We're Going To Do Return to the Tomb of Horrors and One Player has Freaked Out!

[National Acrobat]

Been there, Dead That!

As a person who has played the module, I can tell you it's a deathtrap.

Our DM did a faithful conversion to 3.0 at the time, and by the time it was over, each player had their characters killed several times, the raise deads tossed around like candy.

It's a tough module, no doubt about it. There are many things in there designed to, well, just kill people.

If your DM just lets the dice fall, then many people will die.

I'm planning on running it when my current group I'm dming is of appropriate level, and I've already told them that if they want to make up new characters just for the module, they may. It looks like roughly half my players will.

They all want to play it, but several of them do not want to lose beloved characters they had built up since first level in what they believe is a deathtrap.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I played as a player in it and survived unscathed. Casualties in that case was about 50%. I DMed it (and people know me as a "take no prisoners" DM) and the party had about 66% casualties.
As a player playing through it a second time, I didn't metagame and didn't tell the other players what to expect (so they could 'enjoy' the challenges for themselves). The casualties were about 33% - because they were relatively clever players and somewhat optimized for battling undead based on earlier adventures in the campaign.

Maybe I'm a freak, but I'm quite unaccustomed to high casualty rates. I suppose in part its due to my campaign world where resurrection magic is painfully rare but mostly its because it's my experience that a serious death-fest tends to result in the end of the campaign. When too many people die, many of them decide to create new characters and with 50% death rates, that pretty much spells "end of campaign" to me.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

When too many people die, many of them decide to create new characters and with 50% death rates, that pretty much spells "end of campaign" to me.

I agree. Sometimes, the campaign is as much about the characters as it is about that kingdom/artefact/villain. So when half of them die - or worse - the story just went down the Niagaras.

 

[MacMathan]

First off I have played and DMed both multiple times.

They are brutal and Return is by far the worst of the two, as a PC in a low resurrection campaign I would not go unless there was an overwhelming in game reason.

It would have to be something more than " because it is there". It would have to be a "save the world" or something very personally important to the PC.

The in game rep. of the place would be as a legendary tomb from which no one comes back , any info gathered would also support that conclusion.

If my PC had a good enough reason I would do it but it sounds like your party has plenty of other fish to fry.

My advice; come back in a few levels, hire as many people as you can and wage it as the final war of the campaign if your DM is really set on it.

Otherwise talk to your DM, express your concerns, make sure he realizes that more than half the party will not accept a res. etc.

If you find have sufficient cause be smart, put your estate in order and run it hard as it is a challenge most grievous.

 

[Gentlegamer]

You know, I begin to think - after all those comments of yours, all with about the same message and one as "funny" as the other - that you not agree with the guy we're talking about.

I bet your characters play russian roulette several times a day and eat steel nails as a snack, real tough customers.

Let's put it this way: my old AD&D Dungeon Master was a killer DM,* so I learned from the School of Hard Knocks how to survive the "unsurvivable" and I loved every minute of it. I'm really just shooting from the peanut gallery hoping that maybe the player in question could be "shamed" into braving it with his character.

Plus, better him than me.

*My magic-user rolled a 1 for hit points at each of his first three experience levels . . . and never died. Calling his early adventuring career a constant game of Russian Roulette would be very fitting.

 

[A'koss]

As I mentioned at the beginning of this thread, I've DM'd it twice and both times it was a TPK. Most of the players had probably 18+ years gaming experience at the time so they weren't a bunch of newbies going into it. While I'm a bit of a softie towards PCs at lower levels, I admit that's certainly no longer the case at these levels.

As a DM, I think RttToH is one of the greatest dungeon crawls ever made - it just reads so well, it's like a... captivating book.

As a player... I admit I would hesitate to go in if I had a character I was particularly attached to. Who was DMing it would play a lot in that decision too.

Cheers!

 

[Crothian]

I never ran this but I had 2 players walk away from the table when I ran the first one. I tricked them into it,ie they thought it was a typical dungeon crawl at first not realizing the mod I was going through. I've got the second one but never had a group that would enjoy it.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I'd be more interested in playing either if they (original more than Return) didn't have such blatant rules-mutilating features. "Here, there aren't any rules to cover this, so I get to do what I want."

Most of my group has either read or played it, so we'd have to have some significant changes first. If I had to go in, though, especially with Return, I'd want to max out my Skullclan Hunter levels first.

Brad

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think I would hate such a module dropped into the middle of a campaign.

Why? Because it would require me to shift into high gear. And then I'd have to justify why I wasn't on high gear the whole time.

I mean really - how often do you go "wow, that would be an awesome killer tactic that my character could do every day, but it would make the game a lot less fun for everyone, so I won't do it"?

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Yours was the post about the twinked out characters of a much higher level than recommended, yes?

Yes, but that doesn't matter. Any module converted from an earlier edition of D&D is by default NOT balanced for 3e. As long as a DM rebalances the encounters to fit the expected EL guidelines of 3e, RttToH shouldn't be more or less challenging than any other module. As I've learned in 3e, you can NEVER hard-convert earlier edition modules and expect them to be playable, regardless of whether they're Keep on the Borderlands or Return to the Tomb...

So if your DM is a sadist who doesn't jiggle the CR's to keep things in line, well, then you have a legitimate complaint. If he's obeying the guidelines for encounters layed down in the DMG, however, you should be fine. (And being the rules-monger I am, I design and convert ALL adventures to be in line with those guidelines, no ands, ifs or buts about it...)

If he was waving Rappan Athuk in my face, on the other hand, I might run the other way... nah, I never care about my characters that much anyway, a dead character just means I can make a new one I'd rather play...