okay so the janitor for the tomb of horrors is the most powerful character in the material plane. he regularly goes through the whole tomb without getting harmed and has the whole tomb memorized. The Janitor of Horrors needs to be made.
Well, they ARE demons who hang out in the astral/ethereal plane. That probably helps them avoid traps to a degree. Plus, many of the hazards in the Tomb of Horrors are only hazardous if you're both ignorant and foolhardy. The "Janitor of Horrors" wouldn't need to be that badass to survive them, since he already knows what the hazards are and how you circumvent them.
I remember the devil mouth like this in my game: Player: I stick my 10 foot pole in the mouth Me: You feel the pole getting lighter Player: I take it out Me: You now have a 5 foot pole Player: oookayyy.
Gygax had said in many interviews: ToH was originally him trolling his friends. It's funny that it caught on as a serious dungeon. Originally he intended the party to fail hard. No one was supposed to survive it.
That's what many people don't understand about this dungeon when they play it and get mad at it. This was made as a Troll to people who get over confident enough to think they can beat anything and is outright built with the premise "How would PC's build a dungeon if they were to put in everything PC's (and their players) talk about the way they would do things to keep people way from their stuff." They call it unfair and such. But that's what it's designed to be. it's also a way for Gary and other DM's to say "I could have always done worse to you as a DM" but in adventure form.
The whole veneration of everything "gygaxian" is silly to me, if it's just a troll there's no reason to mystify it, and without the mystification people would care as much about the ToH as they care about an episode of Takeshi's Castle. It was TSR and then WotC who played this up as a serious product, hence Gygax's claim that it's just a troll is either highly disingenuous or he was trolling his customers too.
@@Ryan_Winter I feel like reactions like this are sillier than the celebration of Gygax. Running incredibly challenging and dangerous games can be rewarding in a way that the most carefully crafted story can't, and even while running extremely story-focused, character driven stories my reputation as a deadly dungeon master is invaluable to create tension and make my players value their successes, fear the villains, and take the game seriously. Gygax and what he represents, and the fact that I learned D&D in his heyday and can share stories with my players of all the adventures I had as a player and DM back then really conveys that playing in one of my games you're a hero overcoming impossible odds, not just getting patted on the head by your friend.
Gygax once got called for a ruling on Tomb of Horrors in a tournament. He ruled that the crown would stick to Acererak's skull, and that touching him with the "wrong" end of the scepter would then kill him instantly. Anything in the module that can reasonably be assumed to be able to utterly annihilate or otherwise instantly kill someone or something is fair game for taking out Acererak. After all, turnabout is always fair play.
This seems wrong given that the scepter doesn't "destroy," it "kills." Any spell or effect that kills a living being does nothing to undead. Gary wasn't perfect. He admitted to many mistakes over the years.
It's not "kills". It's "snuffed out, turning into a fetid powder which cannot be brought back to life no matter what (wishes not withstanding)." I'd go with Gygax on this one. If the PCs think of putting the crown on the skull, touch the scepter to it, then I'd let them snuff out the badguy.
@@briancorvello3620 , I don't disagree. And as others have pointed out, the wording of the scepter does indicate destruction rather than "kill," so I accept that it would work. I was just thinking that Gary was with us for many years (though not nearly long enough) and over that time he answered a lot of questions for a lot of fans. He has a history of providing inconsistent and conflicting information, because he is a human being with a lot going on in his mind. His own opinion may change over time, and, sometimes, in the rush to answer many questions for many people, he may not have always thought about his answers all the way. For that reason, I don't take everything that Gary ever said as absolute canon or adjudication for a rule, even if he is the author, though I do give his answers more weight because of it.
@@SSkorkowsky Just so. Gary told me Ernie's method of disposal was quite ingenious: cast _Transmute Rock to Mud_ on the altar, skull sinks in, cast _Dispel Magic_ and now the skull is trapped. Grab all the handy treasure and get the hell out!
Hard(er) Mode: When PCs try to abuse the Find Trap spell, have the entire tomb light up as the trap, because technically, this is one large trap full of other traps.
In 5e, the "strip you naked" part teleports you to the foggy doorway by the sphere of annihilation hole. My party hadn't gone that far before veering off when entering. The barbarian then proceeded to stick his hand in, and when I told him that he could no long feel his arm another player said "Just crawl in." So he did. Head first. The players were then Naked and Afraid after they pulled him out with nearly half of his head missing.
That also doesn't make sense to me. Yeah the nerve endings that you stuck in the spirit Annihilation are gone, but the part of your arm that's bleeding out is going to be sending pain signals to your brain. It doesn't make any logical sense that you wouldn't feel anything, you would feel something and it would hurt a lot. Severing nerve endings like that doesn't just turn it off, if you have the world's sharpest sword and cut your arm clean off, it is still going to hurt
@@SeanLaMontagne There's a difference between physically severing an arm and that arm just ceasing existence. That said, you'll feel something. It will be a loss of the air pressure on the skin, the coolness and dampness of the air, th sudden loss of the weight of your hand, and so on. All things we're used to feeling that you suddenly no longer feel.
@@anotherthing Physiologically, there's no difference between tissue being erased from existence vs it being cut off by the world's sharpest sword, as the other person described. In a "normal" amputation you're no longer connected to the nerves in the severed part, either. The pain is all in the remaining tissue. And while not causing any additional damage radiating in to that remaining tissue would change the overall sensation and almost certainly diminish the pain to some extent, the nervous system is continuous. So you're going to have extant, connected nerves that have been severed at their ends. Not only would that cause pain, I'd wager it would be quite substantial.
I'm actually a little sad that the video didn't start like this - Seth: Helping me review the Tomb of Horrors is Jack the NPC. (Jack is nowhere to be seen) Seth: Jack? Jack? You there bud? Jack (from offscreen): Nope! Seth: Jack... Jack: No freakin' way am I helping you with this! I'm an NPC, not a redshirt! I'm not getting used to scout out the Devil Face again!
I ran this about a year ago like an old 80’s video game. When each player died, they put their name in a jar and their character returned to their last safe location. When they got to the end, the most names in the jar bought pizza.
That's similar to an idea I saw on another review of ToH here. The DM had the PCs in a Groundhog Day Loop. Once they died - one by one - the party found themselves back at the entrance, completely unharmed and with all their gear intact. So, bit by bit they learned how to navigate the tomb safely. Wouldn't work for every group, but I found the idea intriguing.
i wonder if all the blood has enough iron in it to make a sword of literal heroes blood. Maybe the demons are harvesting heroes for the ultimate forging project.
According to The Internet, it takes only the blood of 400 people to get enough iron to forge a sword. Which is something I now know thanks to you. www.tor.com/2017/07/20/sword-forged-from-the-blood-of-your-enemies/
@@SSkorkowsky This reminds me of an article from (The) Dragon #13 where they told you how much a cubic foot of Human flesh weighs, but wouldn't admit to exactly how they tested that ;)
"If you feel your players won't enjoy this module, don't run them through it." You're right, this dungeon isn't for everyone, which is why you run Isle of the Ape to really mess with them.
Actually, I think I have an answer for the vaguely specific things which pepper the tomb. I ran this back in Junior High (circa '82) and my players seemed to be having no problem with it, and then they went and looked for and found a valuable gemstone that they had absolutely no reason to look for or find - except - that they were reading the module behind my back. I was thoroughly pissed at them but I didn't explode. Instead, I turned the tables on them and started to change the tomb in small yet significant ways that they could not contest without admitting that they had been reading the module. It was fun to watch them squirm :-) Yeah, so I don't just think of ToH as being an adventure full of traps, it is a module which contains traps of its own. Good job Mr. Gygax! (And good video to you too, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.)
So the gemstone trick was like a musician wanting only green M&M's on their rider's, to make sure that people are actually reading it. Except Gary made it so he knows people aren't reading the module! Brilliant!
There's a similar "Player" trap in one of the Dragonlance modules... (It's many decades since I ran it, so I can't recall which Mod...). I was running the campaign for the second time, (the first time had been when it first came out, and the constant having to wait weeks or months for a new adventure kind of spoiled it for the group I ran it for first time) so I was running it with a new group... This guy asked if he could join in, having "wanted to do Dragonlance but never got the chance" so I said OK. He was showing exceptional decision making throughout the first couple of sessions, and one of my players openly asked if he'd done it before... should have been a warning sign... but it was when he jumped out of a boat in the middle of a lake to "search for treasure" that he blew it... in the written module there was... indeed...some sunken treasure. Right beneath where he jumped out the boat... he spent half an hour scouring the bottom of that lake for that treasure... several "Are you SURE there is nothing here???" And he didn't come back to the next session when we'd clearly reached the "he knew, that I knew, that he knew..." what was going on point. Found out years later that he'd DM'd that campaign SEVERAL times prior to joining my game. Tosser...
I've played DL campaign a half-dozen times. repetition doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the series I've never made it passed DL8 because the party always TPKs at the High Clerist Tower. not having control of the Twins or GM/RW leaves the fate of the world to the leftovers and unproven. it's like the Battle of the Two Towers with no Legolas, no Aragorn & no Gandalf.
Here's a thought: use _Push_ to force A's head into a *bag of holding* , then throw that into the *Sphere of Annihilation* . Small price to pay for the destruction of big A.
Shouldn't the sphere of annihilation also be generating wind, as all the air that touches it is annihilated, and thus draws in more air, like a vacuum cleaner?
My group played through the Tomb of Horrors. We had four (4) TPKs before we finally beat it. But we didn't beat it "fair and square". We rustled cattle from several nearby farms and drove the herd through the dungeon ahead of us, setting off traps and letting the cows take the casualties instead of us.
The purpose of the tomb of horrors is really to show the superiority of the School of Necromancy wizard in having a vast army of skeletons figure everything out for him.
It's funny how Gygax would be so precise about his keeping track of time, inventory and such but he didn't seem to calculate how many people would have had to pass through the tomb to fill a room with blood.
The whole creepiness factor of the cleanup is removed when you think of like 5 demons in jumpsuits, cleaning and mopping up dead adventurers, talking about their families like it’s just another Tuesday.
I was the Dungeon Master for this, tonnes of fun. One Druid turned into a bird and flew straight into the Sphere of Annihilation...a Cleric got green slimed by the "curtains"...a Thief fell into the pit trap under a tunnel, he went alone wearing a Ring of Regeneration...his screams echoed throughout the halls forever (I deemed). A Fighter died via elephant trap squishing. A Wizard and a Cleric were exploded by the orange pulsating gem and another Thief died by the Efreeti. Everyone involved had a blast! (pun intended).
That could be how seasoned players start the adventure into the ToH played as a one-shot. "You wake up outside, naked and angry. A memory fades quickly of you dying to an undead wizard... You're pretty sure the mountain with a skull face on it has something to do with it. Time to get back in there and recover your beloved *insert awesome item*."
I was a DM for 3.5 campaign for five years (17 years ago...time flies) of weekly sessions and during that, the group went through the Tomb of Horrors. I kept the place pretty much completely same as what it was in the S1 module you are showing here. I also kept the Acererak vulnerabilities and powers quite close to original. However, I gave the party the following poems as info, as they were making extensive preparations as they had heard some rumors about the place. Excuse me my verses as I'm not a native english speaker :). "Day of Chaos" is the reason they went in, it was one of a pair of intelligent artifact swords. Another they had already found, but it was not complete (and greatly diminished in power) without it's pair. Legend Lore: Ancient evil, In its chamber Preying on mortal, their souls in danger Waiting on the floor, Day of Chaos Under the stare of chilling terror Mansion of madness, House of insane Chance of death but much to gain Make one mistake and you know pain Ancient scripts of the Archipelago: Remove the evil. Make it shatter. Kill it with a word, but don’t be matter. Purest of words, should find its weakness. Even just a sword, might make a difference. Some other library texts reveal the following: -Casting a foul area of evil might make him forget what it was going to do. -There might be some other spells to make it forget or keep it in place. It’s quite questionable though. The changes I made: As far as I recall, I allowed any +4 weapon to do damage to it, but only do 1 (or was it 5) hp per hit. Power word kill also did not outright kill it, but did something like 20p damage per spell on ethereal plane. Ace also had some 100 hp or so at the start. But the players were around lvl 13, plus everyone had 1-3 levels of racial HD on top of that (Dwarf/Half-dragon, Dwarf/half-elemental, Tiefling/Shade, Tiefling and a full blown song dragon(but she was a bard, so it evens out >
The (revised) module discloses dead characters can be revived with a Simulacrum or "similar" magic. The "suggested" highest level for either a Wizard OR Cleric is 15th, so a Wish spell isn't technically available. note: two low level wizards (say 3rd level), could each cast Shatter [start of the round], and Forget [end of the round] - just as the skull begins to rise (and after any fighters damage the skull).
You're right... a whole party crawling into the sphere of annihilation absolutely doesn't make sense. But what if they jump in, one after another? Yes, that's right. My party all leapt into the mouth headfirst, one at a time... And the last guy only did so because he was absolutely convinced they'd all been killed and didn't want to do the rest of the dungeon alone.
Given my experience with the tomb, I estimate a 94% probability that she will. I'm not sure why players assume there's a super-happy-fun slide hidden in there, but they do, and they race to ride it first.
"And trust me, anyone who's worn a sword on their belt for any amount of time'll tell ya, those things bump against everything." Can vouch. Swords are awkward as hell.
As a kid I made the mistake of running this for my players in a long running campaign, which promptly decimated their beloved characters. I'm fairly convinced my players have PTSD to this day from the experience.
I went through this dungeon in 1982 with my 3rd level paladin -- who I did not want to die because it was my first successful character after my magic user died in hommlet trying to fight with dagger/dart/staff after casting his one magic missile. It was absolutely scary. Never fear though -- just let overpowered 5e superheroes go through and everyone will get a trophy. I tried to recreate the experience for some 5e players who hadn't experienced it, but all their player options broke the dungeon (e.g., flying, monks walking on walls, etc.). 5e is too easy to generate the same intensity. And WOTC just makes it harder on the DM who doesn't care to read about every new option they publish. They should publish more mechanics that are missing in the game -- I have to make my own all the time -- instead of stealing creativity from players by providing them all the video-game options they need to stop thinking.
@@BTsMusicChannel Oh, I agree. I hate to sound like an old gate keeper, but I remember when I got my Cavalier to level 7 in AD&D. All the struggles and fear built into the challenge of the old systems made it feel like a real accomplishment. The DM that showed me the ropes back in the 90's was an OG gamer that never pulled any punches. I'll never fault someone for liking any system, especially since Pathfinder and 5e have brought roleplaying games into a level of popularity I never dreamed of twenty years ago. That being said, I've been tinkering with my own game system for a few years now to try and capture the same feeling of danger and dread, while also embracing some of the character diversity the newer editions have introduced.
@@saintjst7 I am not trying to be a gatekeeper. I just find some intensity lacking in 5e and the way it is generally played, and I am trying to recapture it. So far Basic Fantasy RPG has been the best solution I've found, but they really need to make the rules easier to follow. It's a bit clunky with a lot of page turning and you have to really prepare. I am also always making my own mechanics, esp. if I am DMing 5e because a lot of it is missing -- they prefer to expand player's options rater than making useful game mechanics. I prefer the opposite. 5e is great for one thing -- it has brought a lot of new people to the game, and you cannot fault it for that!
@@BTsMusicChannel Have you tried Labyrinth Lord? It is an AD&D-based system that has an infamous module called the Barrowmaze which is a sprawling mega-dungeon. That was fairly satisfying for me as a player. I had a half-orc assassin who was pretending to be a thief so as not to seem as "evil" to the party, but the thing is assassins only get thief skills at level 4 (if memory serves) and we were not quite there yet. We went into one barrow that was lined with statues, and a conspicuous one at the end had gemstones for eyes. Naturally we wanted to search for traps, and the rest of the party stared at my character. So I had to use deduction and educated guesses to imagine what a trap would be if it was in a statue. Since the statues were made of stone and appeared to be cast with no clear joints or parts that could move, I figured that the trap would have to be either small or fit in an oblong space. That leaves dart traps and their ilk, and gas, explosive or acid traps. So I said we should back out to the entrance of the crypt and use rope to pull the statue down. It shattered and poison gas dispersed harmlessly while we stood outside. Our first session was also quite interesting -- when you travel to the barrows, you have to go through a swamp (much like Tomb of Horrors) and there's a random encounter roll. Among the most difficult of those is a pack of giant scorpions. We rolled that on our very first session and had to beat a hasty retreat after losing a hireling or two.
@@crazyeyes8962 I know about Labyrinth Lord, but I have not explored it. Right now I have someone who asked me to make a game for he and his wife, and she likes Celtic and fairy themes. So I am taking some time to review the literature of Celtic mythology and Irish fairy tales, as well as some stuff on witch hunting in Ireland. I am going to make a world that parallels those sources without using the same names, and make up my own classes/advancement/magic system borrowing stuff from other "D&D" RPGs as needed. In this system, Druid's will get their power from the polytheistic "Old Gods," while Bards, Witches, and Fairy Doctors will get theirs from the fairies. On the other side is something like christians (with a monotheistic "good god" with a imperialistic attitude that persecutes everyone else that doesn't believe in their god and an "evil" god like a devil). The Clerics will get their power from the good god, and Wizards will get it from study of arcane materials and formulas (kind of like in Lovecraft's stories). Then I will have Fighters and Thieves. Players playing spell casters (Bard, Fairy Doctor, Witch, Druid, Cleric, and Wizard) will not have a list of spells to choose from (because i think it encourages power gaming and demystifies magic in a way that reduces the sense of wonder, awe and fear I'd like to create for the players). Instead, when I see fit to give them a spell (say when a bard learns a fairy song from the fairies or a magical song from another bard) I will give them a piece of paper that tells them roleplaying of the spell & necessary components, and the mechanics for the spell's effects. That way I can make my own spells or borrow as I see fit. I think I am getting to the point where I just don't see why I should use another person's rules -- just read fantasy and mythology stories and figure out what rules & fluff you need to make it come alive.
Yep. You tell me there's a skull with gems in the eyes and teeth and I am backing away from that thing so, so fast. I know what that means. Of course, that brings up another point--Tomb of Horrors clearly involves testing the players, not the characters, and really there's bound to be a ton of metagaming involved even for those who are experiencing it for the first time.
For this very reason, characters that aren't surprised by anything (perhaps even cynical and/or jaded), I'm looking forward to heading up to Canada and teaching some guys I've played on Xbox Live with for ages how to play D&D. Probably going to use Labyrinth Lord and a customized version of Keep on the Borderlands. So weird, I can't imagine a world where the average teen male never played D&D.
@@BusyBadger D&D was huge here back in the day, mind you there was no social media around when ToH came out so it wasn't almost mainstream like it is now. But for a bunch Canadian kids in the 80s we played as often as we could which meant almost every weekend.
Same, like... the original villains of Middle Earth could be described as trope now, people who do that forget they WERE the original, just like how Bowser WAS the first and ultimate final boss baddie.
Went through ToH as a player back in the late 70s-early 80s. I don't remember how many player deaths we had, but it was MANY. Our DM didn't nerf the dungeon itself, but he did give us a rod of resurrection with multiple charges. I believe that we blew through all of the charges... even with that, it felt like an accomplishment to complete the Tomb... Thanks for another great review video!
I'm grateful for your explanation of find traps in particular. It's worth noting that "find trap" is described as this- "Explanation/Description: When a cleric casts a find traps spell, all traps - concealed normally or magically - of magical or mechanical nature become visible to him or her. Note that this spell is directional. and the caster must face the desired direction in order to determine if a trap is laid in that particular direction." So it just makes traps become visible. If something meant to harm is already in plain sight, it doesn't do anything at all. So it would have no effect on ex: the sphere of annihilation since it's in plain view.
Wonderful Review, I had to stop before the spoiler Details because one of my players runs yawning portal one shots and I want to play it. We ran whiteplume recently, another Gygax original and there are some brutal puzzles in it, for example a multi tiered fight where each tier is a managery of creatures of one type and breaking the glass between tiers lets them fight each other rather than having to fight them yourself. You really start to appreciate Gary when you see the solutions to some of his encounters.
I like the idea of the silver dragon. When I ran this for my players, I told them that they arrived with a horse-drawn covered wagon. I told them when they were writing up any non-magical weapons/Armor/equipment (as prescribed in the module), they could also add whatever they wanted to the wagon (within reason, of course). Their wagon was protected by the sixth level fighter henchman NPC. If a player lost their character early, then this NPC could be recruited as a player character replacement.
hmmm... how many personalities is Seth up to now? Jack, Gamemaster, three players... five right there, plus about another four if you count the players from the Serpent God review....
I just had a thought. What if, during all that time the tomb has been there, the local lord's family has been there just as long and are servants/worshipers of the demilitch and they send people there, heroes preferred, to keep feeding the tomb so their lands prosper.
I love your work. I'm just a 26 years old begginer DM, but I love old school stuff, so thank you for your reviews! I've decided to use against the reptile god after I saw your review.
Hey Seth, great video! I like your approach to reviewing ToH. I thought ToH is just where you take your character to die. Never heard anybody bragging about beating ToH. I would have a hard time believing anybody that said they beat ToH. Thanks Seth for your videos they are so well done, love the acting you do in your videos. Have a great day Seth.
Matt Nerdy our group beat it, but it was really, really, really tough. The average player in our group has been Roleplaying for 30+ years and it's the hardest module we have ever done. He also stuck a Medusa's head in the little dead end behind the fake wall near the ivory elephant.
Great walkthru/review of the classics, Seth! (Note: we used the adjudication for Sphere of Annihilation as 'instantaneous disintegration...no FX, no residue' , so it seemed like a person had vanished or teleported...then the affected player(s) were asked to move to separate room or table...and the remaining PCs had to decide whether to follow their vanished comrade or not. Cruel, but effective. The best part was a table full of people reunited...all suddenly informed that the party has just been TPKd. Priceless!)
Notes from a NG Human Fighter: When i ran this as the end module for my HS Campaign(mentioned in Secret of Bone Hill),my player's did something i never expected; they took Acererak's skull out of the tomb,marched right up to my Wight possessed Baron and got Acererak to take his soul.they were literally holding the skull hostage by placing the crown on it's head and,having marked ahead of time which end of the sceptre "killed"(they used a spare horse they'd brought), they got one BBEG to take out another.I double checked every rule i could find & nowhere did it say that they couldn't bring Acererak's skull out of the tomb.As far as i was concerned,they earned that win... May the Pantheon ever favor you Baron Trevelyan of Restenford
Yea,it was.They then immediately started removing Acererak's gem eyes so they could(at least theoretically) bring back all the innocent souls he took.They only managed to get one loose when Acererak went nuts & tried to kill them,so they had to use the crown...
I have an idea for a potential D&D video you could do that would really help me out a good bit: "How to use Divination magic in D&D?" specifically spells like Augary (2nd Level), Divination (4th Level) and Commune (5th Level) where one tries to speak with spirits, deities, etc. As a player, these spells can be frustratingly strict and vague at the same time. Limiting the types of questions you are allowed to ask and the ways your deity is allowed to answer. Which was obviously done to keep the spells from being too OP, but it also strips them of almost any discernable utility. And as a DM even though you are basically God you can't possibly determine the outcome of any event in the future since Player Action + the randomness of dice rolls can make an easy encounter deadly or end an impossibility fight in 1 turn. Which basically railroads the DM into giving vague, useless information from the player's god. Which can be rather frustrating for the player who just burned through a 5th Level spell slot with nothing to show for it (Which is probably why most of those spells have the Ritual tag, but the point still stands.) So I guess my question is twofold: #1 As a Player how can I use Divination spells in interesting or creative ways in order to gain some sort of advantage or boon? And #2 as a GM how can I reward my players for spending their time/resources on obtaining knowledge rather than just solving every problem with more fireballs?
Great video Seth! Love the classic TSR modules. They are from a time when D&D was more like a 'Raiders of the lost Ark' game. They were gear the party up (gear being critical), raid a tomb or a dungeon, kill monsters, collect treasure and hope a few of you get out alive games... At least for many of us. It was less about 'the campaign' or 'the character arc' and more about the 'challenge'. I mean it's fun to watch some of these 'acting' games you can find on UA-cam and such but these were never the kinds of sessions we had. That being said, I would love to see you do one of these videos on the classic Keep on the Borderlands. It was my 1st experience in a D&D module in the early 80's and holds a special place for me. Btw... Anyone know wtf happened to the Owlbears hug attack in later editions? That thing was scary back in the day and seems nerfed now days.
The pre-generated characters aren't really meant to be used on the ground of "good players make their own PCs." That was actually a thing at a lot of tournaments in the day (using pre-gen characters) scoffed at because it was lazy and often locked you out of the best character builds and types. In those days, a "Sphere of Annihilation" was in fact not a sphere or object at all: it was a hole in the fabric of reality that sucked anything that came into contact with it and whatever was sucked into the void beyond was quit literally erased; if you stuck your hand into the sphere, you'd be sucked in and completely erased, full stop. Also, it could be moved by characters who concentrated on it. Attempting to move it was risky though, potentially causing it to fly strait at the person trying to manipulate it (this is how one party in a tournament was completely destroyed; they all failed their rolls trying to command the sphere) although that might have been a second-edition added effect. I know the Talisman of the Sphere was a thing. In any case, the tales of whole parties crawling into the statue and dying are probably tall tales or the result of bad GMing. Seriously, SoAs were not to be trifled with. You could even create the damn things and use them to drain oceans. They are a big deal and putting one in the statue's mouth one an asshole move because that's the sort of thing that is going to kill at least one player because it's the obvious thing to check. I ran this dungeon strait all of about four times in my 32+ years of GMing and only one group legitimately beat it. Ironically, it was a bunch of noobs on a first-time one-shot who actually heard about DnD via people talking about the tomb so for their first game, they wanted to run it. They basically just came it like it was a puzzle to solve and rolled through it, only suffering a few resets which they handled by having brought EXTRA EQUIPMENT because it made sense to have backups stashed outside in their camp which was actually on the hill itself (they did not expect that turn out like it did. Heh.) They did have a hairy experience with the levitation pillars, the swords&shields almost killed them, and they flipped a coin to pick which side of the staff to use when one of them put on the crown and got lucky. They didn't even fight Acererak. They saw the skull and said "WE AIN'T TOUCHIN' THAT! NO WAY!" took the loot they could get without disturbing the skull, and left. Three teams of veteran players never got near that good a result. Beginner's luck, perhaps, but I chalked it partly up to their pre-knowledge of the tomb and partly up to them just doing things veteran players didn't think to do. The veteran teams had one TPK, one with a single survivor, and one that got fed up and left after the fake Acererak fight (by then they'd had two resets and one death.) Then there's Dragon Mountain, which was literally just an excuse to kill PCs. Nobody liked that damn thing.
"stories of a whole party crawling into these spheres are simply not possible." Crawling? True. How about an entire party one-by-one making running jumps into the spheres?? Yes, this is actually what my party did. They even tied a rope around one and when the rope fell, cut at the point of entry, this did not dissuade the rest of them.
Sometimes you can't fix stupid. As a DM I could never hold back a gigantic grin the size of the Grinch's if my party did that. What was their reaction to instantly annihilating their entire party?
@@marlonbrando1631 It was pretty amazing, for sure. Nah, they knew what they were getting into with Tomb of Horrors so they thought it was hilarious. Half the fun for them was just seeing all the different meat grinders in action.
@@Katosepe Sounds like they are better sports than some other players and even DMs like XP to Level 3, who made a rant about the dungeon and that was the 5e version
@@marlonbrando1631 I really like my players! I think it's just a matter of setting the right expectations. They knew it would be a meat grinder. I don't think I would have run it for them if they thought they could get through without any character deaths since that would only end in disappointment and frustration.
In 1st edition, the SoA effects are described in the DMG as "Any matter which comes in contact with a sphere is instantly sucked into the void, gone, utterly destroyed, wishes and similar magicks notwithstanding!" So a person just touching the sphere destroys the entire person and their gear.
Since I played this game I graduated college, fallen in and out of love multiple times, am in the brink of getting married and I'm still salty about the freaking sphere of annihilation in the statue mouth.
I ran Tomb of Horrors when it first came out. Although my group were experienced D&Ders (though not at these very high levels, as must be true of many players trying it), I still warned them that this scenario had been created as a super-hard convention exercise, so would be unlike any conventional adventure. When they got to the giant green devil-face with the impenetrably black mouth (the Sphere of Annihilation), they sensibly poked at it with a 10' pole, and of course found that the stick came back lacking however much had been pushed in. I even gave them the immediate clue that the balance of the (pretty heavy) pole changed abruptly when pushed in, before they could =see= that part of it was suddenly absent. One player decided that the missing bit of the pole had obviously been transported to somewhere else... so his character JUMPED into the mouth...
Agree with the sphere analogy. i described it as a slight air movement into a non-reflective tunnel - my PC tested the 'tunnel' with a spike on end of a rope - the spike and part of the rope went in and then the remaining rope dropped to the floor - clearly indicating not a passage nor teleport.
This was my first dungeon as a kid in 79, was awesome I thought all dungeons where like this. As a DM for D&D Adventure League I ran this dungeon for a couple of years at conventions in 2017 and 2018 in the Denver area. Most can get through it or die in 8 hours. I have built it to scale with all the minis and terrain features. So much fun for me to see how people react to situations. See there are three general players in the tomb, never been there, been there but forgot, studied the crap out of it so not to die. Who are you? Then it is fun to watch those that know. They will either egg people on into the sphere, keep totally quite yet do the right thing or they try to help the party through the mess. Funny as I have watched many people play this I can tell almost immediately who is who. I have seen characters run through it but ass naked wanting nothing more but to get their shit back. I made death certificates for those that where mercilessly crushed while Acererak laughed. So many ways to die yet I think a tier two party on the upper end could get through 5e version of the tomb it is not as deadly as the first. Same toned down a bit (up to the DM) and fun for all.
I think the Tomb of Horrors module (or possibly Return to the Tomb of Horrors) specifically states exactly what you were thinking. The demons are the ones that are resetting traps, repairing damage done to the tomb, etc. :P
I got this module back when it was part of the Return to the Tomb of Horrors. They gave a reproduction of the old S1 adventure module. I have used it many times as one of the modules that must be played in any adventure group. I actually converted it over to 3rd ed at one point because the 3.5 tomb of horrors module given out by wizards of the coast was not only toned down immensely, making a tournament module into something anyone could beat given a free weekend, but also had extra monsters and puzzles added as a way to make people by more splat books. So yeah, converting the old S1 to 3.5 was the better option.
On the topic of Find Trap, my party used a magic mouth spell to make a coin shout "TRAP!" every time a trap is in line of sight of the coin. The moment it was made it started screaming. Turns out as they didn't specify "trap", it included the claw trap in the cleric's money pouch as a trap. Hidden doors also makes it scream. the definition I used? "Any hidden thing that could harm someone". This includes sheathed weapons.
The Tomb of Horrors Draw sword and wand and follow the guide, Bring courage if the youth be wise in bloom; The skull grins upon the mountain side, Acererak waits in his tomb. Pull down the walls, bring sword and light That there be no foot silent in the room Nor mouth from screaming , nor from blood unspent; Acererak waits in his tomb. In vain, in vain; the grinning skull still lies The everlasting flicker lights the gloom; All wisdom shut into his jeweled eyes Acererak sleeps in his tomb. -James Gerald Koch -
Now that's a really NICE, in depth review. I loved the blood math part! Just, awesome! Now I wanna play it (and modify it) Thanks, dude. I love your videos. Love from Greece.
I have watched this, and a number of other videos a bunch of times, both actually for the content and as back ground noise. You have a really relaxing voice and manner of speaking. Plus, Jack is always a treat. Love your stuff!
Our group played the 5e version last year, and I attacked the demilich with a bag of holding, literally as you described, and landed a crit. It was pretty late into the fight and I was running out of ideas. Probably the hardest I've ever laughed during a session, and critical bag is now an in-joke in the group.
S1 Tomb Of Horrors is a classic among classics. Some time in the future, I plan on reviewing it on my channel. I like your Star Trek reference by calling the S1 Module as the " Kobayashi Maru" of D&D Modules. Also, very good advice on running this Module for Players.
I would love to hear the stories from Gygax's players in that tournament... How it went and how they handled the obstacle's. I heard about how they defeated the Demi-Lich but that's about all.
@@elgatochurro I mean, it is. Attacks are telegraphed. Things are at least actually killable. There's an end. It's not like Ghosts 'N Goblins, where most of the power-ups make you weaker, and when you beat the game, the game tells you it was an illusion and forces you to beat the whole game again. In one sitting, so no saves. With physics that just aren't QUITE right.
When I was 10 and a half (in 1980) roughly 6 months after I started playing AD&D I played through S1, I died three times and I was 6 levels under the suggested level (you started this campaign at 1st no matter what level the other players where). A great review keep these old modules coming, brilliant.
I love your AD&D reviews! Ever think about covering Expedition to the Barrier Peaks? It's such a wacky module -- Would love to hear your thoughts about it.
Ironically for a tournament game, I really like contextualizing the Tomb of Horrors. For something with basically no plot, it's a surprisingly fun exercise to give story-explanation to alot of things like why Acererak became a Demilich, how the Tomb is maintained and all of that stuff. Acererak himself I like to think of as more of a neutral, impartial character, almost like a reflection of the DM's role as a referee. Perhaps it was a truly vile Lich in it's time. Perhaps it was the most powerful Lich of all time. Perhaps it was *too* good a Lich, and the plentiful supply of souls it's devoured over generations started attracting demons and devils to it like a herd of mosquitoes, to the point where it was forced into eternal hiding as a demilich, sealed within it's skull, refusing to come out in risk of getting sucked dry by devilish parasites. In this eternity of imprisonment, it became fascinated by the zeal and vigor with which adventurers traversed his dungeon, seeing their struggles, triumphs and failure as the little glimpses of entertainment it has left, as it promises the wealth it now has no use for to all those that can thoroughly entertain it. Maybe the ones handling upkeep over the tomb are those fallen during treks in the dungeon. As a form of punishment for failure, it traps them to the same eternity it itself is cursed to, a tedious hell of monotony and ceaseless busywork. These workers deal with not only resetting traps and cleaning up, but also continuing the tomb's construction, as they build and rebuild traps and obstacles to keep the dungeon fresh and interesting for Acererak's amusement.
I'm running this for my party on the thirtieth, it's the one thing scary enough to run as a Halloween event for my players. I love how very self assured they are. They will suffer dearly.
Great Review! I ran the module for some friends today using some pregenerated characters from Gygax's suggestions in the book. Man... it took them "7 hours" to make it all the way down the main entrance hall!!! We played for a total of 9 hours. In my mind, I thought we would have made it all the way through or killed off everyone, but man they are taking forever because they are scared.
The description of a sphere of annihilation: "Any matter which comes in contact with a sphere is instantly *sucked* into the void, gone, utterly destroyed..." I always read/ruled that the sphere would exert a sucking force on any object that came into contact with it. Thus if you stuck a head or arm in, the remainder of the body and anything attached would get slurped in.
My interpretation came from the 2e Lankhmar campaign Nehwon where a sphere floated in the middle of a metal ring and moving the ring only destroyed the parts of it that touched the sphere. It makes sense to me because if a sphere were to say float into a wall that was larger than the sphere, I see it as leaving a perfect circle where it passed through rather than sucking in the entire wall. But, and the point I even mentioned it, is that there should be an effect that observing characters could see rather than just having them crawl through one after another. So if you interpret it as the first character gets sucked in like a huge vacuum, that is still an effect that shows the other PCs that something happened.
Great overview, Seth. Really enjoyed that. I've watched a few other reviews of this im(famous) module and quite a few don't mention the player handouts of illustrations for rooms from the original publication. Still, lots of fun for all the family :-) Keep up the good work!
I feel as though a character who can summon creatures and whatnot would be very useful there. When in doubt - you can send a summon to check things out for you. Hell, you can probably finish the dungeon using summons only while your party's camping outside.
I recommend getting the return to the tomb of horrors set from DrivethruRPG. The version of the tomb in that is not only bookmarked, but it includes everything you need for it and a fun late-level adventure to boot.
Excellent review. I agree 100%. The 4th edition version of Tomb of Horrors which was so bad that it was nearly impossible to kill anyone. I was an RPGA DM during 4th edition. After they sent the 4th edition Tomb of Horrors as a prize my players wanted me to run it for them. I had run the 1st edition version twice. Once killed 3/4 of the party and the rest gave up and a different group lost one half the party but they were having so much fun that most of those that dies stayed on to cheer on the rest and they ultimately defeated the demi-lich at 2 am that night. The 4th edition one was so comically under-powered that everyone promptly quit 4th edition after that even though, we had hundreds of dollars invested in their endless products. PG3 anyone?
I had a fun idea to put the tomb of horrors into a darksouls like world of endless death, where all who die respawn where they were buried in life, But leave behind the EXP they had into that level in the room they died.
The background for the Tomb of Horrors is told in the earlier module Hommlet (I think this is how it's spelled). But it's a very old and obscure module, mostly for beginner level players and DMs. Which is odd that they discuss the tomb at all, since this came out almost 5 years later.
I've considered running this one (or at least the 5E version) with the hook being that it ends up being a nightmare a player had, so if a TPK happens, I don't have a bunch of pissed off players re-rolling characters.
Great review/advice. I especially liked your discussion on the limitation of Trap detection spells. I hope you can get around to Destiny of Kings one day. I have a soft spot for that one.
I warn you, you need to study this one carefully. I thought I had done so until I tried to run the version of it Perkins published in Dragon magazine (which might be the same one in Yawning Portal). He gave us no suggestion for character level in that article, so I went with the original AD&D suggestion of level 10-14. Having played the AD&D version, I can tell you that 5e characters are WAY overpowered and will break the Tomb of Horrors when you find out that 10th level monks can walk on walls (thereby nerfing all the traps) and other player options have fly superpowers. If you try to do this dungeon for 5e, it will require you to carefully control the player options, spells, powers, etc. Take your time. I should have studied the player options more carefully, and 5e has so fucking many of them. I'd say you are better off running it using Gonnerman's Basic Fantasy RPG rules, available for free on pdf or hardcopy for $5 on Amazon.
@@randyman410 True enough. Since watching the vid I brought it up with my main group of adventuring pals and they (after 7 years of gaming) seem to be ready to take it.
My group is planning on doing this module soon. We are all over 50 and have all been playing since the early 80's. Most of us have been through it back in the 80s or 90s so don't remember much if anything about it. I'm going to hold off on watching this until we finish. We'll see if having a collective DnD experience of almost 200 years makes a difference. We are using 2E with some 3.0 and 3.5 rules thrown in.
I like the "fly trap" idear. Maybe the Tomb of Horrors changes locations everey few hundred years. A few nice treasures are placed in the outer parts to lure in the first adventurers. Those who decidede to take it ( and avoid going deeper) spread the word...i mean, if there are treasures in the outskirts, what might be found deep within the tomb? And those who venture deeper...well if they die, all is good, und the treasure they have taken can easily be placed back to its original location.
After watching your video I finally understood why me, as well as other people, doesn't like this dungeon. It's not a dungeon for everyone. Not that it may be too difficult for some, it's just that not everyone may be patient enough to work every weird puzzle out. Especially when dungeon is rather punishing, in annoying for some way. Granted, there is a lot of possibilities to be creative, but in order to make it fun you need to have both party that is willing to experiment as well as not just waltz into anything that isn't wall, as well as DM that can properly describe stuff as well as understand how things work. Nothing frustrates players more than puzzle that they can't even see. Especially when that invisible puzzle strips them naked. Also, this dungeon feels like it's heavily DM vs players. I know why Gygax made it that way but when some players feel that DM vs PC vibes they often tend to lose all fun that they've had. This dungeon have a status of classic, and with it there is that unspoken rule that everyone should play it. It's classic after all. But it's not for every party. It can be fun, it can be good, but if run poorly, or just with wrong expectations it can be disaster.
I really enjoyed this review, you do a great job. I went through this (as 14 year old), 35 years ago, with some friends and we didn’t fair too well. I hope you do more of these reviews of early AD&D modules, I love remembering the old dungeons.
The DM we had changed a lot of things as this was a very popular module and he was sure at least one of us owned a copy. The demon face led to a new level. We face Dustmen who were kind of like goblins in black gear that kept the place, we got caught in a weird maze and became embroiled in a battle with two succubus. Acerack was a vampire in our game and killed everyone
My two memorable S1 DMings: first group (at a convention, also I had all of the dungeon laid out in Dwarven Forge) made it as far as the Chapel. They decided to cast _Wall of Iron_ over the entrances and use it to camp in to rest, regain spells, etc. So, I figured, what would A do? I sent a Type V demon after 'em, started battering the door. They made haste and called it off (we were approaching the time limit anyway). 2nd time DMing it here at home...the group made it to the False Temple and fled, assuming they had beaten A, teleporting back to the entrance with the "treasure" they had gained.
There are a lot of wierd quirks like the gem throwing. in tomb of horrors. The siren is specifically a joke for asererack, so it's probably an NPC from the tsr games. Same with stabbing the door, it has to be a common thing for gygax's group to stab doors, because who stabs doors?
I read about a dungeon in 3E that had a family of gnomes in it that traveled through secret (servant) passages to clean up dead adventurers and reset traps
I've run this dungeon five times now, with different groups each time and starting with the second group I started allowing maces of disruption and swords +1,+2 vs. undead to damage the demilich. I also usually put something in the dungeon that can harm it, or at least hand out one or two in an earlier adventure.
Seth, you can explain the tombs condition and volume of blood by way of alternate realities. That is, a Demi-lich is a reality hopping, planes walking being that exists in more than one place at a time. As such, it’s lair could also exist simultaneously in multiple realities across the Omni-verse.
considering said shirt reflects Seth's love for Call of Cthulu and its prominence in his channel, I trust you've had a fun four months since then going through his stuff. :) :)
The description for a sphere of annihilation says that anything touching it is violently sucked in. at least that's how it was played when I did it. when a player touches it with their 10ft pole and it's ripped from their hands, and pulled inside, they know not to mess with it.
Sounds like this was meant for the same kind of crowd that really enjoys some of the more difficult roguelikes out there. Very cool! "A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough; he had gained strength, courage, and confidence for every experience in which he had stopped to look fear in the face. Whoever had done harm or would plan to do harm.. nay, those no longer mattered. With a heavy heart of steel and a sharp axe in hand, he descended unto cleansing madness."
okay so the janitor for the tomb of horrors is the most powerful character in the material plane. he regularly goes through the whole tomb without getting harmed and has the whole tomb memorized. The Janitor of Horrors needs to be made.
Have I seen you on Phelous or Saberspark.
@@dubuyajay9964 definitely saberspark more than phelous
Ikr... Screw the demi-lich, I would be more worried about the Janitor. 😆
Well, they ARE demons who hang out in the astral/ethereal plane. That probably helps them avoid traps to a degree.
Plus, many of the hazards in the Tomb of Horrors are only hazardous if you're both ignorant and foolhardy. The "Janitor of Horrors" wouldn't need to be that badass to survive them, since he already knows what the hazards are and how you circumvent them.
@@Bluecho4 bringing logic in to lessen the badassness of the janitor.... For shame
I remember the devil mouth like this in my game:
Player: I stick my 10 foot pole in the mouth
Me: You feel the pole getting lighter
Player: I take it out
Me: You now have a 5 foot pole
Player: oookayyy.
That happened to the tournament NPC clone of my character! Then some dummy jumped in anyway.....
😆
All hai the power of the ten foot poll
My first player specifically tied a rope to them then jumped in. I describe the rope going limp. Seconf player sticks head in it.
my thief had a portable hole that contained several 10' poles for situations just like that
Gygax had said in many interviews: ToH was originally him trolling his friends. It's funny that it caught on as a serious dungeon. Originally he intended the party to fail hard. No one was supposed to survive it.
That's what many people don't understand about this dungeon when they play it and get mad at it. This was made as a Troll to people who get over confident enough to think they can beat anything and is outright built with the premise "How would PC's build a dungeon if they were to put in everything PC's (and their players) talk about the way they would do things to keep people way from their stuff."
They call it unfair and such. But that's what it's designed to be. it's also a way for Gary and other DM's to say "I could have always done worse to you as a DM" but in adventure form.
@@Quandry1 I agree with you, but DMs need to WARN players that it is a pure meat grinder
Do you have any sources about that? I couldn't find this interview
The whole veneration of everything "gygaxian" is silly to me, if it's just a troll there's no reason to mystify it,
and without the mystification people would care as much about the ToH as they care about an episode of Takeshi's Castle.
It was TSR and then WotC who played this up as a serious product, hence Gygax's claim that it's just a troll is either highly disingenuous or he was trolling his customers too.
@@Ryan_Winter I feel like reactions like this are sillier than the celebration of Gygax. Running incredibly challenging and dangerous games can be rewarding in a way that the most carefully crafted story can't, and even while running extremely story-focused, character driven stories my reputation as a deadly dungeon master is invaluable to create tension and make my players value their successes, fear the villains, and take the game seriously. Gygax and what he represents, and the fact that I learned D&D in his heyday and can share stories with my players of all the adventures I had as a player and DM back then really conveys that playing in one of my games you're a hero overcoming impossible odds, not just getting patted on the head by your friend.
Gygax once got called for a ruling on Tomb of Horrors in a tournament. He ruled that the crown would stick to Acererak's skull, and that touching him with the "wrong" end of the scepter would then kill him instantly.
Anything in the module that can reasonably be assumed to be able to utterly annihilate or otherwise instantly kill someone or something is fair game for taking out Acererak. After all, turnabout is always fair play.
This seems wrong given that the scepter doesn't "destroy," it "kills." Any spell or effect that kills a living being does nothing to undead. Gary wasn't perfect. He admitted to many mistakes over the years.
It's not "kills". It's "snuffed out, turning into a fetid powder which cannot be brought back to life no matter what (wishes not withstanding)." I'd go with Gygax on this one. If the PCs think of putting the crown on the skull, touch the scepter to it, then I'd let them snuff out the badguy.
@@michaelbreuker4170 Gary wrote the module. IMOHO, the author's opinion of a work is always the most valid.
@@briancorvello3620 , I don't disagree. And as others have pointed out, the wording of the scepter does indicate destruction rather than "kill," so I accept that it would work. I was just thinking that Gary was with us for many years (though not nearly long enough) and over that time he answered a lot of questions for a lot of fans. He has a history of providing inconsistent and conflicting information, because he is a human being with a lot going on in his mind. His own opinion may change over time, and, sometimes, in the rush to answer many questions for many people, he may not have always thought about his answers all the way. For that reason, I don't take everything that Gary ever said as absolute canon or adjudication for a rule, even if he is the author, though I do give his answers more weight because of it.
@@SSkorkowsky Just so. Gary told me Ernie's method of disposal was quite ingenious: cast _Transmute Rock to Mud_ on the altar, skull sinks in, cast _Dispel Magic_ and now the skull is trapped. Grab all the handy treasure and get the hell out!
Hard(er) Mode: When PCs try to abuse the Find Trap spell, have the entire tomb light up as the trap, because technically, this is one large trap full of other traps.
On the other hand it wouldn't light up, since it is plaily visible and the pc were stupid enough to enter it. C:
If use 5E Find Trap, don’t even bother, the spell alway fail even when there’s a literal landmine in front of you
In 5e, the "strip you naked" part teleports you to the foggy doorway by the sphere of annihilation hole. My party hadn't gone that far before veering off when entering. The barbarian then proceeded to stick his hand in, and when I told him that he could no long feel his arm another player said "Just crawl in." So he did. Head first.
The players were then Naked and Afraid after they pulled him out with nearly half of his head missing.
That also doesn't make sense to me. Yeah the nerve endings that you stuck in the spirit Annihilation are gone, but the part of your arm that's bleeding out is going to be sending pain signals to your brain. It doesn't make any logical sense that you wouldn't feel anything, you would feel something and it would hurt a lot. Severing nerve endings like that doesn't just turn it off, if you have the world's sharpest sword and cut your arm clean off, it is still going to hurt
@@SeanLaMontagne There's a difference between physically severing an arm and that arm just ceasing existence. That said, you'll feel something. It will be a loss of the air pressure on the skin, the coolness and dampness of the air, th sudden loss of the weight of your hand, and so on. All things we're used to feeling that you suddenly no longer feel.
@@anotherthing We stuck a pole in and brought out a much smaller pole....
@@anotherthing Physiologically, there's no difference between tissue being erased from existence vs it being cut off by the world's sharpest sword, as the other person described. In a "normal" amputation you're no longer connected to the nerves in the severed part, either. The pain is all in the remaining tissue. And while not causing any additional damage radiating in to that remaining tissue would change the overall sensation and almost certainly diminish the pain to some extent, the nervous system is continuous. So you're going to have extant, connected nerves that have been severed at their ends. Not only would that cause pain, I'd wager it would be quite substantial.
@@SeanLaMontagneIt's shock. When someone suffers a massive injury, it sometimes takes a minute for their brain to comprehend it.
I'm actually a little sad that the video didn't start like this -
Seth: Helping me review the Tomb of Horrors is Jack the NPC.
(Jack is nowhere to be seen)
Seth: Jack? Jack? You there bud?
Jack (from offscreen): Nope!
Seth: Jack...
Jack: No freakin' way am I helping you with this! I'm an NPC, not a redshirt! I'm not getting used to scout out the Devil Face again!
Again?
@@isaoblack987 Everyone that has done the Tomb of Horrors has a story about using an NPC, familiar or hated PC to check for traps. EVERYONE.
@@richardwarnercool1 You miss the point that specifically Jack is searching the Face... again. Knowing what happened last time he did it.
I ran this about a year ago like an old 80’s video game. When each player died, they put their name in a jar and their character returned to their last safe location. When they got to the end, the most names in the jar bought pizza.
That's similar to an idea I saw on another review of ToH here. The DM had the PCs in a Groundhog Day Loop. Once they died - one by one - the party found themselves back at the entrance, completely unharmed and with all their gear intact. So, bit by bit they learned how to navigate the tomb safely. Wouldn't work for every group, but I found the idea intriguing.
the whore of tumors!!!
thats a awesome idea lol
S1 needs a PSA: "26 PEOPLE A YEAR ARE KILLED BY THE TOMB OF HORRORS."
And many of them are the DMs who spring this module on unsuspecting players.
i wonder if all the blood has enough iron in it to make a sword of literal heroes blood. Maybe the demons are harvesting heroes for the ultimate forging project.
According to The Internet, it takes only the blood of 400 people to get enough iron to forge a sword. Which is something I now know thanks to you. www.tor.com/2017/07/20/sword-forged-from-the-blood-of-your-enemies/
@@SSkorkowsky Ah but you are not accounting for USEFUL iron/being picky, waste, and enchanting material. Gotta have extra.
@@SSkorkowsky This reminds me of an article from (The) Dragon #13 where they told you how much a cubic foot of Human flesh weighs, but wouldn't admit to exactly how they tested that ;)
"If you feel your players won't enjoy this module, don't run them through it." You're right, this dungeon isn't for everyone, which is why you run Isle of the Ape to really mess with them.
Thank you.
Gone Fishing! That Module has so much win!
Attrition!
Or run A Paladin in Hell.😉
Actually, I think I have an answer for the vaguely specific things which pepper the tomb. I ran this back in Junior High (circa '82) and my players seemed to be having no problem with it, and then they went and looked for and found a valuable gemstone that they had absolutely no reason to look for or find - except - that they were reading the module behind my back. I was thoroughly pissed at them but I didn't explode. Instead, I turned the tables on them and started to change the tomb in small yet significant ways that they could not contest without admitting that they had been reading the module.
It was fun to watch them squirm :-)
Yeah, so I don't just think of ToH as being an adventure full of traps, it is a module which contains traps of its own. Good job Mr. Gygax! (And good video to you too, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.)
If I ever meet you I owe you a beer lol well done good sir
So the gemstone trick was like a musician wanting only green M&M's on their rider's, to make sure that people are actually reading it. Except Gary made it so he knows people aren't reading the module! Brilliant!
There's a similar "Player" trap in one of the Dragonlance modules... (It's many decades since I ran it, so I can't recall which Mod...).
I was running the campaign for the second time, (the first time had been when it first came out, and the constant having to wait weeks or months for a new adventure kind of spoiled it for the group I ran it for first time) so I was running it with a new group... This guy asked if he could join in, having "wanted to do Dragonlance but never got the chance" so I said OK.
He was showing exceptional decision making throughout the first couple of sessions, and one of my players openly asked if he'd done it before... should have been a warning sign... but it was when he jumped out of a boat in the middle of a lake to "search for treasure" that he blew it... in the written module there was... indeed...some sunken treasure. Right beneath where he jumped out the boat... he spent half an hour scouring the bottom of that lake for that treasure... several "Are you SURE there is nothing here???"
And he didn't come back to the next session when we'd clearly reached the "he knew, that I knew, that he knew..." what was going on point.
Found out years later that he'd DM'd that campaign SEVERAL times prior to joining my game.
Tosser...
I've played DL campaign a half-dozen times.
repetition doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the series
I've never made it passed DL8 because the party always TPKs at the High Clerist Tower.
not having control of the Twins or GM/RW leaves the fate of the world to the leftovers and unproven.
it's like the Battle of the Two Towers with no Legolas, no Aragorn & no Gandalf.
Suddenly the sphere of annihilation becomes a practical feature- maybe it was the garbage chute for the tomb
Here's a thought: use _Push_ to force A's head into a *bag of holding* , then throw that into the *Sphere of Annihilation* . Small price to pay for the destruction of big A.
Why would a tomb (well, a tomb that is not this one) need a garbage chute? Though that certainly is one good use for a Sphere of Annihilation.
@@Giles29 Do you know how stuffed a tomb can get, when about 30k people die in it? Yes, you need a garbage chute
Shouldn't the sphere of annihilation also be generating wind, as all the air that touches it is annihilated, and thus draws in more air, like a vacuum cleaner?
@@samchafin4623 Hard to say. Since a sphere of annihilation is not a natural phenomenon.
My group played through the Tomb of Horrors. We had four (4) TPKs before we finally beat it. But we didn't beat it "fair and square". We rustled cattle from several nearby farms and drove the herd through the dungeon ahead of us, setting off traps and letting the cows take the casualties instead of us.
Did you get a commendation for original thinking?
@@albertmartinez8721 The whole "four TPKs in a row" bit prevented any bonus for original ideas.
The purpose of the tomb of horrors is really to show the superiority of the School of Necromancy wizard in having a vast army of skeletons figure everything out for him.
I believe the guy Gygax built the dungeon to kill did the same using chickens.
@@BaronCemetery That makes me feel a lot better about our decision.
It's funny how Gygax would be so precise about his keeping track of time, inventory and such but he didn't seem to calculate how many people would have had to pass through the tomb to fill a room with blood.
The whole creepiness factor of the cleanup is removed when you think of like 5 demons in jumpsuits, cleaning and mopping up dead adventurers, talking about their families like it’s just another Tuesday.
I was the Dungeon Master for this, tonnes of fun. One Druid turned into a bird and flew straight into the Sphere of Annihilation...a Cleric got green slimed by the "curtains"...a Thief fell into the pit trap under a tunnel, he went alone wearing a Ring of Regeneration...his screams echoed throughout the halls forever (I deemed). A Fighter died via elephant trap squishing. A Wizard and a Cleric were exploded by the orange pulsating gem and another Thief died by the Efreeti. Everyone involved had a blast! (pun intended).
Put trap under a tunnel? What was the thief impailed by spikes ala the clockwork guy from Hellboy?
Getting your stuff back and revenge for the loss of said stuff is the most potent motivation a gamer will ever have.
Except most players dont know they get thier stuff back, also there are alot of places where your just dead with no resurection.
That could be how seasoned players start the adventure into the ToH played as a one-shot.
"You wake up outside, naked and angry. A memory fades quickly of you dying to an undead wizard... You're pretty sure the mountain with a skull face on it has something to do with it. Time to get back in there and recover your beloved *insert awesome item*."
So basically Minecraft but you have to beat the Enderdragon to get all of your stuff bad. Oh yeah, very good game design.
Imagine being inside the tomb and being so tired you have to rest and when you wake up things have been cleaned up and repaired.
I was a DM for 3.5 campaign for five years (17 years ago...time flies) of weekly sessions and during that, the group went through the Tomb of Horrors. I kept the place pretty much completely same as what it was in the S1 module you are showing here. I also kept the Acererak vulnerabilities and powers quite close to original. However, I gave the party the following poems as info, as they were making extensive preparations as they had heard some rumors about the place. Excuse me my verses as I'm not a native english speaker :). "Day of Chaos" is the reason they went in, it was one of a pair of intelligent artifact swords. Another they had already found, but it was not complete (and greatly diminished in power) without it's pair.
Legend Lore:
Ancient evil, In its chamber
Preying on mortal, their souls in danger
Waiting on the floor, Day of Chaos
Under the stare of chilling terror
Mansion of madness, House of insane
Chance of death but much to gain
Make one mistake and you know pain
Ancient scripts of the Archipelago:
Remove the evil.
Make it shatter.
Kill it with a word,
but don’t be matter.
Purest of words,
should find its weakness.
Even just a sword,
might make a difference.
Some other library texts reveal the following:
-Casting a foul area of evil might make him forget what it was going to do.
-There might be some other spells to make it forget or keep it in place. It’s quite questionable though.
The changes I made: As far as I recall, I allowed any +4 weapon to do damage to it, but only do 1 (or was it 5) hp per hit. Power word kill also did not outright kill it, but did something like 20p damage per spell on ethereal plane. Ace also had some 100 hp or so at the start. But the players were around lvl 13, plus everyone had 1-3 levels of racial HD on top of that (Dwarf/Half-dragon, Dwarf/half-elemental, Tiefling/Shade, Tiefling and a full blown song dragon(but she was a bard, so it evens out >
The (revised) module discloses dead characters can be revived with a Simulacrum or "similar" magic. The "suggested" highest level for either a Wizard OR Cleric is 15th, so a Wish spell isn't technically available. note: two low level wizards (say 3rd level), could each cast Shatter [start of the round], and Forget [end of the round] - just as the skull begins to rise (and after any fighters damage the skull).
That’s some serious 5e gobbledygook!
You're right... a whole party crawling into the sphere of annihilation absolutely doesn't make sense. But what if they jump in, one after another? Yes, that's right. My party all leapt into the mouth headfirst, one at a time... And the last guy only did so because he was absolutely convinced they'd all been killed and didn't want to do the rest of the dungeon alone.
One of my players, a monk, loves to flying kick everything she sees. I wonder if she'll launch herself right into the sphere of annihilation?
Given my experience with the tomb, I estimate a 94% probability that she will. I'm not sure why players assume there's a super-happy-fun slide hidden in there, but they do, and they race to ride it first.
Your wisdom score isn't very high IC if you just stick your limbs in random dark chambers.
@@dubuyajay9964 Sometimes you've got to rummage for change, bus fare is extortionate in the Forgotten Realms
"And trust me, anyone who's worn a sword on their belt for any amount of time'll tell ya, those things bump against everything."
Can vouch. Swords are awkward as hell.
Can confirm.
Also can confirm. A hand an half sword is not meant for a belt or your back lol
As a kid I made the mistake of running this for my players in a long running campaign, which promptly decimated their beloved characters. I'm fairly convinced my players have PTSD to this day from the experience.
I went through this dungeon in 1982 with my 3rd level paladin -- who I did not want to die because it was my first successful character after my magic user died in hommlet trying to fight with dagger/dart/staff after casting his one magic missile. It was absolutely scary. Never fear though -- just let overpowered 5e superheroes go through and everyone will get a trophy. I tried to recreate the experience for some 5e players who hadn't experienced it, but all their player options broke the dungeon (e.g., flying, monks walking on walls, etc.). 5e is too easy to generate the same intensity. And WOTC just makes it harder on the DM who doesn't care to read about every new option they publish. They should publish more mechanics that are missing in the game -- I have to make my own all the time -- instead of stealing creativity from players by providing them all the video-game options they need to stop thinking.
@@BTsMusicChannel Oh, I agree. I hate to sound like an old gate keeper, but I remember when I got my Cavalier to level 7 in AD&D. All the struggles and fear built into the challenge of the old systems made it feel like a real accomplishment. The DM that showed me the ropes back in the 90's was an OG gamer that never pulled any punches. I'll never fault someone for liking any system, especially since Pathfinder and 5e have brought roleplaying games into a level of popularity I never dreamed of twenty years ago. That being said, I've been tinkering with my own game system for a few years now to try and capture the same feeling of danger and dread, while also embracing some of the character diversity the newer editions have introduced.
@@saintjst7 I am not trying to be a gatekeeper. I just find some intensity lacking in 5e and the way it is generally played, and I am trying to recapture it. So far Basic Fantasy RPG has been the best solution I've found, but they really need to make the rules easier to follow. It's a bit clunky with a lot of page turning and you have to really prepare. I am also always making my own mechanics, esp. if I am DMing 5e because a lot of it is missing -- they prefer to expand player's options rater than making useful game mechanics. I prefer the opposite. 5e is great for one thing -- it has brought a lot of new people to the game, and you cannot fault it for that!
@@BTsMusicChannel Have you tried Labyrinth Lord? It is an AD&D-based system that has an infamous module called the Barrowmaze which is a sprawling mega-dungeon. That was fairly satisfying for me as a player.
I had a half-orc assassin who was pretending to be a thief so as not to seem as "evil" to the party, but the thing is assassins only get thief skills at level 4 (if memory serves) and we were not quite there yet. We went into one barrow that was lined with statues, and a conspicuous one at the end had gemstones for eyes. Naturally we wanted to search for traps, and the rest of the party stared at my character. So I had to use deduction and educated guesses to imagine what a trap would be if it was in a statue. Since the statues were made of stone and appeared to be cast with no clear joints or parts that could move, I figured that the trap would have to be either small or fit in an oblong space. That leaves dart traps and their ilk, and gas, explosive or acid traps. So I said we should back out to the entrance of the crypt and use rope to pull the statue down. It shattered and poison gas dispersed harmlessly while we stood outside.
Our first session was also quite interesting -- when you travel to the barrows, you have to go through a swamp (much like Tomb of Horrors) and there's a random encounter roll. Among the most difficult of those is a pack of giant scorpions. We rolled that on our very first session and had to beat a hasty retreat after losing a hireling or two.
@@crazyeyes8962 I know about Labyrinth Lord, but I have not explored it. Right now I have someone who asked me to make a game for he and his wife, and she likes Celtic and fairy themes. So I am taking some time to review the literature of Celtic mythology and Irish fairy tales, as well as some stuff on witch hunting in Ireland. I am going to make a world that parallels those sources without using the same names, and make up my own classes/advancement/magic system borrowing stuff from other "D&D" RPGs as needed. In this system, Druid's will get their power from the polytheistic "Old Gods," while Bards, Witches, and Fairy Doctors will get theirs from the fairies. On the other side is something like christians (with a monotheistic "good god" with a imperialistic attitude that persecutes everyone else that doesn't believe in their god and an "evil" god like a devil). The Clerics will get their power from the good god, and Wizards will get it from study of arcane materials and formulas (kind of like in Lovecraft's stories). Then I will have Fighters and Thieves. Players playing spell casters (Bard, Fairy Doctor, Witch, Druid, Cleric, and Wizard) will not have a list of spells to choose from (because i think it encourages power gaming and demystifies magic in a way that reduces the sense of wonder, awe and fear I'd like to create for the players). Instead, when I see fit to give them a spell (say when a bard learns a fairy song from the fairies or a magical song from another bard) I will give them a piece of paper that tells them roleplaying of the spell & necessary components, and the mechanics for the spell's effects. That way I can make my own spells or borrow as I see fit. I think I am getting to the point where I just don't see why I should use another person's rules -- just read fantasy and mythology stories and figure out what rules & fluff you need to make it come alive.
The concept of Demi-lich was a huge shock to us first time we played this, pre-M.M.2. Some surprises sadly have been lost with age.
Drow, amirite?
Yep. You tell me there's a skull with gems in the eyes and teeth and I am backing away from that thing so, so fast. I know what that means. Of course, that brings up another point--Tomb of Horrors clearly involves testing the players, not the characters, and really there's bound to be a ton of metagaming involved even for those who are experiencing it for the first time.
For this very reason, characters that aren't surprised by anything (perhaps even cynical and/or jaded), I'm looking forward to heading up to Canada and teaching some guys I've played on Xbox Live with for ages how to play D&D. Probably going to use Labyrinth Lord and a customized version of Keep on the Borderlands.
So weird, I can't imagine a world where the average teen male never played D&D.
@@BusyBadger D&D was huge here back in the day, mind you there was no social media around when ToH came out so it wasn't almost mainstream like it is now. But for a bunch Canadian kids in the 80s we played as often as we could which meant almost every weekend.
Same, like... the original villains of Middle Earth could be described as trope now, people who do that forget they WERE the original, just like how Bowser WAS the first and ultimate final boss baddie.
Went through ToH as a player back in the late 70s-early 80s. I don't remember how many player deaths we had, but it was MANY. Our DM didn't nerf the dungeon itself, but he did give us a rod of resurrection with multiple charges. I believe that we blew through all of the charges... even with that, it felt like an accomplishment to complete the Tomb... Thanks for another great review video!
I'm grateful for your explanation of find traps in particular. It's worth noting that "find trap" is described as this-
"Explanation/Description: When a cleric casts a find traps spell, all traps - concealed normally or magically - of magical or mechanical nature become visible to him or her. Note that this spell is directional. and the caster must face the desired direction in order to determine if a trap is laid in that particular direction."
So it just makes traps become visible. If something meant to harm is already in plain sight, it doesn't do anything at all. So it would have no effect on ex: the sphere of annihilation since it's in plain view.
Wonderful Review, I had to stop before the spoiler Details because one of my players runs yawning portal one shots and I want to play it.
We ran whiteplume recently, another Gygax original and there are some brutal puzzles in it, for example a multi tiered fight where each tier is a managery of creatures of one type and breaking the glass between tiers lets them fight each other rather than having to fight them yourself.
You really start to appreciate Gary when you see the solutions to some of his encounters.
White Plume Mountain was written by Lawrence Shick, not Gary.
When a random hermit on the street says "Hey... I've got something to show you..." things don't always end well.
I like the idea of the silver dragon.
When I ran this for my players, I told them that they arrived with a horse-drawn covered wagon. I told them when they were writing up any non-magical weapons/Armor/equipment (as prescribed in the module), they could also add whatever they wanted to the wagon (within reason, of course).
Their wagon was protected by the sixth level fighter henchman NPC. If a player lost their character early, then this NPC could be recruited as a player character replacement.
Hey everyone share and get Seth to 100K subscribers so we can have a full-length movie starring Seth and only Seth!
I'm game
No.... Jack needs to be in it too! Jack is the heart and Soul of this channel. hahaha
@@CrystalCandyPony Seth is a cool guy and all, but let's admit we're all here for Jack
We need a cameo from Scott Brown, though! "I'm from Scott Brown, get the f out. I got a showing!"
hmmm... how many personalities is Seth up to now? Jack, Gamemaster, three players... five right there, plus about another four if you count the players from the Serpent God review....
I just had a thought. What if, during all that time the tomb has been there, the local lord's family has been there just as long and are servants/worshipers of the demilitch and they send people there, heroes preferred, to keep feeding the tomb so their lands prosper.
NICE! 👍👍👍
I still have my copy . I bought it in 84(?)
Now I feel as old as Acererak :D
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
I love your work. I'm just a 26 years old begginer DM, but I love old school stuff, so thank you for your reviews! I've decided to use against the reptile god after I saw your review.
Hey Seth, great video! I like your approach to reviewing ToH. I thought ToH is just where you take your character to die. Never heard anybody bragging about beating ToH. I would have a hard time believing anybody that said they beat ToH.
Thanks Seth for your videos they are so well done, love the acting you do in your videos. Have a great day Seth.
Matt Nerdy our group beat it, but it was really, really, really tough. The average player in our group has been Roleplaying for 30+ years and it's the hardest module we have ever done. He also stuck a Medusa's head in the little dead end behind the fake wall near the ivory elephant.
Great walkthru/review of the classics, Seth! (Note: we used the adjudication for Sphere of Annihilation as 'instantaneous disintegration...no FX, no residue' , so it seemed like a person had vanished or teleported...then the affected player(s) were asked to move to separate room or table...and the remaining PCs had to decide whether to follow their vanished comrade or not. Cruel, but effective. The best part was a table full of people reunited...all suddenly informed that the party has just been TPKd. Priceless!)
Notes from a NG Human Fighter:
When i ran this as the end module for my HS Campaign(mentioned in Secret of Bone Hill),my player's did something i never expected; they took Acererak's skull out of the tomb,marched right up to my Wight possessed Baron and got Acererak to take his soul.they were literally holding the skull hostage by placing the crown on it's head and,having marked ahead of time which end of the sceptre "killed"(they used a spare horse they'd brought), they got one BBEG to take out another.I double checked every rule i could find & nowhere did it say that they couldn't bring Acererak's skull out of the tomb.As far as i was concerned,they earned that win...
May the Pantheon ever favor you
Baron Trevelyan of Restenford
Holy crap! That's awesome.
Yea,it was.They then immediately started removing Acererak's gem eyes so they could(at least theoretically) bring back all the innocent souls he took.They only managed to get one loose when Acererak went nuts & tried to kill them,so they had to use the crown...
I like the ideas for replacement of gear and the repair of dungeons, Seth. Thank you!
The Sphere of Annihilation suffers from DM's not describing the effects properly.
I have an idea for a potential D&D video you could do that would really help me out a good bit: "How to use Divination magic in D&D?" specifically spells like Augary (2nd Level), Divination (4th Level) and Commune (5th Level) where one tries to speak with spirits, deities, etc.
As a player, these spells can be frustratingly strict and vague at the same time. Limiting the types of questions you are allowed to ask and the ways your deity is allowed to answer. Which was obviously done to keep the spells from being too OP, but it also strips them of almost any discernable utility.
And as a DM even though you are basically God you can't possibly determine the outcome of any event in the future since Player Action + the randomness of dice rolls can make an easy encounter deadly or end an impossibility fight in 1 turn. Which basically railroads the DM into giving vague, useless information from the player's god. Which can be rather frustrating for the player who just burned through a 5th Level spell slot with nothing to show for it (Which is probably why most of those spells have the Ritual tag, but the point still stands.)
So I guess my question is twofold: #1 As a Player how can I use Divination spells in interesting or creative ways in order to gain some sort of advantage or boon? And #2 as a GM how can I reward my players for spending their time/resources on obtaining knowledge rather than just solving every problem with more fireballs?
Great video Seth! Love the classic TSR modules. They are from a time when D&D was more like a 'Raiders of the lost Ark' game. They were gear the party up (gear being critical), raid a tomb or a dungeon, kill monsters, collect treasure and hope a few of you get out alive games... At least for many of us. It was less about 'the campaign' or 'the character arc' and more about the 'challenge'.
I mean it's fun to watch some of these 'acting' games you can find on UA-cam and such but these were never the kinds of sessions we had.
That being said, I would love to see you do one of these videos on the classic Keep on the Borderlands. It was my 1st experience in a D&D module in the early 80's and holds a special place for me.
Btw... Anyone know wtf happened to the Owlbears hug attack in later editions? That thing was scary back in the day and seems nerfed now days.
I have a KotB review on my little youtube page.
The sort of soft players that play dumbed down 5th ed now would never be able to take this sort of an experience LOL
@@madquest8 ew, british
The pre-generated characters aren't really meant to be used on the ground of "good players make their own PCs." That was actually a thing at a lot of tournaments in the day (using pre-gen characters) scoffed at because it was lazy and often locked you out of the best character builds and types.
In those days, a "Sphere of Annihilation" was in fact not a sphere or object at all: it was a hole in the fabric of reality that sucked anything that came into contact with it and whatever was sucked into the void beyond was quit literally erased; if you stuck your hand into the sphere, you'd be sucked in and completely erased, full stop. Also, it could be moved by characters who concentrated on it. Attempting to move it was risky though, potentially causing it to fly strait at the person trying to manipulate it (this is how one party in a tournament was completely destroyed; they all failed their rolls trying to command the sphere) although that might have been a second-edition added effect. I know the Talisman of the Sphere was a thing. In any case, the tales of whole parties crawling into the statue and dying are probably tall tales or the result of bad GMing.
Seriously, SoAs were not to be trifled with. You could even create the damn things and use them to drain oceans. They are a big deal and putting one in the statue's mouth one an asshole move because that's the sort of thing that is going to kill at least one player because it's the obvious thing to check.
I ran this dungeon strait all of about four times in my 32+ years of GMing and only one group legitimately beat it. Ironically, it was a bunch of noobs on a first-time one-shot who actually heard about DnD via people talking about the tomb so for their first game, they wanted to run it. They basically just came it like it was a puzzle to solve and rolled through it, only suffering a few resets which they handled by having brought EXTRA EQUIPMENT because it made sense to have backups stashed outside in their camp which was actually on the hill itself (they did not expect that turn out like it did. Heh.) They did have a hairy experience with the levitation pillars, the swords&shields almost killed them, and they flipped a coin to pick which side of the staff to use when one of them put on the crown and got lucky. They didn't even fight Acererak. They saw the skull and said "WE AIN'T TOUCHIN' THAT! NO WAY!" took the loot they could get without disturbing the skull, and left. Three teams of veteran players never got near that good a result. Beginner's luck, perhaps, but I chalked it partly up to their pre-knowledge of the tomb and partly up to them just doing things veteran players didn't think to do.
The veteran teams had one TPK, one with a single survivor, and one that got fed up and left after the fake Acererak fight (by then they'd had two resets and one death.)
Then there's Dragon Mountain, which was literally just an excuse to kill PCs. Nobody liked that damn thing.
"stories of a whole party crawling into these spheres are simply not possible."
Crawling? True. How about an entire party one-by-one making running jumps into the spheres?? Yes, this is actually what my party did. They even tied a rope around one and when the rope fell, cut at the point of entry, this did not dissuade the rest of them.
Sometimes you can't fix stupid. As a DM I could never hold back a gigantic grin the size of the Grinch's if my party did that. What was their reaction to instantly annihilating their entire party?
@@marlonbrando1631 It was pretty amazing, for sure. Nah, they knew what they were getting into with Tomb of Horrors so they thought it was hilarious. Half the fun for them was just seeing all the different meat grinders in action.
@@Katosepe Sounds like they are better sports than some other players and even DMs like XP to Level 3, who made a rant about the dungeon and that was the 5e version
@@marlonbrando1631 I really like my players! I think it's just a matter of setting the right expectations. They knew it would be a meat grinder. I don't think I would have run it for them if they thought they could get through without any character deaths since that would only end in disappointment and frustration.
In 1st edition, the SoA effects are described in the DMG as "Any matter which comes in contact with a sphere is instantly sucked into the void, gone, utterly destroyed, wishes and similar magicks notwithstanding!" So a person just touching the sphere destroys the entire person and their gear.
...I just realized that the Tomb of Horrors is a Kaizo Mario level for D&D.
Oh my god this is such a good comment
@@stinky1895 Haha, thanks.
Since I played this game I graduated college, fallen in and out of love multiple times, am in the brink of getting married and I'm still salty about the freaking sphere of annihilation in the statue mouth.
The Sphere of Annihilation is there, so some Psionic noob can implode the Sphere, and gain a couple minor and 1 major psionic discipline.
I ran Tomb of Horrors when it first came out. Although my group were experienced D&Ders (though not at these very high levels, as must be true of many players trying it), I still warned them that this scenario had been created as a super-hard convention exercise, so would be unlike any conventional adventure.
When they got to the giant green devil-face with the impenetrably black mouth (the Sphere of Annihilation), they sensibly poked at it with a 10' pole, and of course found that the stick came back lacking however much had been pushed in. I even gave them the immediate clue that the balance of the (pretty heavy) pole changed abruptly when pushed in, before they could =see= that part of it was suddenly absent.
One player decided that the missing bit of the pole had obviously been transported to somewhere else... so his character JUMPED into the mouth...
Agree with the sphere analogy. i described it as a slight air movement into a non-reflective tunnel - my PC tested the 'tunnel' with a spike on end of a rope - the spike and part of the rope went in and then the remaining rope dropped to the floor - clearly indicating not a passage nor teleport.
Tomb of Horrors is basically there for the bragging rights. Fun times for all.
This was my first dungeon as a kid in 79, was awesome I thought all dungeons where like this.
As a DM for D&D Adventure League I ran this dungeon for a couple of years at conventions in 2017 and 2018 in the Denver area. Most can get through it or die in 8 hours. I have built it to scale with all the minis and terrain features. So much fun for me to see how people react to situations.
See there are three general players in the tomb, never been there, been there but forgot, studied the crap out of it so not to die. Who are you? Then it is fun to watch those that know. They will either egg people on into the sphere, keep totally quite yet do the right thing or they try to help the party through the mess. Funny as I have watched many people play this I can tell almost immediately who is who.
I have seen characters run through it but ass naked wanting nothing more but to get their shit back. I made death certificates for those that where mercilessly crushed while Acererak laughed. So many ways to die yet I think a tier two party on the upper end could get through 5e version of the tomb it is not as deadly as the first. Same toned down a bit (up to the DM) and fun for all.
I think the Tomb of Horrors module (or possibly Return to the Tomb of Horrors) specifically states exactly what you were thinking. The demons are the ones that are resetting traps, repairing damage done to the tomb, etc. :P
I got this module back when it was part of the Return to the Tomb of Horrors. They gave a reproduction of the old S1 adventure module. I have used it many times as one of the modules that must be played in any adventure group.
I actually converted it over to 3rd ed at one point because the 3.5 tomb of horrors module given out by wizards of the coast was not only toned down immensely, making a tournament module into something anyone could beat given a free weekend, but also had extra monsters and puzzles added as a way to make people by more splat books. So yeah, converting the old S1 to 3.5 was the better option.
Powersliding into a sphere of annihilation sounds like a bad ass death.
On the topic of Find Trap, my party used a magic mouth spell to make a coin shout "TRAP!" every time a trap is in line of sight of the coin. The moment it was made it started screaming. Turns out as they didn't specify "trap", it included the claw trap in the cleric's money pouch as a trap. Hidden doors also makes it scream. the definition I used? "Any hidden thing that could harm someone". This includes sheathed weapons.
The Tomb of Horrors
Draw sword and wand and follow the guide,
Bring courage if the youth be wise in bloom;
The skull grins upon the mountain side,
Acererak waits in his tomb.
Pull down the walls, bring sword and light
That there be no foot silent in the room
Nor mouth from screaming , nor from blood unspent;
Acererak waits in his tomb.
In vain, in vain; the grinning skull still lies
The everlasting flicker lights the gloom;
All wisdom shut into his jeweled eyes
Acererak sleeps in his tomb.
-James Gerald Koch -
Now that's a really NICE, in depth review. I loved the blood math part! Just, awesome! Now I wanna play it (and modify it)
Thanks, dude. I love your videos. Love from Greece.
I have watched this, and a number of other videos a bunch of times, both actually for the content and as back ground noise. You have a really relaxing voice and manner of speaking. Plus, Jack is always a treat. Love your stuff!
Our group played the 5e version last year, and I attacked the demilich with a bag of holding, literally as you described, and landed a crit. It was pretty late into the fight and I was running out of ideas. Probably the hardest I've ever laughed during a session, and critical bag is now an in-joke in the group.
Yay more Seth!! And Tomb of Horrors too!!! Great work mate. Tell Jack I said hello.
S1 Tomb Of Horrors is a classic among classics. Some time in the future, I plan on reviewing it on my channel.
I like your Star Trek reference by calling the S1 Module as the " Kobayashi Maru" of D&D Modules. Also, very good advice on running this Module for Players.
I would love to hear the stories from Gygax's players in that tournament... How it went and how they handled the obstacle's. I heard about how they defeated the Demi-Lich but that's about all.
I feel like this module specifically is what inspired the DarkSouls series 😄
Nah, Dark Souls is fair. This dungeon is full of cheap bullshit.
@@techstorezombie9316 "fair"
@@elgatochurro Yes. Fair.
@@elgatochurro I mean, it is. Attacks are telegraphed. Things are at least actually killable. There's an end. It's not like Ghosts 'N Goblins, where most of the power-ups make you weaker, and when you beat the game, the game tells you it was an illusion and forces you to beat the whole game again. In one sitting, so no saves. With physics that just aren't QUITE right.
@@jessegauthier6985 look no
When I was 10 and a half (in 1980) roughly 6 months after I started playing AD&D I played through S1, I died three times and I was 6 levels under the suggested level (you started this campaign at 1st no matter what level the other players where). A great review keep these old modules coming, brilliant.
I love your AD&D reviews! Ever think about covering Expedition to the Barrier Peaks? It's such a wacky module -- Would love to hear your thoughts about it.
Ironically for a tournament game, I really like contextualizing the Tomb of Horrors. For something with basically no plot, it's a surprisingly fun exercise to give story-explanation to alot of things like why Acererak became a Demilich, how the Tomb is maintained and all of that stuff.
Acererak himself I like to think of as more of a neutral, impartial character, almost like a reflection of the DM's role as a referee. Perhaps it was a truly vile Lich in it's time. Perhaps it was the most powerful Lich of all time. Perhaps it was *too* good a Lich, and the plentiful supply of souls it's devoured over generations started attracting demons and devils to it like a herd of mosquitoes, to the point where it was forced into eternal hiding as a demilich, sealed within it's skull, refusing to come out in risk of getting sucked dry by devilish parasites. In this eternity of imprisonment, it became fascinated by the zeal and vigor with which adventurers traversed his dungeon, seeing their struggles, triumphs and failure as the little glimpses of entertainment it has left, as it promises the wealth it now has no use for to all those that can thoroughly entertain it.
Maybe the ones handling upkeep over the tomb are those fallen during treks in the dungeon. As a form of punishment for failure, it traps them to the same eternity it itself is cursed to, a tedious hell of monotony and ceaseless busywork. These workers deal with not only resetting traps and cleaning up, but also continuing the tomb's construction, as they build and rebuild traps and obstacles to keep the dungeon fresh and interesting for Acererak's amusement.
I'm running this for my party on the thirtieth, it's the one thing scary enough to run as a Halloween event for my players. I love how very self assured they are. They will suffer dearly.
Do you remember how it went?
Great Review! I ran the module for some friends today using some pregenerated characters from Gygax's suggestions in the book. Man... it took them "7 hours" to make it all the way down the main entrance hall!!! We played for a total of 9 hours. In my mind, I thought we would have made it all the way through or killed off everyone, but man they are taking forever because they are scared.
It was a party killer when I got it back in 78, it still is today. NEVER seen a party survive it yet.
Tomb of Horrors will never be as cool as White Plume Mountain! Which Seth also reviewed, hint hint
Why not say the whole S series.
The description of a sphere of annihilation: "Any matter which comes in contact with a sphere is instantly *sucked* into the void, gone, utterly destroyed..." I always read/ruled that the sphere would exert a sucking force on any object that came into contact with it. Thus if you stuck a head or arm in, the remainder of the body and anything attached would get slurped in.
My interpretation came from the 2e Lankhmar campaign Nehwon where a sphere floated in the middle of a metal ring and moving the ring only destroyed the parts of it that touched the sphere. It makes sense to me because if a sphere were to say float into a wall that was larger than the sphere, I see it as leaving a perfect circle where it passed through rather than sucking in the entire wall. But, and the point I even mentioned it, is that there should be an effect that observing characters could see rather than just having them crawl through one after another. So if you interpret it as the first character gets sucked in like a huge vacuum, that is still an effect that shows the other PCs that something happened.
Great overview, Seth. Really enjoyed that. I've watched a few other reviews of this im(famous) module and quite a few don't mention the player handouts of illustrations for rooms from the original publication. Still, lots of fun for all the family :-) Keep up the good work!
I feel as though a character who can summon creatures and whatnot would be very useful there. When in doubt - you can send a summon to check things out for you. Hell, you can probably finish the dungeon using summons only while your party's camping outside.
I recommend getting the return to the tomb of horrors set from DrivethruRPG. The version of the tomb in that is not only bookmarked, but it includes everything you need for it and a fun late-level adventure to boot.
Excellent review. I agree 100%. The 4th edition version of Tomb of Horrors which was so bad that it was nearly impossible to kill anyone. I was an RPGA DM during 4th edition. After they sent the 4th edition Tomb of Horrors as a prize my players wanted me to run it for them. I had run the 1st edition version twice. Once killed 3/4 of the party and the rest gave up and a different group lost one half the party but they were having so much fun that most of those that dies stayed on to cheer on the rest and they ultimately defeated the demi-lich at 2 am that night. The 4th edition one was so comically under-powered that everyone promptly quit 4th edition after that even though, we had hundreds of dollars invested in their endless products. PG3 anyone?
I like how your wizard looks like merlin from the 81 excalibur movie
I had a fun idea to put the tomb of horrors into a darksouls like world of endless death, where all who die respawn where they were buried in life, But leave behind the EXP they had into that level in the room they died.
The novelization Tomb of Horrors is surprisingly good by the way.
The background for the Tomb of Horrors is told in the earlier module Hommlet (I think this is how it's spelled). But it's a very old and obscure module, mostly for beginner level players and DMs. Which is odd that they discuss the tomb at all, since this came out almost 5 years later.
I've considered running this one (or at least the 5E version) with the hook being that it ends up being a nightmare a player had, so if a TPK happens, I don't have a bunch of pissed off players re-rolling characters.
Wow! And I've heard players complaining that Tomb of Annihilation is too hard. Tomb of Horrors is the OG
Great video! I have been thinking about using some parts or the entire Tomb of Horrors in one of my campaigns. This was useful!
I played the first edition when it was released . DAMN I am old now .
Great review/advice. I especially liked your discussion on the limitation of Trap detection spells. I hope you can get around to Destiny of Kings one day. I have a soft spot for that one.
I don't DM D&D, but all those module reviews sure make me wanna run it....
I warn you, you need to study this one carefully. I thought I had done so until I tried to run the version of it Perkins published in Dragon magazine (which might be the same one in Yawning Portal). He gave us no suggestion for character level in that article, so I went with the original AD&D suggestion of level 10-14. Having played the AD&D version, I can tell you that 5e characters are WAY overpowered and will break the Tomb of Horrors when you find out that 10th level monks can walk on walls (thereby nerfing all the traps) and other player options have fly superpowers. If you try to do this dungeon for 5e, it will require you to carefully control the player options, spells, powers, etc. Take your time. I should have studied the player options more carefully, and 5e has so fucking many of them. I'd say you are better off running it using Gonnerman's Basic Fantasy RPG rules, available for free on pdf or hardcopy for $5 on Amazon.
I'd be ECSTATIC if I could get someone to finish running me through B1 In Search of the Unknown... :(
Oh boy. The PC grinder. Players have requested this from me but I always say no. They know not what awaits them .
Sometimes all a player wants is to be turned into a hamburger
@@randyman410 True enough. Since watching the vid I brought it up with my main group of adventuring pals and they (after 7 years of gaming) seem to be ready to take it.
@@AlVainactual What if they pre-gamed and read it? :P
@@dubuyajay9964 They'd never do that. Even if they did, there's also the dice factor.
@@AlVainactual What...shitty die rolls? What if you threw an epic lvl party at this with epic gear?
My group is planning on doing this module soon. We are all over 50 and have all been playing since the early 80's. Most of us have been through it back in the 80s or 90s so don't remember much if anything about it. I'm going to hold off on watching this until we finish. We'll see if having a collective DnD experience of almost 200 years makes a difference. We are using 2E with some 3.0 and 3.5 rules thrown in.
I like the "fly trap" idear. Maybe the Tomb of Horrors changes locations everey few hundred years. A few nice treasures are placed in the outer parts to lure in the first adventurers. Those who decidede to take it ( and avoid going deeper) spread the word...i mean, if there are treasures in the outskirts, what might be found deep within the tomb? And those who venture deeper...well if they die, all is good, und the treasure they have taken can easily be placed back to its original location.
After watching your video I finally understood why me, as well as other people, doesn't like this dungeon.
It's not a dungeon for everyone. Not that it may be too difficult for some, it's just that not everyone may be patient enough to work every weird puzzle out. Especially when dungeon is rather punishing, in annoying for some way. Granted, there is a lot of possibilities to be creative, but in order to make it fun you need to have both party that is willing to experiment as well as not just waltz into anything that isn't wall, as well as DM that can properly describe stuff as well as understand how things work. Nothing frustrates players more than puzzle that they can't even see. Especially when that invisible puzzle strips them naked.
Also, this dungeon feels like it's heavily DM vs players. I know why Gygax made it that way but when some players feel that DM vs PC vibes they often tend to lose all fun that they've had.
This dungeon have a status of classic, and with it there is that unspoken rule that everyone should play it. It's classic after all. But it's not for every party. It can be fun, it can be good, but if run poorly, or just with wrong expectations it can be disaster.
I really enjoyed this review, you do a great job. I went through this (as 14 year old), 35 years ago, with some friends and we didn’t fair too well. I hope you do more of these reviews of early AD&D modules, I love remembering the old dungeons.
Wonderful video, sir! Would love perhaps a vid some day on Keep on the Borderlands...lots of history in that one!
Don't forget that the original print was added to Art & Arcana!
The DM we had changed a lot of things as this was a very popular module and he was sure at least one of us owned a copy. The demon face led to a new level. We face Dustmen who were kind of like goblins in black gear that kept the place, we got caught in a weird maze and became embroiled in a battle with two succubus. Acerack was a vampire in our game and killed everyone
My two memorable S1 DMings: first group (at a convention, also I had all of the dungeon laid out in Dwarven Forge) made it as far as the Chapel. They decided to cast _Wall of Iron_ over the entrances and use it to camp in to rest, regain spells, etc. So, I figured, what would A do? I sent a Type V demon after 'em, started battering the door. They made haste and called it off (we were approaching the time limit anyway).
2nd time DMing it here at home...the group made it to the False Temple and fled, assuming they had beaten A, teleporting back to the entrance with the "treasure" they had gained.
There are a lot of wierd quirks like the gem throwing. in tomb of horrors. The siren is specifically a joke for asererack, so it's probably an NPC from the tsr games. Same with stabbing the door, it has to be a common thing for gygax's group to stab doors, because who stabs doors?
I read about a dungeon in 3E that had a family of gnomes in it that traveled through secret (servant) passages to clean up dead adventurers and reset traps
I've run this dungeon five times now, with different groups each time and starting with the second group I started allowing maces of disruption and swords +1,+2 vs. undead to damage the demilich. I also usually put something in the dungeon that can harm it, or at least hand out one or two in an earlier adventure.
One of your best videos and one of the best that covers the Tomb of Horrors!
Seth, you can explain the tombs condition and volume of blood by way of alternate realities. That is, a Demi-lich is a reality hopping, planes walking being that exists in more than one place at a time. As such, it’s lair could also exist simultaneously in multiple realities across the Omni-verse.
Came for the review ( how have I not seen your channel before?!? ) , subbed for the ingenious shirt!
considering said shirt reflects Seth's love for Call of Cthulu and its prominence in his channel, I trust you've had a fun four months since then going through his stuff. :) :)
@@handlebarfox2366 YES! :D
The description for a sphere of annihilation says that anything touching it is violently sucked in. at least that's how it was played when I did it. when a player touches it with their 10ft pole and it's ripped from their hands, and pulled inside, they know not to mess with it.
My description is based from the description in the 2e Nehwon campaign. But I've also heard the "slurped in" interpretation.
Sounds like this was meant for the same kind of crowd that really enjoys some of the more difficult roguelikes out there. Very cool!
"A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough; he had gained strength, courage, and confidence for every experience in which he had stopped to look fear in the face. Whoever had done harm or would plan to do harm.. nay, those no longer mattered. With a heavy heart of steel and a sharp axe in hand, he descended unto cleansing madness."