Canonfire! Forums-viewtopic-Return to the Tomb of Horrors for Epic Campaign

Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:01 pm Return to the Tomb of Horrors for Epic Campaign

Hey everyone,

I am in the process of converting RToH for a group of epic PCs of 26th-27th level. Needless to say, there is a lot of work to do and I'll be making some changes to fit my campaign. For those familiar with this adventure, I'll be keeping the main elements intact. Skull City, Moil, the Tomb, and the Fortress of Conclusion will all be included. Obviously, the monsters and traps will be changed/advanced to suit the level of play and there will be liberal use of the Epic Level Handbook and Libris Mortis.

This is an Ur-Flan themed campaign. Since Acererak was (presumeably) Ur-Flan this makes for an ideal way to conclude things. IMC, the Ur-Flan necromancers had complete disdain for gods and their followers and conspired to rid the world of them. Acererak and Vecna were among those who plotted "the Ur-Flan Apocalypse" by laying waste to the living world and denying the gods their worshippers. Eventually, Vecna is tempted by the power of godhood and the rest of his story is history. Despite the setback, Acererak continued his plans and has finally achieved his goal. Instead of becoming one with the negative energy plane (his ultimate goal written in the module), Acererak seeks to merge Oerth with the negative energy plane - a sort of Invoked Devastation on a global scale. This involves an epic spell and will turn Oerth into Acererak's undead realm. Also, I'm removing Acererak's cambion backstory (its already been done with Iuz.) My impression of him has always been that of an evil mortal wizard-king who rose to such power as to nearly challenge the gods themselves. For this remake I'll probably make him a 30th level spellcaster/demilich, although I haven't written up his stats yet.

Anyways, with that general BG I'm looking for any input, feedback or ideas to put into the dungeon. I'm open to any/all suggestions right now, I've just started and there isn't much I won't change.

Your thoughts?

Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:10 am

Hi

I am VERY interested in this. I would be willing to work with you, either we could post here, or if you like, we could use email (rob_douglas at mac.com) to bounce ideas and stats.

Clearly you will want to use the Winterwights from ELH, and maybe even a Shadow of the Void - the being that Acererak must have found out about this. I agree with your backstrory - the nixing of the cambion is fine. 30th level demilich is right on target for me as well. If we can include some "scaling this adventure" points, that would work.

Also, look at idea #99 on page 119 of the ELH. Sound familiar? I would try to keep this idea as much as possible.

The tomb itself has to be sealed from Ethereal and Astral travel.

For LM, you could definitely use Spell-stitched and Evolved templates on the undead. Somewhere there may be corpsecrafters as well. increase the numbers of undead and make them like terrain problems fo the PCs. Also, touch attacks still suck at Epic - 20 dread wraiths are nasty.

I had a lot of luck with advanced bhuts as well. Their dreadful appearance is not Mind affecting and hard (impossible) to be immune to - and making 20 saves, someone was bound to roll a 1. I have 24Hd CR13 versions - but en masse, they were nasty.

The first challenge I think is to stat the 3 vampire scions. I think that you could use the Vampire Master PrC, but you could also use the Ravenloft elder vampire templates. Those can make for some nasty Epic vampires. Make them Rogues or Barbarian/Rogues.

Just some thoughts. I could really use this, and planned to work on it as well, so if you want to lead, and tell me what you need when, I could focus on individual pieces and we could compare notes.

I need someone to push me, so this would be a big help.

ROB

Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:05 pm

Hey Rob,

Thanks for taking such an interst in this! I'll definately take you up on that offer. I've sent you some more material, its probably better to do this through email.

Cheers,

Trevor