[3.5E] New Revision Spotlight - Mummy and Mummy Lord

It would be helpful for creatures like the Mummy Lord that have a list of posessions if they give a pre-calculated gp value (saves people that calculation if you want to come up with a different, but equivalent, list)
 

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Felon:

Whats not to understand is that there is NO glass jaw for undead. How many spells can you think of affect both living things and objects that have a fort save? Not to mention, the mummy lord has Spell Immunity as one of its commonly memorized spells. I think the Mummy Lord would realize that one of the few spells that could potentially cause a fort save is Disintegrate, and if its immune to that, what is it worried about really?

I mean, the regular mummy has Toughness as a feat. The mummy lord doesnt. In the same way, I think its silly for the mummy lord to have Great Fortitude (although, if you think about it, its really silly for both of them to have Great Fortitude, as a lower level party probably wont have anything that will cause a Fort Save anyway). Its not a major gripe, but it saddens me a little to see poorly built monsters (or rather, monsters built more poorly than they should be built).

I have issues with Combat Casting as well, but at least there its more reasonable.

As far as why he is both Fire Vulnerable and Fire Resistant? His equipment inlcudes a Ring of Minor Elemental Resistance (Fire).

And 12-32? 2d12+10 is pretty close, but its actually 12-34.


MerricB:

Thanks for calculating the Mummy's skill points, got any ideas for the Mummy Lord? I'm just wondering where all that listen and spot came from, I don't think its cleric levels.

Technik
 


Technik4 said:
Felon: Whats not to understand is that there is NO glass jaw for undead. How many spells can you think of affect both living things and objects that have a fort save? Not to mention, the mummy lord has Spell Immunity as one of its commonly memorized spells. I think the Mummy Lord would realize that one of the few spells that could potentially cause a fort save is Disintegrate, and if its immune to that, what is it worried about really?

You're making a couple of significant mistakes in reasoning here.
The major one being that you think spell immunity will protect against Disintegrate, which it won't since Disintegrate is not 4th-level or lower. The other big one is that you're trying to say off the top of your head "what spells affect objects that he has to worry about?" Well, first off, it is erroneous attempt to catalog a list of PHB spells that will affect the mummy and treat that as all-inclusive.

Rather, given D&D's flexible and modular nature, you would have to try to catalog every spell from every source that is allowed in any campaign that a mummy appear in and then decide if a bad Fort. save equals a glass jaw. Then, after that, take into account the fact that, contrary to what you've implied, saving throws are not exclusively related to spells, but can rather result from a number of threats (e.g. the aforementioned Mace of Disruption). Only after you've done all that will you have a complete picture.

I mean, the regular mummy has Toughness as a feat. The mummy lord doesnt. In the same way, I think its silly for the mummy lord to have Great Fortitude (although, if you think about it, its really silly for both of them to have Great Fortitude, as a lower level party probably wont have anything that will cause a Fort Save anyway). Its not a major gripe, but it saddens me a little to see poorly built monsters (or rather, monsters built more poorly than they should be built).

Technik, you are continuing to make sweeping assumptions, and then blaming the designers for not doing the same. It's not poorly-built. It would be poorly-built if the designers just assumed that a mummy will simply never need to make a Fort. save and then have it crumble when a player employs some unaccounted-for spell, magic item, prestige-class ability, etc. They've made a prudent move to cover their bets by having the mummy use one of its feats to give it a chance at making one.

Also, why assume that only lower-level parties will encounter mummies? Because a single one wouldn't pose much of a threat? How about a mummy lord with 4 mummies serving as lackeys? That would be a nice little challenge for a mid-level party, IMHO.

As far as why he is both Fire Vulnerable and Fire Resistant? His equipment inlcudes a Ring of Minor Elemental Resistance (Fire).

Ah, didn't spot that. Thanks for that catch.

And 12-32? 2d12+10 is pretty close, but its actually 12-34.

4d6+8 is what I came up with, but who knows? Pick a number, any number. :)
 
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Hypersmurf said:
Just like the Pit Fiend - no CR.

Has there been any suggestion they're scrapping the CR system?
-Hyp.
The're not. The CRs on the Pit Fiend were unfinshed at the time (Ed Stark said this at one point, mabye the raido interview). It's most likely either still being decided or just an incomplete stat block.
 

Thanks for the tip about spell immunity (although it doesnt invalidate my argument).

I've played quite a bit of 3e since it came out, and I feel I have a good handle on the rules. I just looked up the Undead type entry from the MM, it goes through a laundry list of mostly fortitude induced things with a healthy bit of will induced things that don't affect undead. Here's an important line:

"They (Undead) have no constitution scores and are therefore immune to any effect requiring a Fortitude save (unless it affects objects)."

Ok, we've found 2: the Disruption weapon enhancement which is priced at +2 meaning minimum +3 weapon. And Disintegrate, a 6th level spell. Now, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that if we combed our books we might be able to find 2-3 more, but if you compare that to the number of insta-burn, boom, zap spells (which generally require a reflex save - the mummy's worse save) the kapows have it.

So if they really wanted to shore up some weaknesses, they could have given lightning reflexes. As it stands, I consider any undead creature with great fortitude poorly designed (or at least, partially poorly designed). I will also say that I have not seen the entirety of 3.5, perhaps things are not as they were in 3.0 and Great Fortitude makes perfect sense.

Also concerning d&d's modular nature: you're correct that its difficult to come up for a way to prevent PCs from just walking over your monster with some obscure prc power or item, but if you haven't covered the bases with things like fireball, I wouldn't worry about it that much.

The mummy lord has a really terrible mummy rot DC for its potential CR (old mummy was CR 5, mummy lord has 10 cleric levels, so lets say 15ish, or at least 12th level PCs) it may as well say "Every round the Mummy Lord makes its 1 attack against an enemy, that enemy must roll a d20 and not roll a 1, or else it has been diseased with Mummy Rot."

IMO

Technik
 

In Tome and Blood there are eight more spells that would require a fortitude save, even against undead, and all are 4th level or lower.
 

Technik4 said:
So if they really wanted to shore up some weaknesses, they could have given lightning reflexes. As it stands, I consider any undead creature with great fortitude poorly designed (or at least, partially poorly designed).

Here's a thought: maybe they were going with the traditional view of the mummy, staggering and lumbering around, and said, "Gee, we can't really justify putting lightning reflexes on this thing!"

Concept is a part of monster design as much as (and should me more than) minmaxing.

J
 

I give up. I guess every undead monster must have great fortitude. That must be why theyre already immune to most fortitude effects.

Meanwhile the concept of a mummy lord with a rather terrible chance to inflict its namesake disease, well it would just be too much powergaming if that was a decent DC.

Maybe I'm just tired,

Technik
 

OK, what else do we see?

Climate/Terrain is now called Environment. Pretty minor, but could have some use in noting the home plane for outsiders and other extraplanars.

CR and alignment are missing from the writeup. Since we know that both concepts will remain, it begs the question, why are these entries missing?

There is no mention of the domain granted powers, though that might be an oversight.

Attack and Full Attack lines are both given, even though that is redundant in this case.
 

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