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  2008-01-24, 06:56 PM
  If you were going to solo the Tomb of Horrors, how would you do it? Assume you can have two extra levels above typical starting for ToH as a saving grace and as a reward for having the chutzpah to try it.
  2008-01-24, 07:00 PM
  I am afraid I have not ran through the tomb, so I cannot help with specifics, but I'm thinking some Zilla with Leadership cheese may very well be what your looking for.
  With druids you could craft a 4 person party from but one character.
  My gut reaction is to say "Factotum" ... wouldn't that be thematically most appropriate? And yet it's not a bad choice, either. Maybe could be outdone by some well-optimized CoDzilla, but it's probably the best class for this "out-of-the-box."
  Oh, but this is one instance where I wouldn't hesitate to go "cheesy" and throw all of my feats into Fount of Inspiration.
  Swordsage could be adept at this sort of thing too, perhaps. At least if the player is already familiar with the Tomb and knows when to turn on Stealth Mode.
  Well, it depends how you define "complete" and whether or not you have prior knowledge of the Tomb. Frankly, if you've read the adventure, the Tomb's not all that hard.
  2008-01-24, 07:05 PM
  What level are people supposed to do the Tomb in? I wonder if a level 20 Fighter might have problems, if we disallow UMD and Leadership.
  2008-01-24, 07:06 PM
  If the DM is nice, I would go to the WoTC board of character optimization. If the DM is cruel, I would go to the WoTC board of theoretical character optimization.
  Anyway, more seriously: As I haven't run through it, what is the starting level?
  Roll a big rock in front of you at all times. If the rock is big enough then you won't have too much trouble with traps.
  (Dwarf) cleric with stone shape and (if necessary) stone wall. Oh a hidden door I can't open? Well, let me just toss the earth aside! Bypassed! A trap, you say? Oh, I'll just encase that in solid rock. Break enchantment also helps, and ensure you have enough spells to be able to target every save and mook archetype you can think of. Make lots of search checks. Dispel magic is also your friend.
  Make lots of search checks.
  Actually, since you're the only one? Gets some ranks in search and take 20.
  Every square. Why not? It's your life on the line and no one to pull your bacon out of the fire.
  2008-01-24, 07:33 PM
  Plenty of twenty foot poles, rope, several torches and lanterns, pieces of parchment to make maps and take notes on and writing implements, and a few kegs of potent explosive if such a thing is available.
  2008-01-24, 07:40 PM
  I'd go Spellthief 12, abusing Rope Trick (Extended if neccesary) and UMD to keep myself alive. Carry a wand of Dispel Magic... Probably a Halfling with Tactile Trapsmith. The weapon would be some sort of throwing weapon with Returning and Spell Storing, while the armor would be a mithril chain shirt with... let's say Spell Resistance 13, Shadow, and Silent Moves. I don't see any harm in dipping for a wand of invisibility, every bit counts... Feats are rather scarce... I think I can afford a lesser Extend Metamagic rod, for the Rope Trick. Perhaps a friend in the form of a purchased Ogre Effigy, repaired by Repair Light Damage? Can't go without the panic buttons, either: several of the escaping variety. And, of course, a scroll of antimagic field for the lich.
  Yeah. The main dangers of the Tomb are all the incredibly arbitrary and lethal traps scattered through it, which are virtually impossible to bypass safely without prior knowledge. If you do have prior knowledge, though, they aren't all that hard to find loopholes in.
  Be a Warlock. Get two envocations that let you detect and dispel magic. Do this every five feet.
  2008-01-24, 07:49 PM
  Go Pun-Pun?
  What is the normal starting level for the Tomb of Horrors?
  2008-01-24, 07:50 PM
  Normal's 10, so you get to go 12.
  2008-01-24, 07:51 PM
  Don't forget to summon something about of your weight and height to walk in this five feet first, so to see if there is any mechanical traps.
  Be a Warlock. Get two envocations that let you detect and dispel magic. Do this every five feet.Warlocks can detect magic at will by second level, and voracious dispel damages whatever is subject to its cleansing influence. Not only are the magic traps thwarted, but easily visible due to the plume of smoke.
  Change of plan: Enough levels of Dread Necromancer for Charnel Touch, the rest Warlock. Take Tomb-Tainted Soul, for flavor and infinite heals. Take Supernatural Ability for the Eldritch Blast so the few combats aren't hindered by SR. Baleful Utterance for every door before you come within 60 feet of it. Fell Flight to avoid touching anything, and a portable hole full of dead animals so you can bait traps with The Dead Walk.
  2008-01-24, 07:59 PM
  I suggest Thrallherd. Use your Kobold Cleric with Kobold Domain thrall search for traps, while you back him up with an army of believers to actualy try the doors and hallways. If they die, so what? More show up tommorow.
  2008-01-24, 08:00 PM
  I would play a 12 level bureaucrat.
  I would initiate a work order to have the top of the tomb removed, then issue a no-bid contract for demi-lich removal :-)
  2008-01-24, 08:06 PM
  Wait, solo? As in, no klunky, awkward Bigs around to give away my position? Great, my rogue can sneak through unhindered (checking for traps every five feet, of course).
  Mind you, I'm not familiar with the Tomb beyond the well-known fact that it's full of traps.
  2008-01-24, 08:11 PM
  It's been decade(s) since I've seen tomb, but as I recall it was seriously old-school. Full of traps that were impossible to find and insta-killed you. It was really, really ridiculous for the level of party you were expected to take in.
  2008-01-24, 08:22 PM
  I think a level 12 rogue with maxed dungeoneering skills should be able to handle most of the traps. As far as taking on the boss himself, I think just getting to him is good enough. Prior knowledge will be necessary here, but I think its doable.
  2008-01-24, 08:26 PM
  Use a character with the Summon Elemental reserve feat from CM. That gives you continuous elementals to have step on squares to trigger traps, go through doorways before you, and so on. Earth Elementals can also Earth Glide through most surfaces, allowing you to check for secret doors or nearby rooms through walls. Make sure you speak Terran so your Earth Elemental can tell you what it sees.
  2008-01-24, 08:27 PM
  Having run a party of six level 9 characters (partway) through the Tomb (we ran out of time, they made it pretty far tho) most of the above suggestions would be effective. Honestly, a moderately cheesed wizard who just flies everywhere would bypass more than half the traps.
  And yes, "old school" is the word to describe it, if by "old school" you mean the school of D&D where everyone dies, all the time, for no good reason.
  And sometimes, for good measure, your gender changes.
  So... that'd be what, level 11?
  At that level you're dealing with 6th level spells .... 7th, with a Candle of Invocation and a Cleric. Hmm.... ah, I know - a Gnome (to start small, for becoming medium later - the dungeon is not designed with Large people in mind) Cleric with Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) and a good selection of Persisted buffs - something from the Vigor line for healing, Find Traps (with Cross-class ranks in Search), Divine Power, Righteous Might, Divine Favor... we'll need a lot of nightsticks... and a Bead of Karma, can't forget the Bead of Karma ... yes....
  2008-01-24, 08:47 PM
  I wouldn't go in with anything less than a 21st level batman wizard demilich.:smalleek:
  Felius: XD
  2008-01-24, 09:13 PM
  A human Dread Necromancer 1 / Warlock 10 / Paragnostic Apostle 1.
  1. Tomb-Tainted Soul turns Charnel Touch into Infinite Healing
  1. Battle Caster works for both classes, and there's no arguing with the extra protection.
  3. Supernatural Ability (Eldritch Blast) because I hate SR.
  6. Heighten Spell-Like Ability (Baleful Utterance) to ensure things break when you want them broke.
  9. Force of Personality lets you dump Wisdom, because you won't need to see anything coming because you're too paranoid not to burn the bridges.
  12. Improved Flight, because you're going to need to 180 eventually.
  3 Least:
  Baleful Utterance to kill the Demilich and bust down doors/traps.
  See The Unseen because the Unseen will kill you dead.
  Miasmic Cloud for concealment and choking vipers.
  3 Lesser:
  Voracious Dispel because you need to dispel things.
  Fell Flight because the last thing you want to touch is anything in the Tomb of Horrors.
  The Dead Walk to put that Portable Hole full of guard dogs to use.
  1 Greater:
  Eldritch Cone so that you can deal with multiple opponents.
  Edit: Apostle KiP: Penetrating Insight
  Warlock's Scepter isn't so much essential, but it makes your life a whole lot easier.
  Mithril Breastplate enchanted with SR X to make things harder for whatever spell is heading your way.
  Vest of Resistance +4 because saving throws are a must and you'll need the slot a Cloak of Resistance would take for:
  Cloak of Charisma +4 improves everything you do.
  To round it out, we'll toss in a pair of Gloves of Dexterity, and an Amulet of Health to help the subpar hp and Fort saves.
  2008-01-24, 09:37 PM
  Roll a big rock in front of you at all times. If the rock is big enough then you won't have too much trouble with traps.This isn't really true. Why is it, when people think of traps, they always come up with solutions for pit traps, pressure plates, and nothing else?
  That rock won't help you at all againstthe entire corridor that drops you in lava when you're halfway through it, the sphere of annihilation, the archway, the key/crown of death, the statue, the fake ending, that antigravity pillar chamber, the acid, the fake entrances... really, it won't help you against anything but a handful of pit traps near the beginning.
  2008-01-24, 10:42 PM
  Vow of peace/nonviolence. If I recall correctly, there are only two "living" things in there. You'll have to find another way around them.
  2008-01-24, 10:44 PM
  No, be under 100 pounds, and have an Unseen Servant drag a 100 pound bag of rocks at maximum range, while you watch with Arcane Sight, ready to Dispel (or Disintigrate, or Acid Arrow, or....) magic traps.
  Unseen Servant dragging bag of rocks triggers all things physical that you would trigger.
  Arcane Sight sees the magic aura of all magic traps, no roll required.
  Between the two, about the only traps that matter that you don't notice are:
  1) Periodic traps (the ones that just happen on an interval, not in response to stimuli)
  2) Traps fairly specifically designed to counter this
  2008-01-24, 10:48 PM
  The answer is simple a mad wizard tampering with races...dominated troll puppies...have them around 20 feet in front of you...if one is hit it will soon regenerate, if not there still more...all the traps are located and disabled by way of setting them off...even if they rearm themselves you know where it is and you avoid it...
  Also be an elf with lots of search ranks(jack of all trades i think might help) automatic recognition of secret doors...the tomb is your...now blast each monster with your batman cheesy spells and the tomb in longer so horrifying...
  permanent arcane sight would help a lot...you can constantly see magic auras and avoid them...they're probably traps...oh and don't touch anything you don't have to...maybe with mage hand and from a safe distance...
  2008-01-24, 10:57 PM
  I'm thinking along the same lines, but I'm thinking more in terms of defense than in terms of buffs. Persistent Detect Evil, Detect Magic, Hide from Undead, Find Traps, Sanctuary, Freedom of Movement, Repel Vermin (for the undead insect swarms, in case Hide from Undead gets dispelled), and True Seeing should be enough. That would keep you completely safe from everything as long as you had a good Search check to make full use of Find Traps. And all it would take is 48 Turn Undead uses. You'd need a lot of Nightsticks, true, but you wouldn't need anything else.
  It would also be good to put ranks in UMD and use a scroll of Overland Flight. That way you don't have to touch the ground or the walls, which protects you from quite a few of the traps.
  2008-01-24, 11:02 PM
  Uh, actually its a 9th level adventure, so you'd be level 11. Having thoroughly read and prepared the Tomb in all its Horror for my group, I would say that the best character to solo the Tomb without metagame knowledge or various cheese is a Tallfellow Halfling (I think that's the halfling that gives a bonus feat) Cleric with the Luck domain and 2 levels of Fortune's Friend with all 1st level spells prepared as Augury. You should have at least a caster level of 10 to make Augury the most effective, otherwise you may take any prestige class you wish, preferable something that grants movement, protection, luck, or anti-trap abilities.
  The Luck domain gives you 1 reroll and you should use up all of your feats to take these: Dumb Luck, Lucky Break, Lucky Catch, Lucky Fingers, Magical Fortune, Make Your Own Luck, Survivor's Luck, Tempting Fate, Third Time's the Charm, and Unbelievable Luck.
  With those feats and two levels of Fortune's Friend you get a total of 13 luck rerolls (ironic huh?). Additionally, you get unlimited luck rerolls per turn, but only one per effect and a crap load of special bonuses from those luck feats, including a very nice +2 to reflex saves (which FF increases as well).
  Your basic tactic would then be to cast augruy whenever you come to a door of some sort, have as high a search check as possible to search around (add your luck feats help with that) and use you luck to fallback on if you hit a trap. Once you run out of luck, get a bunch of one use Rope Trick items (like the Tokens) to retreat to. Also, get dice that love you :smalltongue:
  Note to my players: you may not use this build or any close to it. In fact, you should not be reading this thread, GO AWAY!!
  2008-01-24, 11:07 PM
  A strange module. The only winning move is not to play.
  Does that really work? The feat says innate spell-like ability. Gaining through a class doesn't quite count as "innate".
  Does that really work? The feat says innate spell-like ability. Gaining through a class doesn't quite count as "innate".It's been discussed, I believe the book references an example of using that feat on Wild Shape.
  2008-01-24, 11:26 PM
  Hahaha, don't go bringing nukes into the tomb, now.
  2008-01-24, 11:45 PM
  Hahaha, don't go bringing nukes into the tomb, now.I dunno, does it count as winning if you collapse it?
  2008-01-25, 12:35 AM
  11th-level CoDzilla cleric with find the path. From what I understand, that spell all by itself pwns the Tomb of Horrors, unless the traps are specifically warded against it.
  2008-01-25, 12:55 AM
  Find the Path won't work because there is no actual path to the end, you have to go through a through teleporters which are puzzles (read: evil traps that you have to be lucky or metagame to get through safely).
  2008-01-25, 07:10 AM
  Actually, Find the Path should deal with those, provided they're not teleporting you to another plane - it tells you the appropriate action to take at the appropriate time. About the only thing Find the Path doesn't work on is a) Creatures and b) stuff that's across planar boundaries
  2008-01-25, 09:15 AM
  Use your wealth on:
  -Undead. Lots of em. Great for finding traps and other nasty bits.
  -Summon undead I wand. Great for finding traps and other nasty bits.
  -A few Big scary bodyguard undead to kick the hell out of anything that comes near.
  Preferably find a way to scry on your 'buddy's''while you send them in to 'investigate'. Sending your invisible imp familiar with them is another way.
  2008-01-25, 10:11 AM
  So how does this character beat the final boss, especially without prior knowledge?
  You remember, the demilich skull with the save-or-be-soul-bound-in-my-eye-gems attack?
  2008-01-25, 10:18 AM
  Brian P.Yeah, that's why I like my build better. Pull a dog corpse out of the bag of holding (portable holes are expensive, apparently) and use The Dead Walk. Order Xykon's Puppy to grapple while you cuss the demilich to death with Dark Speech. Unless, of course, Supernatural Ability makes the demilich subject to Eldritch Blast.
  2008-01-25, 10:21 AM
  That was spoilered for a reason.
  Well since I have never actually played the Tomb of Horrors I think that when you solo you want the ability to deal a decent amount of damage while still being able to sneak around unnoticed. I think taking a Duskbleade with the fae heritage and the other fae feat (name escapes me) that allows you to summon monster IX (I think) combinted with the emelmental summoning reserve feat would work well. You can summon an elemental every round so you choose an earth elem and send it ahead of you while you use your sneak ability to follow a safe distance behind. If it triggers a trap your safe, if it gets attacked your safe and most of all you can have a small army of elems running around with you.
  I really want to do this now. (I don't know the tomb that well, having only encountered it out-game as a proverb and in-game as an equivalent to "rocks fall, everyone dies").
  Sadly, I have no-one to run it for me :-( and my players are NOT the sort who would be up for that kind of adventuring.
  2008-01-25, 05:11 PM
  I've now seen the spoilers, but they don't really change anything. It's natural to assume that the final boss is an arcane spellcaster of some sort, probably some form of wizard. So my rogue would deal with him the same way he'd deal with any wizard: Darkstalk in plain sight right up to him, and steal his components, magic items, and spellbook. Sneak back out of the tomb, activate Hat of Disguise, and find an NPC wizard. Trade the spellbook to him for a description of what the spells in it do and maybe an extra scroll of Antimagic Field. At this point, I can either rest on my laurels, and declare the adventure finished. If I absolutely must finish him off, though, I take any extraordinary precautions justified by what I learn from the spellbook, sneak back down, UMD the antimagic scroll, and hit the evil wizard with a sharp piece of masterwork steel (or adamantium, if I can afford it) until he goes down.
  I have the module. I'd be happy to run it for you solo, but I have other commitments.
  And besides, It would get OLD FAST. I have read all 35 pages of the module, and it has about 40 different features, ALL of which can kill you easily and idiosyncratically. Some in more ways than one. Seriously, it's the be all and end all of annoying traps.
  If I was going to solo the ToH, I would take warlock levels. At least two, for spiderclimb and shatter. No pit traps if I'm on the walls. The room with the scepter is a pain, however. I don't see a way past that. Or the BBEG. Umm, hire 8 to 10 hirelings?