This was one of the first modules I ever played so I am fond of it...
http://ultimatedm.com/?p=147
But for several reasons it seems like it would be almost impossible to convert, because it is so light on combat and so heavy on instant deathtraps (which, without saving throws, are really unfair... not that most of the things in the original Tomb of Horrors allowed you to have a saving throw anyway... -_-;; ) It has a totally different design philosophy than the 'fair and balanced' design philosophy of 4e. (I write about this in my review.)
Anyway, though, this module is so famous, I think they could try to bring back the name in some way and it could be successful. Or would it be pointless to even try converting it?
Furthermore, in July of next year, an official update of ToH is being released.
EDIT: Thanks for the correction, sjmcc13.
Actually, the entire 2e module was updated to 4e by a fan and posted online.
It is a 1E adventure, though Return to the Tomb of Horror was 2nd
also Link to anouncement
Pointless.
That module in no way matches the modern gaming attitude or 4e.
What if they based it on the return adventure? that had more then death traps and a uber final boss.
Also, this pagemakes mention of an official WOTC 4e Tomb of Horrors.
Edit: TOTALLY NINJA'ED
Actually, the entire 1e module was updated to 4e by a fan and posted online. I haven't had a chance to play it, but on a quick look-through, it seemed pretty good.
Furthermore, in July of next year, an official update of ToH is being released.
EDIT: Thanks for the correction, sjmcc13.
About time and I hope it's an adaptable mod for LFR as well.
Pointless.
That module in no way matches the modern gaming attitude or 4e.
It no way matches 4e, but I don't know where you're getting your ideas about "the modern gaming attitude...." -_-
It is very oldschool, but not everyone likes "winnable" games where everything is totally balanced in the name of "fairness" and out-of-combat cleverness is not rewarded ^^ Yes, that is something 4e is good for, but it isn't the only way to play RPGs, or to play D&D.
Pointless.
That module in no way matches the modern gaming attitude or 4e.
I disagree. Traps and puzzles in line with every gaming attitude and 4e. You don't have to make them all death traps of dooooooom.
But tomb of horrors had a lot of zap (make a save, oh you failed) your dead things in it, and the lich at the end could completely devour your soul.
4E is much less about zap your dead. In fact, they pretty much moved away from instant death effects.
Traps and puzzles yes.
But tomb of horrors had a lot of zap (make a save, oh you failed) your dead things in it, and the lich at the end could completely devour your soul.
4E is much less about zap your dead. In fact, they pretty much moved away from instant death effects.
Yes, but if you substitute say the sphere of anhilation trap with a trap that transports you out and are unable to ever return, it still becomes a 1 attempt module. Instead of succeed on the first attempt or die, it turns into succeed on the first attempt or fail forever.
You can keep most of the feel of the module.
it was made by Gygax to see if he could kill his friend's PCs, nothing else. if you read the stories about the module, some involve sending a string of slaves through every inch of the place and testing each bit. those that died, died. those that didn't won the prize of testing what comes next.
It was not made by "Gygax to see if he could kill his friend's PCs".
It was a tournament module, specifically created to be run in the D&D competition at Origins 1.
It was not made by "Gygax to see if he could kill his friend's PCs".
It's origin is really irrelevant to this thread. It can be re-made into a very fun 4ed module, regardless of who made it or why. :P
It was a tournament module, specifically created to be run in the D&D competition at Origins 1.
It was not made by "Gygax to see if he could kill his friend's PCs".
The "Origins" version was not the same module released for 1E (green cover). It was toned down a bit...but not much. It was still a meat-grinder with oodles of SoDs and no-save-traps. Leafing through it, I still see tons of insta-death encounters, including simply trying to get into the tomb.
The main issue for me is that "Tomb" was intended to test the players, not the PCs. It is a series of puzzles. If the player fails to solve each puzzle, the PC generally dies.
And that's not really in keeping with 4E's design.
If you change the Tomb to fit into 4E's design, you may have a pleasant dungeon crawl - but it's no longer the Tomb of Horrors. It's a new adventure with some of the same set dressing. It doesn't feel the same when you play it, which is usually the point of updating a module.
If you change the Tomb to fit into 4E's design, you may have a pleasant dungeon crawl - but it's no longer the Tomb of Horrors. It's a new adventure with some of the same set dressing. It doesn't feel the same when you play it, which is usually the point of updating a module.
Since your time machine has already given you all the knowledge about the 4E ToH (since it won't be released for another year), could you fill the rest of us in? Who wins the next Superbowl? What's the Powerball numbers for next week? Don't just use your time-travel powers for personal gain...share the wealth! Seriously man...at least give it a chance before bashing it. If you have no intentions of giving it a chance, leave those of us who will in peace. I have NO love for WotC modules. I find them shallow, boring, and without any flare...but ToH isn't a WotC original. I hold out hope (a little) that they can pull it off without absolutely flushing the entire premise of the original down the toilet.
Yeah, there was a fan out there who updated it to 4E already
*coughcough*
Check my sig.
And for people who already saw it when I first beta'd it, this is a really more up to date version with much smoother action and the like. Look at it again!
Incidentally, I agree that trying to recapture Gygax's module in 4E is a perhaps insurmountable task. But it's still possible to create a module that tests the players as often as it tests the characters...
...however, direct conversion is sadly an unreachable goal. I created my Tomb with a direct conversion to 4E, and it failed. I modified the direct conversion to 4E design standards, and it choked and sputtered. I tweaked it, adding my own bits of flair and tweaking the layout and turning "Gotcha!" moments into actual puzzles, and "Search every inch of the room" puzzles into something less monotonous in Perception-heavy 4E... and it's actually more and more entertaining every time I see someone playtest it and edit it based on that.
But it's still not the original Tomb. If you want to play that, you sadly have to play with 30-year-old characters... but that doesn't mean it's still not a fun place to play in, if properly redone =P Not to say it isn't lethal--it takes a clever (or lucky, or skillful) party to not die before they even get INTO the Tomb, same as always.
I am a fan of the Tomb who can name every secret door's square, every trap's nuances, I can tell you almost every detail of the original Tomb off the top of my head--I've spent a year and a half updating the Tomb to 4E, lovingly doing it in Photoshop and OpenOffice and Acrobat and the like... and I can say I'm extremely excited to see Wizards redo the module
Even if I'm disappointed all my work will go to waste...At least I can console myself by pretending some of the employees have read my take on the module, and taken some of the ideas on how to convert it to heart. Maybe, that way, my conversion will live forever, in a way...
4E is much less about zap your dead. In fact, they pretty much moved away from instant death effects.
In my conversion, this was something I actually had the LEAST trouble converting to a fun, yet still deadly, format. There are a few deathtraps around my conversion--but instead of "You rolled badly once" or "You made a bad decision", they're "You rolled badly two or three times" or "You made a bad decision" =P
For example, there's one "gotcha!" moment in the original Tomb that, if you open the wrong door, you fall asleep and are instantly killed. Even if you manage to make the save, statistics say most of your party won't, and you'll be alone.
In my Tomb, you open the door and... you make a save versus being slowed, while a giant steamroller starts crushing you for near-death amounts of damage each round. If you keep failing saves, you fall asleep and it coup de graces you. It is extremely similar to the original Tomb except... there's room for creativity. Skill checks to provide saving throws, dodging in the right direction with your move speed of 2, accepting massive damage to move BEHIND the steamroller before you fall asleep... it's still quite the death trap, and yet, there's room for player input and creativity and even FUN. But you're still potentially punished for poor decision making with death.
That's how they can convert the Tomb.
Or in another area, if you use fire damage, you and your party instantly die. And there's no way to know this before using fire damage.
In my conversion, if you use fire damage, a trap starts dealing poison damage each round. Not enough to be lethal, not too little to be ignored--and not only can a clever (or lucky) party find this out ahead of time, but if they DO activate the hazard, the situation of the scene changes and they have to immediately focus on puzzle-solving, rather than fighting. And they'll get out by the skin of their noses, if they get out. Fun times.
Tomb and Fun aren't mutually exclusive
A lot of traps are perfectly alright to keep as death traps in the Tomb, and I've kept them as such. The mouth in the entrance kills you if you stick your head in it--or anything else it just disintigrates and deals massive damage. If you walk down the magma pit, you'll likely die. Have fun escaping from the second prison without your allies' help. Oh, and while we're on it, that's a lovely crown you have on your head.
The difference between a 4E deathtrap and an original deathtrap, in my opinion, is whether or not you had "reasonable chance" of not being that stupid as to activate it. The less reasonable the chance, the more survivable; for the gemstone laying on the ground, if you're honestly THAT stupid as to think it will really grant your wishes... and if you honestly stuck your head in the mouth without so much as poking it with a stick... But something like the sleeping corridor has a lot more interactivity, and thus, survivability, becuase it's impossibly hard to predict that it's a deathtrap.
Is the Tomb's flavor different because of this increased survivability? Yes. But the flavor has been changed from "Screw this game, i died by opening a DOOR? I searched it for traps, and failed I guess!" to "Screw this game, I died by opening a door, after failing to search it for traps, and really, really sucking at navigating the short encounter that followed."
I consider it acceptable if the DM and the player have more fun, and if there's a reasonably high mortality rate.
and if you honestly stuck your head in the mouth without so much as poking it with a stick...
The first time I ran that module, way back when, one of the players was convinced that the mouth was a teleport that only transported the part that was inside. So he backed and took a running head first leap into it.
The first time I ran that module, way back when, one of the players was convinced that the mouth was a teleport that only transported the part that was inside. So he backed and took a running head first leap into it.
First 4E playtest I did, a player threw his magic dagger in--knowing that magic thrown weapons return at the end of the attack. When it didn't return, he dove in after it.
But I wanted to chime in on this. See, Andy Collins gave me permission to share one (and only one) piece of specific information on the 4EToH. And that is this:
The reason that it has such a wide level range is that it's not a single, play-all-the-way-through-and-stop adventure, the way most published adventure products are. Rather, it's meant to be spread out throughout the length of a campaign, as an ongoing plot arc to which the PCs return time and again. For instance, they might play through the events of the first part at one level, then gain a handful of levels via completely uninvolved adventures*. Then, they experience something that draws them back into the ongoing plot, and go through the second part of the book, and so forth, learning more about the ultimate schemes and objectives of our villain during each step.
*I say "uninvolved adventures," but the DM can certainly choose to link them to the ongoing ToH plotline if he wishes.
So ultimately, it's less a single adventure than a number of linked adventures that form a recurring plotline, much like you'll see villains and plot points recur in a TV series. (The Shadow involvement in Babylon 5, for instance.)
snark
Gosh, aggro much? Calm down, Zippy.
I said they could redo it to make a pleasant dungeon crawl, and I meant it. And that's what they're going to do, and I'll most likely play it and enjoy it. I've played updated ToH in previous editions.
However: Want to make it feel like the original? When the player makes a mistake, his character instantly dies, regardless of anything it says on the character sheet. Grab his character sheet and tear it up. THAT'S the original feeling.
- pure awesome -
I hated that they didn't use more Tomb of Horrors stuff in 3E apart from some (imo) unusable epic monsters. Return to the Tomb of Horrors was my favorite adventure in 2E.
It really sounds like they're not just going to do one adventure. It sounds like they're going to do something like a partial Tomb of Horrors Adventure Path, with spaces to put your own stuff in between. Pure awesome.
Revelations
Oh, of course. We should have realised.
This, and presumably other Super Adventures, will play out as described in the recent Dungeoncraft articles in Dragon. Makes sense. I'll go read through them in more detail now.
*coughcough* Yeah, there was a fan out there who updated it to 4E already *coughcough*
could you post a link to it, there isn't one on this forum yet
oops
meant to have the last part out of the quote