Robot Viking

If you’re a long-time D&D player, chances are you’ve had one or more characters killed by deathtraps in the classic Tomb of Horrors adventure. Ryk Perry brings us this in-depth review of the 4E update, revealing that it’s much more than just a rehash of the original, but it’s potentially as deadly as ever.

A couple weeks back Ed asked me if I wanted to write a review of the new Tomb of Horrors since I am apparently the only member of our group who played the original. Of course I said yes. My copy of the original is long lost, but like so many, I have fond (and painful) memories (or flashbacks?) of my introduction to the demi-lich.

So what is this new Tomb of Horrors? Well it isn’t a 4^th Edition update of the original. There is a portion where the party returns to the setting of the original, but the original tomb was plundered by adventurers years ago, so nothing is quite the same. In fact this is the third iteration of the Tomb of Horrors; a boxed set called Return to the Tomb of Horrors was released for Second Edition. So this 4^th Edition version is a new chapter in the timeline where it is assumed that other adventurers have challenged the machinations of the demi-lich, Acererak, before.

But like so many cherished villains (can you cherish a villain?) Acererak has not been truly destroyed. He is again plotting, and there is no one to stop him but your band of intrepid heroes.

Tomb of Horrors is a hardcover book 160 pages long. It comes with one double sided poster map and a couple dozen ‘point of view’ illustrations for the players. It is advertized as an adventure for 10^th to 22^nd level characters. That of course suggests that the book is a campaign leading straight through all those levels, but that is not how Tomb of Horrors is designed. The book contains four discrete adventures that under the normal 4^th Edition level scheme are tailored to parties at 10^th, 14^th, 17th and 22^nd levels.

The adventures are all set in completely separate locales, from the Feywild, to the Shadowfell, to a dead god’s astral domain. As designed, the adventures are intended to be dropped into an ongoing campaign between the character’s other adventures so that the players slowly unravel Acererak’s plans. You also don’t have to use them all. So if your party is already 16^th level, you could jump right in to the third chapter and go from there. The earlier chapters could then be reused with a different main villain for a later party.

4^th Edition is all about balanced encounters, however the original Tomb of Horrors was a meat grinder. I must have lost at least a half dozen character in it (of course we had a small group so we each played several characters). But that deadliness does not translate well into 4^th Edition’s balanced play scheme, so the designers have offered several ways to ramp up the danger quotient to really capture the flavor of that widowmaker of old.

The simplest change is to run the adventures when the players are about 2 levels lower that recommended. But if you want to go a little further, a side bar called ‘Step and Die’ offers additional options. These range from increasing trap damage by 50%, to reducing the number of death saving throws that a character gets when reduced to zero hit points, to making Raise Dead ineffective for soul drained characters. These may seem harsh, but the original had all sorts of traps and effects that killed a character instantly and these seem quite fitting.

So what are these adventures like? Well, all of them are based largely around a ‘tomb’ of some sort. The demi-lich really likes that motif and appoints all his vacation homes in the same manner. In fact the characters have the chance to meet his architect (the same one who designed the original tomb) and he has updated all of the tombs with traps and monsters to make sure that Acererak and his uninvited guests feel at home whenever he visits.

The traps in this adventure, even if you are using the optional damage increase, are not one-hit-one-kill devices. They are frequently used to supplement the monsters but sometimes stand alone. One that seems particularly interesting is a set of enchanted gaming tables that charm players into playing the game against the table itself. This triggers a skill challenge where wrong moves trigger damaging attacks that could run in an endless loop unless they beat the game or someone rescues them from the charm.

There are also puzzles to stymie the players and various hints and clues to foreshadow monsters and traps (and possible solutions) that the characters should be on the lookout for.

As for the encounters, there are a great variety of monsters and terrains, all of which make sense given the mastermind behind each of the tombs. The characters may have to sneak around a dead city avoiding warring bands of undead and necromancers or hold off a powerful spirit while simultaneously opening a portal. There are fights based on mistaken identity that, if discovered, might gain the party allies and other opponents that suffer from magical domination. And there are quite a few encounters that are based on purely malevolent beings who would really love it if the characters would help them update their abattoirs.

Then, of course, there is the main villain himself, Acererak the demi-lich. Once again, the one-hit-one-kill powers that defined him in the original have been toned down so that you might get a couple saving throws before your character bites it. But he is still one tough opponent who, as a lich, can resurrect himself if his phylactery is not destroyed. If you are playing with certain of the ‘Step and Die’ options an encounter with Acererak is likely to end up with a lot of weepy players who are in need of 4d6 and new character sheets.

By the way for any one who doesn’t know what a demi-lich is, the name is misleading. Where a demi-god is like a mini god, a demi-lich is far more powerful than your average lich, which is saying something. In this case ‘demi’ refers to the corporeal form of the lich which is usually only the skull and maybe a few bones. As I recall from the original, Acererak (who likes to adorn his skull with gems) passed himself off as a piece of treasure in his own hoard so the party was quite unprepared when their loot started to kill them and devour their souls.

Keep that in mind.

Related posts:

1. RPG Freelancer Scott Fitzgerald Gray Shares Deep Dark Terrible Secrets of RPG Industry (and Tomb of Horrors) with Id DM
2. An Annotated Guide to Every 1st Edition D&D Adventure
3. Highlights from the D&D Gen Con Presentation
4. The Lurking Horror Within the Tomb of the Sun
5. Hunter: the Vigil Campaigns Go Modular with Collection of Horrors