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

[The Sigil]

You'd think by now it would've occurred to the boys at D&D to just tell us what dice to roll, rather than give us a little algebra problem to stop and figure out. For the mummy, it's simple to figure out, but not so for some other monsters. For instance, I was looking at the Ulgurstasta in the Fiend Folio today. It's accompanied by "12-32 skeletons". Maybe it's just my math skills that are lacking; is it supposed to be immediately obvious what the dice arrangement there is?

4d6+8 - Doesn't everyone intuitively do math like that? LOL

Seriously, you look at the high and low numbers...

12...32
Divide by 2
6...16
Divide by 2 again
3...8
Subtract 2
1...6

So I know the base is 1d6
1d6 +2 gives 3-8
4*(1d6+2) gives 12-32.

Alternatively, I suppose you could go for 2d4+2d8+8

I agree though - die ranges would probably be better.

--The Sigil

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

I've complained about this disparity in undead hit dice quite often now, so I'm going to pipe up here.

So far we have a slightly inconsistent view of undead and hit dice. The way it appears to break down is that, whenever you have an undead creature made as a result of a template, all hit dice, past, present, and future, are converted to d12's. An undead creature that is just a creature and not a template, such as the mummy, has d12's for natural hit dice, and uses class hit dice with added levels.



In this case, since Lich is a template, any hit dice the creature gains, cleric or whatever, are d12's.



Yes, in Dragon issue 300 and again in Savage Species.

It's important to note that neither Savage Species nor any other product ever explicitly state any particular rule about undead and hit dice. Rather, Savage Species lists templates that convert every hit die a creature has from any source, past and future. Not-so-coincidentally, every such template it lists there are undead, and no undead templates are in the lists of templates that don't change class hit dice.

However, other places in the book (such as the example creature for the Emancipated Spawn PrC), a non-template undead is shown as gaining normal class hit dice when taking levels.

Were someone to make Mummy Lord into a template (such as the Greater Mummy in the Ravenloft 3E campaign book), it would then convert all past and future hit dice into d12's.



In this instance, your frustration is understandable, since we're working with no clearly-stated rule here...just what has since been uncovered, with no reason being offered. This wouldn't be so bad if they only gave us a reason, and an in-game view for how this works.

Thanks for all the replies, but none of it makes sense.
So undead templates change HD into d12's, but an undead just gaining class lvls keep the class HD? That's just stupid!

Undead have d12 to compensate for their lack of a con score. Seems to me then, that CR shouldn't increase by 1 for each class lvl then, when they can't get the con benefit, but at the same time don't have a d12.

This is so inconsistent, it makes me want to scream! I REALLY hope that WotC get their s**t together and start applying a little logic to some of their rules

(rant over - sorry)

 

[Alzrius]

Thanks for all the replies, but none of it makes sense.

You're telling me.

So undead templates change HD into d12's, but an undead just gaining class lvls keep the class HD? That's just stupid!

Just to be clear, undeath via template means all class levels you gain in the future, as well as the ones you already had, are d12's. If you're an undead thing just as listed (that is, not due to a template), then yes, its normal class HD.

That does sound rather odd, doesn't it?

Undead have d12 to compensate for their lack of a con score. Seems to me then, that CR shouldn't increase by 1 for each class lvl then, when they can't get the con benefit, but at the same time don't have a d12.

I wouldn't go that far...other living creatures gain +1 CR when they gain a class level. Admittedly, they have Con bonuses also, but undead creatures also have lots of other abilities and immunities that living beings don't have.

This is so inconsistent, it makes me want to scream! I REALLY hope that WotC get their s**t together and start applying a little logic to some of their rules

This part I basically agree with. I'm hoping in 3.5E WotC will finally have it go either one way or the other for all undead, template and non.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

I wouldn't go that far...other living creatures gain +1 CR when they gain a class level. Admittedly, they have Con bonuses also, but undead creatures also have lots of other abilities and immunities that living beings don't have.

Ah yes, but those abilities have already been figured into the undead's CR before class lvls, right

I may seem a little hot-headed in my attacks on WotC, but they have always messed up HD's from templates (the Half-Dragon being the prime example [can anyone say Bastion of Broken Souls]) and this just add to it. I know it's not specifically templates we're discussing here, but I did expect the kind folks at Wizards to get some consistency worked in with 3.5. Wasn't that one of the whole points of the revision?

d12 for ALL undead, I say!

Edit: spellcheck

 

[Alzrius]

I know it's not specifically templates we're discussing here, but I did expect the kind folks at Wizards to get some consistency worked in with 3.5. Wasn't that one of the whole points of the revision?

d12 for ALL undead, I say!

And they might still. Even on that article for the Mummy, it was specifically noted that nothing is finished yet. We may very well see this undead hit dice disparity get resolved...I hope...

The only thing I can think of here for the reasoning is that it goes into how they were built: when an undead template is applied to a creature, the creature takes a hit in hit points due to losing Con, making it weaker than it would normally be, so all hit dice are changed to d12's. A non-template undead creature, conversely, already has mitigating factors for no Con bonus, so it doesn't need future hit dice converted.

That said, I'd still prefer it if, at the very least, they just spelled all this out clearly for us instead of making us dig for it ourselves. I still hold out hope 3.5E will be better in this whole regard (for undead hit dice and all).

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

And they might still. Even on that article for the Mummy, it was specifically noted that nothing is finished yet. We may very well see this undead hit dice disparity get resolved...I hope...

I know....it's just that...well, ....ah.
It bothers me that they publish this as an example, and IMO haven't fixed one of the more fundamental issues players have been discussing and arguing 'bout for years.

No matter if this is not the 'final form'. There are hundreds of other critters they could've given a sneak peek at - the mummy must be some sort of indicator of how things are going to be, otherwise why show it off?

But yes, fingers crossed, and hope for the best

 

[Merlion]

The part that interests me most is the whole symbol of pain as a 5th level spell thing. I wonder what levels the others wil be?

 

[MerricB]

Further thoughts on Mummy Lord Inconsistencies

Armour Class: Why is it getting a +1 Dex modifier when it's wearing half plate (Max Dex modifier +0)?

Skills:
Skill points are calculated as follows, AFAIK:
Mummy portion = (4 - 1 Int) * (8 HD + 3) = 33
Cleric portion = (2 - 1 Int) * (10 HD) = 10
Total skill points: 43.

Skill ranks are as follows:
Concentration +8 = 8 ranks
Knowledge (religion) +4 = 5 ranks - 1 Int
Listen +18 = 11 ranks + 5 Wis + 2 alertness
Move Silently +5 = 10 ranks +1 Dex - 6 armour
Spot +18 = 11 ranks + 5 Wis + 2 alertness

That's a total of 45 ranks (8+5+11+10+11),

Half-Plate: +7 armor bonus, +0 Max Dex; -7 check penalty.

+2 Half-Plate: +8 armor bonus, +0 Max Dex; -6 check penalty.

Hmm... it occurs to me that if the enhancement bonus to the armour reduced the check penalty by a similar amount, the numbers would add up - and if they also increased the Max Dex likewise...?

So, possibly:
+2 Half-Plate: +8 armor bonus, +2 Max Dex; -5 check penalty.

That'd make sense with the Mummy Lord's statistics.

Any comments, guys?

Cheers!

 

[seankreynolds]

Here are my concerns about the revised mummy.

1. The hit dice have gone up. That means that any existing adventures that say "The evil high priest has two bodyguard mummies (42 hp)" are suddenly dealing with a much more powerful encounter. This means the revision isn't as compatible with 3.5 as we're told.

2. If the hit dice go up, the CR should probably go up. If the CR goes up, it means all mummy-based ELs go up as well, which throws existing material out of whack (and could easily kill parties appropriate for the old challenges but not the new ones).

3. If the CR _doesn't_ go up, it makes the cleric's turning even less effective than it is now. For example, a 3.0 mummy has 6 HD and is CR 3, which means the 3rd-level cleric in the party has to roll--assuming no bonuses--a 19 to turn the mummy (which gives a result of "cleric's level +3"). With this revised mummy, if the CR doesn't change, the clr3 has _no_ chance to turn the mummy because the best result he can get is "cleric's level +4" ... which is less than the mummy's 8 HD. Already turning is a non-option at higher levels (since the undead's HD increase faster than the CR of the undead), this just makes it happen sooner.

4. (Not so much a concern as a mild complaint.) While I can see the merits of showing what a with-class-levels version of a monster looks like, the game rules already show you how to do this so it's not like this is anything innovative ... nothing a DM couldn't already do. IMO it would have been better to present additional abilities for advancing it as a monster, or perhaps a template.

5. These changes to monsters require playtesting to check their power level and determine if the CRs change (we already know that monsters are going to have their skill & feat progression changed from 3.0, which means that even monsters that aren't changed as much as the mummy will require playtesting). Yet we were told that the proposed revised metamagic rules were dropped and the current rules left in because there wasn't enough time to playtest them adequately (the concern was that the new system was too powerful). So that means there _is_ time to playtest 300+ monsters, but not time to playtest 9 metamagic feats, which doesn't make sense ... and concerns me.

 

[Drakron]

Yes ...

This certainly throws a lot of things in published adventures strait out ... some creatures that were a beatable challange will be cleaning the floor with the party.

Also we were told that the revision was just cleaning the rules and make a few adjustments ... what we are seeing appears to be a complete rework of the rules, they leave almost nothing untouched.

Whatever is good or not is beside the point, the point is that we have several books that need to be updated (BoVD, MM2, MotP,D&DG,EHB) and WotC says nothing about those books.

Even if a web feature would help, the truth is that many gamers dont have access to the web even in the unlikely event that they would release those convertions on their web site and as such they now own very expensive toilet paper (of course they could not convert but then again, that means no futher rule support from books).

I am still hoping that someone in WotC gains some sense and stops this from moving into "3.5 - new edition" but somehow I doubt it, WotC was a company ... now its just part of a corparation and only thing that corporations see is profit, we are just another milk cow for Hasbro.

Profits before morals and respect ....