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View Full Version : Salt Mummy: not as good as you think



jiriku
2010-02-27, 12:37 PM
So, can someone confirm this for me, the salt mummy (Sandstorm p.94) doesn't gain either the despair or mummy rot of the standard mummy?

I was surprised not to see them in the stat block, and thought at first that it must be an accidental omission, since the abilities are so iconic and the salt mummy's CR is also much higher than a standard mummy. On the other hand, the salt mummy has more HD and a couple of strong special abilities of its own, and despair and mummy rot are both rather subject to exploitation if attached to a player-creatable monster.

Greenish
2010-02-27, 12:43 PM
Just finished reading the "Gaming Chow" thread when I noticed the title on this one. My first thought was that you're saying that salt mummies don't taste as good as normal ones… :smallamused:

Hand_of_Vecna
2010-02-27, 12:57 PM
I don't think it gets them. I don't see why you'd miss them so much. Sure fear is cool but it's DC 16 how much were you going to bump it to make it viable? Or do you intend to use them against masses of low level troops if so just put a symbol of fear or better yet insanity on it's forehead.

Mummy rot has an incubation time of a minute so it's not viable in combat and in a broader scale it just forces a cleric to spend spells or debuffs a cr 2-5 tank that was unlucky/lucky enough to get hit by a mummy but wasn't hit again before the mummy was destroyed. I say this because a weaker tank would be killed by the average 13.5 damage a mummy does and a stronger one would pretty much always make his fort save.

Side note why does the mummy lord get cleric hd instead of undead hd like other undead with class levels?

Volkov
2010-02-27, 01:36 PM
If mummy rot's incubation time was instantaneous, it'd be a big killer, but it's not. So you don't need it.

Akal Saris
2010-02-27, 01:45 PM
The Salt Mummy section seems to have been a bit sloppy with the editing anyhow - there's no mention of whether you simply create them with a free ritual (the ability is (Su) after all, unlike the (Ex) ability to craft Sand Golems), or if you create them in place of mummies with create greater undead.

Especially considering that a Cleric 3/Walker in the Waste 8 gets the ability at 11th, but would have to wait until 15th before it could cast create undead. The fluff seems to indicate that it's a separate ability from create undead ("Invested with the dark powers of the waste, you are able to preserve and animate a corpse."), but it doesn't seem well explained.

jiriku
2010-02-27, 01:57 PM
I don't think it gets them. I don't see why you'd miss them so much. Sure fear is cool but it's DC 16 how much were you going to bump it to make it viable? Or do you intend to use them against masses of low level troops if so just put a symbol of fear or better yet insanity on it's forehead.

Actually this is for a DM special. The salt mummy is going to get 13 levels of druid and the swarm-shifter template. Originally I'd built him using a standard mummy as the base platform, but his consort is a dry lich and she's the one who animated him, so a salt mummy seemed more thematically appropriate.

Despair and mummy rot are both pretty effective against players once you advance the base creature to pump the DC, but since despair forces players to not play and mummy rot is permadeath without the proper spells prepared, I suppose it's kinder to my players to use the salt mummy instead. Plus, the salt mummy is much more durable.

There is a lot about the walker in the waste that's poorly explained. It feels like a class that was the victim of editing for space concerns.


Side note why does the mummy lord get cleric hd instead of undead hd like other undead with class levels?

Probably because the mummy in the MMI advances by hit dice, not by level. Since the monster was not intended to advance by level, there's no note specifying that all hit dice should be converted to d12's.

The_Snark
2010-02-27, 03:54 PM
Probably because the mummy in the MMI advances by hit dice, not by level. Since the monster was not intended to advance by level, there's no note specifying that all hit dice should be converted to d12's.

Indeed. Converting all HD to d12s is not actually an intrinsic property of the undead type; it's just that all undead templates (that I know of) specify that you should. Most playable undead with HD don't bother to talk about what happens when they gain class levels, which technically means that you shouldn't convert their class HD to d12s, I suppose...

Lochar
2010-02-27, 04:05 PM
Some of them say all current and future HD to d12's. I guess if it just says current HD, then future wouldn't.

Bah, it's a case of inconsistent template typing.

Runestar
2010-02-27, 07:09 PM
Some of them say all current and future HD to d12's. I guess if it just says current HD, then future wouldn't.

Bah, it's a case of inconsistent template typing.

Typically, only undead templates which explicitly state your future HD are improved to d12s confer this benefit, such as the vampire and lich. Some templates don't actually, like the dracolich template (so a dragonwrought dracolich kobold warrior 4 still rolls 4d8 for hp, not 4d12.

As shown by the mummy lord entry, undead creatures do not automatically increase class HD to d12s. So a ghoul wizard3 would roll 2d12+3d4 for hp, not 5d12. :smallsmile:

krossbow
2010-02-27, 11:07 PM
Just finished reading the "Gaming Chow" thread when I noticed the title on this one. My first thought was that you're saying that salt mummies don't taste as good as normal ones… :smallamused:



well, not on their OWN of course; you need a salt mummy grinder to break them up over your spider meat. Every gourmet adventurer knows that!

Hand_of_Vecna
2010-02-28, 02:43 AM
I stand by my origional downplaying of the standard muumy's abilities a 13th lvl druid can do better.

chiasaur11
2010-02-28, 11:30 AM
Just finished reading the "Gaming Chow" thread when I noticed the title on this one. My first thought was that you're saying that salt mummies don't taste as good as normal ones… :smallamused:

Which would be odd, given how delicious salt is.

krossbow
2010-02-28, 05:23 PM
I stand by my origional downplaying of the standard muumy's abilities a 13th lvl druid can do better.



Lets be honest here; there's very few equal CR monsters that a druid couldn't do better than.

chiasaur11
2010-02-28, 05:35 PM
Lets be honest here; there's very few equal CR monsters that a druid couldn't do better than.

And if the druid somehow can't do better, well there's usually something unusually broken even by 3.5 standards.