S1 Tomb of Horrors Review

Tomb of Horrors is a TSR produced module for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It was written by Gary Gygax. And it was published in 1978. From cover to cover this module is 36 pages long. But there are really only eight pages of actual dungeon text. And one of those pages includes the introduction material.

No where could I find anything that specifically spells out a level range appropriate to this adventure. But I was reading from the mono (pink) colored version of the adventure. It is clear that this is a higher level adventure. The encounters are quite deadly. The pre-generated characters that are provided with the adventure range up to 14th level in experience. The green colored cover of the adventure clearly states that characters should be 10th to 14th level.

Technically this was not the first incarnation of this dungeon. Gary introduced a version of this at a convention as early as 1975 for original Dungeons and Dragons. He revised it for publication to use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. There is a badly scanned copy of the original version of the dungeon floating around on the web if you really want to look for it.

This adventure takes place in the mystical world of Greyhawk. But it is easily placed just about anywhere in your own game universe. A well known Lich has moved on to a new creature known only as a “Demi-Lich.” Acererak is his name. And he is a fairly well known villain in the Greyhawk world. There are legends for the location of his tomb. These legends are well known.

Don’t do it! That might be the last mistake that wizard ever makes right?

What I like about Tomb of Horrors

First….it introduces us to the Demi-Lich. The Demi-Lich is an incredibly difficult and deadly encounter….unless you know how to defeat it and have the proper tools to do so. When this adventure was published, the Demi-Lich, was not one of the original monsters in the Monster Manual. It was offered later in the Monster Manual II which was like two or three books later. The version in this module is slightly different than the version in the Monster Manual II. The differences that I found from reading the module and then comparing to the Monster Manual II version are as follows:

  • A shatter spell in TOH does 10 hit points of damage to the Demi-Lich. A shatter spell against the MM2 version does 3-18 points of damage
  • The TOH states that a “only a fighter with a vorpal blade, a ranger with a sword of sharpness, +5 or a vorpal weapon, or a paladin with the like or even a +4 weapon can inflict damage on the skull”
  • The MM2 states that “A fighter or ranger with a vorpal blade, sword of sharpness, sword +4, or vorpal weapon; or a paladin with a +4 or better weapon can inflict full damage upon the skull.
  • That may seem similar but actually there is quite a difference between those two statements.. Because later in the same block of text in the MM2 it also states “any character with a +4 or better magic weapon or a mace of disruption can inflict 1 point of damage upon the skull each time it is struck.
  • That is actually a huge difference. The upshot is that anyone striking the skull with anything but a sword of sharpness +5 or a vorpal weapon will either do no damage at all or will do one point of damage per strike. But if you are using one of these two special weapons you will do full damage if you are using the right class of character to do so. Those 50 hit points of the creature would go quickly against fighter types using the right weapons. Those without the right weapons, however, are going to do little or no damage at all to the skull.
  • The TOH version also allows a thief using a sling and throwing certain valuable gems found in the TOH to to significant damage to the skull. The MM2 mentions nothing of this possibility.
The demon faced idol has many admirers….there are several different cool images of this on the web

I love the false entrances. I have used this, myself, in an adventure or two. There is nothing quite as entertaining as having your adventurers, who know that they are looking for such a tomb, find one and then discover this is just a death trap entrance.

I love the demon face on the wall with a fixed sphere of annihilation for a mouth. This is what I like to call the “you are just stupid trap.” If you are dumb enough to stick an arm or a head into this mouth and have it destroyed…well you deserve what you got. I once put a knife on an altar in a dungeon and put writing above it that said something about using the knife to give an offering of blood to some chaotic evil deity. One of my players naturally used the knife and cut their hand. And then discovered that the knife was just a poisoned blade. They failed their saving throw…..

I love the illustrations of the key dungeon rooms for this adventure that are provided. I sometimes use props like that in my own games so that the players can visualize what it is that they are being told. Then when they make a mistake and their character dies….they have nothing but themselves to blame for their mistakes.

This is an adventure with no real random encounters in it. It is designed to be more of a thinking, puzzling, type of place rather than a meat grinder. But of course….it plays very much like a meat grinder. Because mistakes in this dungeon will kill characters. And sometimes they will destroy those characters forever.

This adventure has a lot of those little magical things called “tricks” in the Dungeon Master Guide for 1st edition. I like these and use many in my own games. Many others do not like them so much. It is a question of taste.

Keys! If you have read my article regarding Keys in Dungeons and Dragons then you know how much I love these. This adventure has a couple of them. And they are critical to the success of the adventurers.

The halls of this dungeon are quite peculiar

What I do not like about Tomb of Horrors

Although I love the introduction of the Demi-Lich as a creature…..it is a very complex and difficult creature to run as an encounter. This is not like the other creatures in the various Monster Manuals. There are a lot of moving parts to this creature. And the process of using this creature is not entirely clear from either the TOH description or the MM2 one. The Demi-Lich can either take a wraith like humanoid form or just be a plain dusty old skull with gems for eyes. But either version is extremely deadly to encounter. And some of the deaths caused by this creature may be so permanent that even a wish will not bring the character back to life. The armor class is extremely low and the hit points, although not super high, are high when you consider that most people will not have the weapons needed to do real damage to it.

The Pre-Generated characters offered with this adventure do not have any of these special weapons. Nor are they offered in the adventure. So assuming the adventurers actually find the Demi-Lich Acererak they will probably have zero chance of defeating it in battle.

There are a lot of secret doors in this adventure. And if some of them are missed, and they probably should be if playing strictly by the rules, then huge sections of this special adventure will probably be missed. Don’t get me wrong….I use a lot of secret doors in my own adventures. But I try not to place them in ways that the delvers might miss huge portions of the dungeon or some critical place where I want them to eventually go. In this one the final encounter with the Demi-Lich could easily be missed by failing to find a secret door. That would be a tragedy! Of course…given how difficult it is going to be to destroy him with the pre-generated characters provided they might prefer not to find him…..

The gems in this place are more valuable than you might think…..

Would I recommend this adventure to others?

Absolutely. Who would not love to run this adventure? It is vicious in every way. And it would be incredibly fun to run. I would probably advise, however, using the pre-generated characters rather than destroying those of your own players. If not using the pre-gens I would recommend waiting until reasonably high levels before using this adventure.

The Skull of a Demi-Lich as gems for eyes

Would I run Tomb of Horrors with my own players?

I very well might. If my players make it back up to the levels necessary to run this adventure. Unfortunately my own group recently suffered….misfortune…at the hands of a different Demi-Lich. My player group contains a couple of guys who are well read in Dungeons and Dragons material. I expected them to be familiar with the workings of a Demi-Lich. After all….they are familiar with just about every monster and magical item other than this. But alas….they were not. They made critical mistakes. They had the proper tools to easily defeat this creature. But the mistakes they made cost them dearly. All characters were killed. We rolled up new ones the next time we met.

The mistakes my players made:

  • They did not run away when it was completely obvious they were getting their asses kicked badly
  • They had both a sword of sharpness and a vorpal blade in the party….and chose to use neither of them. Instead they chose to use a +4 weapon which did only one point of damage each time it was swung
  • By the time they were all dead they had done a combined 5 points of damage to the Demi-Lich
  • They had access to a sage and did not ask any questions about how to defeat a Demi-Lich. Even though they knew that they were going to be encountering one…..

But I love this module. Yes….it is truly evil and depraved….it is defintiely a death trap. But I probably would elect to use the pre-generated characters rather than the beloved characters of my party members. That is too cruel even for me. And I am pretty cruel…..

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Acererak welcomes visitors to his tomb
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4 Replies to “S1 Tomb of Horrors Review”

  1. Good article. I played TOH some time in the very early 80s. I think, for me, the appeal of the module (old school for ‘adventure’) was the atmosphere. Our GM had hyped the lethality (is that a word?) of the adventure so much before we even set foot in the tomb that we were inching down corridors, shields raised and poking the floor ahead with a 10′ pole. The malevolence of Acererak permeated everything and we knew our next step could easily be our last (hey, anyone who puts a sphere of annihilation at the ENTRANCE of their dungeon isn’t messing around). An important point to make is that, as with many of Gary’s modules, this one was originally written for con tournament play, which means it was intended to kill you – it was just a question of whether or not you could get farther than the last team that tried. I think they tried to soften this a bit when they published the module, but less so in TOH than any of his other adventures.

    1. I recently played an adventure that I wrote with my players that involved a Demi-Lich. These guys were fairly high in level. They had six characters and the highest was 14th I think. And it was a total party kill. Not because the Demi-Lich was so hard but because they had no idea how to kill it even though they possessed two magic items which would have killed it easily in a round (a vorpal sword and a sword of sharpness). And they kept hitting it doing 1 point of damage each time with a different weapon and it ate up the party one by one. When TOH came out no one knew how to kill one. So I would imagine it was a total party wipe just about every time that creature was met.

  2. I ran this back in 1982 with the pre-published characters with my regular D&D group. Two people survived to make it out with the fake treasure. A good time was had by all

    1. awesome! I owned a copy of this adventure back in the early 80s but my existing group never reached levels high enough to use it. I have plans to use it with my current group at some point

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