Tomb of Horrors - your experiences?

[Neo]

Despite the fact I have GM'ed pretty much since I started roleplaying.. this is one of the half a dozen or so adventures I played in before I became a full time GM.

The Tomb of Horrors was pretty much responsible for my first swathe of PC deaths The only other adventure I lost even close to as many characters as in this was Castle Ravenloft (the adventure before ravenloft became a setting).

 

[Melan]

Alas, my players never really explored the Tomb. They heard about its infamy both in and out of character and chickened out - even though they were virtually at its gates. That's good enough for me.

And yes, it is a horrendously hard dungeon. It is supposed to be so. If you complete the entire dungeon without cheating, you can be proud of your accomplishment. If you value your life, however, better stay out like my PCs did. There is a point to the criticism, though: a DM should never force his group to visit the Tomb. That's cruel and uncalled for. It is supposed to be a challenge for those who would like to call themselves master adventurers - in which case they should expect the worst EGG had to offer.

Those who like extremely hard deathtrap modules should also try Necropolis (for the Mythus FRPG, later republished by Necromancer Games) and Deadly Treasure. The latter appeared in Dungeon Magazine (issue 42, maybe?) and is also highly recommended.

 

[Malar]

First of all, we played the 'Tomb of Horrors' as an introduction to 'Return to the Tomb of Horrors'.

We ventured into the tomb with almost all our old characters. Some were boosted up a bit, but we were four players playing roughly twelve characters ranging from level 11 to 18. We pumped up one mage and one cleric to 18 in order to have 9-th level spells at our disposal.

Quite near the beginning we all jumped through the portal that teleported living matter outside the tomb and everything else into Azererac's vault.

Our DM laughed quite a lot about it when we stood completely naked outside the worst dungeon ever devised. Anyway, some of the older retired characters had some miscellaneous magical stuff and money stashed away in the hideout, so the whole party teleported back there to get new (but poor) gear.

Then we simply used locate object on our old gear, passwall and disintegrate spells to grind through the mountain until we landed on top of Azererac's vault. I think the demilich lasted almost three rounds.

Anyway, the point was really the second (and even more challenging) part (The return to the tomb of horrors), which we never had time to finish.
This was all played using the Skills&Powers addon to 2E.

I must admit that the tomb was probably guarded from passwall/disintegrate-types of travel, but in that case the DM hadn't noticed it.

 

[diaglo]

I tried for six months to sucker my current group into this one. Sadly, the large mound with the skull-like rocks at the top and rumors of a king's ransom were not enough to overcome their metagaming ...

took me almost 10 years to get my group to take the plunge.

Fiddle was more than willing to avoid the big light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[RFisher]

Try playing it with the resources of the pregenerated PCs in the back or with characters with equivalent resources.

I seem to recall someone saying that the pregen characters didn't match the level range recommended on the cover. True?

 

[Abraxas]

I seem to recall someone saying that the pregen characters didn't match the level range recommended on the cover. True?

Sort of.

They recommend 10 - 14, but in 1e, certain races couldn't make those levels, and multiclassing worked differently than in 3.5e. So you have some characters that have the experience of characters 10 to 14 level but are only 7/8 Ftr/Thf or a 5/7/6 Ftr/Rng/M-U. There are lower level characters listed than the recommended levels but those are only supposed to be used if you have lots of players (>10) or very few players (<3). The problem with the pregenerated characters is that they don't have the resources the PCs who are said to have made it through have. (I'm not refering to other peoples posts here, just stuff I've read elsewhere).

 

[diaglo]

Sort of.

They recommend 10 - 14, but in 1e, certain races couldn't make those levels, and multiclassing worked differently than in 3.5e. So you have some characters that have the experience of characters 10 to 14 level but are only 7/8 Ftr/Thf or a 5/7/6 Ftr/Rng/M-U. There are lower level characters listed than the recommended levels but those are only supposed to be used if you have lots of players (>10) or very few players (<3). The problem with the pregenerated characters is that they don't have the resources the PCs who are said to have made it through have. (I'm not refering to other peoples posts here, just stuff I've read elsewhere).

actually a ft7/th8 in 1edADnD is equiv to an 11th lvl character. the formula was ...

highest lvl class + total of other classes/ # of classes. so ... 8 + 7/2= 11.5... which is 11

5/7/6 = 7 + (5+6)/3 = 10.66667 ... which is 10

but in 1edADnD pre UA... you couldn't be a Ranger/MU... nor a Ranger/Dr... since rangers already got those spells later... Ranger/Cl was the only possible...nor could you be Ranger/Ft...ever. not even dual classing.

 

[Quasqueton]

I realize I'm aiding the hijacking of my own thread, but. . .

I thought AD&D1 multiclassed character "ECL" was calculated by adding one to the highest level of a two-classed character, adding two to a three-classed character.

A F/T 6/7 would be = to an 8th-level character.

A F/T/MU 6/6/7 would be = to a 9th-level character.

That was one of the reasons why multi-classing was a munchkin dream back in AD&D1.

Maybe I can remember (and have time) to check my AD&D1 PHB and DMG when I get home tonight.

Quasqueton

 

[Orius]

There are some pregen characters who have only a single class, and are below level 10. They'd probably get chewed up by the Tomb.

Also, there's the equipment given to the pregen characters. Most of the weapons or only +1 or +2. Given that you pretty much need at least a +4 weapon to even hit Acererak at the end, and there's really only 1 such weapon in the entire Tomb, the pregens going to have a hard time time taking him on. Maybe they might have a chance if they prepare the right spells, but who's going to prepare the right allotment for him without metagaming?

 

[Tuzenbach]

I believe "taking on Acererak" to be a silly notion entirely. IF (notice, I used a BIG if) the characters make it all the way to the skull chamber they will have learned something about the Tomb Of Horrors: *most* things in the dungeon will kill you IF you touch them.

If a party gets to the end and finds the skull in the chamber they (if intelligent) should be able to deduce that this skull (and not the false Acererak which they "defeated" earlier) is, indeed, the TRUE Acererak, and NOT part of the treasure. The solution is to take the treasure and split. Hopefully, the construction of the Tomb will have educated the players as to this best course of action by this time. If they touch the skull, they deserve the death they'll receive.