Tomb of Horrors 4e - Mouseferatu style

[Shemeska]

So Ari, is this a more or less straight up 4e re-telling of the original ToH, or a version changed to adapt to the history of the 4e pseudo-setting, or does it also play with the expanded lore that Bruce added in Return to the ToH with Moil that was later itself expanded on by Monte in Dead Gods (and I got to play with Moil in Dragon)?

Original ToH doesn't do much for me style-wise, and I never played 1e so there's no nostalgia working on me there. But the various 2e and later expansions on the whole place and its resident demilich were awesome IMO, so I'm curious if you had to stick with the original only or got to play with some 4e variation (given how 4e does that) of the yummy flavor of the later stuff to some degree?

 

[Crothian]

Yes.

Sorry, I realize I'm being flippantly cryptic. (Or cryptically flippant.) I'm not allowed to say much this far in advance, but I'll say that you're actually correct--at least partly--on both sides of your "or."

Awesome, I get it. I can read the clues and see where you're going with this.

Does it connect to any other adventures written for 4e or elsewhere?

 

[Kzach]

One thing I'd be curious to see how they got around was the Passive Perception dilemma.

Tomb of Horrors had traps that just went BOOM and if they got your character, it was time to roll up another one.

With Passive Perception, players will essentially never be unprepared for a trap. I've got a 2nd-level elven Avenger, for instance, with a Passive Perception of 24. That means he auto-succeeds in spotting every trap that is within four levels of the party.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

ToH has a reputation for being something of a meatgrinder, with death traps and save-or-die situations galore. I'm really interested in seeing how this will be translated to 4e, which strives to remove instadeath situations (rightly so, in my opinion).

 

[catsclaw227]

I'mscaredcauseTOHwasreallyscarytome.

Seriously, I read it when I was like 12 years old and for some reason I had a nightmare about it. The smiling stones image in the inside cover gave me the willies.

And the weird egyption style mosiac everywhere made me wary of people that put down hyper-detailed tile floors with small little pieces making pictures.

And I ran my players through it with glee and my early, 1e, 12yr old monty-haul gaming style. And tried to crush them at every turn.

As an adult, I found the original an exercise in futility and frustration, but that's a different topic. It still evokes good nostalgic memories and that's why D&D is so awesome.

I can't wait to see Ari's version. The pressure's on Mr. Marmel!

 

[The Little Raven]

ToH has a reputation for being something of a meatgrinder, with death traps and save-or-die situations galore.

Tomb of Horrors in three sentences.

"You can go left or right."

"Ummm... left."

"Left? Okay, you die."

Unlike others, I have no good memories of the adventure or most of the 1e "classics." They were arbitrary deathtraps that punished the players because they couldn't read the DM's mind or know what to choose ahead of time.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, folks, I really can't reveal much about this. But since WotC themselves used the phrase "evocative of the classic," I don't think I'm giving anything away when I say this is not a "conversion," but rather something that builds off the original.

 

[Stormonu]

Mouse, I've liked a good bit of your stuff, but this strikes me as "Dungeon Delve with name branding."

Please tell me this is more than a bunch of "random"/Book of Challenges encounters that could be linked together to create a psuedo-TOH dungeon.

You probably can't say, but does this have any of the Return story elements?

 

[Mouseferatu]

I can assure you that it's an adventure, not a string of random encounters. Each chapter can be placed throughout a campaign or even, with tweaks, used on its own--as mentioned in the announcement--but they're not just random collections of encounters.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I have to admit, I'm really excited--but also really nervous--to see how this one's received. The part that I bolded was the most fun aspect of this design, but it was also the hardest--and I know it's the part that's going to see the most scrutiny.

Let's just say that, after working on this, I have a much greater respect for what Bruce Cordell went through writing Return to the ToH back in 2E.

This is easily my most anticipated release next year. And while I don't really care much for the original from a game mechanics stand point (far too many fiddly rules made up in that for me) I love the back story to the Tomb. Just awesome stuff.