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

[Gentlegamer]

For some Players this might be fun and hilarious;

*raises hand*

 

[Stoat]

The genie is sort of interesting, but I'd guess a lot of parties would poke and prod at the urn before opening it. In this case caution is to your detriment. Missing out on the wishes sucks, but a single genie isn't strong enough to threaten a party of the recommended levels for this module.

My guess is that most groups approach the urn with extreme caution and interact with it only if they can't think of anything else to do. I'd expect that most groups never open the urn at all. On the other hand, I'd also assume that those groups that did decide to open the urn did so carefully with a high probability of not pissing off the Efreet.

The statues radiate magic and evil, (the only detection spells that work in this room), and the clue poem at the beginning of the Tomb says “The iron men of visage grim do more than meets the viewers eye.” [sic] But these statues aren’t magical, aren’t evil, and don’t actually do anything. So as much as I’ve complained that there are no clues in the Tomb for the Players/PCs to use, here we have at least four clues, yet they are completely useless. The clues aren’t even reverse psychology, or misleading to danger. They’re just useless.

I think "the iron men of visage grim do more than meets the viewer's eye" is a pretty crappy part of the riddle. The statues don't do anything.

If the riddle were something like "the iron men of visage grim hide (mumble mumble rhymes with 'die')" that would make more sense.

I don't think "Iron men of visage grim . . . " is a great clue, but at least it points the players in the right general direction. That's more than I can say for the Mithral Valves, the Juggernaut, or the Agitated Chamber.

Also, the fake gems and coins painted to look like more valuable coins is a total cliche. An organically played 14th level AD&D character would have encountered this trick multiple times by this level.

It's also completely obnoxious and pointless. No adventuring party worth the name is going to be either fooled or deterred by fake treasure.

Agreed. Assuming the PC's are initially fooled by the fake treasure (and I've known groups that would be) they can just teleport back to Area 30 once they figure out they've been conned.

 

[amerigoV]

Well let's keep moving.

Area 30. The False Treasure Room
A. Bronze Urn: The urn is very large and covered with gold filigree. A thin stream of smoke pours out of thin slot in the stopper. The Urn contains an Efreet. If the PC's delicately open the urn, the Efreet will "perform 3 services for the party and then depart." If the joggle the urn around while they try to open it, the Efreet will get pissed off and attack them.

This part could be very interesting. Back before everyone knew the form of the Demi-Lich, one could see a player asking "for Acererak's head on a plate!" Boy, wouldn't that be a nice surprise

Anyone have stories on the Efreet coming into play presuming they did not piss it off? How was Wish and the Efreet written up in 1e that might impact the party's wishes (or services - like what, shine up armor or something)? Or is this a false win for the party - ie, by now 99% of the groups would either leave it alone or poke/prod it to the point of angering the Efreet when it emerged?

 

[Bullgrit]

For some Players this might be fun and hilarious;

*raises hand*

Gentlegamer, are you saying you like this regularly, as the standard fare in a D&D adventure, or for an unusual departure from the norm?

For myself, I could see possibly being entertained by this style play for a game session or one short adventure, using pregen characters, (not regular campaign characters). Sort of like playing an adventure of Paranoia. But it's definitely not my preferred normal style of D&D play. The challenge of seeing just how far I could wade through the silliness of random and senseless tricks and traps could be fun for a short while. But once the disconnect* from "it's a thinking person's adventure" became apparent, (fairly early in the Tomb), I'd feel a bit baited and switched.

*The disconnect between what "it's a thinking person's adventure" means to me and what it apparently means to Gygax.

Bullgrit

 

[Freakohollik]

Something that immediately stands out to me as funny, is the description of the statues’ weapons. The first three weapons are described with spikes or saw teeth, but the fourth is simply a voulge. And sadly, that’s not even a clue.

The statues radiate magic and evil, (the only detection spells that work in this room), and the clue poem at the beginning of the Tomb says “The iron men of visage grim do more than meets the viewers eye.” [sic] But these statues aren’t magical, aren’t evil, and don’t actually do anything. So as much as I’ve complained that there are no clues in the Tomb for the Players/PCs to use, here we have at least four clues, yet they are completely useless. The clues aren’t even reverse psychology, or misleading to danger. They’re just useless.

Useless? Hardly. Both of those clues point you toward the statues which hide the secret door. A player that read the clue and/or detected magic on the statues wouldn't be stumped.

The only part of this criticism that's valid is that these statues radiate magic and evil despite being associated with neither. It's a fair criticism, but I've seen it in plenty of 1e modules and it's not a problem unique to the Tomb.

 

[grodog]

Just checking back in on this thread---I've got a lot of catching up to do!

 

[Jhaelen]

for other Players this could be stupid and a waste of time.

*raises hand*

I start getting fits just by reading "no magic works except detect evil and magic". First a game system is written featuring hundreds of interesting and/or broken spells, then to make an adventure a 'challenge' the designer decides to nerf evrything without good reason or in-game explanation. I _hate_ this kind of thing!

 

[Freakohollik]

*raises hand*

I start getting fits just by reading "no magic works except detect evil and magic". First a game system is written featuring hundreds of interesting and/or broken spells, then to make an adventure a 'challenge' the designer decides to nerf evrything without good reason or in-game explanation. I _hate_ this kind of thing!

This is something that bothers me about the Tomb. It seems like the Tomb should have been a lower level dungeon so that it challenges the players rather than their divination spells. It's high level so that it might attract "experienced" players. Bleh.

On the plus side, if you think your players would find it too easy you could make them use lower level characters. Just scale down the 1 or 2 monsters and make the traps do less damage.

 

[Hussar]

Well, to be fair, this is a pretty standard characteristic of high level 1e modules. The first chapter in every high level 1e module I can think of has a pretty lengthy list of spells and effects that don't work in that given module.

 

[Bullgrit]

Useless? Hardly. Both of those clues point you toward the statues which hide the secret door. A player that read the clue and/or detected magic on the statues wouldn't be stumped.

The only part of this criticism that's valid is that these statues radiate magic and evil despite being associated with neither. It's a fair criticism, but I've seen it in plenty of 1e modules and it's not a problem unique to the Tomb.

But wouldn't the efreet urn and the treasure chests also detect as magic (and evil for the efreet)? And they actually are magic (and evil). So, in a room with 8 things to mess with, 7 of them will detect as magic, 5 will detect as evil -- but only 3 are actually magical and only 1 is actually evil. Of the 4 false magic/evil things, 1 is the key to move forward in the Tomb. And the party has no way of determining what is true magic/evil and what is giving a false positive.

Bullgrit