When next we pick up the action as the party works their way though the Tomb of Horrors. After having decimated their numbers in the chapel, our next session started a few less players based on scheduling. The good thing is that this really is not an encounter based dungeon...the challenge is in the player skill and problem solving.
I have to say Gygax purposely placed a lot of got you moments in this adventure and there are several instances where a player could reasonably come to the conclusion that they had conquered the tomb....the crypt with the zombie Acererak being one such instance....my group managed to skip over this, finding the secret door before descending down to that encounter. That is another thing with the tomb, there are so many dead-ends if you do not find the secret door...using the Labyrinth Lord rules, this was often a 1 in 6 chance. If my group reasonably described their intentions and point of interest with their character was doing, I was fairly lenient with secret door discovery. There are much more nefarious and deadly things to encounter here...
On to the three vat room and the first key. The players managed to figure this one out pretty quickly, using the tools available to them to pull the key from the acid vat with minimal issues. I really loved these puzzle / problem solving rooms, I think more dungeons need these in some of the current modules. The problem of course being that, there is probably some stupid roll that said character make now without having to describe and solve the matter themselves....not a fan 5th edition! I know I sound like a grumpy old man, but things like this really show the dominance of the retro clones and older edition of the games. Simpler and more involved game play!
My group managed to breeze through the next couple of hallways, rooms and traps...screw you flying carpet, that thing was the MVP of this dungeon. The green slime room, was fun, but my group was on their toes and figured out the trap before passing through a likely instant death scenario. They had a strategy of basically sending the most durable / "less likely to die" party member ahead into the corridors and rooms and then trying to save them as the trap was sprung or after the effects had been applied. The guys were really lucky throughout in regards to some of the save or die situations as well, but that's part of the thrill of it.
One of the rooms I was most excited about, but turned out to be a total let down based on my groups adapting play style was the juggernaut room. But, in a way I was excited to see them learning and becoming true old-school role players...not much further, they were closing in on the final rooms of the Tomb of Horrors.....
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