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

[spectre72]

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.

IMHO doing this would make TOH worthless.

The adventure was never designed to be "Balanced".

Personally I am of an opposite opinion on adventures and balance, if a party is adventuring and runs into something they cannot handle then they should run away.

So many times I hear people tell me that an encounter wasn't fair.

My next question is "why did you attack"?

I have ran TOH many times, including a conversion to 3E (several times recently).

Every time a TPK.

I heard over and over from whining characters "That wasn't a balanced encounter!"

I blame 3rd edition for this perception that PC's should never face anything they cannot handle which I think is wrong.

There are bad things in the world and sometimes characters who are not ready face them, the smart ones run away.

TOH is designed to be a "no win" situation and changing it to be balanced is going to change it to something else entirely.

The adventure is designed to kill characters, nothing else.

Touch it, look at it, investigate it and bad stuff happens.

Many times you will just be in the wrong place at the wrong time

If you read the pregenerated NPC's in the module there is no chance they could have ever defeated the demilich (wrong equipment), and anyone that does and is playing according to the adventure as written is using knowledge their characters should not have.

And if you use the demilich from the Epic Level handbook characters of the level suggested by the module will not even have a chance.

There are ways for Epic Level characters to survive, but characters in the teens should stay away unless they want a new character.

One of the smartest things that I ever heard from a character who was part of a party of adventurers who had entered and explored the first tunnel and had sprung several traps that severly injured the party was "I am going home now"

 

[Altalazar]

Personally I am of an opposite opinion on adventures and balance, if a party is adventuring and runs into something they cannot handle then they should run away.

So many times I hear people tell me that an encounter wasn't fair.

My next question is "why did you attack"?

I have ran TOH many times, including a conversion to 3E (several times recently).

Every time a TPK.

I heard over and over from whining characters "That wasn't a balanced encounter!"

I blame 3rd edition for this perception that PC's should never face anything they cannot handle which I think is wrong.

There are bad things in the world and sometimes characters who are not ready face them, the smart ones run away.

TOH is designed to be a "no win" situation and changing it to be balanced is going to change it to something else entirely.

I agree - with both of those points - first, that the world is big and there will be things in it that you should run away from. Perhaps you note it and then plan on going back to it when you are more able to handle it. Or if the risk simply isn't worth the reward, you just leave it alone.

Of course, really smart Characters would simply retreat from the Tomb once it became apparent it was a death trap, and either never go back, or if they were motivated to get something inside, wait until they were 30+ level epic characters, when it is a pushover. That would be the SMART thing to do. The tomb, after all, isn't going anywhere.

 

[Malic]

Well, I haven't seen this module. But given the reputation it apparantly has, I'm sad to see so many people calling the guy a wuss and so on. Perhaps he's not one of these players whose joy is to 'beat the module'. Maybe he doesn't play for the tactical challenge and think that characters are disposable crash test dummies.

And for heaven's sake, what is brave about throwing away a couple of sheets of paper, which is all it is if the game is a test to see how far you get.

If you're keen on a tactical challenge and don't care about shredding a character or three, that's fine. But if not, throwing you into a deathtrap specifically designed to kill characters is IMO railroading of the worst kind.

There's a big difference between your character acting bravely, and you throwing away a character you've invested time and emotion in (if not 'work') because the DM feels like killing it. Not only that, but wants you to cooperate by walking into the deathtrap, either because your character 'wouldn't know any better' or because there's some plot reason made up to funnel you in. And not only that, but wants you to know that's what he's doing in advance.

It's the GM saying 'I can win whenever I like'. It makes the game pointless and it makes all the thought you've put into your character meaningless. That's what it feels like to me anyway. And if the GM doesn't have a TPK in mind but just wants you to think they do because of the module's reputation, that power trip would really get my back up too.

Maybe this is unfair to the GM in this case. Maybe he doesn't know about the reputation of the module, for example, so he's not threatening the players with it, but has some really cool story ideas for it. But I can 100% understand such a reaction from a player who has heard all this stuff.

 

[kigmatzomat]

RANT SPOILER
I'm a little disappointed by how someone could agree with him not wanting to play this with that reasoning. Personally, if my player didn't want to play because he feared losing his character I'd tell him to not play then. I don't think his character was hard-earned at all, or that he put a whole lot of work into him. All the "hard work" he's put into his PC is really having a good time playing a game devised by the person doing the real hard work, the DM.
If the DM puts the time into running your campaign, giving you adventures and plotlines to get you where you are, and has to basically create everything, shouldn't he have the right to have a say where the campaign is heading? He put time and effort into the converting that monster adventure, not to mention the time needed to read it, and seems fairly excited about it.

I spend 99% of my gaming time behind the screen and I disagree with this. First off, if the player is concerned about losing his character I'd be happy someone is actually involved with the game. It beats the crap out of the "it's just paper, I'm not even sure what it's name is" gamers when you are trying to run a campaign.

Second of all, many players put a lot of work into their characters, sometimes more than the DM. I've been in the situation where the DM expects the players to have deep, creative characters and then runs pre-packaged modules that you'd swear he's never read before game day. Everyone who plays a wizard puts work into their character. Everyone who crafts items puts work into the character. Every player I've ever coaxed into planning has put work into the game.

In this particular case the players are obviously putting work into the game since Herreman has a 40,000 word story hour devoted to the game. If I were just copying that story hour at my best typing speed it would take me 10-15 hours! That is work!

And while DMs have the greatest control over the campaign, a game where the characters and players have no say in the direction is not a campaign but a railroad.

If I did all that work and my players wouldn't even give it a shot because they were too scared too lose their characters.... Acerack would win and the world would be consumed by fire, and guess what would happen to their characters?
END RANT

If that's the campaign climax then something on par with RtToH would be expected but this doesn't read like it is the "grand finale." The characters have other directions the campaign could go and at least half the characters in this person's game are unwilling to return from the dead. In other words, this campaign will be totally hosed unless the DM has totally revamped RtToH and since this is a "Let the dice lay where they fall" kind of DM, the odds of "campaign death" are incredibly high.

And destroying a campaign just because the DM got a new toy he's desperate to run does not sound like fun.

 

[WizarDru]

My biggest problem with ToH (I can't speak to its sequel) is that while it's fun from a DM standpoint, I'm not sure what I'd think of it as a player. Someone mentioned ratcheting it up to high-gear: I'd be more concerned about the chilling 10' pole effect. Back when ToH was the rage, proceeding through dungeons could often be a case of 'send the hireling to touch the statue' and 'we move forward very slowly, tapping the floor, walls and ceiling with a 10' pole every foot. Some folks might enjoy that style, but that's not really the kind of play I'd want to encourage. And once you start down that slippery slope, it's problematic. The original ToH had some traps that didn't just kill you, they obliterated you so utterly, that nothing short of divine intervention could bring you back. True Res? Not while Acerak's in the hizouse, kiddies. If Acerak is converted to the current version of a demi-lich, he's what CR 28? Yikes.

All of which is ironic, when you consider my players (now Epic) may be going to the Tomb very soon.

 

[Psion]

It most certainly does. You played the adventure completely out of context and drew a conclusion from that. You can't take "epic" level characters through an adventure designed for level 13-16.

Actually, I rather think he is right and you ought to re-read his post. When you do a straigt conversion to 3e, you can't expect level ranges to hold. The winter wight's 3e write-up, for example, is an epic level creature. So there are really three options:

1) Use a higher level guideline, and enhance all the other creatures to match.
2) Use the original level guidelines, but nerf the creature statistics to fit.
3) Run it blindly as is, and make it even MORE of a meatgrinder.

I would not consider option #3 as a faithful conversion, because it inherently shifts the danger of the adventure.

 

[Warrior Poet]

If Acerak is converted to the current version of a demi-lich, he's what CR 28? Yikes.

Actually, I'd guess he'd be even worse, since, even for a demi-lich, he's powerful. At least in Return. In the original, converted, maybe a 28. In Return, he might be a 30 (or worse?). He's epic, seriously.

The winter wight's 3e write-up, for example, is an epic level creature.

Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. His "lessers" are epic level. With everything that's going on in Return, well, Acererak's much, much worse.

Still, the module is fun. No, really (o.k., so I'm often a DM). I think the thing is, as a module, it has to be run by a particularly skilled DM (which, I've been learning, I am not, when it comes to d20 systems), who can handle the constant onslaught to the party. I don't mean toning it down, necessarily; rather, presenting it in a way that keeps the experience, action, intrigue (and there's quite a bit), mystery, and challenge, fun. Otherwise, it can degenerate into "OK, you've survived the Bone Golem. Next on the incremental-growth killer monster chart? The Dark Naga with Sorcerer levels! Yay!"

Warrior Poet

 

[Bryan898]

Frankly, if my DM is running a module, and that module is crap to the level of destroying my fun, then I feel I have an obligation to tell him that the module probably needs some fixing. I'll point out the problems, etc etc, but in all seriousness, the fact that a module turned out to be crap is often not something you can assess before it is run.

If, on the other hand, the DM bought the module KNOWING that it would be crap (ie - it's widely known for it's make-a-sensible-choice-and-then-die-and-never-come-back components), and he waves it at me, and then proclaims "I'm going to run this crap module", then I'm probably going to have a bit of a tizzy, especially if the module is widely known as going directly against the campaigns theme and style of play to date.

How can you know somethings crap without trying it? How do you know that the DM in question hasn't changed those save or die effects? Said save or die spells don't make the RttToH, it has plenty of atmosphere, and could easily be ran without them. Not to mention, some of the save or die effects have been nerfed since 2nd edition. It's simply an adventure when you have to be extra cautious, that's all.

Also, the DM went to much more work to get the players where they are now, and has invested much more time into the story of their adventures. I know that I, for one, don't go to all that effort just to slaughter them for fun. If he wanted the campaign to end, he could just as easily tell the players that he's tired of the campaign, and to retire their characters. Why go to all the trouble? I get the feeling that this guy knows what he's doing, and is going to try his best to make the module fun for the players.

 

[Bryan898]

What you hear and what the player hears in this case are different. What the player hears is "I want to kill you. Repeatedly, and for no other reason than I want to kill you. And, I'm hoping for a TPK along the way. Suckers."

IMC PCs die all the time. I almost had a TPK last session, and about four or five sessions ago I almost had a TPK, too. That said, I would not run this module. I don't want the players to die so badly that I'll resort to that monstrocity.

The player that hears "I want to kill you" should exercise some common sense. If that were the case he'd already be dead, and with a lot less effort. No need to convert 300+ pages, just pull out the MM and throw some big creatures at them. The player needs to trust in his DM a little more, and understand that he's not going to go to all this trouble just to kill their PCs.

Yes it's a meatgrinder adventure, with a reputation for killing characters. All I'm saying is that they can at least give it a try before they tell the DM to shove all his hard work where the sun doesn't shine. Show a little respect, and trust in the DM, the only reason they're at 15th level to begin with is by his good grace.

 

[Rackhir]

Yes it's a meatgrinder adventure, with a reputation for killing characters. All I'm saying is that they can at least give it a try before they tell the DM to shove all his hard work where the sun doesn't shine. Show a little respect, and trust in the DM, the only reason they're at 15th level to begin with is by his good grace.

Look, the player simply rolled a one on his morale check. It happens to everyone eventually.