Tomb of Annihilation is a deadly campaign in which few PCs make it through to the end. Such a campaign deserves an equally deadly final boss. And yet, we are constantly seeing DMs lament that the final fight with Acererak in Tomb of Annihilation was disappointing. As such, we’ve written this article to help DMs to run this encounter to its fullest potential.
This article is part 2 of the Tomb of Annihilation series. You can read part 1, “Improving Acererak”, here.
Before you read on, we would ask that you consider disabling AdBlocker on our website. Our ads have been vetted to not play sound, generate pop-ups, or contain any malicious code, and the revenue we get from ads helps keep this website running. Alternatively, you can become a patron on our Patreon and read on guilt-free!
The Importance of Preparation
Invariably, an investigation into why people were disappointed with this fight comes down to the simple fact that they did little to no planning beforehand to learn the lich’s strengths, weaknesses, and possible strategies. A high-level spellcaster isn’t like a regular enemy who has a few abilities easily written into the stat block and read an hour before they appear; you have to consider their spells, how they combine, and what are the situations in which they might use them.
The fact that you are reading this article is already a step in the right direction. Below you will find the strategies we have devised for making Acererak the deadly threat he should be.
Spells
The issue of what spells Acererak has prepared is covered in the first article of this series: “Tomb of Annihilation: Improving Acererak”. In it, we address the oft-cited concern that Acererak’s spell list leaves a lot to be desired, and we provide our own revised spell list for him. We suggest that you read that article in order to understand the strategies we lay out below.
Tactics
Before we lay out the strategy that Acererak might follow, let’s first examine some of the tactics that are in his toolbox which you can drop in to the fight as needed.
Sphere of Annihilation
The situational applications of this make it more of a flavour item for Acererak. For all the fear surrounding this item, it really isn’t all that impressive in comparison with Acererak’s other abilities. It takes two legendary actions for him to use it, it can only move in one direction each time, it has a very low save DC that relies on a stat which many people invest in (Dexterity), and it deals only 22 (4d10) damage. Given the changes that we’ve made to Acererak’s spell list, it simply isn’t worth the effort to use it outside of special circumstances. Consider using it when you can hit three or more targets who will automatically fail their saving throw (such as if they are unconscious) and whom Acererak can’t all hit with an area spell like fireball.
Staff of the Forgotten One
Another item with situational use. When paired with a spell like finger of death, it can be absolutely devastating. However, that combination takes the action on two of Acererak’s turns, which is a heavy investment even when he has three legendary actions with which to cast other spells. He may save this combination for characters that are possessed by a spirit of one of the trickster gods (and therefore get 50 temporary hit points at the start of each of their turns, which challenges even Acererak’s damage output).
Counterspell
There are two ways that Acererak can use his counterspell: offensively or defensively.
Offensive use of his counterspell involves ensuring that his own spells go off by counterspelling an enemy’s counterspell. If Acererak really needs a spell to go off and he is facing multiple enemy spellcasters, he will counter a counterspell using a spell slot above 3rd, thereby forcing any attempts to counter his own counterspell to rely on a spellcasting ability check. If the atropal has done its job in the previous encounter, characters will have disadvantage on ability checks from exhaustion, so even making a DC 14 check might prove difficult.
Defensive use of his counterspell involves negating the spells of enemy spellcasters. As long as he has legendary resistances remaining, Acererak is content to cast this kind of counterspell at a normal (3rd) level, as even if his counterspell is countered by the spellcaster, it cost that caster a spell slot of at least 3rd level while it only cost him a reaction and maybe one of his legendary resistances if he fails the save.
A word of caution about using counterspell. If your party doesn’t have counterspell or only has one spellcaster, it can really suck the fun out of the fight for Acererak to constantly negate their action. Instead of using counterspell every round, you may want to have Acererak instead use his reaction to cast shield, as even against AC 26 there is still a chance that a weapon attack can hit him, as opposed to a spellcaster whose entire action has been negated. That is not to say that Acererak would decide not to counter a very important spell just because he did the same thing last round, only that you want this fight to be exciting, not tedious.
Flight
One important addition to Acererak’s spell list is fly. The ceiling in the Death God’s Nursery is 30 feet above the platform on which the Soulmonger stands (or stood). This means that Acererak can safely float above the battlefield, out of reach of melee fighters.
Like with counterspell (see above), this can drain the excitement from the fight, so be careful about using this spell. It is perfectly acceptable to roleplay Acererak as so deluded by his own hubris that he foregoes this option entirely.
Legendary Actions
The importance of his At-Will Spell option can’t be understated. Acererak can cast spells of up to 3rd level at will, so this means he could feasibly drop three fireballs in a single turn, dispel three effects, hit three melee characters with ray of sickness, keep three creatures from being able to recover hit points with chill touch, or some combination thereof. Now that we’ve given Acererak a real spell list, all other legendary action options pale in comparison to casting a spell.
The only other option that is really viable is Disrupt Life, and only if he is stuck in the midst of more than three creatures where he couldn’t simply cast fireball without hitting himself.
Strategy
Now that we have revised Acererak’s spell list and considered his tactics, we should consider how best to leverage his abilities in combat. Fair warning: the emphasis in this section will be on how to guarantee destruction of his enemies (read: overkill).
Round 1: Rolling Out The Hurt
Acererak leads a very busy unlife and he’s plane shifted all this way because some upstarts have destroyed the atropal, one of his deadliest pet projects. What’s more, the various traps and deceits of his tomb have been foiled. He needs to re-establish his supremacy, and the best way to do that is with a show of power.
And yet, he has no idea of the capabilities of these adventurers. Do they have magical protections? Are they especially tenacious against certain attacks? How weakened are they? These are questions that Acererak wants answered so he can devise a means to destroy the party. And so, being the scientist that he is (wizards are pretty much scientists of magic, right?), he’s going to run a diagnostic.
Safely located on the south balcony, a 15-foot leap away from either of the other two balconies (over a pool of lava, for good measure), Acererak feels unassailable by conventional attacks and opens up the fight with chain lightning, dealing 45 (10d8) lightning damage to up to four targets all within 30 feet of each other (pretty much guaranteed within the nursery). He prioritizes ranged opponents or melee characters within striking range of the Soulmonger. A typical 10th-level fighter might have anywhere between 70 and 100 hit points, while a typical wizard will have between 45 and 65 hit points. Depending on how much damage they’ve suffered in the fight leading up to Acererak’s appearance, and if they haven’t had a turn yet for the temporary hit points from any Trickster God possessing them to kick in, this one spell might knock a few of them out immediately.
Alternatively, if there are several melee characters who are all attempting to destroy Acererak’s other major project, the Soulmonger, he will prioritize defending it by using banishment (upcasting it as high as 6th level) to temporarily remove the brutish adventurers from the fight so he can deal with them later (they are deposited in area 57 of the Tomb, the Oubliette, as per the Modified Spells table on page 128).
Throughout this round, Acererak should use his legendary actions to drop fireballs on clusters of characters that are still alive or chill touch on unconscious characters to prevent them from being brought back to consciousness. Remember that Acererak is a 20th-level wizard, and so his cantrips deal four damage dice (4d8 for chill touch). On the off-chance that he critically hits an unconscious character (at disadvantage because he’s at range vs. a prone target) with a cantrip, there is a possibility that he can outright kill them then and there by dealing their hit point maximum in damage while they’re unconscious. If the characters somehow have managed to maintain their own concentration effects through this (such as Bigby’s hand or spiritual guardians), he might use his legendary actions to get rid of them using dispel magic.
Round 2: The Tides Turn
If the characters survived the initial round, you ought to congratulate them. This is where tides begin to turn in their favour, though they’re still in for a hard fight.
By this point, any character possessed by a spirit of the Nine Trickster Gods will have started benefiting from the 50 temporary hit points per round, which is a solid buffer against Acererak’s spells. When we ran this fight, these hit points really made a huge difference. If the party is large enough or is bolstered by a sufficient number of NPCs (such as those from the mirror of life trapping), Acererak could be severely outclassed in terms of the action economy and might realistically face defeat if he doesn’t play it smart.
In the last round, he would have carefully considered the strengths of the party. If there are a number of spellcasters, he will be careful about his positioning to limit his exposure to counterspells as he focuses targets with bigger spells (or he could try to bait out a counterspell so that he can cast spells using legendary actions with impunity, having traded an action for one of the spellcaster’s dwindling spell slots). If there are multiple melee opponents who can reach him (either because they were teleported, could fly, or made the jump to his balcony), then he might save his reaction for shield.
If the Soulmonger hasn’t been destroyed, Acererak will prioritize protecting it. Even with the atropal dead, the device is still a powerful necromantic artifact that can be used to fuel his own phylactery. Even for someone like Acererak, the Soulmonger represents a significant investment of time and resources, and the loss would be a setback. If he didn’t banish creatures before, he will probably do so now. Alternatively, he can use telekinesis to attempt to move a character away from the Soulmonger (and promptly drop them in the lava, which should be at least 90 feet below; see our article “Falling Into Lava” for more). If Acererak is concentrating on a spell or there are no melee characters still up, he should start his Invoke Curse + finger of death combination to dispatch tenacious characters (such as the healer).
If the Soulmonger has been destroyed, Acererak should blow his nova combination—time stop and delayed blast fireball—to utterly destroy the characters. Remember that he would keep his reaction ready if he uses his nova, as he would want to counter any attempt to counterspell his 9th-level spell.
Round 3: Pulling All the Stops
By this point, anyone who doesn’t have one of the Nine Trickster Gods in them is probably dead, and even those who are hosts to one of the spirits are probably on the ropes. They’ve gone toe to toe with one the multiverse’s most powerful archmages and will likely bear the scars of it.
Acererak is the kind of individual who enjoys toying with his enemies, and feel free to start conveying his delight at the challenge the adventurers are posing. Though the adventurers have upset plans years in the making, they’ve given him more sport than he expected, and maybe more than he’s had in a lifetime. He’s not about to spare them, however.
If he hasn’t used his time stop and delayed blast fireball combination yet, he might try it now if he can limit the chance of the spell being countered. If he has already used it, or if the party has advantageous positioning on him, he will go for the more cunning combination: greater invisibility with shield. This pairing raises his AC to 26 and gives disadvantage on rolls to hit him, not to mention ensuring that his spells can’t be countered (because counterspell relies on sight). Feel free to cackle deviously for added effect as the horror of their predicament dawns on the players.
Any rounds that follow after this are likely to go one of two ways: either the players have decidedly gained the upper hand (whether because Acererak’s spell damage rolls have been awful or the party’s rolls have been clutch), in which case Acererak will continue his invisibility shenanigans to wear them down; or the players will be mostly dead and easy pickings to his spells.
Special Consideration: Wish
Remember that Acererak has wish prepared and he isn’t afraid to use it. As a very old and powerful lich with time on his hands, he probably won’t risk using wish in such a way that causes him to suffer strain that might prevent him from ever using it again when he would suffer no setbacks if he didn’t. However, he can use wish to protect the Soulmonger by availing himself of the “basic use” of the spell to duplicate a wall of force spell as a hemispherical dome. Should this occur, characters will have to break his concentration in order to damage the Soulmonger again—or find some way to navigate beneath the Soulmonger to strike at it from below (the Soulmonger is too tall to enclose in a full sphere). If your party is higher than 10th level and has access to more potent spells, consider using this option.
If the adventurers destroyed the Soulmonger first before the atropal, Acererak might keep wish ready for situational spells he does not have prepared, such as feeblemind (for neutralizing a spellcaster) or reverse gravity (to really mess the party up).
Putting It All Together
As we mentioned in the first article, you should give up trying to run this encounter in a way that will allow the party to survive. You wouldn’t nerf Orcus or Vecna such that the players could defeat them easily, so don’t do it with Acererak. If you don’t deliver the party an arcane ass-whooping, you are really doing them a disservice. We have outlined just some possible strategies to use with him here, but there are many others that you may devise based on your party’s composition. Remember, just because your Intelligence isn’t 27 doesn’t mean you should run Acererak like his is anything less. Besides, if they manage to destroy the Soulmonger, they can be resurrected in Baldur’s Gate.
2019/02/06: Tactics and strategy were separated into two different headings to make for easier digestion.
Don’t forget to check out part 1 of this series, Tomb of Annihilation: Improving Acererak.
And don’t miss out on Sly Flourish’s take on this iconic villain!
Thank you for the tutorial about Acererak
Firstly, thank you so much for this guide to running Acererak. After I have worked my players up with how deadly ToA is, running Acererak as an actually deadly encounter is the perfect climax.
One thing I have noticed that neither the original stat block, nor yours, accounts for is using the Talisman of the Sphere as an Action. The DMG states in the entry for the Talisman that “when you start your turn with control over a sphere of annihilation, you can use an action to levitate it 10 feet plus a number of additional feet equal to 10 × your Intelligence modifier.” Therefore, Acererak can use the Sphere outside of wasting 2 Legendary Actions. I am not sure if this changes your overall approach to the encounter, but I think it is worth noting.
Hi K_Nemmonis,
Thanks very much for your comment! I’m glad you found this article helpful.
I suppose I didn’t give a reason why I didn’t bother mentioning it as a possible use of his action. I’ll clarify that now: because it’s objectively less effective than almost anything else he can do.
The sphere of annihilation is 22 (4d10) force damage on a failed DC 13 Dexterity saving throw (not even half damage on a successful one). Yes, the sphere can hit multiple people, but so can a great many of Acererak’s spells, which do much more damage and have a higher save DC. His chain lightning option, for instance, is almost guaranteed to deal twice that (45 damage on average) to four creatures.
When comparing the potential output of the sphere of annihilation to other options at Acererak’s disposal, it becomes clear that it’s not a tactically effective choice. Therefore, Acererak would likely keep it in reserve until he’s exhausted other, more high-damage options for his action—which is to say “almost never” because he has infinite fireballs. He’d have to somehow paralyze more characters (say, if you switched out a spell for hold person and cast it at a sufficiently high level) in an area that can’t be entirely covered by a 20-foot radius fireball but could be covered by the 110-foot speed of the sphere in order to make it worth it, and that’s not a situation I see arising except for extremely isolated incidents.
Hopefully this is helpful to you!
Best,
the Archmage
One of the issues I encountered with this was (the GM had either read this or at least had similar ideas) :
We PCs destroyed the Soulmonger, and so were able to be resurrected, and we were resurrected in Baldur’s Gate…
…and then we were level 10 beggars with nothing at all. The wizards had lost their spellbooks, all our gear was gone, we had nothing. We basically went “well… we… won? I guess?” We had money… in Waterdeep banks… but then they had lost all of their letters of credit, all of it. The people who had the true resurrection done basically went “hey, great job, and you’re alive!” but no one was willing to give up anything because the true rez was considered payment. We were lucky to get some leftover clothes from the charity bin.
Ever think about level 10 PCs having to start over from scratch because of that kind of thing? It killed the campaign. The Warlock was able to be somewhat effective, but that was it. A fighter without a weapon, a wizard without a spellbook or any spell components, a cleric without even a holy symbol? Useless. No one was willing to help us even after what we did, claiming that we had been resurrected and should be happy with what we got. (At least that was how the GM played it.)
“And so the heroes that had saved the souls of so many were left with their lives and nothing else; no other acclaim, for others said they had gotten their lives back and deserved no more. They had given everything and lost everything, and so, these heroes died of hunger and the elements, for they did not even have shoes, and winter in the North was harsh that year; none would give them charity, claiming that their lives were charity enough. Perhaps there would come another day when there was a great threat to the world… and those who would not even lend a few coins so those heroes could recover what they had left, or perhaps even return to the jungles in hopes some of what was left there could be found again, would be lost, because no heroes would consider saving them.”
Hi Mephron,
That’s quite a shame that your DM didn’t think saving the world merited some goodwill.
Yes, true resurrection is expensive, but everything else is really not. At the very least, the church should have provided another holy symbol, a wealthy wizard should have happily offered up a blank spellbook for the wizard to record all his prepared spells in (and helped provide notes and materials to copy over a lot more spells, including most if not all of the ones that had been in the original spellbook but were not prepared), a knightly order or monarch should have paid for a new set of plate armour for the fighter, etc. There are heroes and heroes in the Forgotten Realms, but few whose deeds saved the entire world. Everyone should have been clambering to offer even greater demonstrations of munificence, hoping to get the party on board with them, not only to reward the heroes but also to improve their own social standing and authority (“Good people, the charges against my treasonous cousin are not idle speculation, but rather the findings of the Champions of Omu! Now I must end this civil war and ascend the throne!”).
Bards should have been singing their praises from Amn to Luskan, from Cormyr to the Moonsea. Women should have been clamouring for them to kiss their children. Guilds should have been lining up to sponsor their next expedition, knowing that if they could navigate a dungeon architected by the infamous Acererak, then they could delve into pretty much any repository of treasure and offer up a share tenfold in value to what was invested.
Your DM’s choice to have everyone simply go on as if nothing had happened is really quite disappointing. I wouldn’t want to continue with the campaign either.
I’d suggest voicing your complaints to the DM, if you haven’t already. If nothing else, it will help them to not repeat the mistake in the future.
Best,
– the Archmage
What would you suggest if you wanted to give the party a chance to make it out alive? My party would really love to try and continue on to higher levels, they have never played high tier before. Is there any deal/surrender terms Acererak would accept? Could he reduce them all to zero and leave them for dead… for the Dwarves to clean up… and then take off?
Devine intervention? The Gods must be pissed off with all the souls he’s stealing.
Thanks for your question!
This really depends on whether they have destroyed the Soulmonger or not.
If they do, I would have a consortium of powerful (and wealthy) individuals pay for the characters to all be resurrected (even by true resurrection, if necessary). They saved the world, and so the world owes them a debt.
If they are wiping right before, I would pull the divine intervention card. Kelemvor (or the Raven Queen if you are situating this in another world), with the help of several other gods perhaps, could intervene to help them finish the quest and restore the balance of life and death.
The party gets the dubious privilege of seeing Acererak in full rampage and they get to live on. Win-win.
Ultimately, you want to do what’s best for your story. Our position is that nerfing Acererak does not make for a good story, and so we wrote these articles to help people to run him as the monster that he is.
Best,
the Archmage
How on earth are we expecting the players to be resurrected? THey’re trapped in Acererak’s phylactery.
Hi Alyssa,
Acererak only appears if the atropal is destroyed, maybe a round later. The soulmonger would most likely be destroyed by that point. At that point, the characters would be free.
Best,
the Archmage