Tomb of Horrors

[Guu]

This is the place to handle pregame and during-the-game information for our visit to Tomb of Horrors.

Character Choices
I thought it would be good to track who's playing what, which is information I like to have when making a character.  This list is in no way binding, so feel free to change your mind instantly.  We're simply keeping a running tally of the PCs general plans:

AJ- Unknown
Dave- Unknown (Druid or Ninja?)
Jay- Sorcerer
Rick- Monk
Steve- Rogue
Tom- Cleric

Starting Level
Tomb of Horrors begins at level 9, so plan your character accordingly.

Stats
Stats are rolled following the pretty typical Battlegrounds 3.5 pattern:  4d6 drop the lowest, three sets.  If you roll three really abysmal sets you may beg for my mercy and I will chuckle evilly.  Don't worry too much...I'm sure you'll have a chance to roll a new character.

Starting Equipment
We're doing Jay's magical equipment rolling system, because it was a lot of fun in the past.  It's also a good way to get new characters in the game quickly on the off chance that somebody dies.

Books
I'm following Jay's recommendations, because he has more experience running 3.5 with all the horrible books in play.  I reserve the right to revise this list if I hear from Jay there's something I missed.  Basically, YOU know if you're breaking the world, so don't do it.  Here's a list of banned books:

Book of Exalted Deeds
Miniatures Handbook
Unearthed Arcana
Races Books
Book of Nine Swords


Those are the ones I remember at the moment.  Complete books are in, but need to be checked up on before play.  Libris Mortis is in (heh heh heh).  Psionics are in, because I like them.  Be warned, if you make a boss-killer psion things will probably not work out for you.  I don't own any of the 3.5 Eberron books, but I've decided I'll let people give the books a shot, if it pleases them.

Scope of the Tomb of Horrors
This is a dungeon-crawl adventure, so if you don't want to feel useless you should avoid making a purely social character.  Stick with a more standard adventurer with combat abilities and some utility powers.  Tomb of Horrors is known for traps and puzzles, so be prepared.  Yes, you can spoiler the game for yourself easily but if you do expect to be figured out quickly and declared a consumate lamer by the rest of the table.

Other Information
I found that the 3.5e version of the Tomb was actually available for FREE from WotC.  It's a big adventure rather than a campaign, so instead of an extended break from 4e we'll have a nice little side adventure leading into the 4e product.  I'm going to integrate the ToH storyline into our ongoing campaign, and people that wish too will be able to port their 3.5 characters into 4e characters when we get back to the main story.  Those that died last night to Professor Rakshasa will NEED to port their character over, so keep that in mind.

[skavengear]

could you find it in your heart to allow those who died last night to port the 3.5 characters' heirs into the 4th ed game (for example, i had planned on my orc druid leaving the tomb to settle down with a nice human whench and make a half orc monk child to donate to the local monestary.) 

otherwise, i WILL suffer through playing a 4th ed orc druid if i absoloutly have to. (but wouldnt orc have died in the time span between 3.5 and 4th eds?)

also, dave is (hopefully) playing an Orc Barbarian 1, Druid 5, Nature's Warrior 3 named thornakk

his grandson thargosh a half orc monk will (hopefully) be my 4th ed character. Until black tree returns and Tamriel is needed 

[THEgeek]

i have made a barbarian

[jbkilroy]

In going over the 3.5 books again I had forgotten how much simpler things are for non-spellcasters (and more complicated they are for spellcasters).  That's probably why they made 4th ed the way they did and tried to even everything out.  To me though they made classes too similar sometimes, and limited each class to 2-3 possible builds (and even told you in the book what the builds were). 

The thing I like about the monk is that they are very flexible in melee and even ranged combat due to their speed.  3 good saves and various (high-level) abilities make for interesting tactical possibilities:
-Spell Resistance
-Disease and poison immunity
-Dimension Door
-Turn yourself into mist (calling Mr. Alucard)
-Automatically able to communicate with any living being
-And finally, gaining all the advantages of being an outsider with none of the penalties as well as natural DR
All this and be able to beat the crap out of stuff with your bare hands and while buck naked?
The 4th ed monk has some neat stuff too, but the only thing that trumps the 3.5 stuff to me is the at-will fly as a move action.

(end of monk rant)



Can somebody refresh me on the exact details of the 'Jay magical equipment system'?  I remember it involved rolling on treasure tables...

[skavengear]

Jays for us is basically we will roll 3 times on magic item charts around 9th/10th level and have up to 4-5 rerolls and thats how we get our magic, which will be done next friday night i assume.

speaking of rants {insert rant about 11 pages long about bone knight}

  Here's a list of banned books:

Book of Exalted Deeds
  I don't own any of the 3.5 Eberron books, but I've decided I'll let people give the books a shot, if it pleases them.

u


if it pleases me, then does this mean i CAN be a dream dwarf (favorite race ever) ninja? they were 100% ebberron legal. let me know

[jbkilroy]

Smileys used in posts: 235

Tell me there's some kind of tool that keeps track of that kind of thing and you didn't do it one-by-one... or at least that you made up a random number...

[skavengear]

counted. why its only like 450 posts.

out of curiosity, is complete champion all good?

[jbkilroy]

 A challenge, eh?  In that case...

  X ∞

Take that!

[skavengear]

thats only one smiley used  (+1)

i have decided to fudge the druid for a good rp character. havent rpd in a while. for the group: hes an foul mouthed dwarf who hates spellcasters  (+1)

also, how many 10th level items do we actually get when from the rolling itself? thatd help me make my shopping list for next friday. also, i have magic item compendium so josh doesnt have to go through 100 books to roll/find items.

[jbkilroy]

I was thinking it might be best to create only the character beforehand and roll up items once we get there.  Not that I've been tempted a few dozen times to cheat or anything, but it would eliminate confusion, as well as give everyone equal access to supplement books that might have moar phat lutz in them.

Why does the spell check say that 'moar' and 'lutz' are misspelled, but has no problem with phat?  Sigh....

[skavengear]

Well im not gonna actually buy anything, but if i look at the cheapest item i could get, ill have an idea of what to set as priorities over other stuff i want.

im really looking forward to playing 3.5 for a while, make those 2 bookshelfs full of 3.5 books useful again 

as far as the spell checker, why are you spell checking the ?sdraob its not like people spell write here anyways 

[jbkilroy]

It underlines stuff in red that it doesn't recognize, that's the only way I noticed.

btw, I flipped through the Pathfinder book this weekend and you were right; the design is much more interesting than 3.5.   The only thing I really looked at was the expanded options for character classes, but even that was greatly improved.  A fighter being the best with weapons and armor just for being a fighter?  Cleric domains and wizard schools actually being useful for something?  Too bad this makes them outclass and thus become incompatible with the 3.5 game we're heading into, otherwise I would suggest we roll those instead.

[skavengear]

WHOM was the one who said we should do it? told you it was awesome!!! 

[THEgeek]

i didnt even know that there was a font the big on here

[jbkilroy]

I was agreeing with you, you didn't need to yell...

*whimper*

Besides, I never said it was awesome, just that it was interesting.