Tomb of Horrors part II

[BWM]

Hi,

My players have kind of survived the Tomb of Horrors (they went in with 10, one survived and gave up without his equipment, another survived and looted the ****, the rest.... passed away).

Obviously I didn't scare them enough, since now (18 months later) they want to find out where Acerak went. It would only be logical that he has created another Lair and thus they will invade that one.



But I don't have any ideas for anything that would be more evil than the tomb of horrors... o_0

[Radar]

First of all danger is not measured by traps DC or damage dealt itself. It is measured with deviousness of the designer. Think of all the universal failsafe methods of countering traps and counter them.
1. There is a well known tactic of using summons to spring traps ahead and watch the results from a safe distance.
Solution: redefine "safe distance". Indy style rolling boulders in long hallways, flooding rooms and such. Alternatively the trigger can be just put away from the actual trap or the trap can be delayed (set to go off a few round after the trigger is pushed).

2. Paranoid party might try to disarm every single mechanism they encounter.
Solution: an obvious trap is the trigger for something nastier and well hidden (disarming the first, triggers the second). Warning: the trap within a trap should be possible to find, otherwise players will not be pleased.

3. On higher levels PCs might take care of magical traps by dispelling everything on sight or walking in an Antimagic Field (the latter not that likely, but still).
Solution: aside from magical traps, fill the dungeon with magical effects, that hold some traps back. For example a Reverse Gravity spell, that prevents the room from being flooded with acid.

4. Throw in some mechanisms, that are seemingly beneficial. For example a drawbridge over the chasm pulled down by stepping on the right stone. Steping on that stone twice, would make the bridge fall apart.

5. Flying, teleporting and etherealness were covered by Acererak himself.

Still: whatever you do, make sure, that PCs have a way of avoiding or otherwise defending against those traps - otherwise it's an elaborate "rocks fall, everybody dies". It's just that, they should not be able to use one tactic to disarm them all.

At best treat traps the same way, it was in the original Tomb of Horrors - players should come up with actual way of disarming them instead of a simple roll. It does put much more workload on you, since it forces you to write up a detailed mechanism for every single trap in your dungeon, so it might be too much to handle.

Proposed read on subject:
http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/category/articles (unfortunately lacks a search feature, so it's hard to re-find particular articles)
http://www.mortality.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Files&file=index&do=showgall&gid=4 (traps, riddles and many more)
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19903478/1001_Clever_Traps_for_Beginners_%28DMs_especially% 29 (vast, yet unorganised resource)

[Killer Angel]

My players have kind of survived the Tomb of Horrors (they went in with 10, one survived and gave up without his equipment, another survived and looted the ****, the rest.... passed away).
Obviously I didn't scare them enough, since now (18 months later) they want to find out where Acerak went. It would only be logical that he has created another Lair and thus they will invade that one.

But I don't have any ideas for anything that would be more evil than the tomb of horrors... o_0

Sounds like you need Return to the tomb of Horrors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_the_Tomb_of_Horrors)
Probably, somewhere, there is a conversion for 3.5.

[penbed400]

I recently created this dungeon while inspired by the tomb of horrors actually, all you have to do is name the demi-lich at the end Acerak. Its ECL 14, http://www.mediafire.com/?30yjjljt2zy .

Hurray for self-promotion :-D

But there is the Return to the Tomb of Horrors, I've tried looking for it but I couldn't find a 3.5 conversion. You might be able to find a 2nd edition version online and then be able to convert it like that though.