Rumours of Its Deadliness Were Greatly Exaggerated... (Part 2)

We played our second session of Tomb of Horrors yesterday. There were a few more deaths than the last session, but overall I still felt a bit disappointed with the module.

At the end of the last session, the players had gotten up to the corridor with the three pit traps behind doors. I came close to killing one of the PCs (again, Ian's halfling Tyreese who took point for virtually every part of the dungeon they explored) but she survived due to player ingenuity. Though Tyreese (formerly male, but transformed by a mysterious archway) did fall into one of the spike pits, Jason's character Cecilia acted quickly to cast feather fall to save her. Tyreese then arrested her fall with an iron spike in the wall, and then leapt off the spike using her boots of striding and springing to escape the pit. This was a great example of the kind of creative thinking I want to see in my AD&D games, but it also highlighted the fact that by the time they reach this high level, the PC spellcasters have a spell to counter just about any problem you can throw at them.

Rumours of Its Deadliness Were Greatly Exaggerated...

Yesterday me and my IRL gaming group decided to play Tomb of Horrors. It was the first time they had ever played AD&D, and the first time I had run it for that matter, but we had some experience of killer dungeons from playing Fourthcore. Somewhat disappointingly, though, the Tomb hasn't so far lived up to its fearsome reputation. After 4 hours of play, I've only managed to kill off one measly hireling. (Compare this to Fourthcore's Crucible of the Gods, where we had two TPKs in the first four rooms.) The following is a play report on the various traps of the dungeon and how they failed to prove deadly.

(Spoilers for Tomb of Horrors after the jump, obviously. If any of my players happen to be reading this, don't go any further until after we've finished the module.)