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

[jonesy]

I think the question was "Is there any way for the characters to discover this fact?"

Only by stumbling into one of the solutions.

If they touch the siren.
If they run away from the tomb.
If they win and leave.
If the siren tells them.

Without the siren, or without them leaving, forget about it.

They can't even simulate the effects since one of the requirements is 'above ground'. Unless the DM is feeling lenient.

 

[FoxWander]

I think the question was "Is there any way for the characters to discover this fact?"

No, I don't believe there's any way for the PCs to discover HOW the siren's ability works. Back in 1e there was no distinction between extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural powers. There was no recourse as to which saving throw would be most appropriate. It would probably just default to a save vs. spells.
















Yeah the " breath the clean air above ground under the warm sun" is a pretty bizarro cure. There's no way I can see for the PCs to figure it out except for some kind of divination spell. Eventually an afflicted PC would meet those conditions and be cured, but depending on where the Tomb is placed and what time of year it is, that could be a while. I mean, the dedault location of the Tomb is the Great Swamp- hardly a place to breath "clean air." And if they happened to go during winter it could be awhile before they're under a "warm sun."

And the siren wouldn't be any help either. The text says...

The siren will converse in a friendly fashion only, asking how characters are and if they find the going hard In the Tomb. She will answer any direct questions with an evasive reply: «I cannot say,» «That is unknown to me,» «possibly,» etc. until she is freed. She knows nothing of the Tomb in any event.

So even if she DID know the bizarro cure (which she shouldn't because she "knows nothing of the Tomb") she couldn't tell you until you free her because she answer's direct questions evasively until then. At most she might ask about an obviously afflicted PC and volunteer that she can cure him/her.

 

[Bullgrit]

Yeah the " breath the clean air above ground under the warm sun" is a pretty bizarro cure.

I like this kind of cure. But D&D has all kinds of magic specifically to cure/remove such afflictions in an easy way, so forcing a more complicated cure can/does come across as wrong.

My complaint with this is that this idiocy effect just doesn't match well with the Tomb. Reduced intelligence is almost completely an in-game role play problem in AD&D, (except for magic-users), which clashes with the "test the player, not the character" premise of ToH.

Bullgrit

 

[Freakohollik]

I like this kind of cure. But D&D has all kinds of magic specifically to cure/remove such afflictions in an easy way, so forcing a more complicated cure can/does come across as wrong.

My complaint with this is that this idiocy effect just doesn't match well with the Tomb. Reduced intelligence is almost completely an in-game role play problem in AD&D, (except for magic-users), which clashes with the "test the player, not the character" premise of ToH.

Bullgrit

Perhaps the goal was to remove the MU's spells so that player would be tested more than his character.

 

[Hussar]

Perhaps the goal was to remove the MU's spells so that player would be tested more than his character.

That's REALLY REALLY reaching. For one, the MU player would have to be the one to enter the mist and would have to do it first because if anyone else went first, he would never go in.

Why would you even remotely assume that the MU would be hit by this particular trap?

 

[Freakohollik]

That's REALLY REALLY reaching. For one, the MU player would have to be the one to enter the mist and would have to do it first because if anyone else went first, he would never go in.

Why would you even remotely assume that the MU would be hit by this particular trap?

Any justification for this room is going to be reaching. I question the intelligence of any player that would walk into a gas filled room in the Tomb of Horrors.

The mist is the real trap here. The other stuff is just dressing as it's all worthless anyway. The siren can't help you and the only potentially good treasure is the scrolls.

Maybe Gary devised the gas room as the trap, then decided to make it more fancy without being lethal.

 

[coce]

If the sirens touch heals the int dmg, does the mist drain it again?

Do you have to take the siren out of the room, and then get cured as a reward for your random choice?

(i have little knowledge of how "mists" work in AD&D =)

 

[jonesy]

If the sirens touch heals the int dmg, does the mist drain it again?

Haha! Now I'm imagining a party which is unable to leave the room because they have to keep touching the siren, since they go immediately dumb again.

What is this, the Benny Hill room?

 

[Orius]

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.

That is hilarious. Always fun to see the various effects paranoia can have on a group of D&D players.

AD&D1 Dungeon Master's Guide, page 97:

What a minute am I reading that right? The second paragraph says the DM isn't supposed to tell the players anything outright, they have to work for the clues, but the next paragraph says if they start wasting time investigating everything thoroughly, the DM is supposed to use the ear seekers and wandering monsters liberally and fall back on mind games to make the players rush through things?

The Tomb of Horrors is the only truely old-school bit of D&D I've actually experienced. I ran the repro copy from RttToH about 12 years ago as a one-shot adventure on Halloween. The players used the pre-gens (which I'd upgraded a bit to 2e stats) and got to room 14. I don't remember exactly which way they went but I vaguely remember the following details:

• They checked the two false entrances and triggered them before they found the real entrance.
• They fought the 4 armed gargoyle.
• I'm pretty sure they busted through the mural and went through the door. I'm fairly certain they left the green devil face at 6 alone.
• They did the room with the 3 chests, I remember the snakes because I toned down the poison from 2e instadeath to just some simple damage. I didn't want to just bump them off with some save and die poison early when there was some far more fun instakill stuff later like the lovely tapestries.
  

I don't remember if there were any casualties. My sister was running a cleric and afterward I asked her why she didn't bother with any healing spells. She said something like, "I figured we were all going to die anyway, so what was the point?"

Anyway, one impression I've had of the Tomb for a long time comes from Gary's comment from RttToH about beating Rob and Ernie that a lot of this stuff was probably tailored to his group's playstyle. He notes that both Rob and Ernie got through the Tomb successfully. I wonder just how much the Tomb reflects the various tendancies of Gary, Rob, and Ernie (and others in that group?) in their games? They knew how each other thought, Gary knew his players favorite tactics, and his most experienced players knew what tricks he liked to pull and I would guess a good deal of this module is built on that. And as other people have stated several times already, this was originally written for a tournament and took into consideration tournament scoring. So a group that's just playing at home and isn't the time to run a bomb squad through every single dungeon may very well not find it enjoyable, and perhaps this module doesn't just test player skill, but DM skill as well.

I'm kind of in agreement with Stoat and Bullgrit on this thread though. A lot of the stuff that's here is pretty damn arbitrary at times, and thinking things through doesn't look like it always helps since there's some stuff that's not really hinted at, or the hints are really really vague. Note that Gary doesn't include correct interpretations to Acererak's riddles for the DM, and thus the speculation here on what some of the stuff is supposed to be referring to. Also, there is definitely a paradigm shift in how things are supposed to be run; I'm comfortable with the 3e discouragement of metagame thinking. This evolved out of various 2e ways of thinking that were a reaction to many experienced players knowing the game so well that it became harder to properly challenge them unless the players kept player and PC knowledge seperate.

The way this module is written though seems to assume the player will metagame ruthlessly, and does what it can to tackle it head on. This is one reason why the DCs in the 3.5 conversion don't bother me, it's partially because of different gameply approaches, but it also takes the possibility of RttToH being used, and in that adventure the Tomb is not a stand alone but the second part of a wider campaign against Acererak. If one is running the larger campaign, room 33 is not the ultimate goal, but something that needs to be completed to continue on to the next leg of the adventure.

Also, there is Penny Arcade's amusing take on the Tomb (I think it's probably referring to a 4e incarnation, but it can apply to any version of the Tomb really):

Penny Arcade - That Tomb Tomb Pow

I like the comments on the comic as well:

Gabriel tried his hand at running an update of a classic D&D adventure for a group of players for whom 4th Edition is God’s edition, with grim results. They aren’t familiar with the casual obliterations that characterize the old ways. They know that earlier systems were byzantine, because I have shown them fairly standard tables that used to be completely ordinary player knowledge and seen them recoil as though from a serpent. But older modules of the “meat grinder” variety, modules designed to punish the most devious players, represent something far outside their experience.

 

[jonesy]

I never noticed that before, but there's a line right there in the middle of the Detection Of Unusual Circumstances, Traps And Hearing Noise chapter of the AD&D1 DMG, which states:

"A character with a sword must have it out and be thinking about its power in order for the weapon to communicate anything to him and her."

What the heck does that mean? Why in that chapter? Is it specifically about a magic sword which detects unusual circumstances, traps, or hears noises? Why would you need to think about its power for it to work? Or is it simply about someone feeling the surroundings with the sword, testing the floor or the walls, or something? Or did someone slip a euphemism in?