Would this work? Would your GM allow it? Would Gygax have allowed it?

Would this work? Would your GM allow it? Would Gygax have allowed it?

Who cares what Gainax thinks?

is calling Gygax "Gainax" a thing now

>thinking you can just slip the skull in a bag (or bag of holding)
>thinking that you can even get close enough
>thinking the skull is just going to sit around while you carry it outside

I mean, let's assume that just sticking it into a regular bag is not the worst idea possible. Let's assume that it doesn't have Dimensional Anchor and so actually wouldn't go into a Bag of Holding. Let's assume that it doesn't immediately use phasing, or Shadow Walk, or Teleport, or Plane Walk, or any of the other dozen methods it has to avoid being stuck in a small enclosed place.

How exactly are you planning on moving that bag o' demilich all the way out to the front door before it gets an action to rape every one of your family and friends?

Probably some third party splatbook.

The skull doesn't actually activate unless you touch it, so a regular burlap sack could theoretically work.

Can't touch attack through a sack, can't cast line of sight spells through a sack, any AOE attack it casts will also hurt itself.

The real problem is Power Words. But you'd probably cast silence on the skull first.

That's silly.

That's like saying "It doesn't actually activate unless I touch it, and I didn't touch it, I just hit it with my sword." The terms for 'touch' are intentionally left vague for stuff back then, and throwing a bag over it (much less picking up the bag afterwards) is certainly going to count as touching it.

Otherwise, you could have situations like the Wizard using Ghost Hand to just stick the skull in there, since Ghost Hand doesn't involve anyone touching it either.

Acererak the demi-lich can't bust out of a NORMAL bag?
>It must be a bag of holding.

Oh! Well on that assumption. Nope. Bags of holding don't function in the Tomb of Horrors for the same reason teleportation spells do not function.

If the "legendary" Acererak is not able to busy out of a normal leather sack because he's out of spell or whatever, that probably means you already beat him in and epic long two session combat. The Demon Hole is the salt in the wounds- but just the punch line, not the build up.

>Grab bag of non-RaW reasons
Lastly there are TWO follow up campaigns featuring the tomb. The return to the tomb of Horrors and whatever the 3rd one was called. Through PLOT-REASONS we find out Acererak is a near-prefect negative energy being. Spheres of Annihilation- particularly the ones in his own tomb are negative energy portals. Tossing him in one likely to fastest way to get to his "That-wasn't-even-my-final-form" mode. Not defeat him.

And yet, taking that to the extreme, simply entering the room will alter air currents enough to 'affect' it.

What if you flood the chamber and hide?

>That's silly.
Yep, but those are the rules. Gygax himself ruled that you can totally put stuff on the skull and it's fine. A party at Gencon one year put the crown on the skull and hit it with the wrong end of the scepter, and the judges called him in only for him to declare that it worked.

So, neener neener, it works and you're wrong.

>casting Silence on a demilich
You would have better luck casting Silence on the bag itself, if not enchanting it to just silence anything inside.

Although there is nothing stopping the demilich from just casting a (non-verbal component) area spell on the sack itself from inside. And since area spells aren't going to be limited by the bag - and since the PCs can't see the attack to avoid it - enough eating a Meteor Swarm or whatever else would be an appropriate spell without a save. Getting caught unprepared is a bitch in AD&D1e.

>What if you flood the chamber and hide?
Probably nothing, given that the demilich honestly wouldn't give a shit. Are you expecting it to drown?

You asked what a GM would do, and it is highly unlikely that a GM would allow that. And even if they follow Gygax's example, there is a difference between placing something onto the skull and attempting to move it.

>Are you expecting it to drown?
No you tart, so you can use water currents to retrieve it.

Now give yourself to Gygaxian Formalism in apology.

A real GM allows clever bullshit.

I'm not the OP, but a GM who wouldn't allow a clever solution to a problem is not one worth gaming with.

Well then, you might as well just block off all exits to the building and flood the entire thing. The Sphere of Annihilation is the only meaningful exit for the water, which means that everything will get swept into in and destroyed without the PCs needing to touch anything or even enter the room.

I was halfway expecting a
>back of the knee maybe
edit

It's just being spread by one autist, like that nickname he tried to spread for Pathfinder last week. He might be the same as /v/'s Barneyfag

Solution to the dungeon: Water.

I can see it happening.

Barneyfag is from /v/?

>A real GM allows clever bullshit.
No a real GM weaves clever bullshit into fucking over the party. You must just shower your players in +20 artifacts.

Lifting up and carefully moving the table that the skull is on is a clever solution.

Crafty uses of Unseen Servants (or whatever the equivalent back then was) is a clever solution.

Using Stone Shape to put together a ramp down to the Sphere, then spending one turn to drop the skull onto it is a clever solution.


"I toss a sack over it" is not a clever solution, especially considering that the only way such a solution could possibly work is if the players had read a line from the sourcebook which they weren't supposed to have access to.

I'm of a fan of the Social Combat, personally.

But I do reward clever uses of the game world, and thus try to design the fuckery to be as plausible as possible, so the players can't just clever their way out of it immediately. (It also avoids most handwaving and railroading.)

Definitely put effort into considering why would happen the way it does.

as GM, I would find this hilarious and allow it, I ran this as a halloween treat and my party tried to use the acidic tapestry to melt it, I was just so flabbergasted I just let the skull melt, but the jewel melted too

None of those solutions work unless the PCs read something they're not supposed to. Or, more accurately, you'll bitch about it and try to come up with excuses why it shouldn't work.

The big bad gets defeated by a normal sack dude. It's just the way of things sometimes, Accept it and move on.

>Oh! Well on that assumption. Nope. Bags of holding don't function in the Tomb of Horrors for the same reason teleportation spells do not function.
DM fiat?

My favorite solution is taking the platinum doors, myself.

Then why even ask about what a DM would do?

If you're strong enough to cast silence on him, just smash the fucker's now relatively harmless head.

OP's question was, specifically, "Would YOUR DM allow it?" You really ought to read these things.

Most gems don't dissolve in acid.

really, oh well
the acid is supposed to melt everything on a person, so I assumed it melted Everything. well, its not like they needed it since they carted back so much gold we had to look up encumberencd rules

What? No, the rules of the dungeon.

I actually kinda like it.

We could have old school gainaxian dungeon crawling fantasy adventures.

I dunno, I kind of agree with .

Mekton Zeta x D&D crossover with big tits and hyperkinetic action when?

Being fucked up by a common burlap sack is kind of the perfect thing to fuck up a wizard like acererak.

Like, you've spent thousands of years studying the most arcane and complex of magics.

But in all that time, never, ever did the mighty wizard prepared for a burlap sack.

>Tossing him in one likely to fastest way to get to his "That-wasn't-even-my-final-form" mode. Not defeat him.
If that's the case then why doesn't he just jump in one himself.

Barneyfag is from every board. he has an RSS feed set up every time a thread is created anywhere that isn't and and sometimes not even /trash/. I'm pretty sure he's yelled at people in there too.

Mortal mind? Doesn't want to? Can't study in silence in the Nega-zone? Iunno. Tons of reason or 70's writing. Take your pick

You are technically correct.

>The best kind of correct.
>The Gygax is Pleased.

Loot the money first, of course.

If it's a meme then we would allow it. Does nobody rememeber?

>Who cares what Gainax thinks?
Get in the damn robot, Melf!

Bag still counts as you touching it. Transitive property.

>no officer, I was just groping her blouse!

>I didn't kill him, the bullet did!

>I didn't touch the lich, I was wearing gloves!

Throwing the skull in a bag and then walking off with it would most certainly disturb the lich's rest, regardless of skin on bone contact.

Disregard this. Saw the post determining rulings on similar bull.

>The Sphere of Annihilation is the only meaningful exit for the water.

There's also a portal in the basement. The water will be teleported out of the dungeon and be the opposite gender and alignment. And also naked.

If you for some reason know that the skull is bad news, and know about the Sphere, can't you just bring the Sphere to the skull instead?

>The sphere is stationary until someone controls it. If you are within 60 feet of an uncontrolled sphere, you can use an action to make a DC 25 Intelligence (Arcana) check.
>On a success, the sphere levitates in one direction of your choice, up to a number of feet equal to 5 x your Intelligence modifier (minimum 5 feet).
>On a failure, the sphere moves 10 feet toward you.

Frankly, even the barbarian could lead the sphere to the skull 10ft at a time.

Because he is a Demi-lich. By definition, he doesn't care about this plane of existence anymore.

A Demi-lich is a lich that has gotten so old and powerful that this world no longer interests them, and instead reduces themselves down to just a skull to better focus their power and astral project themselves across the multiverse, exploring other worlds and seeking the secrets of forms of magic that only exist in other dimensions.

Its why the Tomb of Horrors exists in the first place: he isn't paying much attention to his skull anymore, so he needs to be reasonably sure that no random jackass is going to wander in and knock it over while he is torturing pit fiends with his mind until they give up the darkest secrets of hell.

He has probably done the final-form super mode trick before, but its just incredibly boring ruling the world so he stopped. He is a patrician demi-lich, not some plebian BBEG seeking world domination.

Requesting a disembodied lich spirit hovering over his skull and a bunch of dead adventurers. He's crying while saying he just wants to be left alone.

Bonus points for imprisoned adventurer souls.

What are the rules for getting your soul stolen after touching the skull?

>the high temple of the church of Good radiates very strong evil
>the priests all say it's because of how much evil stuff they have sealed away
>an intrepid and doubtful party breaks into the catacombs under the temple
>the catacombs are lined with demiliches
>literal walls made of intricately arranged and secured demiliches
>all having sworn a magical oath to never again interfere in the mortal world in exchange for the protection of their physical form
>an oath that has now been broken thanks to chuckles and co
PLOT
HOOK

> Church of Good was in fact created as the state-sponsored religion of one of the first demi-liches after they took over the world
> while originally brutal and corrupt, the church later evolved into a genuine defense of the people as the demi-lich slowly moved toward apathy and enlightened self interest.
> Several demi-liches, under the tutelage of the eldest, now rest in the sanctuaries provided by the church
> In return for this protection the church may, once every hundred years, politely request the attention of their demi-lich patron. Often, this ritual is saved for emergencies, such as to deal with the emergence of a new lich. In such cases, the demi-liches step in and make the problem go away. The lich is offered the chance to join them in their academic pursuits and abandon the mortal world, and those that refuse are destroyed beyond the capacity for words to describe. Don't fuck with cabals of epic level wizards that have transcended the game, motherfucker.
> Occasionally, the ritual is instead used to petition the cabal for miracles to increase faith, or to seek knowledge.
> The demi-liches have set aside a magical battery based on their studies of the outer planes. The "divine" magic of the church of good draws from this source, effectively a mindless artificial god.
> The ritual to contact the demi liches can technically be cast at any time, but they hate being disturbed. If you do it more often than 100 years, chances are whoever cast it will end up destroyed by their ire. However, there are allowances for it the priest who cast it had VERY good reason to do so.
> In a way, the demi-liches, despite being amoral or outright evil, perform some of the greatest services to the people in the land. Countless extradimensional threats or world-ending catastrophes have been averted because the demi-liches designed to use their power to protect their investment.

Good setting. Would play in.