D&D 5E [SPOILERS] Enhancing Tomb of Annihilation

[Quickleaf]

I've been wondering why there's a half-gold dragon (Zindar) acting as harbormaster in Port Nyanzaru. It begs the question of Zindar's heritage: Which gold dragon sired him & what is that gold dragon doing now? To not follow up on Zindar's "gold dragon-ness" is like introducing a talking skull named Phil without ever following up on why Phil is a talking skull. It's the smoking gun rule of writing: introduce a gun and sometime in the narrative it's going to go off.

"What's a half gold dragon doing here??" This is the sort of question my players may very well ask. They already were curious about which royal bloodline merchant prince Zhanthi descends from! Had to ad lib that one! "Tuama" is now a Chultan royal family. Who knew.

I consulted this list of dragons... and Markus Tay's map of the 5e Forgotten Realms... looking for gold dragons within 1,000 miles of Chult... Short story: There aren't any.

[sblock=long story]There are no known gold dragons in Chult – but there are green (dead), red, black, mist, emerald, topaz, and faerie dragons.

What about in Samarach, Thindol, Tashalar, Lapaliiya, the Tharsult Islands, or the Shining Sea? Nope, no known dragons at all.

Calimshan? Lots of dead dragons... a blue dracolich, bronze (dead), silver (dead), reds (dead), and blue (dead) dragons.

Tethyr? Blue (dead), red, sapphire, and a half-gold pseudodragon named Purlakhonthiss who likely was meant to be a platinum pseudodragon, has lore inconsistencies, and no mention of a gold dragon sire.

What about Nimbral or Lantan or the Nelanther Isles? One bronze dragon on Nelanther.

Maybe Amn? Reds (alive & dead), blues (alive & dead), green, and bronze (dead).

Shaar? A green dracolich and a copper dragon.

And lastly Halruaa? No known dragons.[/sblock]

So it seems Zindar's dragon parent is a traveling gold dragon with no known lair. On the table I've been consulting such dragons are listed as having "no fixed abode." And one is an ancient male gold dragon named Adamarondor (who has no history, being a simple mention in 2006 Dragons of Faerun).

That's assuming his sire is meant to be from existing D&D lore...

EDIT: Here's what I may do to deepen the story: Zindar's gold dragon sire was mortally cursed facing Acererak - the curse corrupting him/her to slowly become a dracolich. In an act of noble self-sacrifice, the gold dragon asked a dragon-hunting ancestor of the merchant prince Zhanthi to take his/her life. Zhanthi descends from none other than Ch'gakare (maybe he was known as "the dragonslayer"?). This makes sense if you look at her monopoly: gems and armor. Hmm. What creatures' scales make superb armor and like to lair in gem-filled caves? Dragons, maybe?

And the conflict between Acererak and this gold dragon makes even more sense if you consider the permanent magical effects Acererak imbued the Tomb of the Nine Gods with...particularly the misdirection of Arcane Gate, Banishment, Dimension Door, Gate, Plane Shift, Teleport, and Word of Recall...an effect is similar to Halaster's teleport cage (from d20 City of Splendors: Waterdeep p.155), which required 1,000 gp diamond dust for every 10-foot-cube/level that it warded. So vast amounts of diamond dust went into creating the Tomb of the Nine Gods, so much so that it depleted virtually all of Chult’s diamond mines! And if the gold dragon once laired near a diamond mine, and witnessed slaves being worked to the bone for evil magic... Naturally conflict would occur.

The young Zindar may have been raised alongside Zhanthi's family, but was lied to about what befell his sire, told that he/she died facing pirates. That would explain how Zindar ended up as harbormaster with a passion against pirates...and would explain why he and Zhanthi are working together to bring the pirates down.

Heck, that "gold-plated armor" in Zhanthi's villa (which seems unusually un-Chultan!) could actually be gold dragon scale armor fashioned to honor the sacrifice of Zindar's sire...

 

[sim-h]

My crew is still trekking through the jungle; They've enjoyed it for the most part, but I can tell that it's beginning to be a bit of a slog for all of us. Once they reach & finish Hrackhamar, I'm going to suggest we change how we handle the traveling. I planning to continue to use the spreadsheet I've been using to "roll" weather and random encounters, but then grouping the days into 5 day chunks: I'll look through the encounters in each chunk, choose one or two particularly interesting ones of us to actually play out; the rest would be handwaved/narrated. As part of that, I may choose some "random encounters" from the list instead of going solely by the "rolls" in the spreadsheet.

It will also mean changing how I handle foraging, exhaustion, etc.

We've only done one session in the jungle and I'm already bored stiff with the mechanics although I think the players are OK with it for now. I much preferred DMing Princes of the Apocalypse. They are at Camp Righteous (dying horribly, I even let a player off a perma-death by allowing his last ditch 'ermm...can I cast Shield to reduce that 22 points of damage when I'm already only on 3 HPs, somehow?' - I took pity, a magical force shield can cause some of the flames to wash over it, sure - down but not out)

I hope I can get them to Orolunga as quick as possible, think I will need scenes at Camp Righteous and M'bala first. I've already found myself very willing to fudge navigation checks to avoid endless drudgery.

 

[Quickleaf]

Normally I don't prepare adventures too far in advance, but ToA is a different beast: planning, foreshadowing, and adapting for your party pay off in spades with this adventure...

And when it comes to running Acererak at the end, well the only way I can hope to portray a 27 Intelligence lich against the collective genius of four players is preparation. This is confounded by Acererak's unusual spell list.

Obviously, a DM can change this. Many have blogged about this, including Mike Shea, Keith Ammann, and James Haeck.

However, I like to give the D&D designers (Chris Perkins, Will Doyle, Steve Winter, and the rest) more credit and assume they choose Acererak's spell list for precise reasons relating to the Tomb of the Nine Gods and his overall strategy. Though I wish they'd been more transparent, I'm going to attempt to do some game design forensics to deduce how Acererak is intended to be played (both tactically & holistically)...

First, here are Acererak's prepared spells according to ToA:

[SECTION]Cantrips (at-will): mage hand, ray of frost (attack, 4d8), shocking grasp (attack, 4d8)
1st level (at-will): ray of sickness (CON), shield
2nd level (at-will): arcane lock, knock
3rd level (at-will): animate dead, counterspell
4th level (3 slots): blight (CON), ice storm (DEX), phantasmal killer (WIS, conc.)
5th level (3 slots): cloudkill (conc.), hold monster (conc.), wall of force (conc.)
6th level (3 slots): chain lightning (DEX), circle of death (CON), disintegrate (DEX)
7th level (3 slots): finger of death (CON), plane shift (CHA), teleport
8th level (2 slots): maze (conc.), mind blank
9th level (2 slots): power word kill, time stop[/SECTION]

Reaction Spells. Every combat round Acererak is reserving his Reaction to cast either shield or counterspell, as needed. If there is a counterspell-slinging PC, remember that he can counterspell a counterspell.

Animate Dead (Legendary Action, upcast). A key thing to remember is that Acererak can use any one of his at-will spells as a Legendary Action. This includes mage hand, ray of frost, shocking grasp, ray of sickness, arcane lock, knock, and animate dead. Common interpretation I've seen among DMs on the web is that, yes, Acererak can cast animate dead with a legendary action, meaning within 1 round instead of requiring 1 minute. Given the description of Area 77: Death God's Nursery – no corpses, but there are bones in the walls like an ossuary – these undead will be skeletons; though inferior to zombies, the image of skeletons crawling from the walls is pretty cool! Whether or not Acererak can upcast his at-will spells (of which he has no spell slots) is a bit ambiguous. Assuming he's modeled after a wizard (he explicitly casts wizard spells with Intelligence as his spellcasting ability) with a version of Spell Mastery & Signature Spells, however, I'm going to say "yes, he can." So when he casts animate dead using a Legendary Action, he always upcasts and animates multiple skeletons...a 4th level slot conjures 3 skeletons, a 5th level spell slot conjures 5 skeletons (I'm liking 5th level slots, cause his 5th level spells are ALL concentration), and a 6th level slot conjures 7 skeletons. He'll reserve higher level slots for other spells.

Teleport or Plane Shift (last resort). Acererak saves one 7th level slot to escape if reduced to 100 hp or fewer. Presumably this bypasses (or ends) the usual restriction on teleporting out of the Tomb of Nine Gods. Might be wise to save *two* slots if there's a counterspell-slinging PC in the party!

Arcane Lock? Knock? What the...?? Arcane lock and knock are unusual spell choices. Knock makes sense within the greater context of moving around the Tomb of the Nine Gods, where knock is specifically called out as bypassing a barrier or trap (Area 38: Revolving Room Trap, I'm looking at you). But does knock have any combat application in Area 77: Death God's Nursery? Maybe opening one of the many lich phylacteries? Though there's nothing in D&D lore AFAIK that details what doing that would mean. Opening the Soulmonger? Acererak wouldn't want to do that. So, no, no combat application for knock – it's mean as an exploration backstory element for Acererak, and miiiiight come into play if the final fight moves around the Tomb (a possibility! see below!) What about arcane lock? Obviously, Acererak can use this to re-seal anything he knocks his way past...but what about a combat application, such as splitting the party? Unfortunately, there aren't any doors in Area 77...except for the Skeleton Gate...which explicitly says: "The door and its seals are impervious to damage and spells, and cannot be opened in a manner other than that which is prescribed above." (ToA p.180) Well, that looks like it'd be a DM judgment call whether Acererak's arcane lock would do anything to the Skeleton Gate...at a minimum, Acererak would have to close the Skeleton Gate first (perhaps with mage hand? or commanding skeletons?)...though the adventure doesn't detail how to close it once opened. Personally, I like the drama of Acererak shutting off their escape route on the 1st round, so I may just go with it.

Time Stop - how does Acererak use it? Usually time stop is used to set up defenses or, more rarely, as a means of escape. However, Acererak doesn't have classic defensive spells prepared & time stop ends prematurely if Acererak affects another creature or an object being worn/carried by another creature. Also, the bonus turns do NOT grant Legendary Actions (as those only trigger on another creature's turn ending). So what are his options?

• Mind blank on himself? While his staff already makes him immune to being charmed, immunity to psychic damage is good. Immunity to divination would be good too, if he had a way to turn invisible. Alas, he doesn't. However, what's cool about mind blank is that if Acererak ever becomes separated from the party during the battle (more on that below!), they won't be able to find him with locate creature or similar magic...letting him come at them from a new angle of attack. Honestly, however, mind blank is the sort of spell he should cast on himself while PCs battle the atropal – I'll chalk this up to his flaw "I underestimate the resolve of my enemies."
• Wall of Force? Acererak should use this to maximum effect to divide the PC party & set up cloudkill later (clustering low-CON PCs). Alternately, if facing a melee-heavy party, he could use it to cover the lava pit, forcing PCs closing to melee to walk on the wall of force. If they disrupt his concentration, the melee fighters and Acererak plummet into the lava! Or he can teleport away and just cease concentrating on the wall of force. Suitably dickish move for Acererak!
• Teleport? While teleporting into/out of the Tomb is supposed to be a Bad Idea (I say "supposed" because Acererak seems able to disregard this to escape), he certainly can teleport *within* the Tomb. Though this would be a nightmare to DM, it strikes as an exceptional strategy, as Acererak can retreat to safety while letting the PCs suffer whatever ongoing spell he cast & just keep throwing skeletons at the PCs until they catch up with him (or he re-teleports back in).
• If the time stop lasts longer than 3 turns, Acererak will end it with a non-Concentration hostile spell like ice storm – which helps set up cloudkill by creating difficult terrain.

Maze & Plane Shift: spells that separate the party. These are great spells to cast from a strategic standpoint, but are a challenge to DM and still keep all players involved. For maze, I'd reserve it for once Acererak has finished other high-priority Concentration spells like wall of force, and instead of a nondescript demiplane, I'd have the PC sent somewhere dangerous within the Tomb the party hadn't yet explored. Ideally, Acererak would maze a PC while the PC was in a dangerous spot (e.g. while standing on wall of force over lava), so when they reappear they suffer. Though, to be sporting, it would be fun to devise some mini-puzzle the player can figure out to reappear at the Skeleton Gate rather than in harm's way.

For plane shift, there is no ongoing Intelligence check to escape. Fail your save and you're stranded on another plane. Period. However...creatures plane shifting in the Tomb end up in Area 57: Oubliette (see magical conditions ToA p.128). While it's unclear whether Acererak himself is subject to all those magical restrictions or not, it seems reasonable to assume PCs still are, even if they're being involuntarily plane shifted. I like this solution because it still gives a PC a *chance* of returning to the party & gives them a fun challenge to overcome. An alternative would be sending the PC into the Border Ethereal – with Acererak maniacally cackling "watch as I destroy your friends!" – and providing some means to return to the Material Plane in Area 71: Lair of the Sewn Sisters.

Those are my initial thoughts. As I run ToA for my group, I'll write up a more formal strategy for Acererak.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think the reason is quite simple: the designers have nerfed Acecerak's spell list because he's facing relatively low-level adventurers.

This isn't the high level thread, but a simpler and much more straight-forward approach is to... ignore the restrictions.

Like any Lich, its biggest weakness is its lack of actions. Even though Acecerak has twice the hp of a regular Lich, that's still very little for a CR 20+ creature supposed to go up solo against the party.

(My adventurers are only level 9, but they're already capable of 60+ damage nova bursts each)

What does Acecerak do against a quick dispel magic (to remove any enchantments on his body) and then getting wailed upon by the melee bruisers.

I think the easiest solution is to keep him as-is, but instead dial down (or outright remove) all the buffs the module is giving the heroes. As for my other suggestions, I'll take them in the high level thread.

Regards

 

[Quickleaf]

Continuing from my earlier post about Zindar, I've read up on the dragons of Chult. I understand the adventure minimizing the presence of dragons to focus on dinosaurs in ToA, but there's some interesting bits of lore from older D&D books that dovetail with what ToA does tell us.

In 1374 DR, prior to the Spellplague, the following dragons were alive in Chult:

• Cirrothamalan (male “old” Ancient Mist Dragon): Mentioned in 2006 Dragons of Faerûn as inhabiting the River Olung. Considering no mention of him is made in ToA & the hermet-like philosophical mist dragons aren't in 5e, I suspect Cirrothamalan is in Mezro’s demiplane (or wherever the actual Mezro is), serving as some kind of protector. Furthermore, mist dragons are described as rivals of green dragons; given that a bunch of Batiri goblins killed the adult green dragon Ormalagos using quipper swarms & nets (see "Needle's Bones", ToA), it would be believable if a certain mist dragon provided the goblins with the means to transport so many quippers. As an aside, given Ed Greenwood's talk of the Dawn Warrior having lots of green dragon wyrmlings, I suspect Ormalagos once used it as a breeding ground.
• Esmerandanna (female “great wyrm” Ancient Emerald Dragon): Esmerandanna appears in several sources, dating back to 1998 Demihuman Deities where she is described as inhabiting the Emerald Crater of the wild dwarves. She rarely leaves, having dwelt there since 77 DR, and guards the sacred runestones of the wild dwarves who regard her as the daughter of Thard Harr (god of wild dwarves). Originally, the Emerald Crater was said to be NW of the Peaks of Flame as a collapsed "fourth peak", but it fits better on ToA's map directly East of the Peaks of Flame. Her presence near the Peaks of Flame – even if she is so old she never leaves anymore – helps explain why Tzindelor (the young red dragon) lairs in Wyrmheart Mine as opposed to the volcanoes. In fact, if I were to roll a "Dragon, Red" random encounter in the Peaks of Flame, I'd have a surreal multi-tonal roar echoing from the hidden Emerald Crater frighten off Tzindelor!
• Kraxx (female “mature” Adult Topaz Dragon): Mentioned in 2006 Dragons of Faerûn as inhabiting the Wild Coast. I'd be inclined to have Kraxx plaguing the Wild Coast still – just one of many possible hazards sailors may encounter there. Moreover, the dangers of the Wild Coast described in AD&D's Jungles of Chult – whirlpools, strange shoals/reef, mists/storm – are listed as Regional Effects of a topaz dragon's lair in the Gem Dragons of Faerûn supplement I mention below.
• Mergandevinasander (male “wyrm” Ancient Black Dragon): First mentioned in the 1991 Drizz't novel Sojourn, and further detailed in 2008 A Reader's Guide to R.A. Salvatore's Legend of Drizz't, Mergandevinasander is described as a violet-eyed black wyrm who hatched in Zakhara in 659 DR and was cast from his mother's nest. We can make a few inferences. First, according to Al-Qadim lore, dragons were cast from Zakhara by the genies "long ago", so Mergandevinasander is likely one of the last dragons to have hatched on Zakharan soil...and may even have a rivalry with the dao Keshma al-Wazir (who is trapped in the Tomb of the Nine Gods, Area 22). Second, black dragons favor swamps as lairs and the only swamp on the map of Chult is the Aldani Basin (some maps list this as the "Swamp of Sorrows" – but that appears to be a fan-created name that doesn't appear in an official sources); as the Aldani were proud fishers laid low by a curse, this suits a black dragon favoring living among the wreckage of fallen peoples. Third, there is no mention of Mergandevinasander, or him subjugating the aldani, or even black dragon bones anywhere in ToA's writeup of Aldani Basin or the nearby floating Heart of Ubtao. What befell Mergandevinasander? My theory (in my version of ToA) is that Zindar's gold dragon sire "Ayazingi" drove the black dragon off & there is lore describing the battle; in the process, he likely left behind some of his treasure hoard, some of which may be among Valindra Shadowmantle's things and some among the aldani (giving PCs more of a reason to explore the Aldani Basin).
• Zyx (male Faerie Dragon): Mentioned in 2006 Dragons of Faerûn as inhabiting the River Olung. I'd just use the name "Zyx" if I rolled a "Dragon, Faerie" encounter along the River Olung.

NOTE: Details on gem dragons can be found in this Kobold Press release by James Haeck: Gem Dragons of Faerûn.

 

[pukunui]

Omu is turning out to be especially deadly for my group. No PCs died while exploring Chult but since arriving in the lost city, the death toll now stands at five!

The King of Feathers got two (it ate one and then its wasp swarm stung another to death).
The giant crocodile mama at Papazotl’s shrine ate another.
Two more died in Shagambi’s gladiator pit. (One of them had only been an active PC for 90 minutes.)

I would just like to point out that many of these deaths were due to the players’ choices and were thus not inevitable. The PC stung to death by the wasps, for instance, had chosen to remain behind so the others could escape. The PC eaten by the crocodile had also chosen to stand up to it and distract it so another PC that it had nearly eaten could get away. And the two deaths in the pit might not have happened if the players had been a bit smarter. (This was not their first foray into the pit.)

 

[Stormdale]

My guys have come close to losing several pcs but usually they've just scrapped through & we've only lost one pc so far- in area 20 of the second level of the main tomb/dungeon but have been very close to losing others. The gladiator pit was especially nasty and they struggled vs the gladiators needing a couple of cracks at it before they were successful. They managed not to lose the paladin only by the wizard banishing the unconscious paladin before she could take more damage!

As for Acerack I'd revamp his spell list and be tempted to give him a unique spell conjure undead (as per conjure elemental or conjure animals) and let the party deal with lots of annoying 1/4 CR skeletons.

 

[Stormdale]

Oops, double post

 

[Quickleaf]

I think the reason is quite simple: the designers have nerfed Acecerak's spell list because he's facing relatively low-level adventurers.

This isn't the high level thread, but a simpler and much more straight-forward approach is to... ignore the restrictions.

Like any Lich, its biggest weakness is its lack of actions. Even though Acecerak has twice the hp of a regular Lich, that's still very little for a CR 20+ creature supposed to go up solo against the party.

(My adventurers are only level 9, but they're already capable of 60+ damage nova bursts each)

What does Acecerak do against a quick dispel magic (to remove any enchantments on his body) and then getting wailed upon by the melee bruisers.

I think the easiest solution is to keep him as-is, but instead dial down (or outright remove) all the buffs the module is giving the heroes. As for my other suggestions, I'll take them in the high level thread.

Yeah, sounds like for your party of combat machines altering Acererak's spell list & generally souping up the final showdown is the way to go.

I think it was [MENTION=54629]pukunui[/MENTION] who caught a few errors in Acererak's stat block too... Paralyzing Touch should be +15 to hit... and Disrupt Life legendary action shouldn't affect all "creatures", it should only affect "living creatures" (as per MM lich)... which reinforces my thinking that Acererak is meant to be constantly conjuring skeletons from the ossuary-type walls. In your case, you could certainly upgrade these skeletons to minotaur skeletons or something homebrew/3rd party, and have them use dirty tactics like Helping one another's Grapple attempts against key PCs.

Omu is turning out to be especially deadly for my group. No PCs died while exploring Chult but since arriving in the lost city, the death toll now stands at five!

The King of Feathers got two (it ate one and then its wasp swarm stung another to death).
The giant crocodile mama at Papazotl’s shrine ate another.
Two more died in Shagambi’s gladiator pit. (One of them had only been an active PC for 90 minutes.)

I would just like to point out that many of these deaths were due to the players’ choices and were thus not inevitable. The PC stung to death by the wasps, for instance, had chosen to remain behind so the others could escape. The PC eaten by the crocodile had also chosen to stand up to it and distract it so another PC that it had nearly eaten could get away. And the two deaths in the pit might not have happened if the players had been a bit smarter. (This was not their first foray into the pit.)

Ouch! 90 minutes isn't long! You must have rat bastard DM cred for that one.

I'm curious, how did you present/foreshadow/describe the King of Feathers. A teleporting wasp-breathing massive t-rex is just so bizarre...and ToA doesn't offer any backstory to help the DM make sense of it that I've found. I'm at a loss for giving it narrative "weight" (to avoid it being "aaaand here's a wacko teleporting wasp-breathing feathered t-rex...why? who cares!") Did you invent something yourself?

My guys have come close to losing several pcs but usually they've just scrapped through & we've only lost one pc so far- in area 20 of the second level of the main tomb/dungeon but have been very close to losing others. The gladiator pit was especially nasty and they struggled vs the gladiators needing a couple of cracks at it before they were successful. They managed not to lose the paladin only by the wizard banishing the unconscious paladin before she could take more damage!

As for Acerack I'd revamp his spell list and be tempted to give him a unique spell conjure undead (as per conjure elemental or conjure animals) and let the party deal with lots of annoying 1/4 CR skeletons.

Wow, that's a clever use of banishment! Sounds like a fun group to be DMing for.

Actually, I think the intent of ToA giving Acererak animate dead at-will, and then being able to cast any spell he knows at-will as a legendary action (instead of its usual casting time), is exactly to do what you say: Animate lots of skeletons by upcasting animate dead! My perspective is reinforced by a couple other things:

• Area 77, where the battle with Acererak begins, is built like an ossuary, with human and minotaur bones worked into the very walls. Hmm. PCs will have seen this in several other areas of the Tomb too. Foreshadowing?
• Disrupt Life should only affect "living creatures" (ToA is in err, MM lich is correct)...which makes encountering a lich with other undead a nasty combo.
• Acererak's lore has him being a wizard & his stats are built a lot like a 20th level wizard used as the base (with slightly improved versions of Spell Mastery & Signature Spell). So, the idea that he could upcast an at-will spell is definitely supported by the PHB wizard class. I realize monsters =/= player characters, but there is enough "inspired by wizard" to make it a reasonable assertion.

 

[Quickleaf]

I just posed a question to the ToA team on Twitter...