D&D 5E Tales from the Yawning Portal: anyone know what level players will advance to in The Sunless Citadel?

[Henry]

"Dear WotC,

I couldn't help but notice there wasn't an 'after the adventure' section for Tomb of Horrors..."

 

[Henry]

. I'm planning to seed rumors about this place in our current campaign (characters range in level from 5th to 10th) and let the PCs go whenever they think they are ready.

The good thing about Tomb of Horrors is that the PCs can stop at almost any time - they dont have to follow it to their dooms. If they succeed, it's awesome, but as written there's no earth shattering emergency compelling them to go, kind of like climbing Everest...

 

[zaratan]

But how deadly is the 5e ToH? Didn't get my copy yet.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

But how deadly is the 5e ToH? Didn't get my copy yet.

Not as bad as the original. The only "do this and you die" that I remember was the sphere of annihilation. Most of the traps do damage instead of insta-kill now, and allow either saving throws to mitigate or skill checks to detect/avoid.

I would expect a party of five well-geared 15th level characters would suffer a couple of deaths trying to get through it. They could use revivify and raise dead, etc. to mitigate those deaths, but there's a couple of places that are just brutal.

The final encounter with Acererak is just as bad as the original (Trap the Soul) but at least allows a saving throw which I think the original did not.

 

[thethain]

Not as bad as the original. The only "do this and you die" that I remember was the sphere of annihilation. Most of the traps do damage instead of insta-kill now, and allow either saving throws to mitigate or skill checks to detect/avoid.

I would expect a party of five well-geared 15th level characters would suffer a couple of deaths trying to get through it. They could use revivify and raise dead, etc. to mitigate those deaths, but there's a couple of places that are just brutal.

The final encounter with Acererak is just as bad as the original (Trap the Soul) but at least allows a saving throw which I think the original did not.

There is the initiative or die near the end as well. I don't think you can revivify red paste.

 

[jimmytheccomic]

It's pretty deadly! I'm prepping to run it Monday, there are ten places where a character can be killed, or functionally removed from the game somehow, based on either a single roll or a character decision. (Two of those "functional removals" involve the players being trapped somewhere, and can be mitigated with a teleport/movement spell of some kind.)

 

[JonnyP71]

But how deadly is the 5e ToH? Didn't get my copy yet.

Heavily watered down compared to the original. Added some saves where there was no save before, Poison nerfed, explosions nerfed, Acererak nerfed, fast 5E healing, plus characters start with more hp than their original 1E counterparts.

To succeed (kill Acererak) in the original the party had to have either:
- cheated and/or played the adventure before or
- be extremely inventive and lucky and
- make best possible use of information based spells such as Commune and Legend Lore

To succeed in the new version they merely need to play sensibly, and have an effect plan of attack against the demi-lich.

 

[Jester David]

I haven't done the math, but I expect Sunless Citadel will get you higher than 3rd level.
There's a lot of encounters...

 

[zaratan]

Heavily watered down compared to the original. Added some saves where there was no save before, Poison nerfed, explosions nerfed, Acererak nerfed, fast 5E healing, plus characters start with more hp than their original 1E counterparts.

To succeed (kill Acererak) in the original the party had to have either:
- cheated and/or played the adventure before or
- be extremely inventive and lucky and
- make best possible use of information based spells such as Commune and Legend Lore

To succeed in the new version they merely need to play sensibly, and have an effect plan of attack against the demi-lich.

Yeah, I got my copy and agree with all you said. I'll not say I'm disappointed because I expected for that.
Well, lets do what we always do DMing 5e, change things.

 

[Prakriti]

I haven't done the math, but I expect Sunless Citadel will get you higher than 3rd level.
There's a lot of encounters...

There are a HECK of a lot of encounters if the party doesn't make nice with Meepo. I wasn't playing D&D at the time, so I don't know how common it was for parties to fight their way through that section of the dungeon.

Oh, and there are a few of those tedious vermin encounters so common in older editions. "You open a barrel and a swarm of rats crawl out! Roll initiative." I'm glad those are mostly absent from 5E, because I usually just leave them out.