Demi-Lich

 The Tomb of Horrors

I've been reading through the Tomb of Horrors and two things stood out to me: Page 2: Note: Characters who become astral or ethereal in the Tomb will attract a type I-IV demon 1 in 6, with a check made each round. Page 10: The demi-lich’s skull can be harmed only as follows: ... a power word, kill pronounced from an astral or ethereal magic-user will destroy it ...  was it a common tactic back then (sorry, didn't start playing until the late 80's) for magic-users to hangout or project in the astral plane long term? Were magic-users rubbing themselves with Oil of Etherealness regularly and launching spells at opponents (is this even possible in situations not involving a demi-lich)? Or maybe this was put in by Gary specifically for his group. Based on my experience it seems kind of random that someone would become ethereal and launch power words at opponents. Perhaps we gamed with sub-par players... Secondly, the "why" of this is very interesting to me and I wonder if there's something in Dragon, the DMG, etc. that would shed some light on this.

Death


Those were weaknesses put in to give the players a chance to defeat the demi lich. It was the prudent player who spent time and money consulting sages before undertaking such an adventure. Divination spells also could give clues to some of these.




Not really much help if you run the ToH as a one shot, but if its part of a campaign it would be common to do your due diligence before taking on something like this.

Also, as to how Gygax and Co ran their games you can read this. Very eye opening.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Cma19yAxHJQlBiMXUxa0Q3bDg/view?pli=1