So, what is "4th Edition's Tomb of Horrors"?

For me this is very interesting because the original Tomb of Horrors didn't work at all for me and my group. For us it was boring, repetetive, unchallenging and a complete disaster*. Basically the type of module I don't have the skill to make interesting.

On the other hand, I thought the same about D&D4e, and I'm having a great success with the current Scales of War campaign. So a revisit to the Tomb of Horrors for D&D4e is very interesting to me, to see if an adaption to the D&D4e rules will enable me to run the module sucessfully.

/M

* Please, please, please take note of the "for us" part of this sentence.
 
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We successfully completed Return to the Tomb of Horrors translated to 3E. We lost one character and had several close calls. The original tomb of horrors part of it, I cannot imagine being transcribed to 4E unless they want to give 4E some deadly teeth. It would be a shame to see this part softened or 4E-ized; that really was part of the charm.

As for the "Return to" part of the adventure, I could see this translating to 4E really well and would imagine that this would be the focus - with the inevitable "wuss-erizing" of the actual Tomb part.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
 

Yes it would definitely required some "wuss-erizing" to avoid telling players ok roll that 20, ok you're dead. I don't see a big problem with that, I had a similar experience to Maggan (hey Maggan, if you have any tips for stringing the Scales of War together in a less rail-roady fashion can you shoot me an e-mail to my username at gmail.com?) and am not a fan of save or die. If a PC dies in combat, cool, they accept that, but if they die because they fail a fort save, less cool. This is why I houseruled save or die spells in my games and we all had fun still...
 

We successfully completed Return to the Tomb of Horrors translated to 3E. We lost one character and had several close calls. The original tomb of horrors part of it, I cannot imagine being transcribed to 4E unless they want to give 4E some deadly teeth. It would be a shame to see this part softened or 4E-ized; that really was part of the charm.

As for the "Return to" part of the adventure, I could see this translating to 4E really well and would imagine that this would be the focus - with the inevitable "wuss-erizing" of the actual Tomb part.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

Does `wuss-erizing` mean making the Tomb more fun to playÉ I ran the original 1E version and no one liked it. They were just using the PCs fromthe book but the tediousness of checking every square milimeter of the dungeon combined with the fact that so many of the traps are simply a roll a die or die and hidden so well that no one could find them and everyone was bored about an hour in. Fast forward to my 3E campaign 2 years ago and I ran the group throuhg ther TOH 3E - better but still felt like a long drawn out search fest. never have a asked for and been asked for so many search rolls in my life. At least we actually finished it this time though and defeated the demi lich (not Acerack just a minion of his - he did manage to mock and enrage the party though :) ) at the end.

Heres hoping the 4E version can breath a little fun and life into this tired old adventure.
 

I'm all up for something that is more in line with the original. I was totally underwhelmed with the RttToH Boxed set (as I was with all the 2E "return to" adventures).


IOW- I really hope WOTC pulls a "dark sun" and goes back to the 1E version ;)
 

Wait.

From what I understand, Tomb of Horrors was basically 'Pick right or Left. You picked left? You die. You picked right? Okay. Pick right or left. You picked right? You die. You picked Left? Okay, on to the next coin flip..."

Simply put the deathtraps were rather instantaneous. Doesn't seem to be in line with 4e's philosophy, given they nixed the save or dies.
The 4e Tomb will have a mantra similar to the general 4e mantra of "Everything is Core".

Only, for the 4e Tomb, "Everything is Hardcore".
 

That was one adventure that was everything that was BAD about D&D, as others noted, ugh.
look, if you want to be open about it and say "Let's have a slaughterfest dungeon romp, make 5 characters each!" ok! :)
but otherwise, it just sucks for D&Ding...the 2nd ed mega-adventure tried to build on the entire lore, but failed as it was ok in parts, but disjointed, and keeping the original tomb in a proper campaign play style...*barf!*

Lots of deaths are only acceptable to most players when the know it's a fun "whack a rat a thon" :D but it's not ok when they are doing a proper campaign arc.
Would "Temple of Elemental Evil" be ok if say oh the moathouse was like Undermountain, hm?

Please note, there's a HUGE difference between Acererak's booby-trapped tomb, and Dark Sun: in Dark Sun characters died mostly because their players were dumb, not because you had an arbitrary "save or die" booby trap :p
Hey, in Dark Sun, characters can run the hell away, or, learn survival skills or carry lots of water, or bribe templars rather than give them backtalk....where as "Oops, you got disintegrated" merely for chosing badly isn't exactly the same, is it? hehe


Having said all that..if they worked more on the story of the creepy folk who built a cult aorund the Tomb, and Acererak's plans for apotheosis (becoming one with ALL undead), and his planar city lair (forget name of it off hand), hey..that could be fun :)
 

I had a really good time converting Return to the Tomb of Horrors to 3.0. I'm pretty sure that I'll look at the 4e Tomb and see if I can convert it Pathfinder. I do like those ubertrap dungeons.

It'll be interesting to see how they do it. I've run into a bit of a problem converting the Mud Sorceror's Tomb to 4e...namely the 'traps' that are interspersed between any encounters. It doesn't make a lot of sense unless the traps do massive amounts of damage.

This is mainly due to the fact that 4e got away from being an attrition type game to one where any individual encounter can be nasty. The in-between encounter damage is mostly pointless except as a source of reducing healing surges...and in that case the PCs would just take an extended rest. So it's not really that big of a deal.
 

It'll be interesting to see how they do it. I've run into a bit of a problem converting the Mud Sorceror's Tomb to 4e...namely the 'traps' that are interspersed between any encounters. It doesn't make a lot of sense unless the traps do massive amounts of damage.

This is mainly due to the fact that 4e got away from being an attrition type game to one where any individual encounter can be nasty. The in-between encounter damage is mostly pointless except as a source of reducing healing surges...and in that case the PCs would just take an extended rest. So it's not really that big of a deal.
To be fair, the original S1 isn't an attrition dungeon either, except for the teleport traps that steal all your equipment. Or rather it's a non-attrition dungeon that in some places gets confused and thinks it is. There's no time limit, nothing to prevent the 15 minute day, or the 15 minute week for that matter. Most of the traps are insta-kills IIRC however there are a minority that do low amounts of damage, like 1-6, which are completely pointless. On page 5, section 13, regarding such a trap, it is stated "a mere annoyance, but it erodes the strength of the party". No, Gary, it doesn't.
 

Mind you I never liked the Return to's and the Expedition to's either. The more something is remade the less of the original feel it has. Where or what are the new classics?
Ah, someone who's interested in new adventures! I understand that, too.

3E had a few adventures that might deserve "classic" status now. Red Hand of Doom comes to mind, since it's the origin of 4E's Scales of War adventure path in Dungeon Magazine. I heard that the Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde was good too, though I've never seen it myself. The Sunless Citadel gave us Meepo, and the Forge of Fury was pretty cool too. My group also played through the DD series, of which The Sinister Spire was my favorite. There was also the free original adventures provided online, which I'm sure a lot of people used -- I've personally both ran and played-though the very first one (The Burning Plague) at least three times. (It was also the first adventure I ever ran, so it seems especially "classic" to me.) I also hear that Dungeon Magazine's Age of Worms campaign was pretty good.

In 4E, we've already seen nearly a dozen official adventures available in stores, some of which are pretty popular. For example, P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens just won an ENny. Also, probably half of the posters on this board have played through H1: Keep on the Shadowfell, so it's definitely destined to become a 4E "classic module". I'm sure there's been some other memorable ones in Dungeon Magazine, too.
 

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