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

[spectre72]

In the original module, who said you have to fight the demi-lich? Tenser and Robilar sure didn't.

Then why even go there in the first place?

Other than looking for fame and fortune you really are not there for any other purpose so why go there to begin with

There really isn't anything there except the demilich and death.

I have run and played TOH in every version of D&D and without using knowledge that a character would not have you die, usually long before getting to the end.

I will have to read RTOH to see the section you are talking about.

I also think that 3E's expectation of smaller parties makes TOH even more deadly because of the powers of the demilich being more dangerous to small parties.

TOH can be integrated into a campaign but would be a totally different adventure than what was originally intended, especially if modified to match the original levels and "Balanced".

 

[Bryan898]

Sending them through a module that has a reputation to devastate whole adventuring companies (not "dangerous", but "almost certain TPK"), without apparent link to the story, is a whim. He presents it as the easiest of their options, so they feel they have to go in there because everything else would be metagaming. They're not sent in there to get the fabled Artefact of Aaaaaargh or something.

It may not sound like an open, arbitrary TPK. But it sure sounds like a thinly veiled, arbitrary TPK. "Look boys, I didn't just kill you, you had a chance, it was in the module."

IIRC five of the six players had no problem going into the adventure. The other one didn't want to go in for metagame reasons. IME RttToH wasn't an instant death adventure. If you did the wrong thing it had devastating consequences, but a smart catious party can make it through the adventure.

If I were the DM and I just wanted to end the campaign, I'd just tell the players that I need a little break from it. This thinly veiled TPK looks like a lot of work to go to for something that can be done in a much easier way. But it's looking like it's just me...

 

[Bryan898]

You know there is a difference between calculated risk and certain death. The guy isn't "scared that his character will die". The fact that he played this character all the time, so far as to get him to level 15, should be proof. You usually don't get that powerful without going into danger. But we're not talking about calculated risk here. We talk about a module that has lots of opportunities to die, without a chance. A no-win situation. Everyone who merrily goes into that sort of situation is either weary of life or a complete idiot. It's like accusing someone that he is afraid to drive in any weather but bright sunshine when he refuses to go get some booze in a tornado.

Them there is fighting words. Here's where we basically differ, you think RttToH is certain death, my experience from playing in the module and reading it tells me it isn't. Trying to tell each other it's certain death, and that it isn't won't get anywhere. We're going to have to agree to disagree about the certain death aspects of RttToH.

 

[Psion]

The fact that he played this character all the time, so far as to get him to level 15, should be proof. You usually don't get that powerful without going into danger. But we're not talking about calculated risk here. We talk about a module that has lots of opportunities to die, without a chance.

Even if the player is right, you don't think that there is any way that the player could be over-estimating the deadliness of the module?

(Whether this is accurate or not is up in the air, depending on how the conversion is handled.)

 

[the Jester]

I ran a conversion of this a while back, while my high-level group was just edging into epic levels.

It was a blast.

I actually ramped it up in a lot of ways, to make all the difficulties proportional to the winter-wight at CR 23. The pcs were outpowered, but they all made it through; and I believe they all made it out (though there were several near-misses, and I made some of the more irrevocable deaths less irrevocable).

They key to success is lots of divination magic.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Then why even go there in the first place?

Other than looking for fame and fortune you really are not there for any other purpose so why go there to begin with

Bah! What else do you need than fame and fortune!

There really isn't anything there except the demilich and death.

Why do people go rock-climbing or sky-diving?

 

[Falkus]

Why do people go rock-climbing or sky-diving?

A more accurate simile would be why do people go rock climbing without any safety gear or sky-diving without parachutes? Answer: They don't, if they want to live.

 

[spectre72]

Bah! What else do you need than fame and fortune!

Why do people go rock-climbing or sky-diving?

You know the funny part about this conversation is that after reading the two threads and your responses I think we agree on things much more than it appears

 

[Gentlegamer]

A more accurate simile would be why do people go rock climbing without any safety gear or sky-diving without parachutes? Answer: They don't, if they want to live.

Likewise player characters should not enter the Tomb of Horrors unprepared . . .

 

[kigmatzomat]

Hey hey, there's a save there and you have to be under 150 hp! They failed their save, they deserve to die! You're all complaining about save or die effects... it's like you've never heard of Death Ward or Angelfire armor. It's evident to me that the problem is you're not twinked enough, not the adventure is a killer.

Since I have no idea what "Angelfire Armor" is then I guess I'm not twinked enough.

Maybe it is what the DM has prepared for the grand finale, and he has revamped it. I don't know, I don't follow the story hour. I did read earlier, about the role-playing reasons that they would be reluctant to come back to life for. But change in some of those cases that if they don't stop X from doing Y, then the world will Z. Suddenly, it becomes a necessity to stop this, would the cleric still not want to return from his deities grace when he has a holy quest to finish?

I can't quite grasp the overall story arc from the story hour but you'd think that before someone goes into the Tomb of Horrors that they realize it is the source for the end of the world.