the riddle, and figured out that it involves the face (a vision showed them going through the face and dying, a legend lore gave 'em the riddle...)

Is the riddle too hard? What was your experience with this piece of the module?

 

[Joshua Randall]

The riddles are like all riddles: fiendishly difficult until you know the answer. I tend to be pretty generous with allowing Int checks for the character to deduce something about the riddle. (After all, it's the wizard with 24 Int who is puzzling it out, not the player with his likely non-genius Int.) I believe Book of Challenges has some tips on riddles and Int checks.

Spoiler

It also helped that all of my players had previously gone through the original Tomb, so they knew some of the tricks (like fleeing from the skull).

 

[the Jester]

The players in my campaign are all good enough at roleplaying not to use info from previous experiences (not to mention the amount of changes I've made in customizing and converting the module). However, the hunter of the dead's reaction was a definite tip off ("It's not real- it's just a legend! It can't be..." I told them he'd gone bone white and was looking scared, when they'd never seen him act other than fanatically devoted to destroying undead).

The high-level part in my campaign has apparently forgotten that most important of lessons in dnd- sometimes you should FLEE!!! They haven't fled a battle, even when badly outclassed, since- well, I can only remember one time when they fled in the last few years, frankly.

Even when the party's studly 19th-level fighter attacked with everything thrown to offense (i.e. no power attack), he missed with his primary attack on a natural 19. That was a clue, too.

Sigh... well, they're still puzzling over the riddle. We'll see what happens next time we play that group- I suspect, however, that we'll play my halfling game next.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Spoiler

One of the instructors from the Black Academy (Drake?) knows the secret of using some Acererak-dust to go through the portal to the City that Waits. Since he had to flee from the Vestige the last time he was there, perhaps he'd be willing to trade the knowledge of how to get through the portal to the PCs in exchange for their help in exploring the City that Waits. He'd be a dangerous but powerful temporary ally.

On the topic of PCs fleeing when they should - oh, brother. They never learn, do they?

It's gotten to the point that I make passive Sense Motive checks for the warrior characters to see if the character (again, not the player) can figure out that they are getting their asses kicked and should bug out.

I have also told the players, out of game, that if they don't flee occassionally they will die. I demonstrate this with the NPC villains - which just makes the PCs hate those "cowards" all the more, and makes their (villains') dramatic and messy deaths more satisfying. ("Hah! We finally nailed that guy before he could teleport away!")

 

[the Jester]

Sigh... they killed him and left him under tons of rubble with an earthquake spell.