Obviously, spoiler warning for anyone wanting to play Tomb of Horrors from TYP.
Hey guys, I'm a (relatively) new DM running Tomb of Horrors for my friends in a few weeks as a fun one-off (many of them are Dark Souls fans, so they're well prepared for death and despair). I have many questions on how to run this dungeon, but firstly, I was curious about how to handle possible character deaths and/or party separation. Say I have five people, and one person dies in a pit trap halfway through the dungeon. Should I have the remaining four continue until a TPK occurs? Should I immediately allow the fifth player to start again at the front of the dungeon? Should I make the whole group start over, in some Dark Souls/arcade-game-esque style?
Any tips are appreciated and I'll post other questions here if anyone is willing to help! (Not sure how the party is supposed to get the half-key in the acid vat, or why my party wouldn't just leave the dungeon after beating the Fake Acererak since I want this to be a one-week dungeon--we have some free days after finals to just play before graduation...)
Great question and possibly this question has not been asked enough but there are several choices that you could allow. First you could allow your players who have lost their character through in game death and allow the player with a fallen character to remake another character. This way, your friend and player will not feel excluded that he has to stop play because of a natural occurrence in the game of Dungeons and Dragons.
Perhaps remaking a fallen character will impede party composition and immersion. If you feel this will happen, then the players should be high enough in level to resurrect the fallen character through the use of a spell or scroll of raise dead. Remember to follow all the rules for raising dead pc's though. It will take a lot of hit point damage to fell a player character. If the pc's drops to unconsciousness then it's a matter of a party cleric healing him/her.
Dropping a healing potion in his mouth and having them take the fallen body with them. There is also the possibility that all players will die and a Total Party Kill happens. Then it's a matter of resetting the game and starting over. Probably with new character because it messes with immersion. Tomb of Horror was intended by Gary Gygax to truly test the resolve, wit, stamina and fortitude of the player characters.
There is also asking the adventuring group what they want to do. Bring the body for later, perhaps they find a lost adventurer that they find later in the tomb. You get the point, it's really your decision but great to plan ahead because rolling for death saves is a fun mechanic. It has sense of grittiness and realism and can leave the players on the edge of their seat.
The traditional old school answer would be the player takes over running one of the NPC henchmen or hirelings, since there would be on average 2-5 of them per PC.
For 5e I would have players make B-team characters, one level lower than their main A-Team character, who hang back at the group's camp outside the dungeon. If a Player's A-Team character gets killed, the survivors send word outside to the camp, and in comes a replacement. And they should start building their C-Team character, one level lower than their B-Team character, just in case. If D-Team, etc, characters are needed, I may or may not let them stay the same level as C-Team, because the characters start becoming too ineffective if their level drops too far.
Another option, kind of deux-ex-machina when character dies and they rejoin the same adventure with a new one, make them be inside one of the rooms the main group is exploring, and say that he came with another party and got trapped there, however realist or penalizing you want to be is up to you, he might start with a level of exhaustion or something like that, because of lack of supplies, this way you don't exclude the player from the fun if they want to keep going.
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Obviously, spoiler warning for anyone wanting to play Tomb of Horrors from TYP.
Hey guys, I'm a (relatively) new DM running Tomb of Horrors for my friends in a few weeks as a fun one-off (many of them are Dark Souls fans, so they're well prepared for death and despair). I have many questions on how to run this dungeon, but firstly, I was curious about how to handle possible character deaths and/or party separation. Say I have five people, and one person dies in a pit trap halfway through the dungeon. Should I have the remaining four continue until a TPK occurs? Should I immediately allow the fifth player to start again at the front of the dungeon? Should I make the whole group start over, in some Dark Souls/arcade-game-esque style?
Any tips are appreciated and I'll post other questions here if anyone is willing to help! (Not sure how the party is supposed to get the half-key in the acid vat, or why my party wouldn't just leave the dungeon after beating the Fake Acererak since I want this to be a one-week dungeon--we have some free days after finals to just play before graduation...)
Toremar, Paladin 6 / Dez, Gnome Wizard 5 / Perios, Elf Wizard 10 / Skadr, Dwarf Pugilist 7
Great question and possibly this question has not been asked enough but there are several choices that you could allow. First you could allow your players who have lost their character through in game death and allow the player with a fallen character to remake another character. This way, your friend and player will not feel excluded that he has to stop play because of a natural occurrence in the game of Dungeons and Dragons.
Perhaps remaking a fallen character will impede party composition and immersion. If you feel this will happen, then the players should be high enough in level to resurrect the fallen character through the use of a spell or scroll of raise dead. Remember to follow all the rules for raising dead pc's though. It will take a lot of hit point damage to fell a player character. If the pc's drops to unconsciousness then it's a matter of a party cleric healing him/her.
Dropping a healing potion in his mouth and having them take the fallen body with them. There is also the possibility that all players will die and a Total Party Kill happens. Then it's a matter of resetting the game and starting over. Probably with new character because it messes with immersion. Tomb of Horror was intended by Gary Gygax to truly test the resolve, wit, stamina and fortitude of the player characters.
There is also asking the adventuring group what they want to do. Bring the body for later, perhaps they find a lost adventurer that they find later in the tomb. You get the point, it's really your decision but great to plan ahead because rolling for death saves is a fun mechanic. It has sense of grittiness and realism and can leave the players on the edge of their seat.
The traditional old school answer would be the player takes over running one of the NPC henchmen or hirelings, since there would be on average 2-5 of them per PC.
For 5e I would have players make B-team characters, one level lower than their main A-Team character, who hang back at the group's camp outside the dungeon. If a Player's A-Team character gets killed, the survivors send word outside to the camp, and in comes a replacement. And they should start building their C-Team character, one level lower than their B-Team character, just in case. If D-Team, etc, characters are needed, I may or may not let them stay the same level as C-Team, because the characters start becoming too ineffective if their level drops too far.
Another option, kind of deux-ex-machina when character dies and they rejoin the same adventure with a new one, make them be inside one of the rooms the main group is exploring, and say that he came with another party and got trapped there, however realist or penalizing you want to be is up to you, he might start with a level of exhaustion or something like that, because of lack of supplies, this way you don't exclude the player from the fun if they want to keep going.