ToA Acererak tips

[AthasianWarlock]

Hello all,

I am currently playing ToA and I snuck a look at Acererak's stat block. So my question is two fold:

1) Are their any tips to beating this guy. Looks like he is immune to every save or suck effect plus necrotic and poison damage.

2) What is the best way to get his staff? Could my animated zombies attempt to disarm him? Or are we stuck hoping not to get him below 100 hp and then trying to deal 100 hp in a turn.

[Ganymede]

Acererak is a nigh-insurmountable challenge. Outside of having insane luck and incredible resourcefulness, you will perish if you are unlucky enough to find him.

[Theodoxus]

Just finished running ToA last Tuesday. The party did a decent job of beating him down, though I'm planning on running ToH's next, so I toned down the sphere of annihilation in anticipation of making it particularly deadly there. Elsewise, two of the characters would have been destroyed in the first couple of rounds.

My players were 11th level, and had a DMPC Tempest cleric who was 16th to help out. Though, he was less helpful, hitting a couple PCs with a maximized Lightning Bolt to zap the Soulmonger.

It took a long time to get Acererak down... at will Shield is problematic, even as well decked out as my players were. The last round, they took him from 112 to 87. Ace was 6th in initiative order, so I calmly waited as they did what they could before he bamfed out.

The party trying to control the SoA afterwards was quite funny, they sat in a 30' circle all attempting to control it, and failing miserably, until they just decided it wasn't worth it.

If you really want to take out the arch lich, I propose bringing along a large party. A party of 4, probably isn't going to do it. Be 13th+ level too... some 7th level spells will help. Counterspelling the Shield will help. But I wouldn't plan on succeeding in killing him.

As for the staff, I think the best chance would probably be a disarming shot from Battlemaster - I'm AFB, and none of my players were BMs so I didn't look into that tactic specifically, but I think it might work. Would need teamwork - BM knocks it down, someone else uses their readied action to scoop it up. Not sure it'd be worth it - but on the face of it, I'd allow that.

[Sage Tellah]

Throw a net at him. He'll still murder you horribly with save-or-die spells, but at least he'll look absolutely ridiculous while he does it and you can all laugh.

[Unoriginal]

Hello all,

I am currently playing ToA and I snuck a look at Acererak's stat block. So my question is two fold:

1) Are their any tips to beating this guy. Looks like he is immune to every save or suck effect plus necrotic and poison damage.

2) What is the best way to get his staff? Could my animated zombies attempt to disarm him? Or are we stuck hoping not to get him below 100 hp and then trying to deal 100 hp in a turn.

Reading ahead and using it to metagame against challenges is not sportsman-like, mlanier.

To still answer the question, in a way: Acererak is a very powerful Lich fighting PCs who are vastly below his CR. There are a few ways in the adventure module to make that fight a bit easier, but otherwise, outside of somehow having an Antimagic Field at that level, there's pretty much no tip.

[EvilAnagram]

Hello all,

I am currently playing ToA and I snuck a look at Acererak's stat block.
My suggestion is to tell the DM exactly what you told us and leave the group so that people who play fair can have fun.

[AthasianWarlock]

My suggestion is to tell the DM exactly what you told us and leave the group so that people who play fair can have fun.

Yeah I will be leaving if its that hard. I am level 5 and we lost one guy at the door. Not interested in getting rolled over and over again by a level 21 lich.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

Honestly this fight looks awful. But I enjoy the theorycraft here, and kind of want to see what I can come up with. Warning: this is cheating 100%, Any DM will be within their rights to kick you both physically and out of the game for looking at this.

Seriously don't look at this. Last chance.



A sorcerer with subtle spell and fog cloud.
Some kind of grappler preferably with tons of health and resistance to Necrotic damage. (bear totem barbarian with athletics proficiency should be fine.)
A Bard, Cleric, or Ranger who can cast freedom of movement and silence. They will be called a Bard for the rest of this post.
Magic weapons?





Have the Bard precast freedom of movement on the Grappler
Have the Sorcerer subtly cast fog cloud on Acererak (Fog cloud cannot be seen through by true sight)
Have your Bard cast silence somewhere within the fog cloud. (Silence does not require you to be able to choose the location that it originates.)
Have your Grappler grapple Acererak and ensure he is grappled within the Silence.




Fog cloud prevents counterspell, invoke curse, and frightening gaze.
Silence prevents every spell he has except for counterspell.
You now have four things to think about while beating his corpse with arrows, swords, axes, Etc. Etc.



His staff.
Paralyzing touch-There is a reason why we had freedom of movement cast on the barbarian.
Disrupt Life-This sucks and the reason I recommend the pincushion method.
The sphere of annihilation-You can't avoid this thing and this will probably be what he does for his action while he is restrained unless he tries to break the grapple.



There are a few tactics you can take once you've set up the original premise of this fight.

Drop the fog cloud and pincushion the guy from a distance while the barbarian takes a beating from the staff/touch. You will exchange a flat roll against the target for advantage and he will be able to use counterspell, Frightening gaze, and Invoke curse.
Keep the fog cloud up and pincushion him, Technically as long as he doesn't take the hide action you know where he is. You can also use spells that don't require you to be able to see the target. (I have no idea what these spells are other than silence.)
Run in and stab him a bunch then run out. 1 person per round will take an opportunity attack. (He still only gets one reaction per round I believe. outside of his legendary at will spells)
You still have to worry about the sphere of annihilation, though if he uses it within the silence bubble having the grappler stick his head in it is solid damage.




Disarm Him-The staff is far more damaging then the touch.
Throw the sphere in a bag of holding. This has a 15% chance of being a terrible idea.
Steal the Talisman of the Sphere. He can now only move the sphere 13' instead of 90'
Edit: You can do this without the sorcerer as well as long as the Bard can get total cover somehow, You'll still have to deal with the gaze, curse, and counterspelling but if you don't have a sorcerer it is still possible.





Does anyone see any problems with this strategy? Or ways to improve it?

[Unoriginal]

Yeah I will be leaving if its that hard. I am level 5 and we lost one guy at the door. Not interested in getting rolled over and over again by a level 21 lich.

Don't blame the module for you messing up.

ToA is supposed to be a meatgrinder a la Tomb of Horror. You can end up fighting dragons and fiends at level 1. But most of the fights are avoidable. Paying attention to the story as it unfold is actually way better to help survive than reading ahead.

Also Acererak is way more than lvl 21.

[DarkKnightJin]

My tip: RUN LIKE HELL. And pray to whatever deity your character follows that he's content to stay put.

[StoicLeaf]

Honestly this fight looks awful. But I enjoy the theorycraft here, and kind of want to see what I can come up with. Warning: this is cheating 100%, Any DM will be within their rights to kick you both physically and out of the game for looking at this.

Seriously don't look at this. Last chance.



A sorcerer with subtle spell and fog cloud.
Some kind of grappler preferably with tons of health and resistance to Necrotic damage. (bear totem barbarian with athletics proficiency should be fine.)
A Bard, Cleric, or Ranger who can cast freedom of movement and silence. They will be called a Bard for the rest of this post.
Magic weapons?





Have the Bard precast freedom of movement on the Grappler
Have the Sorcerer subtly cast fog cloud on Acererak (Fog cloud cannot be seen through by true sight)
Have your Bard cast silence somewhere within the fog cloud. (Silence does not require you to be able to choose the location that it originates.)
Have your Grappler grapple Acererak and ensure he is grappled within the Silence.




Fog cloud prevents counterspell, invoke curse, and frightening gaze.
Silence prevents every spell he has except for counterspell.
You now have four things to think about while beating his corpse with arrows, swords, axes, Etc. Etc.



His staff.
Paralyzing touch-There is a reason why we had freedom of movement cast on the barbarian.
Disrupt Life-This sucks and the reason I recommend the pincushion method.
The sphere of annihilation-You can't avoid this thing and this will probably be what he does for his action while he is restrained unless he tries to break the grapple.



There are a few tactics you can take once you've set up the original premise of this fight.

Drop the fog cloud and pincushion the guy from a distance while the barbarian takes a beating from the staff/touch. You will exchange a flat roll against the target for advantage and he will be able to use counterspell, Frightening gaze, and Invoke curse.
Keep the fog cloud up and pincushion him, Technically as long as he doesn't take the hide action you know where he is. You can also use spells that don't require you to be able to see the target. (I have no idea what these spells are other than silence.)
Run in and stab him a bunch then run out. 1 person per round will take an opportunity attack. (He still only gets one reaction per round I believe. outside of his legendary at will spells)
You still have to worry about the sphere of annihilation, though if he uses it within the silence bubble having the grappler stick his head in it is solid damage.




Disarm Him-The staff is far more damaging then the touch.
Throw the sphere in a bag of holding. This has a 15% chance of being a terrible idea.
Steal the Talisman of the Sphere. He can now only move the sphere 13' instead of 90'
Edit: You can do this without the sorcerer as well as long as the Bard can get total cover somehow, You'll still have to deal with the gaze, curse, and counterspelling but if you don't have a sorcerer it is still possible.





Does anyone see any problems with this strategy? Or ways to improve it?

Not going to work the way you want it to.
*all* spells, unless they explicitly say so, require you to see the target. (PHB, 204, a clear path to the target).
Fog cloud will effectively make anyone standing in it blind, as per the blinded condition: "all checks requiring sight automatically fail".
Your bar-bear-ian isn't going to just waltz through the fog cloud and grapple the lich.
If your argument here is "but it's fog, I can still see a bit!" then yeah, ok, fine, here have a frightening gaze.

Your setup requires you to be able to somehow sneak up on the lich, I really, really doubt Acererak is the sort to skip alarm spells.

[Kyrinthic]

Not going to work the way you want it to.
*all* spells, unless they explicitly say so, require you to see the target. (PHB, 204, a clear path to the target).
Fog cloud will effectively make anyone standing in it blind, as per the blinded condition: "all checks requiring sight automatically fail".
Your bar-bear-ian isn't going to just waltz through the fog cloud and grapple the lich.
If your argument here is "but it's fog, I can still see a bit!" then yeah, ok, fine, here have a frightening gaze.

Your setup requires you to be able to somehow sneak up on the lich, I really, really doubt Acererak is the sort to skip alarm spells.

The details are fuzzy, but the basic strategy of grapple into a silence spell is still a very good way to deal with almost any really high level caster. Having a second caster with counterspell helps a lot too, to counter the counter if he tries to stop the silence. He still has a number of effective options, but it reigns in his power a lot, and considering other bonuses the party is likely to have for the fight, can really make it winnable.

Fog cloud can still help a lot to limit his attacks if readied to cast after the initial grapple into silence. And again, if you have a counter caster to help it makes a big difference.

The fight is not unwinnable, but it is brutal, and a smart GM will make you earn that win.

[StoicLeaf]

The details are fuzzy, but the basic strategy of grapple into a silence spell is still a very good way to deal with almost any really high level caster. Having a second caster with counterspell helps a lot too, to counter the counter if he tries to stop the silence. He still has a number of effective options, but it reigns in his power a lot, and considering other bonuses the party is likely to have for the fight, can really make it winnable.

Fog cloud can still help a lot to limit his attacks if readied to cast after the initial grapple into silence. And again, if you have a counter caster to help it makes a big difference.

The fight is not unwinnable, but it is brutal, and a smart GM will make you earn that win.

I agree, root (in this case grapple) + silence is great.
It's just getting there and sustaining it isn't easy. His dc20 paralysis is pretty ouch.
And he's immune to blindness, so perhaps he doesn't even have eyes!

[PeteNutButter]

Given the environment and situation you end up fighting him, I’d say it’s basically unwinnable. I was the party’s only hope at beating him, and he went first on initiative and cast power word kill on me. Even if I had a spell slot left to cast counterspell, I’d have had to roll a 14 or better.

I don’t know, maybe if the party were higher level... We were all around level 10. Maybe if we didn’t fight him when the party was so exhausted of resources... yeah just run

[sithlordnergal]

So, there are a few options:

1) You would have to have started as a Shepard Druid, and reach level 10 so that you have hp. If your DM allows you to choose what animals you conjure when you cast Conjure Animals, burn a 5th level slot to summon 16 velocoraptors from Volo's. They are small enough that two fit in one square, so you can surround him.

Most DMs have the summoned animals go at the same time because it doesn't clutter up the initative that way. Since the raptors have multiattack, pack tactics, and Shepard Druid gives them magic attacks, have them swarm him for 32 attacks with advantage.

Turn into a Gigantasaurus after the raptors are gone. It is a CR 10 beast with 217 hp, and can swallow Large or smaller creatures. I haven't looked at the stat page, but I am pretty sure Acerack is not immune to Acid. Once you swallow him, he will be blinded and restrained, meaning he technically can't cast any spell that requires you to see the target. He will also take 6d6 acid damage every turn, and you can choose to throw him up later.

If you have the fly spell cast on you, eat him, fly into the lava, throw him back up, fly out before the Polymorph HP goes away. Or if you are a moon druid, fly down into lava, throw him up, turn into Fire Elemental, flee.

2) Soradin route: Become a Soradin. Again, reaching level 10 is your best bet for this to work. You want a minimum of 4 level of Sorcerer, and I suggest taking Paladin of Vengeance for the free Advantage to attacks. Also, depending on party make up then it may be a better idea to forego the Aura of Protection in favor of being able to cast Haste on yourself. But if you do have a second caster who has Hast, have them put that on you.

Also, snag wither Green Flame Blade or Booming Blade, and Quicken spell. Keep all of your Sorcery Points and as many Spell Slots as you can in reserve. As soo. As our friendly Lich appears, go ape on him. Put your Vengance ability on him to gain advantage on all attacks then hit him with smites until you run out. Open with Normal Attack, Extra Attack, Haste Attack, Quicken GFB/BB, and drop your highest smites on them all. Since you have advantage, you're likely to get a crit.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

Not going to work the way you want it to.
*all* spells, unless they explicitly say so, require you to see the target. (PHB, 204, a clear path to the target).
Fog cloud will effectively make anyone standing in it blind, as per the blinded condition: "all checks requiring sight automatically fail".
Your bar-bear-ian isn't going to just waltz through the fog cloud and grapple the lich.
If your argument here is "but it's fog, I can still see a bit!" then yeah, ok, fine, here have a frightening gaze.


I had missed that in the PHB, thank you. As far as I know blinded people can still grab somebody by the neck as long as they know where their target is, by RAW. But let's say the grappler goes first, After he has locked Acererak down. at the end of his turn he'll take a frightening gaze. He now can't move any closer to him (not an issue) and He has disadvantage on ability checks. He has advantage on strength checks though since he is raging so it's a wash.


The details are fuzzy, but the basic strategy of grapple into a silence spell is still a very good way to deal with almost any really high level caster. Having a second caster with counterspell helps a lot too, to counter the counter if he tries to stop the silence. He still has a number of effective options, but it reigns in his power a lot, and considering other bonuses the party is likely to have for the fight, can really make it winnable.

Fog cloud can still help a lot to limit his attacks if readied to cast after the initial grapple into silence. And again, if you have a counter caster to help it makes a big difference.

The fight is not unwinnable, but it is brutal, and a smart GM will make you earn that win.

I think leaving the details fuzzy is a requirement for this situation, if you dive too much into the details then when he does something unexpected you can adapt.


His dc20 paralysis is pretty ouch.And he's immune to blindness, so perhaps he doesn't even have eyes!

The Barbarian has freedom of movement which prevents paralysis. Immune to blindness doesn't confer blindsight. But Fog cloud does block truesight.

I didn't realize at first that he's still limited in his counterspelling by only having one reaction. I see two ways to make this work then.


The sorcerer casts subtle fog cloud far enough back that it barely catches him inside of it. The Bard casts silence at the edge of the fog where he knows Acererak is. Then the Barbarian walks up and grapples him. everyone else stands back and shoots at that 5'cloud of fog where the barbarians hand is at.

Bard casts silence, Counterspell is counterspelled by the Sorcerer. Grappler grapples him. Everyone but the grappler stands 21+ feet away and shoots him full of arrows. Your primary issue at this point is Acererak getting free thanks to the fear this will happen eventually. Kill him before then. Casting heroism on the Grappler will alleviate that issue somewhat.

[sithlordnergal]

Not going to work the way you want it to.
*all* spells, unless they explicitly say so, require you to see the target. (PHB, 204, a clear path to the target).
Fog cloud will effectively make anyone standing in it blind, as per the blinded condition: "all checks requiring sight automatically fail".
Your bar-bear-ian isn't going to just waltz through the fog cloud and grapple the lich.
If your argument here is "but it's fog, I can still see a bit!" then yeah, ok, fine, here have a frightening gaze.

Your setup requires you to be able to somehow sneak up on the lich, I really, really doubt Acererak is the sort to skip alarm spells.

Might I ask why the Bar-Bear-ian can't waltz through the fog to grab him? Grappling requires a normal attack, so he can waltz over and grab him without seeing Acerack. Where as Acerak can't use any abilities requiring a line of sight due to the fog cloud.

[PeteNutButter]

All of your suggested tactics will not work.

If you are playing it/plan on playing it don't read below, as it is filled with spoilers:

As written you most likely encounter him directly after the soulmonger fight which is a very deadly, and even more ridiculous is the necessity of magic items to even hurt it, which the adventure gives very little of up to that point. Magic ranged weapons seem particularly rare, which is basically what you need, since the whole fight is suspended over a pool of lava. Acererak will engage the party directly after that fight likely floating over this deadly lava himself (or at least standing on the far edge of it). Any melee in the party without flight on them from some source are SOL (so no swarms of raptors etc). In order for the whole fog cloud, silence strategy to work out, the initiative order would have to perfectly, but then who is concentrating on the barbarian's fly spell?

Even if the whole thing worked out, he is in the fog cloud, and silence, and grappled, what happens when he just touches the barbarian? A typical barbarian at level ~10 has about +7-8 to his con save. DC 20 or be paralyzed and let go of grapple, and potentially fall into the lava below. So if everything works perfectly, you still fail the majority of the time. He'll then back into the fog cloud, using it as cover himself, waiting until round 2 to pop out the side and cast power word kill on the biggest remaining threat.

I'm telling you the fight isn't set up to be winnable. If you are dead set on it, you have to be set up first to win the fight before Acererak, which involves shooting magic at it, perhaps arcane archers or hexblade archers with SS. Then have a large party (6+) so when he outright kills one or two PCs a round, you can just blast him down.

It's not unwinnable, but it's damned close. None of the proposed solutions are taking into account the terrain and situation of a it being right after a very deadly fight.

[Ganymede]

So, there are a few options:

1) You would have to have started as a Shepard Druid, and reach level 10 so that you have hp. If your DM allows you to choose what animals you conjure when you cast Conjure Animals, burn a 5th level slot to summon 16 velocoraptors from Volo's. They are small enough that two fit in one square, so you can surround him.

Most DMs have the summoned animals go at the same time because it doesn't clutter up the initative that way. Since the raptors have multiattack, pack tactics, and Shepard Druid gives them magic attacks, have them swarm him for 32 attacks with advantage.

Turn into a Gigantasaurus after the raptors are gone. It is a CR 10 beast with 217 hp, and can swallow Large or smaller creatures. I haven't looked at the stat page, but I am pretty sure Acerack is not immune to Acid. Once you swallow him, he will be blinded and restrained, meaning he technically can't cast any spell that requires you to see the target. He will also take 6d6 acid damage every turn, and you can choose to throw him up later.

If you have the fly spell cast on you, eat him, fly into the lava, throw him back up, fly out before the Polymorph HP goes away. Or if you are a moon druid, fly down into lava, throw him up, turn into Fire Elemental, flee.


I think there are several problems with this advice.

Regarding Conjure Animals: Summoning two tiny creatures in a single space is a bit problematic as the spell only allows you to place the creatures in unoccupied spaces. If you try to put two tiny creatures in a space, one of them is not being put into an unoccupied space.

Of a more practical matter, Acererak's platform is not very big, and it is far away from the north landing. At about 7.5' by 15', the platform does not have enough room to hold 16 velociraptors even if you could summon multiples per square.

Finally, remember that the lava pit is 60' across, which is the range of Conjure Animals. Only a portion of Acererak's platform is even within reach.

Regarding the Gigantasaurus: I'm not sure this is a real monster in D&D. In either case, there isn't a single 20' by 20' square in the final chamber that would even accommodate a gargantuan creature, let alone give him a position to attack Acererak on his platform. Additionally, pretty much anywhere you try to squeeze a gargantuan, low dexterity creature in this room, you have a very real risk of falling into the lava.

Acererak is also immune to being blinded.

[StoicLeaf]

Might I ask why the Bar-Bear-ian can't waltz through the fog to grab him? Grappling requires a normal attack, so he can waltz over and grab him without seeing Acerack. Where as Acerak can't use any abilities requiring a line of sight due to the fog cloud.

"Where's Acererak?"

[EvilAnagram]

All of your suggested tactics will not work.

If you are playing it/plan on playing it don't read below, as it is filled with spoilers:

As written you most likely encounter him directly after the soulmonger fight which is a very deadly, and even more ridiculous is the necessity of magic items to even hurt it, which the adventure gives very little of up to that point. Magic ranged weapons seem particularly rare, which is basically what you need, since the whole fight is suspended over a pool of lava. Acererak will engage the party directly after that fight likely floating over this deadly lava himself (or at least standing on the far edge of it). Any melee in the party without flight on them from some source are SOL (so no swarms of raptors etc). In order for the whole fog cloud, silence strategy to work out, the initiative order would have to perfectly, but then who is concentrating on the barbarian's fly spell?

Even if the whole thing worked out, he is in the fog cloud, and silence, and grappled, what happens when he just touches the barbarian? A typical barbarian at level ~10 has about +7-8 to his con save. DC 20 or be paralyzed and let go of grapple, and potentially fall into the lava below. So if everything works perfectly, you still fail the majority of the time. He'll then back into the fog cloud, using it as cover himself, waiting until round 2 to pop out the side and cast power word kill on the biggest remaining threat.

I'm telling you the fight isn't set up to be winnable. If you are dead set on it, you have to be set up first to win the fight before Acererak, which involves shooting magic at it, perhaps arcane archers or hexblade archers with SS. Then have a large party (6+) so when he outright kills one or two PCs a round, you can just blast him down.

It's not unwinnable, but it's damned close. None of the proposed solutions are taking into account the terrain and situation of a it being right after a very deadly fight.

You're input is valuable, but your warning probably won't be heeded. OP is openly trying to cheat, after all.

[PeteNutButter]

You're input is valuable, but your warning probably won't be heeded. OP is openly trying to cheat, after all.

Cheaters gonna cheat. If he really wants to cheat he can just read the book. If I as a DM suspect any of my players have read the content, I change it. Most DMs would probably do the same, so cheating in D&D isn't very effective. Also, since it's not a competitive game...it's really super pointless/kind of sad.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

All of your suggested tactics will not work.

If you are playing it/plan on playing it don't read below, as it is filled with spoilers:

As written you most likely encounter him directly after the soulmonger fight which is a very deadly, and even more ridiculous is the necessity of magic items to even hurt it, which the adventure gives very little of up to that point. Magic ranged weapons seem particularly rare, which is basically what you need, since the whole fight is suspended over a pool of lava. Acererak will engage the party directly after that fight likely floating over this deadly lava himself (or at least standing on the far edge of it). Any melee in the party without flight on them from some source are SOL (so no swarms of raptors etc). In order for the whole fog cloud, silence strategy to work out, the initiative order would have to perfectly, but then who is concentrating on the barbarian's fly spell?

Even if the whole thing worked out, he is in the fog cloud, and silence, and grappled, what happens when he just touches the barbarian? A typical barbarian at level ~10 has about +7-8 to his con save. DC 20 or be paralyzed and let go of grapple, and potentially fall into the lava below. So if everything works perfectly, you still fail the majority of the time. He'll then back into the fog cloud, using it as cover himself, waiting until round 2 to pop out the side and cast power word kill on the biggest remaining threat.

I'm telling you the fight isn't set up to be winnable. If you are dead set on it, you have to be set up first to win the fight before Acererak, which involves shooting magic at it, perhaps arcane archers or hexblade archers with SS. Then have a large party (6+) so when he outright kills one or two PCs a round, you can just blast him down.

It's not unwinnable, but it's damned close. None of the proposed solutions are taking into account the terrain and situation of a it being right after a very deadly fight.

You are absolutely correct, I hadn't looked at the map of the fight. That is a Harsh battlefield. A few things that this changes. First of all I cannot tell if that ledge is supposed to have a banister or not. A if it does, B if it doesn't.

A. Acererak is stuck on his little platform barring his going through the mistgate. Acererak does not have a fly speed nor any spells that allow him to levitate or fly. I cannot see a way to prevent him from going through the mistgate barring pulling him from the ledge.


1. Silence the area of the mistgate, Preferably right before landing the killing blow on the atropal.
2. The only things that leaves him being able to do are counterspell, control the SoA, and disrupt curse.
3. Hit him with a lot of magical damage. He can only counterspell once per round and that can be counterspelled if need be.



B. If that isn't a banister then the game plan changes a lot and this fight just became easier, a warlock with the grasp of hadar invocation, pulls him off the ledge and into the lava. In case of counterspell have the same warlock counterspell him. After that everyone backs up to the wall of the cavern, drop a fog cloud to be safe. then wait for him to burn to death.


Edit: what changes would you make to this fight if you were OP's DM?


Flying Speed of 10' (levitation) I'm actually confused why he doesn't have this.
Add mind spike and dispel magic to his at will spells
Give him blindsight.
switch out time stop for psychic scream maybe invulnerability

[Envyus]

You are absolutely correct, I hadn't looked at the map of the fight. That is a Harsh battlefield. A few things that this changes. First of all I cannot tell if that ledge is supposed to have a banister or not. A if it does, B if it doesn't.

A. Acererak is stuck on his little platform barring his going through the mistgate. Acererak does not have a fly speed nor any spells that allow him to levitate or fly. I cannot see a way to prevent him from going through the mistgate barring pulling him from the ledge.


1. Silence the area of the mistgate, Preferably right before landing the killing blow on the atropal.
2. The only things that leaves him being able to do are counterspell, control the SoA, and disrupt curse.
3. Hit him with a lot of magical damage. He can only counterspell once per round and that can be counterspelled if need be.



B. If that isn't a banister then the game plan changes a lot and this fight just became easier, a warlock with the grasp of hadar invocation, pulls him off the ledge and into the lava. In case of counterspell have the same warlock counterspell him. After that everyone backs up to the wall of the cavern, drop a fog cloud to be safe. then wait for him to burn to death.



Guy knows teleport. If he gets knocked into the lava he can just teleport away.

[PeteNutButter]

Edit: what changes would you make to this fight if you were OP's DM?


If a PC is actively casting silence at an area he has no reason to suspect a foe is even there without having outright read the book, I might just remove him from the table for cheating. Why on earth would they know to wait until the previous foe is nearly dead to cast silence on an area where there is no obvious foe? Even if they suspected Acererak were there, they have no reason to suspect he'd join the fight after the atropal dies.

Besides if anyone tried that, at the very least Acererak won't be there. He is instead invisible and flying in the center of the room, or behind you, or inside of you. And you know what? The cheaty player just got a big target on his head for that power word kill.

The question you are answering is "If we cheat really hard can we maybe have a shot at beating a foe we aren't supposed to be able to?" The proper question is "Can a group of reasonably prepared optimized characters have a shot at killing Acererak?" Incidentally the answer to both is still no, unless the DM is just giving it to you.

[Tas]

I just got done DM'ing ToA with some friends, here's how they dealt with this encounter...

First of all the party consisted of:
1. 12th Level Cleric (Unkh)
2. 12th level Wizard (Papazotl)
3. 12th level Paladin/Warlock (Kubazan)
4. 12th level Sorcerer/Warlock (I'jin)

They all had a spirit helping them as I showed above.

They did not have a ridiculous amount of magic items with them, mostly what is found in the adventure.

They arrived and decided to deal with the Atropal first. They killed it in two rounds. It managed to use its summon wraith ability, however that wraith got turned by the cleric (even with advantage on the saving throw). It also used its yell/scream twice which gave one player 2 levels of exhaustion and another player 1 level, the other two passed both saves.

So basically they nuked down the Atropal, turned the wraith, and then Acererak shows up...

As it says in book all the players gain 50 temporary hit points if they are inhabited by a spirit (they all were).

Acererak rolled low on initiative so some of the players got to go first.

The Sorcerer/Warlock Used Hex and Eldritch Blast, then twinned it, so thats 6 Eldritch Blast rolls...some of them hit some of them missed.
The Paladin/Warlock misty stepped to one of the balconies to get closer to Acererak and shot eldritch blast at him.
The Wizard I believe tried to cast a 5th or 6th level spell (I cant remember which one) but Acererak counterspelled it.
On the ends of these turns I used Acererak's legendary actions to move the sphere of annihilation into people and use the invoke curse from the staff.

Then it was Acererak's first turn, it states in the book that he will use all his power to slay the characters, but it also leads you to believe that Acererak will underestimate his enemies because of how powerful he is, so going off this I decided to have him simply cast Finger of Death at the incoming paladin that would surely be trying to get into melee with his pesky smites and staff of striking (found off the goatman earlier in the tomb), the paladin failed but the 50 temporary hit points left him not too bad off. (I kind of roleplayed this as Acererak realizing that the spirits were helping the characters).

Now its the clerics turn, here's where things got interesting. Who would guess that this arena plus a second level spell would trivialize the fight? As it turns out, Silence has a 120 ft range but counterspell only has a 60 ft range, even if Acererak still had his reaction to cast counterspell he could not have counterspelled the Cleric's Silence because the Cleric made sure to cast from about 70 ft away anyway. The other important thing to note is that literally every spell on Acererak's spell list requires the verbal component. Lastly, Acererak enters the room on that balcony by the mist gate, so he is literally stuck there unable to cast or move out of the silence zone.

Rolls back around to the Sorcerer/Warlock who again, Eldritch Blast + Hex attacks Acererak and twins it, 6 more eldritch blasts.
The Paladin/Warlock Misty steps from the balcony with the phylacteries to the mist gate balcony and attacks Acererak twice. He used his highest level spell slots to get 4d8 radiant damage, he also used charges from the staff to add 2d6, and because of the spirit he did 3d6 pschyic plus the die from the weapon, and of course 2 attacks so it ends up being a total of like 8d8 and 10 or 12d6, I can't remember exactly. Regardless, it was a lot of damage.

The Wizard I believe then cast Sphere of Invulnerability this turn hoping to protect himself.

Because of Silence the only thing Acererak could do with his legendary actions is to move the sphere and use the paralyzing touch on the paladin (which failed)

Acererak's 2nd turn...he was already below 100 hit points at this point I believe, however because of Silence he could not teleport away so I decided to keep going.
If you use the spell list that is in the book for Acererak, the only way he can get off the balcony is to jump and then cast Teleport mid air (Why the F does he not have misty step?)
So I had Acererak teleport on top of the Soulmonger, now this sucks because it took an action, (misty step would have been a bonus action).

As you can imagine, the Sorcerer/Warlock again eldritch blasts him and twins it, however this time he reacted with shield to block more of the hits.

The paladin on the balcony was kind of stuck because of the silence zone so he missed a turn.

The Wizard I believe cast Ice Storm on Acererak which was almost negligible but still did some damage, however this hit the Soulmonger, the tentacle then reacted and hit the wizard and threw him in the lava, however the 50 temporary hit points and the Abjurer's shield blocked all of this fire damage.

Acererak could have cast teleport to leave at this point but I instead had him cast time stop and then Circle of Death, they all failed their saves and took ~40 damage but the guy who got cursed took 80, however the 50 temporary plus the fact that they hadn't been injured much meant everyone was alive.

By the time it rolled back around to Acererak he was killed by the cleric ending silence and and the paladin and warlock shooting him with more eldritch blasts

The wizard took 55 fire damage but also gained 50 temporary then misty stepped out of the lava to safety and used a spell to finish off Acererak. (its exactly 30 ft down from the edge of the balcony to the lava)

The cleric almost died from the wraith getting a critical hit when it broke out which was funny but they killed it and then simply stood 30 ft away from one of the struts and shot it til it broke and won.

So in summary: Your player's will have a REALLY hard time if they do not cast Silence or if they do not have a lot of Counterspells, also if they can't get into melee range or if they do not have the spirits helping them. If they attack the Soulmonger right away and get thrown into the lava and don't kill the Atropal quickly they could also run into trouble.

[TheUser]

As someone who just finished ToA from the DM's side of the screen, the only way you are winning that fight is if Acerak is played in such a manner that he acts exceedingly overconfident.

You should be fully aware that his spell list is not immutable; the DMG let's you change a creature's spell list to have different spells from the same spell list.

I had him running, counterspell, dispel magic, fly, thunderstep, fireball and vampiric touch(this one was for upcasting) and he had used mirage arcana, programmed illusions, glyph's of warding and simulacrum. He barely used the sphere of anihilation because his legendary actions were much better spent teleporting 90ft, dispelling the player's spells or lobbing fireballs at them.

After the players found a way to destroy the rock surrounding the soulmonger and atropal (which was put in place by mirage arcana) they finally destroyed the soulmonger 2 rounds later.

The players in my group pulled down a host of NPCs to help them and even with all that....every NPC was killed and half the players were too.

He literally has the ability to do the following;
Time Stop, delayed blast fireball, prismatic wall above the party, reverse gravity the whole group into the prismatic wall; if there's nothing to grab onto there is no save.

I didn't open with this combo, but instead had them fighting a simulacrum for the first 10 rounds of the fight wearing them down. He entered the fight with an invulnerability spell already on himself strutting confidently into the middle of them having them blow smites and loads of resources and even gave them a full round to do as they please after he yelled a defiant warning to stop trying to destroy the soulmonger and swear loyalty to him.


My party destroyed the soulmonger even after the brutal level 9 time stop combo.

Nothing about the fight was the same as the book would lead you to believe; the terrain was different, his spells were different and the amount of psychological warfare was dialed up to 11. You're only winning the fight if Acerak is played overconfidently by the DM anyway so cheating is pointless

[DaveOfTheDead]

Hello all,

I am currently playing ToA and I snuck a look at Acererak's stat block. So my question is two fold:

1) Are their any tips to beating this guy. Looks like he is immune to every save or suck effect plus necrotic and poison damage.

2) What is the best way to get his staff? Could my animated zombies attempt to disarm him? Or are we stuck hoping not to get him below 100 hp and then trying to deal 100 hp in a turn.

If you are worried about that, then my suggestion is either to 1) leave now if you're that worried, or 2) try your hardest not to metagame and just enjoy the game as it goes.

[JackPhoenix]

If you are worried about that, then my suggestion is either to 1) leave now if you're that worried, or 2) try your hardest not to metagame and just enjoy the game as it goes.

I'm pretty sure he's not worried about that 8 months after he made the thread.

[Malifice]

I am currently playing ToA and I snuck a look at Acererak's stat block.

As a DM to a player, you're dead to me.

[CapnZapp]

He literally has the ability to do the following;
Time Stop, delayed blast fireball, prismatic wall above the party, reverse gravity the whole group into the prismatic wall; if there's nothing to grab onto there is no save.
An excellent suggestion :smallbiggrin:

(Don't forget to apply lava damage to everyone, since the lava too falls upwards :smallwink:)

[Sigreid]

As someone who just finished ToA from the DM's side of the screen, the only way you are winning that fight is if Acerak is played in such a manner that he acts exceedingly overconfident.

You should be fully aware that his spell list is not immutable; the DMG let's you change a creature's spell list to have different spells from the same spell list.

I had him running, counterspell, dispel magic, fly, thunderstep, fireball and vampiric touch(this one was for upcasting) and he had used mirage arcana, programmed illusions, glyph's of warding and simulacrum. He barely used the sphere of anihilation because his legendary actions were much better spent teleporting 90ft, dispelling the player's spells or lobbing fireballs at them.

After the players found a way to destroy the rock surrounding the soulmonger and atropal (which was put in place by mirage arcana) they finally destroyed the soulmonger 2 rounds later.

The players in my group pulled down a host of NPCs to help them and even with all that....every NPC was killed and half the players were too.

He literally has the ability to do the following;
Time Stop, delayed blast fireball, prismatic wall above the party, reverse gravity the whole group into the prismatic wall; if there's nothing to grab onto there is no save.

I didn't open with this combo, but instead had them fighting a simulacrum for the first 10 rounds of the fight wearing them down. He entered the fight with an invulnerability spell already on himself strutting confidently into the middle of them having them blow smites and loads of resources and even gave them a full round to do as they please after he yelled a defiant warning to stop trying to destroy the soulmonger and swear loyalty to him.


My party destroyed the soulmonger even after the brutal level 9 time stop combo.

Nothing about the fight was the same as the book would lead you to believe; the terrain was different, his spells were different and the amount of psychological warfare was dialed up to 11. You're only winning the fight if Acerak is played overconfidently by the DM anyway so cheating is pointless

Well, if I remember the description of him correctly, the reason he doesn't ascend to godhood is it would come with rules and worshipers and such whereas he currently has all the power and none of the strings.

Heck, it describes how he's the reason there are so many dungeons stocked with monsters and treasure as they're a combination of hobby and how he feeds his phylactary.

[Nhorianscum]

The most common (and only successful way) I've seen of managing Ace is to just... let a party member die while the rest of the squad kills off the soulnommer and runs like unholy hell is after them.

[JackPhoenix]

Seriously, why do people keep necromancing long-dead threads even after they've been notied it's an old thread?

[SkyKirasagi]

As written, this fight is not the death sentence it is being made out as by folks here. Assuming you explored the dungeon and got the trickster gods with you, you’ve got 50 temp HP per round that Acererak has to burn through before he’s even hurting you. If you can get him stuck in a silence he’s got very few options.

Sure, you can alter the encounter to make it nigh unwinnable if you so choose, by altering his spell list or having him employ sneaky tactics. But then we’re not talking about the actual fight in the book anymore. Plus, the same could be said of almost any encounter if your goal is to create a no-win situation. It’s pretty clear that this wasn’t the intention of the module, as those temporary god buffs give you a good shot at beating an epic level opponent, but in a way that lets you know you currently stand no chance in a fair fight, and that ultimately your victory doesn’t matter. Even if Acererak dies, he just comes back in a few days, as the module offers you no opportunity to find or destroy his phylactory.

And ultimately, doesn’t knowing you’ve pissed off a god-level lich and now don’t have the protection of a god to hide behind make for far more interesting post-book story hooks then just getting blasted to bits, anyway?

[Vessyra]

We actually managed to defeat Acerak with a level 10, 4-person party. Without the 50 temp hp per round. (I was surprised to discover that's a thing).

Tips: Characters: you want an open hand monk, and a paladin/hexblade multi class. You also want someone capable of dishing out death ward; divine soul or clerics are great. Finally, you want someone with Bigby's hand. Before going up against Acerak, make sure the entire party has death ward up; if the caster doesn't have enough 4th level slots, make sure to get a scroll, to conserve those 5th level slots for something big like mass cure wounds. So, the death ward protects against power word kill. The next problem is the atropal: it can give exhaustion levels which is minor in small amounts but major if you get three or more. The atropal is vulnerable to radiant damage so the paladin should feel free to dump some first and second levels slots into taking it down fast, before it weakens the party. After that comes Acerak. That sphere of annihilation can be problematic; we made called shots to snap the chain and drop it into the lava. In the fight against Acerak himself, the open hand monk will be crucial in taking away his reactions so that he can't shield or counter spell (the former is which is vital in removing just so that you can hit the guy). Finally, use Bigby to grapple him and get him prone, so that the monk and paladin/warlock can pour on the hurt.

Also, make sure to keep dispel magic handy, in case the DM changes his spell list and gives him fly or greater invisibility. Remember, dispel magic has range 120 ft while counter spell is range 60 ft.
Death ward everyone to stop power word kill. Divine smite atropal quickly. Open hand monk to stop reactions. Bigby's hand+prone to help warriors hit.

[sambojin]

He doesn't seem to be immune to restrained, so maybe a Moon Druid is a possibility. Moon 9/War Cleric 2 might do the job ok. Pretty good character anyway. Polymorph into a T-rex, bite him (using War's +10 channel divinity to ensure a hit, and *should* be considered a magical attack because you're in a "beast form"), use a War bonus attack if you still miss, then prepare to get rather badly injured while the rest of your party whales on him. Keep War bonus attacking each turn until you're out of them, but keep nomming anyway.

With Resilient: Con and your T-rex constitution, you might even last a few rounds in that form. Could do it by lvl10 or 9, about the same, just with less backup Polymorph or ummmm-this-instead spells.

You've only really got Giant Constrictor Snake for your other restrain-on-hit option at that level, and the HP won't hold for more than a round, but you should get at least a few rounds of you all thumping him (with restrain cancelling Fog disadvantage or giving advantage to everyone for more reliable hits. Just move out of the way of shooters or you'll give Acey cover, or you know, they could move themselves).

Not really that safe, but it could work.... Just make sure you've got a wizard on hand whose sole occupation is to Counterspell Shield spells. There is a world of difference in hitting 21AC with advantage, and 26AC (probably without). Acey will probably never escape the grapple/restrain, but having a bard and a mage around makes it a lot more certain. Just stop the Shields, Counterspells and the Teleports, and there's a chance that you and your martial buddies can do the rest. Eventually. But it's you nomming on him as hard as you can that turns this into a reasonable fight for other martials. They can nova away, you just give the advantage for all (and 33 odd pts of damage per turn, maybe more).

"9/10 heirophants agree that Lichy Bites (tm) are the best for every growing T-Rex!"

[Finback]

Turn into a Gigantasaurus after the raptors are gone. It is a CR 10 beast with 217 hp, and can swallow Large or smaller creatures. I haven't looked at the stat page

Source? There's no official Giganotosaurus published.

[sambojin]

Mosasaurus? It's big and has a swallow attack.
Titanosaurus? It's big, and doesn't....
Hmmmm....

Acererack wouldn't even be blinded by RAW inside a Mosasaurus' gut, though admittedly, the things he could see would be limited. He would be restrained though. And slightly acidified while he necro-nuked everyone in a radius. Until he got vomited out, prone, so you could all start face-punching him.

You'd really think stuff like that would *specifically* call for a Con save or check, a fairly hard one, to see if he can cast spells etc, but nope. It's DM decides, with the example given of "maybe a DC10 Con check would do, maybe, if you think that happening to someone would possibly impede spellcasting?". Because being nommed on by a Tyrannosaur with that level of grapple/restrain, or being swallowed and digested by a Mosasaur, doesn't really disrupt a caster's concentration that much, or their ability to do the somatic movements for their spell. Apparently. *Wizards* of the Coast ruleset, indeed......

Would probably give it a DC-of-Restrain test myself, even vs PCs, because restrain is an extra level up from grappled. Anyone can put the grappled condition on, fairly hard in some cases, but restrained is a totally different level of "you are now f'd" on the effects it has.

[sithlordnergal]

Source? There's no official Giganotosaurus published.

It is a special beast found in this series of adventures https://www.dmsguild.com/product/225137/Encounters-in-the-Jungles-of-Chult

The source is considered AL legal, as is the Giganotosaurus, meaning you can polymorph into it once you reach level 10

[Malifice]

Source? There's no official Giganotosaurus published.

Hello fellow WA-ian. Perth here also.

If you're looking for a game hit me up.

[Keravath]

How this fight goes depends a lot on the party composition, their levels and abilities, how the DM plays Acerak and several other factors.

The big problem you are having is that you are sneaking a peak at the end but there are a number of plot elements/events/choices that may aid the players in the fight.

The group I was playing with finished this a few weeks ago and in the end Acerak was dead in two rounds but that involved a bit of luck on some dice rolls and the fact that we had a group that was a bit higher level by the end (levels 10-12) and had a good group composition that was decent for dealing with Acerak. (On the other hand, the DM beefed up the preceding fight against the Atropal and the SoulMonger).

The problem is that the plot elements that can help in the final fight occur before you enter the tomb and throughout the tomb. I'll also add that I didn't notice anyone in the thread mentioning them.

Finally, despite my group's fairly quick defeat of Acerak, it can be a challenging fight if you don't get the die rolls or some of the plot devices are missed or excluded by the DM.

[Merudo]

It is a special beast found in this series of adventures https://www.dmsguild.com/product/225137/Encounters-in-the-Jungles-of-Chult

The source is considered AL legal, as is the Giganotosaurus, meaning you can polymorph into it once you reach level 10

It's also in BotJR (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/220567/Beasts-of-the-Jungle-Rot), among with 11 other dinosaurs.

I cover the form in the "Polymorph" section of my guide.

[KorvinStarmast]

Our level 4 party of four people found Omu.
Our DM cleverly figured out a way to incentivize the party to not try and finish / pursue the adventure at that level.

[Keravath]

Our level 4 party of four people found Omu.
Our DM cleverly figured out a way to incentivize the party to not try and finish / pursue the adventure at that level.

VERY good idea :) ... though since finding the place is pretty much up to how the DM runs the adventure ... I'm not sure why he let you find it so early in the first place.

[Menji]

Not going to work the way you want it to.
*all* spells, unless they explicitly say so, require you to see the target. (PHB, 204, a clear path to the target).


That's not what it says. It says "To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can't be behind total cover."

Heavy obscurement is not cover, and does not preclude having a clear path.

...which is why a great many spells/effects *do* explicitly require targeting of "a creature you can see".

[Hairfish]

That's not what it says. It says "To target something, you must have a clear path to it, so it can't be behind total cover."

Heavy obscurement is not cover, and does not preclude having a clear path.

...which is why a great many spells/effects *do* explicitly require targeting of "a creature you can see".

{Scrubbed}

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: I have a tip: check the date before posting on older threads.