A Fighter, a Thief and a Mage Walk into a Tavern

This is awesome. BFX is running The Third Level Tomb of Horrors Challenge with his players. I can't wait to see how far they get!

Tomb of Horrors/Ready Player One Challenge & the Epic Fail

Armed with their own reference copy of the module, can a simple third level, Basic D&D Fighter survive the infamous adventure, 'Tomb of Horrors'? As postulated in the novel Ready Player One.

Warning: Contains Spoilers to the Tomb of Horrors Adventure Module.

Character

Thacko II, Son of Thacko!
Level 3 Fighter
Str 17 (+3)
Dex 15 (+2)
Con 17 (+3)
Int 9
Wis 8(-1)
Cha 8(-1)

HP: 29
AC: 3

Begin Again the Quest!
Thacko II, Son of Thacko, continued the quest that claimed his father by ignoring the false entrances and moving directly through the teleport gate to Room 11. Since this time I am allowing for automatic Secret Doors finding, he proceeds through the tunnel to Room 13, taking 14hp total damage from traps and falls while retrieving the Ring of Protection +1. He also steals the crystal box (worth 1,000gp). He now has 15hp left, but has fulfilled one Condition of Victory!

Proceeding down the next tunnel, he enters the Chapel of Evil and loots the pews, collecting all the coins. He decides to leave all his loot here since it too heavy to carry now and he will have to back-track to collect the Gem of Seeing anyway.

Unfortunately, he must sacrifice his Ring of Protection to trigger the secret door and leave the chapel. Easily passing through the pit-doors, he ignores the sounds of music and … here we come to an insurmountable end for young Thacko.

Conclusion
To proceed in any direction from this point in the Tomb requires at least one of the following A) The Gem of Seeing, B) some sort of Magical Fire and/or C) Detect Magic a Dispel Magic spells. Since it is impossible for a third level Fighter to have any spells, and he has no gems to go back and collect the Gem of Seeing, he is essentially stuck here. Even getting out of the tomb means facing the Mutant Gargoyle, which means any third level fighter is now effectively dead.

Therefore, I must declare that without some serious tinkering, the premise of the book is declared untenable! A lone, 3rd level fighter with basic equipment cannot hope to defeat the Tomb of Horrors.

Conditions of Victory Met: None. You can collect the Ring of Protection +1, but you later have to destroyed it. And it has been a long time since I’ve bothered to convert silver and electrum pieces, but I don’t think he’s collected the full 20,000 yet.

So Now What?
I'm going to reread that section of Ready Player One to see if there are any further clues as to how the character manuevered through the Tomb, but by this point we are wandering farther and farther away original spirit of the module.

Speaking with BFX, we've come up with two ways to modify the premise to make it gameable:
1) A party of third level characters finds a hand drawn map of the Tomb. Some of the dangers are marked, but certainly not all of them.

2)One night in a tavern, the third level party plies an old, half-mad adventurer with ale to tell of the time she and her friends braved the tomb. Allow the players to read over the module once, then take it away from them. To be especially devious, make them read it the week before.

Tomb of Horrors/Ready Player One Challenge: Attempt 1

Armed with their own reference copy of the module, can a simple third level, Basic D&D Fighter survive the infamous adventure, 'Tomb of Horrors'? As postulated in the novel Ready Player One.

Warning: Contains Spoilers to the Tomb of Horrors Adventure Module.

Character
Thacko: Level 3 Fighter
Str 17 (+3)
Dex 12
Con 13 (+1)
Int 9
Wis 10
Cha 12

HP: 19
AC: 5

Saving Throws
Poison/Death 12
Wand 13
Stone/Paralysis 14
Dragon Breath 15
Spell/Staff 16

Equipment
Short Sword d6
Leather Armour AC 2
Shield AC 2
Torch(es)

Conditions for Victory
While in the Tomb, You Must Collect:
-20,000 (or more) gp!
-A Bag of Holding
-Flaming Sword+1
-Ring of Protection +1
-A Gem of Seeing,
-a full set of Full Plate +3!
Collect all of the above and make it to Room 25: the “Pillared Throne Room”.

Begin the Challenge!
Room 3
Ignoring the false entrances, Thacko made his way past the pit traps and went through the archway to Room 5 with the glowing stones pressed On and was transported to Room 11.

Without any gems, he could not yet get the ‘Gem of Seeing’ (needed to complete the Conditions of Victory) from the broken statue. Moving into Room 12, he ignored the false doors and moved into Room 10. Since he needs the Ring of Protection in Room 13, he goes through the hidden crawlspace, but the hidden door will not open (roll failed) and he is forced to turn back.

Going through the second crawl space, he cannot open the secret door here either (roll failed).

With no way forward, Thacko’s quest is effectively at an end. To return to the entrance he will have to negotiate through the Complex of Secret Doors and if he survives that, face the mutant gargoyle in Room 8.

RIP, Thacko, First of your Name.

Conditions of Victory Met: None!

Thoughts: Ready Player One must make the assumption that the character is able to open Secret Doors if they know they are there. It is something I’ve allowed in my own campaigns (depending on the door), but haven’t really encountered it in any pre-made module before, so I’m not sure exactly how to proceed.

On one hand, there are some very definite rules in TOH for discovering Secret Doors, (1in6 or 4in6 chance), and finding them is very much part of the adventure. But on the other hand, there is now only a 1 in six chance of any Ready Player One Challenge making it past Room 13.

Given the premise presented in RP1, I suppose I’ll have to allow automatic Secret Door discoveries, but it feels like a fundamental cop-out to the meatgrinder spirit of Tomb of Horrors.

If anyone has any strong feelings on this one way or another please let me know. Tomorrow I shall attempt it again with Thacko II, Son of Thacko!

Ready Player One: Tomb of Horrors Challenge!

I have just started reading Ernest Cline’s dystopian love-letter to 80’s Pop-Culture, “Ready Player One”. I want to finish it before commenting further and its reflection on geek culture.

What tickled my OSR fancy however (minor spoiler warning) was that the book postulates that a third level fighter, working solo can get through the infamous D&D meatgrinder adventure, ‘Tomb of Horrors’, provided they have a copy of the module in-hand to refer to while they did so.

Challenge accepted, sir!

The Rules
-You may play Tomb of Horrors with any Edition. (RP1 is heavy geeky, but not geeky enough to mention what edition of D&D the adventure is based on. Given the context it is pre-1985, which means Basic D&D or AD&D1.)
-UPDATE: Retro-Clone games such as Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, etc are permitted as well. -You must play by all the rules of that Edition and abide by all rolls of the dice.
-Characters must be third level, basic classes only.
-No multiclass, homebrew or prestige classes permitted.
-The only permitted character races are Human, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling, regardless of edition.
-Character begins with basic, non-magical equipment only. What the starting level, base character equipment is, is all you get.
-True adherents will start with a third level human fighter, equipped with a short sword, a bronze shield, a suit of bandied leather armour and a torch.

While in the Tomb, You Must Collect:
-20,000 (or more) gp!
-A Bag of Holding
-Flaming Sword+1
-Ring of Protection +1
-A Gem of Seeing,
And the big prize, a set of Full Plate +3!

Conditions for Victory!
Collect all of the above and make it to Room 25: the “Pillared Throne Room”.

No one reads this blog, but I’m really curious to see if anyone will join me on this mighty quest!

And if anyone has ever came up with rules for/played out a scenario where they have played classic arcade games with a demi-lich, let me know. Or better yet if anyone can whip up a quick jpg, becuz it would make for a bitchin' van painting!