Author Topic: AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors (PC Ideas)  (Read 2977 times)

Offline Necrosnoop110

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AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors (PC Ideas)
« on: September 21, 2019, 10:19:00 AM »
My group is running AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors. I'm working up a PC. No spoilers on the module but any suggestions on good character ideas? Any tips, tricks, or traps I should look out for? Never played 1E before.

XP: 1,000,000
Stats: 16, 15, 14, 14, 13, 8 (can swap order)(can trade 2 points from one to give 1 point to another)
All Books Allowed, No Magazines or homebrew 

Was thinking Elf F/M or F/M/T? 

Offline Skyrock

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Re: AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors (PC Ideas)
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2019, 10:24:46 AM »
Better roll up a few replacement characters in advance, you will need them, trust me.
Stats and class choice don't matter much actually, most of the tricks and traps rely on player skill instead of character skill.

As for tricks or traps to look out for, the module is just a romp of tricks and traps from beginning to end, most of them highly lethal. Telling more would require spoilers, but I recommend replacement characters for a reason.

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors (PC Ideas)
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2019, 12:05:33 PM »
Better roll up a few replacement characters in advance, you will need them, trust me.
Stats and class choice don't matter much actually, most of the tricks and traps rely on player skill instead of character skill.

As for tricks or traps to look out for, the module is just a romp of tricks and traps from beginning to end, most of them highly lethal. Telling more would require spoilers, but I recommend replacement characters for a reason.
What about a build dedicated to large amounts of henchmen, summons, and survivability?

Offline Nanshork

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Re: AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors (PC Ideas)
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2019, 01:59:01 PM »
Better roll up a few replacement characters in advance, you will need them, trust me.
Stats and class choice don't matter much actually, most of the tricks and traps rely on player skill instead of character skill.

As for tricks or traps to look out for, the module is just a romp of tricks and traps from beginning to end, most of them highly lethal. Telling more would require spoilers, but I recommend replacement characters for a reason.
What about a build dedicated to large amounts of henchmen, summons, and survivability?

1E doesn't support any of that as much as you're used to.

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors (PC Ideas)
« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2019, 02:13:39 PM »
Follow Up Question: Does AD&D 1E have standard treasure or appropriate gear, gold, and magic items for characters starting above 1st level (in this case ~12th (1,000,000 xp))?   

Offline Skyrock

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Re: AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors (PC Ideas)
« Reply #5 on: September 21, 2019, 02:29:15 PM »
There is no WBL in 1E. Anything above starting gold depends on the mercy of your DM.

Offline Keldar

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Re: AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors (PC Ideas)
« Reply #6 on: September 24, 2019, 01:15:14 PM »
I largely skipped 1E, but I do know that in Tomb of Horrors, everything is a trap.  Everything.  And Find Traps won't save you from many of them so beware shmuck-bait.  And roll a second character.

I do know that your 8 and your 15 are almost identical in value in 1E and 2E, ability scores meant jack-all in that range.  And that 16 isn't much either.  Your Constitution should get the 15 or 16, that's 10 or 20 hit points in a system that caps out 10 HD.  Though if you go Elf, use the 13 or 14 in Con instead.

Don't forget level caps for Demihumans, Thief is about the only one I think that has a high level cap.   So the F/M/T is probably the better long term option.  Actually, if Fighter is capped at a low enough level (6?), Mage/Thief may have a better THAC0 than a Fighter/Mage just because the thief xp chart is so favorable. 
With your stat swapping you could make a dual classed Human if you wanted.  (Those 14s aren't doing anything useful.)  There are some interesting things you can do with that when starting at high xp.

If the DM isn't giving you equipment for your level, grab the Armor spell and have the best AC in the party.

I remember grognards talking about shenanigans with Cavalier and its stat growth, but I don't have the book to recall the specifics.  If you have it, take a look.

Let us know how long it takes for first deaths.

Offline Skyrock

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Re: AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors (PC Ideas)
« Reply #7 on: September 29, 2019, 05:56:47 PM »
So, how did it go, and how many character sheets did you have to rip up? :)

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors (PC Ideas)
« Reply #8 on: October 01, 2019, 12:37:25 PM »
Doesn't start until November.

Offline Necrosnoop110

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Re: AD&D 1E Tomb of Horrors (PC Ideas)
« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2019, 12:22:01 PM »
So, how did it go, and how many character sheets did you have to rip up? :)
We all went with random PCs from Gygax's pre-gen list for ToH. We did really well. Pretty much followed the clue/riddle. The skeleton in the wooden treasure chest that had "just so" immunity to nearly everything really pwned us. And the Demi-Lich trick endings was some straight up Gygax nonsense. We ended up surprising, and then grappling the Demi-lich skull, and then trapping it in a bag of holding. DM ruled you can only open that bag of holding from the outside - so we at least have him temporarily trapped. Then we ended for the night.

One PC never died, one PC died twice, and the rest of us died only once. DM allowed PCs to just "re-spawn" and we kept track of the deaths with the winner being the PC with the fewest deaths.

All in all, fun as hell.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2019, 10:45:10 AM by Necrosnoop110 »