Mummy Lords and CR

[Trask]

My party found some magic beans some sessions ago and planted them now. One of the results they got on the table was the mummy pyramid which has a mummy lord inside. My players are level 6 but they decided to go in, allured by the mountains of gold I described within. They did battle with the Mummy Lord, the beginning was bad for them with the rogue/warlock getting reduced to 1 in the first round by Harm. They put up a good fight but their lack of ranged magic and the Mummy's very annoying ability to just whirlwind away all the time really put a strain on their ability to do any damage. But it was very close, and by the end the druid player almost beat it with it coming down to a made or failed save whether the Mummy Lord would go down.

It was a tense, albeit frustrating battle for the players and there was a TPK, but they went in of their own volition so they didnt get too upset. I didnt really have a problem with the way things panned out, if the Mummy Lord died then he died and thats just the way the cookie crumbled. Of course he didnt die but thats just the way it crumbled as well.

My real shock, and the reason I'm making this post, is how completely wack CR is in this game.

Up to this point I've understood its not exactly reliable and I've used a hefty amount of my own judgment. But here was a CR 15 monster that wasnt ambushed, wasnt trapped, wasnt caught at low hp. Full health, full spells CR 15 Mummy Lord and it was a hairs breadth away from defeat at the hands of four level 6 characters. That is just insane, just how unbalanced is the CR is in this game? If four level 6 characters can put the hurt on a CR 15 mummy lord to the absolute razors edge of killing him, how is it a good measure of anything? Is this just a freak incident where the monster is severely underpowered or is it really that messed up? A level 15 party would MOP. THE. FLOOR. with this thing.

What gives?

EDIT: Party was all level 6, dwarf moon druid, elf shadow monk, elf ranger, kenku rogue/warlock

[Asmotherion]

My found some magic beans some sessions ago and planted them now. One of the results they got on the table was the mummy pyramid which has a mummy lord inside. My players are level 6 but they decided to go in, allured by the mountains of gold I described within. They did battle with the Mummy Lord, the beginning was bad for them with the rogue/warlock getting reduced to 1 in the first round by Harm. They put up a good fight but their lack of ranged magic and the Mummy's very annoying ability to just whirlwind away all the time really put a strain on their ability to do any damage. But it was very close, and by the end the druid player almost beat it with it coming down to a made or failed save whether the Mummy Lord would go down.

It was a tense, albeit frustrating battle for the players and there was a TPK, but they went in of their own volition so they didnt get too upset. I didnt really have a problem with the way things panned out, if the Mummy Lord died then he died and thats just the way the cookie crumbled. Of course he didnt die but thats just the way it crumbled as well.

My real shock, and the reason I'm making this post, is how completely wack CR is in this game.

Up to this point I've understood its not exactly reliable and I've used a hefty amount of my own judgment. But here was a CR 15 monster that wasnt ambushed, wasnt trapped, wasnt caught at low hp. Full health, full spells CR 15 Mummy Lord and it was a hairs breadth away from defeat at the hands of four level 6 characters. That is just insane, just how unbalanced is the CR is in this game? If four level 6 characters can put the hurt on a CR 15 mummy lord to the absolute razors edge of killing him, how is it a good measure of anything? Is this just a freak incident where the monster is severely underpowered or is it really that messed up? A level 15 party would MOP. THE. FLOOR. with this thing.

What gives?

You probably underplayed the Mummy Lord's abilities in order to give the players a chance to survive (there is nothing wrong with that, I'm just mentioning it... It's only logical that he may have underestimated them and not fought them to his full potential), consiously or not.

4 level 6 characters would need only fail a Blasphemous World/Dreadful Glare/Hold Person and then a single rotting fist from the Mummy Lord is enough to devastate their HP. He has a base AC of 17, 19 when using Shielf of Faith, and is immune to a lot of damage types; his vulnerability to fire is something that I would consider metagame if used without being either the default attack pattern of a character (a spellcaster using firebolt as his usual cantrip for example) or after a succesfull Knowlage Religion/Arcana check.

Silence can also lock other spellcasters out of their spells, effectivelly giving the mummy Lord an unfair advantage due to his innate (aka non Verbal) magic such as Rotting Fist/Dreadful Glare/Blinding Dust/Channel Negative Energy and Whirlwind of Sand.

At the same time, if non-casters don't have access to magical weapons (and casters can't cast), the Mummy lord is immune to all dammage since he is immune to non-magical piercing/slashing/bludgeoning damage. This leaves the only way to damage him being improvised (thus, no profficiency bonus) attacks with torches, and with a 17 AC it's not easy to hit someone without a proficiency bonus. Finally, the attack would still do minimal damage, as it's an improvised weapon, dealing 1 fire damage + str mod bludgeoning damage, the latter of wich is mittigated due to imunity.

PS: Obviously, there exist non-verbal spells, or spells that could have a duration that continues, or a sorcerer could cast with Metamagic... There are ways around it. I'm just justifying/explaining how a Mummy Lord played at his True Full Potential can be a very big threat for a party, and is worth his CR, if not more.

[Trask]

You probably underplayed the Mummy Lord's abilities in order to give the players a chance to survive (there is nothing wrong with that, I'm just mentioning it... It's only logical that he may have underestimated them and not fought them to his full potential), consiously or not.

4 level 6 characters would need only fail a Blasphemous World/Dreadful Glare/Hold Person and then a single rotting fist from the Mummy Lord is enough to devastate their HP. He has a base AC of 17, 19 when using Shielf of Faith, and is immune to a lot of damage types; his vulnerability to fire is something that I would consider metagame if used without being either the default attack pattern of a character (a spellcaster using firebolt as his usual cantrip for example) or after a succesfull Knowlage Religion/Arcana check.

Silence can also lock other spellcasters out of their spells, effectivelly giving the mummy Lord an unfair advantage due to his innate (aka non Verbal) magic such as Rotting Fist/Dreadful Glare/Blinding Dust/Channel Negative Energy and Whirlwind of Sand.

At the same time, if non-casters don't have access to magical weapons (and casters can't cast), the Mummy lord is immune to all dammage since he is immune to non-magical piercing/slashing/bludgeoning damage. This leaves the only way to damage him being improvised (thus, no profficiency bonus) attacks with torches, and with a 17 AC it's not easy to hit someone without a proficiency bonus. Finally, the attack would still do minimal damage, as it's an improvised weapon, dealing 1 fire damage + str mod bludgeoning damage, the latter of wich is mittigated due to imunity.

PS: Obviously, there exist non-verbal spells, or spells that could have a duration that continues, or a sorcerer could cast with Metamagic... There are ways around it. I'm just justifying/explaining how a Mummy Lord played at his True Full Potential can be a very big threat for a party, and is worth his CR, if not more.

If I underplayed the Mummy its more indicative of my tactical skill, or lack thereof, rather than any pulling punches on my part. I definitely didn't try to make it easy for them. I just found that the Mummy was so frail a few rounds in melee would leave it in tatters from Monk flurry of blows and druid magic claws. If the Monk got his stunning fist off that would have been it for the mummy lord. I used almost all his spells actually it was such a long battle. I'll keep in mind though the possibility. Still though I'm having a really hard time imagining a party of 4 level 15s having an issue here, like at all.

[hymer]

If I underplayed the Mummy its more indicative of my tactical skill, or lack thereof, rather than any pulling punches on my part. I definitely didn't try to make it easy for them. I just found that the Mummy was so frail a few rounds in melee would leave it in tatters from Monk flurry of blows and druid magic claws. If the Monk got his stunning fist off that would have been it for the mummy lord. I used almost all his spells actually it was such a long battle. I'll keep in mind though the possibility. Still though I'm having a really hard time imagining a party of 4 level 15s having an issue here, like at all.

One monster of a CR equal to the PCs' average level isn't supposed to make more than a speedbump draining a few resources from the PCs.
If you look at the adventuring day XP budget (DMG p. 84), then a lvl 6 PC should gain up to 4k XP over a hard day's adventuring. So between them, something like 16k XP. And the Mummy Lord is 13k XP. The CR went against them, being so much higher, but other than that it was a close fight. Sounds like the CR/XP system works more or less as intended. This was pretty much a day's worth of fights in one big battle.

Edit: Btw, good on you and your group. They might have pulled this off, and they would've remembered it with satisfaction for years, all the more so because it was so frustrating at the time. Excellent RPGing there all around. :smallsmile:

[Trask]

One monster of a CR equal to the PCs' average level isn't supposed to make more than a speedbump draining a few resources from the PCs.
If you look at the adventuring day XP budget (DMG p. 84), then a lvl 6 PC should gain up to 4k XP over a hard day's adventuring. So between them, something like 16k XP. And the Mummy Lord is 13k XP. The CR went against them, being so much higher, but other than that it was a close fight. Sounds like the CR/XP system works more or less as intended. This was pretty much a day's worth of fights in one big battle.

Edit: Btw, good on you and your group. They might have pulled this off, and they would've remembered it with satisfaction for years, all the more so because it was so frustrating at the time. Excellent RPGing there all around. :smallsmile:

Thanks, I guess I just have been misunderstanding CR a bit. I always underestimate how many encounters per day are hardwired into this game. I'll keep note of that.

Thank you also for your comment, it might have ended in failure here but if they try hard they'll get a chance for revenge against "The Pharaoh" as theyre calling him now. And maybe then they'll be able to set the terms of engagement.

[Tanarii]

A single CR 15 creature is supposed to be a Deadly battle, where one or more character risk death if they sent smart, for four level 10 characters. Those characters should in theory be able to handle three battles like that successfully in an adventuring day with a Short Rest between each one.

If the party can go all out nova, CR isn't really a very good measure. I mean, it's not all that great even with it, depending on you assumptions. The measure of three Deadly difficulty battles in one adventuring day still assumes the party will survive, even if they do that repeatedly for their entire adventuring career. It also breaks down pretty fast for solos.

If you want CR = party level battles, assuming only three battles per day, to represent even some pretty insignificant chance of party defeat, you have to take into account that will eventually result in a TPK. Let's say that represented a 5% chance of TPK per battle. Over a course of 20 levels, the party might fight 120 such battles. 1-0.95^120 ~= 99.8% chance of TPK by level 20. Even with only 1% chance of TPK it's still a 70% chance of TPK by level 20. That's why the game is set up so a TPK is basically impossible under the default rules and expected CRs.

[Knaight]

CR should be thought of more as an indication of the level a party needs to be to not be up against sufficiently nasty powers than total monster power. XP is a better indicator there.

[Albions_Angel]

CR does seem even worse than usual in this edition.

There are obvious examples like this. A CR15 monster shouldnt even be possible for a group of level 6s. Swinging at it should feel like trying to take down a castle wall. One hit from it should near kill someone.

Its CR15. Yeah, in every edition, CR breaks down at high level, but in theory, its supposed to use up a decent chunk of party resources for a party of 4 level 15s. Or kill a player in a party of 4 level 10s that planned in advance.

You cant even use CR at low levels. Below level 4, the game is so swing-and-miss, low HP, low AC, high Damage that even CR appropriate encounters can wipe parties. Level 1 is nearly unplayable and all the tables I have been at for 5th level people past 1 instantly, or with a token scripted battle.

I think the bounded accuracy, and general stripping down of numbers, are some of my least favorite aspects of 5th.

[Tanarii]

Its CR15. Yeah, in every edition, CR breaks down at high level, but in theory, its supposed to use up a decent chunk of party resources for a party of 4 level 15s.The theory is they should expend about 18%, that a party of level 15s should be able to easily handle 5.5 mummy lords one after the other, each a Medium battle, with two Short Rests.

[Albions_Angel]

Exactly. Thats precisely my point. But if a party of 4 level 6s can take out a mummy lord without much trouble, then it sounds like either a level 15 party isnt much of a jump from a party of 6s, or 18% is overegging how much they will use.

Forget a wizard burning spell slots, it sounds like a well placed rogue or barbarian can kill that thing without taking a hit at that level, which would expend... 0 party resources. At which point thats not a CR 15 encounter. Thats a way to kill time so the game isnt over in 5 minutes.

[MrStabby]

One thing that I think is missed is that the CR is based on an assumption of not other advantages by one side or another. No ambush/surprised conditions, no toxic environments and so on. One really big advantage that screws the CR calculations is magic items. This is a pretty big effect to not take into account (if your party had any). If you need to roll a natural 11+ to hit the mummy lord then a +1 weapon adds 10% to your hit rate and even more to damage, even without considering immunity to physical damage.

The mummy will regrow unless it's heart is destroyed. This is a very powerful ability if you play it right. The vault is hidden and forcing a party to push on and find it quickly before the mummy regrows can mean that they keep fighting after a hard battle and low on resources. If they don't find it then the mummy lord gets a do-over.

The mummy deserves to be played smart - or at least well informed. Divination in on the spell list and should be considered to have been used to get some info on the players, in my opinion anyway.

As to the abilities themselves - some are really good.

Blasphemous word? This is a powerful ability. Basically causing up to 3 or the 4 party members to skip their turn? Other than sorcerers most people good at fire damage are not likely to be proficient in Con saves. Then advantage on the following turn's attacks + potentially one other legendary action attack is an added bonus.

Rotting fist: One attack but a really powerful one. Add on the rider and the fact that the mummy regenerates and even if the party wins, round 2 might be harder.

Blinding dust: This can cover a dissengage move and generally makes the mummy much harder to hit (and helps the mummy dish out damage). With AC 17 disadvantage actually can make quite a difference at level 6.

Is CR15 too high? Maybe, but I don't think it is too far off. Certainly the mummy lord is a beast if it is not alone. Throw in some skeletons and maybe some low level golems and you have a challenge that is much harder than the CRs would indicate simply because the Mummy lords excellent abilities for granting advantage/disadvantage.

[Unoriginal]

Exactly. Thats precisely my point. But if a party of 4 level 6s can take out a mummy lord without much trouble,

I'm sorry, what?

Dude, re-read OP instead of assuming 5e's CR is bad because you don't like it.




It was a tense, albeit frustrating battle for the players and there was a TPK, but they went in of their own volition so they didnt get too upset.


The whole party got wiped out. As it was logical. Hell, one of them nearly got KOed on the first round, and would probably have died on the second if the Mummy Lord had kept targeting them.

I mean damn, it seems nearly everyone in this thread is acting as if the Mummy Lord lost the fight. No, the Lord won, which was the predictable outcome.



Forget a wizard burning spell slots, it sounds like a well placed rogue or barbarian can kill that thing without taking a hit at that level, which would expend... 0 party resources. At which point thats not a CR 15 encounter. Thats a way to kill time so the game isnt over in 5 minutes.

Now you're either not making sense or you're talking about a whole different situation, because this is nothing like what OP said happened.


Anyway, OP, what you've experienced is not a question of CR being out of whack, no matter what people say, it's simply due to the fact that one monster alone has only 1/4 of the action of a party of 4. So obviously it will take a bit of time to kill them all, even if the monster is way stronger.

That being said, a Mummy Lord inflicts 35 damages with one attack. Which mean your Mummy Lord should have been able to kill the Monk in two hits. And given its Legendary actions, the Mummy Lord should most likely have been able to deliver those two hits within the first two turns it was engaged in melee, if not one (given the monk would likely have 18-19 AC, and the ML having +9 to hit, making it 50% chances to hit).

Of course battles have a great deal of variability, and your Mummy could just have failed a lot of rolls while the PCs succeeded theirs, but still, given that the PCs got Total Party Killed by one guy, it should more be a testament to how tough a CR 15 solo monster actually is than a demonstration of CR being weird.

[Albions_Angel]

You are right, my apologies. A lack of sleep and I misread the OP. I ended up focusing on the final half of the post and my brain made some stuff up.

The second bit of mine you quote is indeed not supposed to be related to OP. Its related to the idea that an encounter is supposed to take up resources (which include HP, spell slots, actions that require rests, items, etc). I still stand by what I say about it being far too weak. I feel at level 15, with no magic items, a mundane or 2 could easily take out the mummy lord quickly, and thus the party could expend zero resources to do so.

I'll make more of an effort in future to fully comprehend posts, particularly when I am tired.

[xanderh]

CR in general is not that accurate. I remember a fight with an adult blue dragon (cr 12 or 13) at level 8. My two party mates went down on turn 2 to the breath attack, and then I proceeded to beat it into submission alone. My character was heavily optimised, but most of the heavy lifting was done by plate armour, a shield, and the Shield spell, as well as climbing onto the back of it and managing to stay on until it died.
I also distinctly remember the perhaps funniest tpk I've witnessed. The party had just gotten out of a short rest, and ran into a pair of mummies (medium encounter, only two players). The players rolled poorly, and the mummies crit on two out of three attacks in a row. The players didn't stand a chance, not due to challenge, but because the dice were not in their favour.

Lucky rolls and good optimisation and synergy means a party can punch well above their weight, while poor rolls or situations not in their favour can turn medium or even easy encounters into a tpk.

[Unoriginal]

You are right, my apologies. A lack of sleep and I misread the OP. I ended up focusing on the final half of the post and my brain made some stuff up.

The second bit of mine you quote is indeed not supposed to be related to OP. Its related to the idea that an encounter is supposed to take up resources (which include HP, spell slots, actions that require rests, items, etc). I still stand by what I say about it being far too weak. I feel at level 15, with no magic items, a mundane or 2 could easily take out the mummy lord quickly, and thus the party could expend zero resources to do so.

I'll make more of an effort in future to fully comprehend posts, particularly when I am tired.

Not sure what you mean by "mundane" (no one is mundane at lvl 15), but since the Mummy Lord is immune to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damages from non-magical attack those two magic-item-less lvl 15 would not be able to quickly take it out without spending ressources.

[Trask]

I'm sorry, what?

Dude, re-read OP instead of assuming 5e's CR is bad because you don't like it.




The whole party got wiped out. As it was logical. Hell, one of them nearly got KOed on the first round, and would probably have died on the second if the Mummy Lord had kept targeting them.

I mean damn, it seems nearly everyone in this thread is acting as if the Mummy Lord lost the fight. No, the Lord won, which was the predictable outcome.



Now you're either not making sense or you're talking about a whole different situation, because this is nothing like what OP said happened.


Anyway, OP, what you've experienced is not a question of CR being out of whack, no matter what people say, it's simply due to the fact that one monster alone has only 1/4 of the action of a party of 4. So obviously it will take a bit of time to kill them all, even if the monster is way stronger.

That being said, a Mummy Lord inflicts 35 damages with one attack. Which mean your Mummy Lord should have been able to kill the Monk in two hits. And given its Legendary actions, the Mummy Lord should most likely have been able to deliver those two hits within the first two turns it was engaged in melee, if not one (given the monk would likely have 18-19 AC, and the ML having +9 to hit, making it 50% chances to hit).

Of course battles have a great deal of variability, and your Mummy could just have failed a lot of rolls while the PCs succeeded theirs, but still, given that the PCs got Total Party Killed by one guy, it should more be a testament to how tough a CR 15 solo monster actually is than a demonstration of CR being weird.

Yeah the monk did go down pretty quick once the mummy just punched him, but he risked a lot in that. Hes very fragile and if one stunning fist was successful it could have been very bad for him. The biggest threat really was the druid with multiple wildshapes and magic attacks. I probably could have used better tactics looking back but the Mummy's dominance over the fight started to feel like a hair's breadth away from being an even match about halfway into the battle.

[MrStabby]

What legendary actions was the ML mainly using? From experience I found the Blasphemous word to be pretty horrifically powerful, especially in a confined space. None of the characters you mentioned are ones that I would expect to easily pass a con save.

Stun as many as possible with blasphemous word then one of the ones that passes can be subjected to a dreadful glare. Using legendary actions alone a mummy lord can nearly lock down a party with poor positioning and then with a couple of hits bring a lot of pain. Paralysis is a really, really nasty condition when facing an enemy that does 9d6 damage from dice.

[UrielAwakened]

To answer the OP, yes, the CR system in 5e is garbage. And not just for the example you've given.

CR is calculated solely across 3 dimensions: HP (adjusted by AC), Damage (adjusted by attack bonus/spell DC), and abilities (which affect one of those two things).

Other spells and abilities that don't do damage never factor into the monster's CR.

Take the Githzerai Monk as a great example. It's like CR 8 and has Planeshift. A 7th level spell that it can use to banish one of your players for conceivably the rest of the campaign at that level.

It doesn't factor into its CR at all.

I don't know how anybody is defending the CR system it's absolute crap.

[MrStabby]

To answer the OP, yes, the CR system in 5e is garbage. And not just for the example you've given.

CR is calculated solely across 3 dimensions: HP (adjusted by AC), Damage (adjusted by attack bonus/spell DC), and abilities (which affect one of those two things).

Other spells and abilities that don't do damage never factor into the monster's CR.

Take the Githzerai Monk as a great example. It's like CR 8 and has Planeshift. A 7th level spell that it can use to banish one of your players for conceivably the rest of the campaign at that level.

It doesn't factor into its CR at all.

I don't know how anybody is defending the CR system it's absolute crap.

The CR system isn't good but I think this is a bad point.

It isn't like the MM monsters even follow the DMG CR system so it isn't like they are bad for following bad rules.

[Trask]

What legendary actions was the ML mainly using? From experience I found the Blasphemous word to be pretty horrifically powerful, especially in a confined space. None of the characters you mentioned are ones that I would expect to easily pass a con save.

Stun as many as possible with blasphemous word then one of the ones that passes can be subjected to a dreadful glare. Using legendary actions alone a mummy lord can nearly lock down a party with poor positioning and then with a couple of hits bring a lot of pain. Paralysis is a really, really nasty condition when facing an enemy that does 9d6 damage from dice.

I was basically using the sand whirlwind every time to escape from the monk's stun and the druids attacks. They got pretty lucky against dreadful glare, nobody failed a save against that.

[Naanomi]

A bit off topic but... Mummy Lords make great Necromancer pets (just the right Int to be permanent thralls)

[UrielAwakened]

The CR system isn't good but I think this is a bad point.

It isn't like the MM monsters even follow the DMG CR system so it isn't like they are bad for following bad rules.

They actually do for the most part they're just heavily weighted on offensive.

Generally most monsters are 2 CR higher on offense and 2 lower on defense.

[PeteNutButter]

To answer the OP, yes, the CR system in 5e is garbage. And not just for the example you've given.
I don't know how anybody is defending the CR system it's absolute crap.

Basically this. Furthermore, to all those who say a party of x level should be able to x CR and expend x% of resources... like I get that this stuff is in the DMG, but it is such a rough "average" that it's useless. It's like the cable company saying they'll be there between 8 AM and 7 PM. Completely useless.

Some parties might be able to do the whole adventuring day just fine, while less optimized, less tactically inclined players fall apart at the first encounter. As a DM, I've had to drastically alter an adventure's difficulty just because the one player who tells people what to do all the time wasn't there. His tactical contributions where clearly needed by the other clueless players.

Due to his relatively low HPs, the mummy lord in particular is a more egregious example of the CR system flaws. My AL group fought one once, at like level 7 in one of the hardcovers. It was a joke. The GWM BM fighter did like 70% of his hp one round one, using his precision dice and action surge, beefed up by the paladin's bless. 97 HP is just too weak for a CR 15.

For inexperienced DMs, there are a few tips that should be floating out around, that have nothing to do with CR. Know what your party can do. If they are melee heavy, enemies that have flight or lots of escapes are really tough,etc. Save or suck abilities can make a tough fight deadly. Watch out for monsters that do that, especially in numbers. They can TPK. Single monsters are rarely a challenge unless massively over CR of the party due to the action economy. The designers at least know that last point as the "bosses" of all the hardcover books are massively above the CR the party should be able to handle.

[Tanarii]

The CR system isn't good but I think this is a bad point. Yup.

The CR system is predicated on the players winning 100% of the time, even against Deadly difficulty. One of more players might go down. Before your first level 5 hoard, you might even lose a character to permadeath that way. But there is 0% chance of a TPK if you use the DMG guidelines, and almost no chance of a character actually dying. That's very intentional.

It's also designed for 3-6 enemies per fight, for 4-6 fights per day. Also intentional.

There's no reason to judging the CR system lacking due to a single very high CR creature that successfully TPK a party, as it should. There is no point in judging the CR system based on extreme outliers in value, either lots of very low CR or a single very high CR (relative to the party), at all. Of course it's going to break down at the edges, especially in a system where lots of weak creatures are intentionally designed to be a threat to single powerful creature.

There is a point to saying "the CR system doesn't do what I want it to do". But given most often posters saying that actually want a string of equal CR solo creatures vs four adventurers to eventually result in a TPK for the party, once you go to the natural consequences of a campaign full of what they want for a single battle, it's unreasonable to expect that that designers would have used that as a baseline.

[MrStabby]

So CR as a proxy for power is kind of ok at the lower levels but does fall apart at higher levels. At low levels a higher CR monster is almost always a bigger threat than lower CR monster.

At higher levels things like wall spells trivialise a lot of encounters. CR of something without fly, teleport or similar can be effectively very low, especially if it's ranged attacks are limited. This creates a huge disparity depending on the makeup of the party - some lower CR threats may be more dangerous than higher level threats. Environment is equally important.

Also, as Tanarii pointed out, power is an odd concept here. If we look at resources required to overcome it may be different to probability of defeating party. I high AC low HP enemy with a high damage but low accuracy attack might be a pushover but being just slightly on the high side of lucky could take some characters out of a fight early on.

Even casualties inflicted might not be as directly linked as expected. A mind flayer kills directly, no chance to wait a few rounds then heal the fallen, none of that healing word stuff to put a few HP back mid fight. Even if an encounter is overwhelmingly likely to be won by the PCs, it is still far from certain that they will do so without any deaths.

I think expecting CR, as a single metric, to cover ALL of these different aspects of threat in any consistent way is optimistic at best. The best we can hope for is a rough guide - rules of thumb that can help DMs get in the right ballpark till they develop finer judgements. That CR is more meaningful for lower level encounters is a blessing - it is where most DMs start.

[Trask]

Yup.

The CR system is predicated on the players winning 100% of the time, even against Deadly difficulty. One of more players might go down. Before your first level 5 hoard, you might even lose a character to permadeath that way. But there is 0% chance of a TPK if you use the DMG guidelines, and almost no chance of a character actually dying. That's very intentional.

It's also designed for 3-6 enemies per fight, for 4-6 fights per day. Also intentional.

There's no reason to judging the CR system lacking due to a single very high CR creature that successfully TPK a party, as it should. There is no point in judging the CR system based on extreme outliers in value, either lots of very low CR or a single very high CR (relative to the party), at all. Of course it's going to break down at the edges, especially in a system where lots of weak creatures are intentionally designed to be a threat to single powerful creature.

There is a point to saying "the CR system doesn't do what I want it to do". But given most often posters saying that actually want a string of equal CR solo creatures vs four adventurers to eventually result in a TPK for the party, once you go to the natural consequences of a campaign full of what they want for a single battle, it's unreasonable to expect that that designers would have used that as a baseline.

Truly? It's designed for 100% victory? That's pretty crazy to me because I have lots of deaths in my games and I don't go ridiculously outside the bounds of suggested CR.

I don't like the idea of a system that is designed so the players will never face anything seriously dangerous, but I suppose that reveals how out of step I was with the CR system in the first place.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Truly? It's designed for 100% victory? That's pretty crazy to me because I have lots of deaths in my games and I don't go ridiculously outside the bounds of suggested CR.

I don't like the idea of a system that is designed so the players will never face anything seriously dangerous.

Success != No deaths. Success == no tpk. There's a huge difference. And if you're equating "has a decent chance to tpk" with "seriously dangerous", that's not the stock assumptions of the system.

[lebefrei]

I'm going to go the other way and say I like the CR in this game and the possibility of lower level characters, with massive risk and an expenditure of massive resources, having a chance at defeating a much more powerful foe. Why? Because it's heroic, and it's more realistic.

I don't want CR to be like a high level enemy in an MMO, where you can't hit the thing, it has a million hp and you do 10 damage, and it just isn't possible. Look, that's such a video gamey way to play, and I don't like that in my D&D. I love that I can throw an army of hobgoblins at a high level party and have a chance of killing them. I want a world that lets everyone have the potential to be dangerous at any level.

On the other hand, I have a feeling that your tactics and allowance of metagaming were probably to blame for them nearly beating this specific battle. Did they come fairly by its vulnerability to fire, or did they start off with fire from the beginning? Did they all have magic weapons at level 6? That isn't standard, and because of that most of them shouldn't have been able to even hurt the creature. Did you cast spells tactically, using Hold Person or Dreadful Glare on the biggest threat (first sign of fire)? Did you use legendary actions?

I've had players that came from less experienced or less tactical DMs, and they told me they don't like the game as much as some other version because, for example, dragons are so weak. So I put them against a dragon... and killed them. Come to find out, their DM just had the dragon standing there, whacking away at them and getting hit in melee every turn like this was some MMORPG. Tactics really do matter.

[Tanarii]

Truly? It's designed for 100% victory? That's pretty crazy to me because I have lots of deaths in my games and I don't go ridiculously outside the bounds of suggested CR.

I don't like the idea of a system that is designed so the players will never face anything seriously dangerous, but I suppose that reveals how out of step I was with the CR system in the first place.


Success != No deaths. Success == no tpk. There's a huge difference. And if you're equating "has a decent chance to tpk" with "seriously dangerous", that's not the stock assumptions of the system.

Yup. I thought I was pretty clear when I posted that you might lose a player character to death, might even lose a character to permadeath, but tpks are pretty much impossible within the DMG guidelines. But I guess not.

If you're running an honest-to-God sandbox, even if it's one with level appropriate adventuring zones (aka dungeons), it's entirely possible for a party to TPK itself by overextending itself or intentionally facing things far beyond their capabilities. Same if you're running an 'actions have consequences' game and they end up drawing down an vast force they can't handle on their heads because of carelessness. But in those cases they're well outside the recommended guidelines.

It's also fairly easy to kill off one character. Goes down, then gets pop up healed by Healing Word, goes down again and gets crit-killed by the enemy because they're not stupid. (Not all DMs will do this, but IMX enough will.) But Raise Dead only requires 500 gp and a 9 level Cleric within 10 days travel, which is easily affordable by a level 6+ character. YMMV on that of course. Removing that very intentional safety net for characters with a lot of invested time increases danger to individuals in the party fairly drastically.

[UrielAwakened]

I'm going to go the other way and say I like the CR in this game and the possibility of lower level characters, with massive risk and an expenditure of massive resources, having a chance at defeating a much more powerful foe. Why? Because it's heroic, and it's more realistic.

I don't want CR to be like a high level enemy in an MMO, where you can't hit the thing, it has a million hp and you do 10 damage, and it just isn't possible. Look, that's such a video gamey way to play, and I don't like that in my D&D. I love that I can throw an army of hobgoblins at a high level party and have a chance of killing them. I want a world that lets everyone have the potential to be dangerous at any level.

On the other hand, I have a feeling that your tactics and allowance of metagaming were probably to blame for them nearly beating this specific battle. Did they come fairly by its vulnerability to fire, or did they start off with fire from the beginning? Did they all have magic weapons at level 6? That isn't standard, and because of that most of them shouldn't have been able to even hurt the creature. Did you cast spells tactically, using Hold Person or Dreadful Glare on the biggest threat (first sign of fire)? Did you use legendary actions?

I've had players that came from less experienced or less tactical DMs, and they told me they don't like the game as much as some other version because, for example, dragons are so weak. So I put them against a dragon... and killed them. Come to find out, their DM just had the dragon standing there, whacking away at them and getting hit in melee every turn like this was some MMORPG. Tactics really do matter.

Yeah nobody is arguing that high-CR monsters should be invincible to low-level characters. We're arguing that CR is terrible and high CR monsters aren't necessarily consistently stronger than low-CR monsters, or consistently as strong as other high-CR monsters.

[xanderh]

To the people claiming use of fire is metagaming, think about it for a second. A mummy is a dried out corpse covered in dry fabric. Dry things tend to burn pretty well. It's entirely logical to set it on fire.
Now, it's possible that the magic sustaining it would make it immune and just pissed off and on fire, but using fire as a first resort does make sense. Especially for adventurers, who have probably heard tales of mummies and such anyway.

[Sigreid]

To the people claiming use of fire is metagaming, think about it for a second. A mummy is a dried out corpse covered in dry fabric. Dry things tend to burn pretty well. It's entirely logical to set it on fire.
Now, it's possible that the magic sustaining it would make it immune and just pissed off and on fire, but using fire as a first resort does make sense. Especially for adventurers, who have probably heard tales of mummies and such anyway.

When nothing else works, try fire. There's a reason "kill it with fire" is a meme.

[PhoenixPhyre]

When nothing else works, try fire. There's a reason "kill it with fire" is a meme.


To the people claiming use of fire is metagaming, think about it for a second. A mummy is a dried out corpse covered in dry fabric. Dry things tend to burn pretty well. It's entirely logical to set it on fire.
Now, it's possible that the magic sustaining it would make it immune and just pissed off and on fire, but using fire as a first resort does make sense. Especially for adventurers, who have probably heard tales of mummies and such anyway.

And abilities/items/spells that do fire damage are really really common. Produce flame, firebolt are the mainstay of druid and wizard cantrips, fireball is iconic for a reason, etc.

[Malifice]

I definitely didn't try to make it easy for them. I just found that the Mummy was so frail a few rounds in melee would leave it in tatters from Monk flurry of blows and druid magic claws.

You opened with the wrong spell. I would have opened with Hold Person, using a 5th level slot to target every single PC with it.

DC 17 Wisdom saves at 6th level are not easy to make.

Your moon druid is proficient in Wisdom saves; the monk, ranger, and rogue/warlock arent.

Odds are most of them fail.

I would then use each of my 3 legendary actions on turn 1 to attack paralyzed PCs (auto-crits) with each hit dealing 18d6+4 damage.

Each legendary action turns a PC into pink mist.

Alternatively I could just use its blasphemous word or dreadful glare with each legendary action, to scare off any PCs that made thier saves against Hold Person.

Also; the Mummy has access to Animate dead on its spell list. Any reason why it hadnt used it yet to get itself some Mook support? It also has divination so it likely knows the PCs are coming.


If the Monk got his stunning fist off that would have been it for the mummy lord.

Its odd the Mummy lord doesnt have legendary resistances. It does have +8 Con saves.


I used almost all his spells actually it was such a long battle.

I reckon (barring some luck from the PCs) I would have completed the TPK by round 2.

You still TPK'd the party in any event.