D&D 5E Bag of Beans killed 2 PCs, solo bosses suck, and where to go from here....

[jgsugden]

If you follow the recommendations in the DMG, a party of 5 PCs of 5th level will have only a handful of uncommon magic items. As others have theorized, the PCs may be a bit on the overpowered side of things. While any group can get real lucky rolls against most foes and manage to survive, it would surprise me if any 5th level party I've DMed against would survive terribly long against a Mummy Lord, even if it did not have Lair actions.

Putting that aside - I would come up with a backstory for that Mummy and then have them pursue the goals they had in life. That would likely take them across the globe to return to a place where they once lived/existed and trying to reclaim their seat of power. They might go there and fall to new heroes of that realm, might conquer it, etc... all possibilities open up interesting story questions (if a LG Paladin killed the Mummy Lord and claimed the near artifact weapon to use in their Righteous Cause ...)

 

[Mort]

As others have said, a Mummy Lord is a bit of an outlier (as a seriously glass cannon). Heck a 5th level sorcerer who wins initiative and gets lucky on damage rolls (or crits) can take the mummy lord out himself! Solos (despite the name) need support from minions, or a lair, or some seriously good legendary actions (which the mummy lord has - if he gets to use them).

As for what happens next?

1. The mummy lord raises the 2 dead party members as minions (he seriously needs the support);
2. He solidifies his lair to make getting to him not so easy;
3. Including getting some more baddies to soften up potential interlopers;
4. He decides on an agenda and pursues it (or maybe he had an agenda and just shifts it to the new location).

Lots of fun ways to go!

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Solos (despite the name) need support from minions, or a lair, or some seriously good legendary actions (which the mummy lord has - if he gets to use them).

Maybe this is why they are NOT called "Solo" in 5e. They are called "Legendary". The misnomer was used in 4e though.

 

[GMMichael]

Last session, Player remembered several real-life months ago they obtained a mysterious bag and got it identified it as a bag of beans. So, of course they had to plant it. We're in a fey-heavy, dark fairy-tale heavy, campaign. The magical beanstalk is well known. This party of 5 5th level characters unfortunately planted a CR16 mummy lord.

Player remembered, in real-life time, that she identified a bag of beans. Um, congrats?

Mummy has her body and the weapon. PC#2 had pre-determined on death his warlock patron snatches him away, no rez possible.

The funny thing about gawd weapons - in the hands of their hated minions, they transport those minions directly to the gawd for the appropriate lashing/burning/what-have-you. This will make the mummy lord particularly vengeful, who will return to seek revenge on the PCs at its earliest (and most DM convenient) opportunity.

So, ideas where my poor Mummy Lord goes and does? I really wasn't expecting this...

If it doesn't immediately teleport, it could also limp off in the direction of the nearest Undead-Hating-Gawd shrine. There, it can stab the altar with its relic-weapon, and thus summon the gawd that hates it so much. A pretty epic confrontation ensues, and the fallout clears up some of the other regional issues. The mummy lord can just limp off like that, because it's CR 16, and it eats level 5 PCs for breakfast.

Just wait until the Gods find out about this...

 

[toucanbuzz]

I'm kind of curious how much a "powerful artifact weapon" in the hands of a 5th level party contributed to their ability to almost defeat a CR 16 opponent.

It's a "legacy" weapon from 3rd edition style, gets powers as the PC increases in levels and completes rituals. The PC had recently unlocked the weapon to +1. So, able to bypass the mummy lord's damage resistance, in the hands of a paladin with smites.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Honestly, before complaining about the CR values of monsters, you should be checking the actual power level of your PCs. The fact that, at 5th level, they already have "powerful artifact weapon made in part by the gawd of the dead" makes me suppose that they are all optimised, using all options like feats and possibly multiclassing. Is that the case ?

I replied to an earlier thread, perhaps should have toned that down to "powerful" in the hands of a high level character, and less powerful in the hands of a lower level character. At the time, it was a +1 weapon that could cast gentle repose and had some gorgeous artwork. The group is not optimized at all and tend to play what makes a good story.

Moreover, the mummy lord is a very well known case of a delicate monster, because of its vulnerability to fire. So if the PCs know about it and exploit it, it makes the monster much weaker. Was it the case ? Did your PCs use fire ? Was there any reason these 5th level character would know that fire would be effective against that monster ?

My gamers are good about playing dumb, but only one had fire anyways and he went down quick.

Try that with another CR 15 monsters like a green abishai (187 hp and many resistances, no vulnerability and a DC 17 confusion) or any of the CR 15 dragons (flying, breath, etc.) and you will not get the same result at all.

Very true, the mummy lord is very vulnerable with 97 hp. It's an unusually weak CR15/16 foe if faced solo.

 

[Blue]

So if there is something to be learned here, is that you have to be careful in designing encounters. 5e is not 4e which was designed with restrictions but with balance in mind. 5e's objective is NOT to be balanced, for once, so if you introduce further imbalance, you will get very swingy situations, and it's not really fair to say that the design sucks, when the problem is the unbalanced way you are using it, not even correcting for the imbalances that you are introducing (overly powerful PCs for their levels but therefore weak defensively, imbalanced monsters).

The Mummy Lord was the random result of a Bag of Beans. It's really confusing about what you're adding to this, as he's asking for ideas about how to integrate plots from the player-agency-created Mummy Lord into his game, and instead this was all just a criticism about picking a monster (which he didn't do).

 

[BookTenTiger]

The Mummy Lord was the random result of a Bag of Beans. It's really confusing about what you're adding to this, as he's asking for ideas about how to integrate plots from the player-agency-created Mummy Lord into his game, and instead this was all just a criticism about picking a monster (which he didn't do).

I love the idea of a future group of adventurers seeking out the destruction of the Mummy Lord. There's been decades of mystery surrounding its creation. Where did it come from? An ancient curse? A corrupted cleric? Dwarves mining too deep?

Then they discover the Mummy Lord's secret origin... a Bag of Beans!

 

[toucanbuzz]

Question: what are the other three characters doing and do they have enough left in the tank to maybe finish this mummy off before it has a chance to recover and get its bearings?

Getting the heck out of dodge. Two stumbled out of an insect plague when it was clear things were going south. They would've been dead in one more hit. The third, a player who had just rolled up a cleric after his last character died, was down and dying. He used a stronghold power (Colville's product, after building a temple to the faith can roll for a chance to briefly gain a blessing or curse, and with a really high roll, summon briefly a servant of the gawd, chances increase when doing great deeds for the religion and decrease when using this power or going against ethos). Player rolled really high, against the odds, and summoned a servant briefly that carried him to safety. There's a cool factor that I liked quite a bit. They've been though quite a bit to get this temple and their barony up and going, and to actually, for the first time, see something awesome come from it, makes it worth the months of gaming.

I should add that many sessions ago they came across an elemental gem (water) and smashed it during the battle. However, the user lost Concentration and the elemental went rogue. The retreat began soon after, and the rampaging elemental bought them a good round to run since it was already engaged.

Had the players stayed, they might have taken the mummy down and then likely died to the elemental. It was a no win.

 

[Blue]

A lot of old modules you would find an anti-X weapon in the horde of X, either because they sought ti out to remove it, or because someone came after them with it. The Mummy might collect minions (undead, evil fey, etc) just to stop it from falling into the hands of those who might wield it.

As a side note, I would raise the body of the warlock as well - but it's just a simple grunt since it's soul has been taken. Just to add to the horror (or pleasure of closure) when the party needs to deal with them again.

Remember the Mummy Lord is not omniscient - it will need to learn it's in the feywild, etc. It's more likely that enemies of the party would find out about it first and approach it, especially as it has already dealt with two of them.