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

In my group, the paladin had a hadrosaur mount (it felt more appropriate to the region than a horse), and she had him work the controls while they communicated telepathically. Obviously not a solution that works for every group, but illustrative that creative thinking can definitely solve the issue (as could the Gaseous Form spell).

For the monodrone, it ended up working itself out without any ethical dilemma. After the first few they all readied actions to murder whatever came out, and the poor modron exploded before they even registered what it was.

I get a sense that the Gears of Hate level is going to cause them a LOT of frustration. I'm tempted to put a lever in one of the small rooms that, when pulled, takes them directly to the atropol. It would be total schmuck-bait, but frankly, no more so than some of the other traps in the Tomb of Nine Gods.

My group was wrapping up Level 5 last session, when we had a campaign-changing series of events.

First--in reference to previous posts--my experienced group is savvy enough that they reasoned that the upper passages would eventually link up with the control room, so they were not particularly stressed about the whole 'Gears' situation.

The trouble started when the wizard--who has to do everything--sat in the Armillary Sphere and aligned the planets. Got him to roll a percentile check for the effect (not telling him why) and he rolled the 'contact an unknown entity' result. Rather than try to work out a huge personality change on the spot, I decided that this was Acererak. I have been planning for some time, that when Acererak appears, he will offer to let everyone live if the wizard will become his apprentice--so he made this offer telepathically, just a bit ahead of schedule. The player asked to defer this decision for a bit, and this was agreed to, with a warning not to take too long--perfectly setting up this twist for the final encounter.

The party retrieved the monk from the control room, and backtracked to the Mastodon room with the key. At the last minute before engaging the key, the two tanks inexplicably decided to wait out in the hallway. Down comes the block and the rest of the party are left to fight the devils, and it eventually goes south. The Erinyes offers to let them go in exchange for one soul, as written. They debate for many minutes. To avoid a TPK and to avoid anyone having to sacrifice themselves, they decide to tempt the devils with the Soul Monger. The Erinyes takes this offer straight to Asmodeus. While the party are debating this, the wizard secretly, telepathically asks Acererak (no one else knows what happened in the sphere) to intercede with the devils.

Ahem. Uh, guys, I have to go to the bathroom.

While they are continuing to debate, I am pacing around the bathroom, trying to think through all implications. I realize that there are several ways that this could be a campaign-ender, not a campaign-changer. I conclude now that Asmodeus knows about the SM, and Acererak knows he knows, there is only one possible outcome: Acererak offers the SM to Asmodeus with no strings--other than Acererak gets to do what he wants with the PCs.

Back at the table, the PCs debate for a while longer, and eventually, I end the session on the cliffhanger.

In the days after the session, I message each of the players with an individual offer that they received from the Erinyes telepathically during negotiations. Then I tell everyone that the Erinyes informs the PCs that a side deal has been reached, and the devils disappear.

The players lose their minds. There are hours of them messaging back and forth with accusations and threats. I sip my coffee and pretend it's their tears.

So now, I will run the rest of the dungeon as written, EXCEPT there is no Soul Monger and the Atropal is very, very, hungry. Six fresh souls will really hit the spot.

Side note: Ordered this 3D printed Atropal. It is awesome.
Got a guy locally to paint it for me. I told him when I put it down on the table, I wanted them to ask, "What is WRONG with you??".

The encounter will run as normal, except in place of the four tentacles, the Atropal will attempt to drop PCs into the lava with its umbilical cord. I am making this a legendary action. Acererak will show up as normal, monologuing about his deal with Asmodeus, and outing the wizard, who told nobody about their negotiations.

Long-term, the players now have to deal with the consequences of their actions. The Death Curse will still be ongoing, and I have a bit of time to decide if the Soul Monger is now installed in one of the Hells (say, Avernus?) or somewhere else on the Material Plane.

TLDR: Be prepared for your players to make an offer like this when dealing with the devils. You can safely assume that they devils are not aware of the SM if they are not told, and you can rule that they are bound in the chamber and cannot communicate with the 'big boss'. But maybe if the players talk and the devils are sent back to hell the hard way, they have information to run up the chain of command...

MockingBird said:

Tonight we descend into Omu. Really not sure when to pull out King of Feathers. They are 5th level and I feel I need to get them leveled up to 6 fairly quickly. I'm excited for them to explore the ruins for puzzle cubes. I hope I can role play Nsi the way I have him in my head.

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My players have just entered Omu as well. I let them know about the legend of the nine gods when they entered the lost city, but they just dismissed it as "ancient storytales". So now they're on their way to the shrine of Kubazan. I'm thinking of playing up the King of Feathers as they suddenly hear a roar (play the t-rex roar from Jurassic Park) from time to time and then either let him show up as an random encounter or in the amphitheater.

They're level 6 at the moment, but since they're just four players I think I'm going to level them a bit faster than the book suggests.

Follow-up on my post above: My players dispatched the Atropal in three rounds, but it was fairly tense. The cleric cast Dawn, which amounts to ongoing radiant damage, which sped things up, and that was fine. The Atropal was doing its best to target the cleric and force concentration checks, but didn't really succeed; that said, I was reasonably happy at how the encounter went.

Acererak was another issue--not because he had the party outclassed, but because his spell list did not match the encounter and terrain. Here's his spell list from the stat block:

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

I put in time preparing for the encounter, as this was my first high-level wizard NPC, and as the party also has a wizard, it would turn out to be a bit of a wizarding duel. I came up with my 'action order' list, divided by whether he would be attacking multiple targets, or just one. Here's my list:

Multiple targets - Chain Lightning (6+); Circle of Death (6+), Cloudkill (5+), Ice Storm (4+);
One target: Maze (Troll); Power Word Kill (9), Finger of Death (7); Disintegrage (6+); Phantasmal Killer (4+); Hold Monster(s-5+); Blight (4+)
Melee: Staff attack; Paralyzing Touch

Here are the problems, and my recommendations for fixing them:

1) Mobility - As written, Acererak has no way to get around, other than to waste a seventh-level spell slot on Teleport. Looking at the available teleportation spells, I would probably add Thunder Step as 3rd-level at-will spell. Its 90-foot range is enough to get around this chamber, and it deals damage to everyone within 10 feet of the spot you just left.

2) Dispel Magic - As mentioned in a previous post, Acererak absolutely needs Dispel Magic. He has to be able to get rid of the PC caster's spell effects, also as a 3rd-level at-will.

3) Silence - As written, if the party casts Silence, Acererak has no way of dealing with it. Even if you add a teleportation spell, all of these have a verbal component, so if he is on one of the platforms, he has no way to escape the area of the spell. He has enough attacks to deal with anyone in melee (especially if he can paralyze them), but would not be able to do a thing about spells cast from range. One solution could be for him to drink a potion of flying prior to combat, which would give him a fly speed without requiring concentration (this would also address #1 above...)

4) Lava - The lava is a real threat with the Atropal, but once Acererak arrives and the PCs have 50 temp HP per round from the trickster gods, the average of 55 per round they get in the lava doesn't seem to scary--unless Acererak is also targeting them with spells. Just something to keep in mind.

NOTE: Only in the course of writing this did I come acrosse Sly Flourish's analysis of Acererak's spell list at:

Wish I had seen this beforehand. The only change I would make to his list would be the addition of Thunder Step--and probably that potion of flying.

I am gearing up to have a second go at running this adventure. I’ve been posting some of my thoughts in another thread here but I've had an idle thought that I figured I could post here: Ras Nsi is described as having been a paladin back when he was one of Ubtao's Chosen and a barae of Mezro. However, he broke his oath and now, over a century later, we find he's trained himself up as a wizard.

However, in the DMG, there is the oathbreaker paladin subclass. Ras Nsi is an oathbreaker, so has anyone ever given any thought to giving him the oathbreaker subclass powers instead of wizard powers?

Just a thought.

snaggle2th said:

Follow-up on my post above: My players dispatched the Atropal in three rounds, but it was fairly tense. The cleric cast Dawn, which amounts to ongoing radiant damage, which sped things up, and that was fine. The Atropal was doing its best to target the cleric and force concentration checks, but didn't really succeed; that said, I was reasonably happy at how the encounter went.

Acererak was another issue--not because he had the party outclassed, but because his spell list did not match the encounter and terrain. Here's his spell list from the stat block:

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

I put in time preparing for the encounter, as this was my first high-level wizard NPC, and as the party also has a wizard, it would turn out to be a bit of a wizarding duel. I came up with my 'action order' list, divided by whether he would be attacking multiple targets, or just one. Here's my list:

Multiple targets - Chain Lightning (6+); Circle of Death (6+), Cloudkill (5+), Ice Storm (4+);
One target: Maze (Troll); Power Word Kill (9), Finger of Death (7); Disintegrage (6+); Phantasmal Killer (4+); Hold Monster(s-5+); Blight (4+)
Melee: Staff attack; Paralyzing Touch

Here are the problems, and my recommendations for fixing them:

1) Mobility - As written, Acererak has no way to get around, other than to waste a seventh-level spell slot on Teleport. Looking at the available teleportation spells, I would probably add Thunder Step as 3rd-level at-will spell. Its 90-foot range is enough to get around this chamber, and it deals damage to everyone within 10 feet of the spot you just left.

2) Dispel Magic - As mentioned in a previous post, Acererak absolutely needs Dispel Magic. He has to be able to get rid of the PC caster's spell effects, also as a 3rd-level at-will.

3) Silence - As written, if the party casts Silence, Acererak has no way of dealing with it. Even if you add a teleportation spell, all of these have a verbal component, so if he is on one of the platforms, he has no way to escape the area of the spell. He has enough attacks to deal with anyone in melee (especially if he can paralyze them), but would not be able to do a thing about spells cast from range. One solution could be for him to drink a potion of flying prior to combat, which would give him a fly speed without requiring concentration (this would also address #1 above...)

4) Lava - The lava is a real threat with the Atropal, but once Acererak arrives and the PCs have 50 temp HP per round from the trickster gods, the average of 55 per round they get in the lava doesn't seem to scary--unless Acererak is also targeting them with spells. Just something to keep in mind.

NOTE: Only in the course of writing this did I come acrosse Sly Flourish's analysis of Acererak's spell list at:

Acererak's Prepared Spells

Note: This article contains spoilers for the D&D adventure Tomb of Annihilation. This article is one in a series of artices I wrote for running the D&D hardcover adventure Tomb of Annihilation. You ca...

slyflourish.com

Wish I had seen this beforehand. The only change I would make to his list would be the addition of Thunder Step--and probably that potion of flying.

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Obviously you're already done, but for other interested readers, I pretty much switched out Acecerak's entire spell load out.

Yes, I know the writers probably selected weak spells because they were concerned about a TPK.

But it makes no sense whatsoever to first hype the BBEG as the world's most powerful lich, and then give him such a weak spell selection.

If there's a single enemy in the history of D&D that you want to give the most fiendishly min-maxed spell combos, it's Acecerak!

If that means you can't (or dare not) feature him as a full lich (with double level 9 spell slots etc), then you need to rewrite the encounter to make it clear to the players they're facing a level 11 caster, or level 15 caster. (A young or weak or cloned Acecerak, or whatever. Anything but a caster that COULD have cast painful spells, but weren't clever enough to pick them :-/ )

A less epic version, but STILL one with a hyper-intelligent and optimized spell selection.

Zapp

PS. When I get access to a desktop I'll see if I ever posted my spell selection and tactics. I do remember thinking long and hard to find "unfair" spell combos suitable for an opponent of Acecerak's reputation and stature, and IIRC ended up with a horizontal prismatic sphere that the heroes were thrown through twice through casting and then ending reverse gravity, which also weaponized all the lava.

We're going down to level 3 in the Tomb and the characters have started to understand that they might need the help of the gods. They've deflected some of the gods already, but now one of characters wants to explore them more.

The book states:
With a successful DC 16 Charisma saving throw, the creature resists the god’s power, and that god can’t attempt to inhabit the same creature for the remainder of the adventure.

But! What if the character invites the god in after a successful saving throw?

azathosk said:

But! What if the character invites the god in after a successful saving throw?

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Just treat it like a voluntarily failed save, I guess?

azathosk said:

We're going down to level 3 in the Tomb and the characters have started to understand that they might need the help of the gods. They've deflected some of the gods already, but now one of characters wants to explore them more.

The book states:
With a successful DC 16 Charisma saving throw, the creature resists the god’s power, and that god can’t attempt to inhabit the same creature for the remainder of the adventure.

But! What if the character invites the god in after a successful saving throw?

Click to expand...

Honestly, I'd go with the interpretation that the gods are fickle and once rejected would go with someone else. Since a successful save only blocks that specific god for that specific character, the character can get a different god and the god can get a different host.