WIR S1 Tomb of Horrors [SPOILERS!! SPOILERS EVERYWHERE!!]‏

[Freakohollik]

I really liked the 3.5 update of the Tomb- even the extra monsters it added aren't too bad (and they can easily be ignored by purists). The update has much better editing and organization. There's actual boxed text to read instead of trying to parse Gary's stream of consciousness style. Also attempts are made to give rules justification for many 'DM fiat' type magical effects of the original- such as the many 'magic will not work' here effects.

I think it loses some of the original's gritty feel (everything now has a quantifiable DC so it can become just a series of skill checks) but makes up for it in organization and ease-of-use.

I'm surprised to hear that someone likes the 3.5 update. It's been a while since I've read it, but I remember thinking it that it lost all the feel of the original. Since it changed everything into saves and skill checks, it felt like it was strongly moving the focus to be a challenge for the characters and not the players. That is not in the spirit of the original module at all.

 

[GQuail]

I'm surprised to hear that someone likes the 3.5 update. It's been a while since I've read it, but I remember thinking it that it lost all the feel of the original. Since it changed everything into saves and skill checks, it felt like it was strongly moving the focus to be a challenge for the characters and not the players. That is not in the spirit of the original module at all.

FoxWander seems to sort of agree with you, but explains what tips the balance for him:

I think it loses some of the original's gritty feel (everything now has a quantifiable DC so it can become just a series of skill checks) but makes up for it in organization and ease-of-use.

Certainly, having hit a couple of issues when running the thing which I wouldn't expect to hit in a modern semi-professional adventure, I can appreciate why a lucid writing of the Tomb of Horrors would be worth the skill check DCs for some.

 

[Stoat]

Area 19. Laboratory and Mummy Preparation Room

Note: The module contains an illustration for this room. For whatever reason, that illustration does not appear in the WotC gallery that I've been linking to. A very quick GIS search doesn't pull it up either. If you can find it (legally) anywhere, please link to it.

Area 19 is a rectangular chamber 60 feet wide and 40 feet long. A single, obvious hallway leads out to the southwest. That is the only exit.

The room is cluttered with useless alchemical paraphernalia. The shelves on the walls are full of jars. Clay pots and urns are stacked all around. Linen wrappings, dried herbs, bones, skulls, and similar litter are everywhere. The PC's also see a large desk, two work benches, and two mummy preparation tables.

However, the only significant features in the room are three large stone vats. Each is seven feet wide, four feet deep and full of "murky liquid." The first contains harmless water. The second is full of flesh-melting acid. The third contains a gigantic ochre jelly that, despite its name, is grey in color.

The gimmick here is that the PC's need to find a key that has been split in half and hidden in the room. One half of the key is at the bottom of the acid-filled vat. The other half is sitting under the grey/ochre jelly. The module says that the vats are too big to just dump over, and anybody who reaches in and gropes around has only a 1% cumulative chance of successfully recovering the key.

IMO: There are two crucial pieces of information that the module does not give: (1) Can the PC's see the half-key at the bottom of Vat #2 and (2) How likely is the jelly in Vat #3 to attack?

Acererak's riddle says, "These keys and those are most important of all." The players should probably have it in mind that they need keys. However, the riddle isn't particularly clear what keys Acererak is talking about, and nothing in the riddle hints about vats, acid, mummies, murky water, laboratories or any of the other trappings found in Area 19. As far as I can tell, there are no clues in Area 19 itself to look for key. The players have no particular reason to think that there's a key hidden here, as opposed to anywhere else. This is particularly true given that the exit to the room is an open hallway.

So, if the players can see the half-key in Vat #2, or if the ochre jelly leaves Vat #3 and exposes the half-key there, they're a hell of a lot more likely to find what they need. Otherwise, they're likely to just waltz past and leave the FIRST KEY behind. They won't need it until they get to Area 32, so they'll have a ton of backtracking to do if they miss it the first time.

My guess is that most groups will startle the Ochre Jelly while searching the room and find the half-key after they kill it. After that, I suspect that they'll fool around with Vat #2 until they find the half-key hidden there. I don't see much in the way of a riddle or clue here, but I bet most groups still wind up with the FIRST KEY.

It bugs me that the Ochre Jelly is grey. Why not use a bigass Grey Ooze instead?

Finally, the module notes that all the bric-a-brac in this room exists "to waste time for the players." Perhaps that made sense when S1 was run as a tournament module. As I've noted several times already, there is no real penalty to the PC's if they take their time in the Tomb.

 

[MarkB]

Given the "murky liquid" description, I'm guessing no key-part is visible. As to the ochre jelly, even if it does attack, will it leave the vat to do so, or simply attack nearby targets of opportunity? If it dies in the vat, its remains will obscure the key just as effectively as its living form.

Once the players discover there's something to find, I can immediately think of an easy way of dealing with the acid vat. The alchemical paraphenalia must include numerous vessels capable of holding liquid, so these could easily be used to empty the harmless water vat, then form a bucket-chain to scoop the acid from its vat into the water vat (or the jelly vat if it's been vacated).

There's also going to be a fair degree of temptation to bottle up some of that acid for later use. Are there any traps or puzzles coming up that could be short-circuited via the application of strong acid?

EDIT: Just re-read the descriptions of those vats. They're bigger than I realised. That's going to take quite a lot of scooping.

 

[FoxWander]

IMO: There are two crucial pieces of information that the module does not give: (1) Can the PC's see the half-key at the bottom of Vat #2 and (2) How likely is the jelly in Vat #3 to attack?

I think you already answered the first of these- you mentioned the 1% chance to grope and find the key. I figured if you have to grope around for it that means you can't see it- otherwise, why is there such a slim chance to find it. As for the ochre jelly attacking, I've no idea. But if it doesn't attack AND you can't see anything in the bottom of the 2nd vat then this room is fairly pointless as the PC have no way of really knowing there is anything to search for. As you mentioned, the riddle mentions some important keys but gives no indication where they are- and certainly no hint that one of them is in this room. Other than the PCs being VERY thorough there's only a very slim chance the PCs will find the key here.

I recall my group (in Return, not the one I ran for Gary's b-day) only spotted the key parts because we resorted to detect magic to search thru all the junk and happened to notice an aura from inside vats 2 and 3. The group I ran thru here was just very thorough.

Going back to the 3.5 update again real quick- you hit it GQuail, the update IS a much better written and organized module but I totally agree with Freak, it has none of the "feel" of the original. By quantifying everything it becomes just another dungeon crawl solved by mindless dice-rolling. But you could print out the update and cut out all the trap DCs and such to get something like the original but easier to run.

 

[jonesy]

The second group I ran through the tomb had a wizard who was turning increasingly paranoid and crazy the farther the adventure progressed. When the player heard the description of the Laboratory he shouted "Mimics! Those tables are mimics!" And then he proceeded to waste the last charges in his Staff of Fireballs just blasting into the room. Almost killed the party rogue, who had to duck out of the other exit. It didn't take much for them to find the keys after there wasn't any clutter or jelly to distract them. The thing I'm still wondering about is if I should have ruled that the firestorm would have blasted the acid too?

 

[MarkB]

The thing I'm still wondering about is if I should have ruled that the firestorm would have blasted the acid too?

Not Gygaxian enough. It should boil the acid, causing it to geyser forth like a volcano and simultaneously emit a cloud of acidic fumes, requiring a save vs. spells to not have your lungs melted.

 

[Bullgrit]

Area 19. Laboratory and Mummy Preparation Room

Although there is only 1 item of eventual use within this totally plain and cluttered place, the volume of items within it is calculated to waste time for the players. All of the walls are lined with shelves…

There was a time in my early D&D days, when I was young and had lots and lots of time to waste, that presiding over a group of Players verbally searching everything in a cluttered room was not boring. It was even fun, like in the Wizard’s Workroom in In Search of the Unknown. But that time passed pretty quickly. And nowadays, my game time is very, very valuable. Too valuable to comfortably sit at the table listening to Players trying to figure out everything in a cluttered room.

For my sanity, as a DM, I would hope that the Players going through the Tomb would either realize or guess that the only things they need to investigate are things that are dangerous. Find something that hurts you, or could hurt you, and just ignore all the harmless and useless incidentals scattered about.

I love “dungeon dressing” to keep a setting from being boring stone room after stone room. But I don’t love dungeon dressing as a time sink to make dungeon exploration hours of boring investigative description.

Note: The module contains an illustration for this room. For whatever reason, that illustration does not appear in the WotC gallery that I've been linking to. A very quick GIS search doesn't pull it up either. If you can find it (legally) anywhere, please link to it.

An interesting thing about the illustration: The text says, “All of the walls are lined with shelves…”, but the illustration shows only a single spice rack-sized box, (with 3 shelves), on one broad, empty wall. The illustration doesn’t show a “volume of items,” and doesn’t look cluttered at all.

Other than the potential for wasting a lot of game time, the core “puzzle” here isn’t terrible. It’s a monster challenge and an environmental hazard to be dealt with. And the designer hasn’t deigned that there’s only one way to solve the issues. In fact, no way is given in the text to solve the issues – it’s totally up to Player ingenuity and DM ruling. The Players can come up with a solution using spells or just using destructive physical force.

Bullgrit

 

[FoxWander]

Although there is only 1 item of eventual use within this totally plain and cluttered place, the volume of items within it is calculated to waste time for the players. All of the walls are lined with shelves…

This part never made sense to me. It's effectively saying "this part is meant to annoy your players."

There's no "in game" reason to waste their time. The module specifically says in the beginning notes that there are no wandering monsters within or even near the tomb. Parties can camp out for as long as they like - in fact, any days between gaming sessions are specifically meant to represent days spent just hanging out in the Tomb on a 1-for-1 basis, to allow plenty of natural recovery time. Barring some outside influence, there is no time crunch or deadline. So if the character's have all the time in the world, what's the point of wasting the PLAYER'S time? Annoying your player's just for the heck of it seems kind of pointless and silly.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

This part never made sense to me. It's effectively saying "this part is meant to annoy your players."

There's no "in game" reason to waste their time. The module specifically says in the beginning notes that there are no wandering monsters within or even near the tomb. Parties can camp out for as long as they like - in fact, any days between gaming sessions are specifically meant to represent days spent just hanging out in the Tomb on a 1-for-1 basis, to allow plenty of natural recovery time. Barring some outside influence, there is no time crunch or deadline. So if the character's have all the time in the world, what's the point of wasting the PLAYER'S time? Annoying your player's just for the heck of it seems kind of pointless and silly.

This is a tournament-ism. When you play a module in a tournament you have a limited period of time to complete it.