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I finally ran my party through Tomb of Horrors. I’m going to give my overall thoughts first, then some room specific things. The main thing, setting expectations was critical for running this dungeon.
- I told them that it was a “puzzle” dungeon and that combat would be minimal, so they brought characters that were good at investigating.
- Telling the party that it was unfair and to expect to die, made it easy to keep the game moving and they had backups ready. I included a narrative hand wave to explain how new characters could catch up so fast.
- Putting the mcguffin in the final room absolutely worked to drive the party to reach the end.
- The time limit worked an absolute treat for preventing the party from long resting at all really.
- I used the 1e elf/thief ability to auto detect hidden doors, and altered it to use passive perception instead. It really worked great for keeping the party from getting stuck everywhere.
The monsters were absolutely no challenge for a party of level 12 characters. Even tuning them up to as deadly as their 1e versions didn’t take into account the power increase of the party. You should definitely wholesale replace them with much more challenging encounters.
I had said that they couldn’t use mage hand to open doors, but then let a PC later use a rope tied to a handle, which was effectively the same thing. You should pick one or the other. Standing in front of the door to open it is dangerous, so it’s just if you want to force that or not.
Poison didn’t really feel right. In my game if you were poisoned, you immediately fell to death saves. In every instance the party was able to quickly heal the downed PC. So they were as deadly in theory as the 1e traps, but also effectively not.
One PC had detect magic up near constantly, but it didn’t really adversely affect the adventure in any way. The one place I fudged it was the dungeon collapse illusion at the first false ending. I waited until the PC stopped running and said they stop to look at something before I revealed that they were seeing illusion magic.
Entrance to the Tomb of Horrors
One of the PCs was a divination wizard and used a high level spell to determine the exact location to the entrance. Not a thing in 1e, but I felt it was fair to trade a spell slot resource to skip the two false entrances.
The Face of the Great Green Devil
One of the PCs sent their familiar into the mouth of the devil while looking through their eyes. I had them make a Wisdom save or they would have taken psychic damage. They succeed, so instead I described an ineffable eldrich abyss.
Chapel of Evil
The chapel was the first place they got stuck, which is what I expected. One PC kept walking back and forth to the corner with the secret exit, but also kept failing the passive perception roll. After about an hour and at the end of the session, I allowed them to spend some resources to get a big hint where to look.
Magical Secret Door
They found the door and investigated it enough to know what needed to be done, but none of them had the right spell prepared to unlock it. We did a little horse trading and I let them use a different spell of the same level to open the door.
Adamantine Door
Another door the party didn’t have the right setup for; they didn’t have three swords between them. Unless explicitly stated, I assumed all traps and doors were mundane things. So after they investigated enough I hinted there were switches in the sword slots that needed to be pressed. They carved up a quarter staff to make it work.
Cursed Gem and Bronze Urn
These two played off each other very well. In my game, one PC scooped up the cursed gem on the way out of the pillared throne room. The party did not accost the bronze urn and opened it gently. All I had to do was wait for the cursed PC to suggest a Wish from the efreeti, and boom.
Statues
I was worried the party would get stuck here, but for whatever reason they took an affront to the statues and used their first wish to send them away. Lucky break on them.
The Crypt of Acererak the Demilich
This scene also didn’t play out like I expected. The party was so distracted by the ghost that one PC thought they were going to grab the skull and run out of the crypt. I had them roll initiative and they were still focused on the ghost until Acerera’s turn which caught them off guard. It was a fun fight but still not a challenge for them.
I hope some of this helps some future DM.
