Your experience in these classic/iconic encounters

[Celebrim]

I played this one, we were using some of the module's pre-gens as PCs. We charged. The skull didn't last a round.

Ok, wait a minute. I've been reading this thread in growing disbelief, and the above comment just has to be called out. Some of the other ones weren't believable either, but there was enough ambiguity in them that they were at least possible. However, the above statements contain two impossibilities.

1) None of the pre-gen characters has a weapon that can even damage the skull, much less smash it in a round. There is only one weapon in the tomb that is effective, and that only in the hands of 2 of the 20 possible pre-gen characters.
2) None of the pregen spell casters has access to any of the spells you'd need to consistantly take the skull down in a single round.
3) The only spells which are available to the spellcasters are highly obscure and are employed in ways that they are not normally employed. For example, shatter is one of the most effective attacks on the skull (but even it can't take the skull down fast enough to prevent it devestating the party) available to a party of the suggested level, but unless the players have cheated and have read the module text, shatter is unlikely to occur to them as an attack because in 1st edition it normally only effects non-magical unliving objects - as a monster (and a magical one to boot) the skull isn't even normally a valid target.
4) The other ways to win the fight are even more obscure.
5) The best the pregen party can do in the first round assuming good luck and all the right characters from the list present and everyone doing the perfect generally obscure thing is about 40 pts. of damage. The odds of that much are pretty low. Ascerak's skull has 50 hit points.

Generally speaking, I consider the fight to be impossible without spoilers for players using the pregen characters. It's highly likely that after round one, no one will have anything capable of doing further harm to the skull. It's immune to virtually all attacks, and those attacks its not immune to require equipment that is not available or spells beyond their character level. Oddly, the best party for defeating the liche is the 4 character party that is one of the suggested if there are only 2 players. In many cases, the critical party member (the one without which you can't win the fight except by inventing some method not in the text and convincing the DM that it will work) isn't even on the list of suggested party members.

 

[Celebrim]

They grappled Acererak and ran into the anti-magic room with him, where they pummelled him to death.

Per the map and the text, this is not possible. The way out of room 30 is down a narrow 10' long chute that desposits you in the corridor below. The top of the chute is covered by a 1 way secret door. Once your character leaves room 30, they can't return to it much less 'run' to it. And since room 30 is magic proofed, you can't use magic to get back into it.

As for pummeling him to death, weapons are ineffective on the skull, and generally if the skull gets even one round of attacks, it is capable of destroying the one possible fighter character that might represent a threat. Worse yet, since its an anti-magic room that surpresses the magical function of all items and it takes a powerful magic weapon to damage the skull, bashing on it in room 30 will do it no damage anyway.

 

[the Jester]

There are some classic/iconic situations in the classic adventure modules that I’ve wondered what other people experienced.

Steading of the Hill Giant Chief – The grand party with a couple dozen giants. Did you attack? How’d it go?

Yep, full-on attack. We got swarmed by giants and the survivors fled like dogs with our tails between our legs. Came back later and iirc the illusionist and assassin called the shots; it then went much better.

Shrine of the Kuo-Toa – The statue of Blip’poop. Did you touch it and say her name? How’d it go?

I don't think the party messed with the statue at all when I ran D1 and D2.

Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords – The slave lords waiting at the end of the module. Did you fight them? How’d it go?

When I played this, we got dissed by the inescapable gas trap that sets you up for A4.

Ghost Tower of Inverness – The flashing gem that sucks lives. Did you get the gem? How’d it go?

Hah! It killed maybe 2 of the pcs (this was one of the first D&D games I ever played- me running all of the pregens) and then I got it. Took it back to whoever sent us on the mission, and he turned on us and TPKed the party.

Tomb of Horrors – Acererak’s skull awakes. Did you fight it? How’d it go?

I played this back in the day, and I remember one or two pcs escaping alive. I have run this on several occasions, but usually the pcs don't get this far. When I ran Return to the Tomb of Horrors as the transition into epic levels in my 3.5 game, the pcs managed to get through the entire thing with minimal losses and incredible levels of success. I think- iirc- they destroyed the skull using the positive energy burst ability of the npc hunter of the dead that they had recruited for the mission.

 

[Mark Hope]

Per the map and the text, this is not possible. The way out of room 30 is down a narrow 10' long chute that desposits you in the corridor below. The top of the chute is covered by a 1 way secret door. Once your character leaves room 30, they can't return to it much less 'run' to it. And since room 30 is magic proofed, you can't use magic to get back into it.

As for pummeling him to death, weapons are ineffective on the skull, and generally if the skull gets even one round of attacks, it is capable of destroying the one possible fighter character that might represent a threat. Worse yet, since its an anti-magic room that surpresses the magical function of all items and it takes a powerful magic weapon to damage the skull, bashing on it in room 30 will do it no damage anyway.

*shrug*

That's what the DM said happened. I wasn't there.

 

[Starfox]

Steading of the Hill Giant Chief – The grand party with a couple dozen giants. Did you attack? How’d it go?

IIR we waited in the boss' room and murdered him when he returned home drunk. We did charge the room early on and had to run.

Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords – The slave lords waiting at the end of the module. Did you fight them? How’d it go?

We fought them and won a hard-fought victory.

Ghost Tower of Inverness – The flashing gem that sucks lives. Did you get the gem? How’d it go?

I played this as a DM and cheated to keep the players alive, IIR.

Temple of Elemental Evil – Zuggtmoy is bound. Did you release her? How’d it go? Or did you collapse the temple? How’d that go?

We lost any sense of what we were doing long before we got to this point and went to other, greener pastures.

Queen of the Demonweb Pits – Lolth awaits. Did you fight her? How’d it go?

We got scattered in our first attack. Some of us were forced to flee, but the PC Titan (donöt ask) managed to smash her more or less on his own.

Tomb of Horrors – Acererak’s skull awakes. Did you fight it? How’d it go?

Kind om made a fool of myself and died in the first room here - player and DM not communicating very well. Never got beyond that.

 

[Hussar]

Steading of the Hill Giant Chief – The grand party with a couple dozen giants. Did you attack? How’d it go?

Frontal assault. Mopped the floor with them. Unearthed Arcana FTW. And I in no way am going to claim that we were playing even remotely by the rules.

Queen of the Demonweb Pits – Lolth awaits. Did you fight her? How’d it go?

Lolth was a cream puff. The party obliterated her. Wasn't even remotely a challenge.

Now all those bloody drow on the pyramids in the 'Web? They were downright nasty.

Tomb of Horrors – Acererak’s skull awakes. Did you fight it? How’d it go?

We played this. But, since we played it some time after the release of the MM2, my players all knew what it was and just didn't bother touching it. They grabbed their stuff and buggered off.

 

[Celebrim]

*shrug*

That's what the DM said happened. I wasn't there.

Well, DM's can say whatever they want.

I'm just pointing out that almost invariably, if a player says, "We defeated Ascerak and destroyed his skull.", then one of two things are true:

1) Before playing the module, they read the module's text or the demi-lich entry in MM2 and then prepared an unusual spell list tailored exactly for the encounter, -or-
2) They had a cream puff DM that let them get away with things.

We got through the dungeon without a death (although we didn't know it at the time partly due to a little mercy by the DM, that let a stone shape spell work when it probably shouldn't) using a slow pace, alot of caution, lots of healing spells, and alot of rope to reel in the thief when failed to find a trap, and then we lost two to the 'invulnerable' skull no-save-just-die trap before making head long don't-look-back-it-might-eat-you retreat out of the dungeon with everything we could grab and we felt like we'd won just escaping with our skins and our souls.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Steading of the Hill Giant Chief – The grand party with a couple dozen giants. Did you attack? How’d it go?

Ran it twice; once with 1e in the 80s, once with RCFG this year. Both times the PCs did well, but missed loads of treasure, including the big treasure at the end. Both times the PCs took advantage of the drunken giant party, and used stealth as long as possible.

Ghost Tower of Inverness – The flashing gem that sucks lives. Did you get the gem? How’d it go?

I played this in the 80s and got sucked into the gem.

Queen of the Demonweb Pits – Lolth awaits. Did you fight her? How’d it go?

I ran this in the 80s, but the party died and/or escaped into other worlds. They never actually encountered Lolth.

Tomb of Horrors – Acererak’s skull awakes. Did you fight it? How’d it go?

I played in this in the 80's, using parties made up of characters from the back of the Rogue's Gallery. They all died, but it was a lot of fun.

 

[Lancelot]

Well, DM's can say whatever they want.

I'm just pointing out that almost invariably, if a player says, "We defeated Ascerak and destroyed his skull.", then one of two things are true:

1) Before playing the module, they read the module's text or the demi-lich entry in MM2 and then prepared an unusual spell list tailored exactly for the encounter, -or-
2) They had a cream puff DM that let them get away with things.

... or 3) They were playing Return to the TOH as part of a long-running campaign, explored the tomb very slowly and carefully, and did thorough research on the protagonist (including spells such as contact other place and legend lore) before taking on the demi-lich.

That's what happened with my players. They didn't need to read the module beforehand to know that the ToH has a "reputation". After having a rough time with the necromancer settlement outside the ToH, they knew that they had to approach the actual tomb in the most cautious way possible - which involved literally weeks of prep and spell-casting.

They went in against the demi-lich with the right tools and the right spells. At least one PC was soul-drained, but they expected this and had the knowledge/tools to recover him almost instantly. Of course, all this prep didn't avail them much once they reached the city of Moil. Cut off from the Prime Material Plane, they had to rely on instinct and trial-and-error a lot more (...much like the original module). And the casualty count went through the roof.

I would agree that if you're playing the ToH as a one-shot, purely as written and without the PCs spending days or weeks engaging in high-level magical divination and research, it's brutally unfair.

I've never considered it to be a good module. Contrary to some claims, it doesn't reward the thinking player. It rewards the lucky player, or the player that happens to be playing with a lot of divination spells. A better module would embed difficult-to-find (or interpret) clues as to the nature of the traps, which would require real brain power by the players. Instead, ToH is full of this sort of thing...

• "Oops, you touched item A to item B, instead of item C. Bad luck that there was no information to suggest the correct combination. You die."
• "You stepped through Door C without casting detect magic on it. Shame that you're one of the 90% of PC classes that doesn't have access to detect magic. You die."
• "That otherwise-mundane item that you just touched is a monster. It is immune to all of your weapons. It attacks. It doesn't require a hit roll, and you don't get a saving throw. You die."

The only "thinking" parts of the module are repetitive dungeon-crawling tricks which any normal party should be doing anyway. Always search for secret doors. Always avoid the scantily dressed girl. Never pick up the glowing loot surrounded by broken skeletons.

 

[rogueattorney]

Strangely, I don't think I've played or DM'ed any of the listed modules.

Some of the more iconic classics I have worked through...

B1: I've had some great runs through this module, in the most brutal, the characters fell through the trap door into the pool and couldn't find their way out. They were eventually picked off one by one, tpk.

B2: I think of the goblin/ogre/"Bree-Yark" room as the classic encounter in B2. I've run/played in B2 so many times and had so many different results... My first character ever, a thief, died by the hands of the ogre. The last party I ran managed to barricade themselves into the deceased ogre's lair until they realized a large force of goblins was doubling back to attack them from the entrance of the ex-ogre's home, so they burst back out against the goblins and fought their way back to freedom. It was awesome.

U2: My blood-thirsty players killed many, many a lizard man before figuring out that they weren't really bad guys. The weregild was steep.

I3-5: About mid-way through the series, there's an encounter with a shadow demon and a bunch of ghouls. It was an epic fight, with my brother's halfling f/t the last pc standing, using his gauntlets of ogre power to pummel the demon back to the Abyss. (Not sure how strictly by-the-book it was, but, damn, it was cool!)

FRC1: A horrible module. We were playing it half-seriously. At some point there's a big monster convention and the module explicitly says that the pcs would be crazy to attack all the monsters. I was DM, I read the line out of the module to the players and said, "Whaddya think?" They unanimously decided to "take 'em." An epic blood bath ensued, with the pcs ultimately victorious.

Thinking about this makes me realize how little we used modules back in the day and how many of our great sessions were fully created by the DM.