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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7539163" data-attributes="member: 20323">Go for it! I think your intention in increasing its size is to circumvent the whole "Anything else that touches the sphere but isn't wholly engulfed and obliterated by it takes 4d10 force damage" bit, and go straight to "The sphere obliterates all matter it passes through and all matter that passes through it." In other words, an instant kill.You'll want to consider how you'll handle a "No Save, Just Die" scenario. I'd start with foreshadowing and dropping clues about ways to deal with a sphere of annihilation besides trying to wrest control of it from a super-intelligent lich with a talisman of the sphere (i.e. use portal magic).Totally. Place the sphere among clustered PCs, erect some kind of force barrier (which the sphere of annihilation can't eat through) around them, and then play Bowling-For-Adventurers with the sphere.Yeah, that's the idea. It is thematic magic inspired by contingency and magic jar, but it breaks how those spells traditionally work...magic jar is not only too high of a level for contingency, but it also takes a casting time of 1 minute. I think a less rules-defying approach – if you want one – would be to treat this trick as a homebrew 9th-level spell that is cast as a reaction and blends aspects of contingency, feign death, and magic jar.Fyi, back when I was designing 4th edition boss monsters, I would treat something like this as an event kicking off the 2nd or 3rd Stage of a boss battle.You know, your Raider of the Lost Ark idea has merit. I recall [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] you mentioned wanting to preserve the +50 temporary HP to "show your players how a party of 10th level PCs could have a chance against Acererak in the RAW module." I guess that's important to you for some reason? But what you could do – to preserve that goal of yours, and also increase the threat posed to your six-person party of 14th level PCs – is use an Escalation Die.I'd pick a black d6, and have it start at 5 (representing +50 temporary hp). At the start of the second round, I'd describe the dark apparitions and necrotic miasma seeping from the lich phylacteries and swirling about the room, then drop the d6 to 4 (now they only get +40 temporary hp). At the start of the third round, drop the d6 to 3 (+30 temporary hp). And so on, until there is no more die.</blockquote>

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