D&D 4E Tomb of Horrors (4E version) - anyone run this yet?

[Katana_Geldar]

We only made it through the first encounter--the begging statues--and they were almost killed by the very nasty crone, although we were down to only four players last night. They "chose poorly" and even after defeating the crone she reappeared as part of the statue, but they were so depleted--they used all their action points, dailies, and encounters to defeat her--that they decided to camp out another night outside the cave. This gives me an opportunity for the other players to catch up to them.

**** yeah, the crone statue! The CE fire wizard decided to high-five her, and with that backhand she knocked out quite a few of his teeth! Lucky for them I was unable to recharge that attack that targets more than one player.

The third encounter, campfight, I had to up the ante as we're a big party. So they fought a homebrew gazebo.

Ari, had no idea you posted on here and I'm running it again this week. Haven't had this much fun DMing for a long time, and I love watching the players speculate over the poem and trying to make it apply to everything!

 

[Mercurius]

A gazebo, I like it! Was it Baba Yaga's?

We played again last friday but I don't have much to report because we started late due to new characters being created (a human invoker and a blue orc artificer; side note: blue orcs, or the Tralgur, are a cousin sub-race to the orcs that are far more civilized and not at all brutish, but instead dedicate themselves to the study of arcana, especially artifice).

Anyhow, the surviving PCs (dwarf fighter, human rogue, eladrin swordmage) had to make their way back to town to recruit others. Basically, towards the end of the session they got back to the ruins and took a different route, through the caves underneath the cliff. They found one of the trapdoors and entered the oddly shaped, rune-carved rooms. The got to #15 and complete darkness fell over them for a moment and when they could see again they were facing doubles of themselves...I left them with that cliff-hanger and enjoyed hearing them wonder what was going to happen; "If we have to face exact copies of ourselves we're in trouble." Of course they aren't exact duplicates in terms of powers, but it should be fun.

The one thing to note is that this area of the ruins - area 15 and 16 - is so oddly shaped that it is a bit difficult describing and navigating without using a battlemap or piece of paper. It was also good to see their fear of the gray angels, probably their most challenging foe along with the young adult green dragon they faced a couple levels back. Both resulted in character death, and both left a lasting impression!

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

Well, after finishing the first chapter, here are some of my observations regarding it:

Spoiler

1. Drop the level of the plant monster in the final encounter. 5 levels above the party is a bit much to deal with.

2. The fighting area when you're dealing with the copies of yourselves is a bit small...choke points made it very difficult for the monsters to coordinate.

3. The Lamia + Swarms encounter is horrible if your party doesn't have much in the way of Area or Blast powers.

4. Prepare for th PCs to take a long time to figure out the sundial puzzle, and even then, focus too much on certain stanzas of the poem.

I actually introduced the Emerald Claw to this puzzle (by having them also choose the wrong number to stand in front of). I wanted to have some reason for the secondary bad guys in chapter 4 to be around (instead of Vecna, it's Vol as I'm running an Eberron campaign).

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

Just wondering if you could run the RPGA TOH adventure as a prologue? Would it gel with the super adventure story line?

I just got the RPGA one today and it has hyped me up to run this and then the super adventure. I was going to use the Legacy article for Skull City and run my group through it when they finish messing about in Thunderspire. But from what I've read I'd be retreading some of the same ground as the start of this super adventure.

I'm planning on running the RPGA Tomb as an interlude between Chapter 2 and 3, using one-shot characters. Basically as a flashback. The main reason is that this will give more context to the condition of the Tomb in Chapter 3.

 

[Pbartender]

My Plan for This Adventure:

I'm just finishing up the Heroic Tier of Scales of War. I'm tag-teaming out with one of my players -- he wants to DM for a bit, and I want to play for a bit -- so he can continue the current campaign with Revenge of the Giants. In the meantime, I get to prepare...

Phase one will be to run the original-original Tomb of Horrors using some simple lite RPG system during our usual Holiday Hiatus... I'm thinking of using F# and setting the adventure somewhere in Africa during the 1920s or 30s, ala The Mummy or Indiana Jones.

Then, when we are finished with Revenge of the Giants, I'm going to start a new campaign using Dark Sun. In this particular campaign, Athas is Earth of the distant apocalyptic future, long after "Martians" invaded and devastated the Earth following our defeat during the War of the Worlds.

I'm going to scoot the characters through most of the Heroic levels with a conversion of the old Dark Sun adventure Freedom! After which, I'll slowly segue into the new 4E Tomb of Horrors!

That's right... The Tomb of Horrors... In Dark Sun.

Wheeeee!

 

[Katana_Geldar]

How exactly would that work? There's quite a bit involving gods in ToH.

And apparently the idea of running any adventure, let alone ToH, for 8-10 players makes Ari quail in his boots. Sorry mate, but you;re adventure is that popular. Though with three people missing this week (including the cleric and the tank) we're down to a reasonable number, for once.

Glad you guys like the gazebo, it was just a quick re-specked tent to up the xp for my larger group.

 

[Pbartender]

How exactly would that work? There's quite a bit involving gods in ToH.

It'll work because most of the gods involved are

Spoiler

dead

. Those that are involved that aren't

Spoiler

dead

don't necessarily need to be gods within the context of the adventure.

 

[TerraDave]

How exactly would that work? There's quite a bit involving gods in ToH.

.

there is some things involving unique beings.

If their "gods", then thats clearly a lable that can be added, or removed, as needed.







"rawrw, I am a god"

 

[Katana_Geldar]

Just ran it again last night and its rather fun to see the players scared of dying all the time. Like using tent poles held with mage hand to open doors.

A little commentary...
[sblock]I didn't like the lamia encounter either, the only ones who were able to be effective in any way were the wizard and the monk. Everyone else just sort of chipped away and the melee fighters kept getting poisoned. In the end, I fast forwarded after they were well bloodied as it was just getting tedious.
And that resulted in them going out of their way to avoid encounters. They solved the sundial puzzle, completed the game room and I finished the night with them seeing the duplicates.

I'm not sure if I should run it straight as the party is so big and I'm adding monsters to up the xp. But that many mooks at high level will be tricky to run.[/sblock]

 

[Katana_Geldar]

Just finished chapter 1 last night and I had to tweak the Ivy Heart slightly to make it more accessible to my players. Was great, and the Ivy Heart and Firbolg shells sure were fun to run.