Tough mummy

[Dmdork]

I'm running Desert of Desolation with the 5e conversion. What a great mod. Anyway the end of part one is the tomb of Amun-Re. It's a mummy encounter. I'm looking for a CR 10 mummy to throw at them for the final battle. What would that look like? Anyone have access to a 5e monster advancement matrix, so I don't mess up and TPK the party?

[Dork_Forge]

Have you considered throwing a gimped Mummy Lord at them? Strip back its spell casting a couple levels, drop it's number of Legendary Actions to 2 and remove the blinding one. Throw in a couple of regular Mummy minions (only 1 hp) and it should be pretty interesting.

[Dmdork]

Yeah I suppose. Surprised there's not an engine out there that I can just plug into....

[DwarfDM]

Use the DMG guidelines for proficiency and hp for that CR.

+4 prof
AC17
206 - 220 hp
+7 attack bonus
63 - 68 damage/round
DC16 save

Edit: Of course some of these are higher than the normal mummy lord. So just reducing its proficiency modifier, spell slots and remove some of its legendary actions should be enough

[Eldariel]

Heh. Just make it a Mummy Lord. They're high enough to take it. CR is just a guideline: it's more about action economy and if the Mummy Lord is alone, it's eminently beatable. Especially if it's the final boss: if they TPK, it'll be suitably epic and if they win it'll be even more epic. So win-win.

[airless_wing]

We actually ran the module several months back! It was a fantastic run, especially the final gauntlet.

I believe our DM actually used the Lich as a template for Amun-Re; I remember him having 3 legendary resistances, he cast Blight at least twice and Fireball several times. I believe the AC was lower, there were no legendary actions (but there were environmental hazards. I'm not sure I that's written in the module or not). And that template seemed to work well. I'd say give him two 4th level spell slots, lower the DC to 15-16, and remove the damage immunities.

[Lupine]

Heh. Just make it a Mummy Lord. They're high enough to take it. CR is just a guideline: it's more about action economy and if the Mummy Lord is alone, it's eminently beatable. Especially if it's the final boss: if they TPK, it'll be suitably epic and if they win it'll be even more epic. So win-win.

I join here.

[MrStabby]

Just use the mummy lord, yes its CR is a bit high but CR is very innacuarate and in this case it does overestimate how tough it it. If the party has access to firedamage they will burn through its hit points very quickly.

[cZak]

Mummy Lords seem kind of a glass canon...
It hits like a truck, but at CR10 vs five 6th level characters, those 95hp don't seem very sustainable

[MaxWilson]

Mummy Lords seem kind of a glass canon...
It hits like a truck, but at CR10 vs five 6th level characters, those 95hp don't seem very sustainable

Unless it pre-casts Sanctuary and then in combat casts Hold Person V and then uses its legendary actions to move up to one of the paralyzed PCs and hit him like a truck for auto-crits, following up next round with more auto-crits plus a Spiritual Weapon, re-casting Sanctuary on any round when it has no better use for its bonus action.

(Yes, Sanctuary is not on its default spell list, but it can prepare different spells.)

[Vogie]

Mummy Lords seem kind of a glass canon...
It hits like a truck, but at CR10 vs five 6th level characters, those 95hp don't seem very sustainable

It has 3 Legendary Resistances, which each give an additional 20-30 effective HP each.
It has Magic resistance, increasing effective AC by 2
The Dreadful Glare is a version of Frightful presence, increasing effective HP by 25%.
Edit: It also has Shield of Faith (+2 AC), Spiritual weapon (d8+4 force damage as a bonus action) and Animate Dead (meaning there should be minions around to fight alongside it)

So effectively, it's more like an HP 215 monster with 19 AC. The rest of the stats are just hidden in the abilities.

[MaxWilson]

Oh, here's another thing you can do with a Mummy Lord: Dodge. Since almost all of its damage comes from Legendary Actions anyway, you don't lose very much by Dodging instead of multiattacking, especially if you've already concentrating on a spell. (Again, you can Dodge + Sanctuary if you want extra toughness.)

I used to disrespect Mummy Lords but nowadays I feel quite differently. They are on the fragile side vs. magical attacks but they've got more HP than Air Elementals and about 4x the firepower.

[Dmdork]

Like arcane mummy idea. If I take the mummy(CR3) and make him a Mage (CR6), I don't think that would be challenging enough for 4 6th level players. What do you think? If it's close I can always make some lair action happen...

[Dork_Forge]

Like arcane mummy idea. If I take the mummy(CR3) and make him a Mage (CR6), I don't think that would be challenging enough for 4 6th level players. What do you think? If it's close I can always make some lair action happen...

What's the party composition? It sounds a bit easy to be an end of module boss fight at the moment.

[DevilMcam]

I Faught a mummy lord once as a group of 5 lvl 6 PCs.

It was a mummy lord and 4 mummies.
Our Party was
A swashbucler rogue, Drunken master monk, Bladesinger wizard, sharp shooter fighter and light cleric.

The rogue got killed (but mostly because he went cuddling the mummy, and was resurected after) but aside from that it was a fairly easy fight.

If your party has a cleric you can more or less go nuts, if not tune it down a bit on the minions side, but a mummy lord is a fine challenge for a prepared enough party of level 6

[Dmdork]

CR 15 for a group of 6th level chars? I think not. It's possible, with very good players that know the game inside out, with a cleric, and they got lucky. Otherwise, I would say that whoever is playing the mummy is not playing it to its potential....fairly easy you say? Something isn't right

[Dmdork]

What's the party composition? It sounds a bit easy to be an end of module boss fight at the moment.

Druid ranger sorc barb

[Eldariel]

CR 15 for a group of 6th level chars? I think not. It's possible, with very good players that know the game inside out, with a cleric, and they got lucky. Otherwise, I would say that whoever is playing the mummy is not playing it to its potential....fairly easy you say? Something isn't right

CR isn't the be-all end-all. While it's offensively formidable, its HP is fairly low. If someone gets to actually land a sound blow or two at it, it can go down real quick. It has some decent defenses in Legendary Resistance and some damage resistances but ultimately most of its power is in its offense, legendary actions, and spells. Defensively it isn't that much better than a CR4 Babau (better at saves and 7 more HP but certainly not 11 CR's worth).

That said, your party lacks both Cleric and Paladin, which are the two classes probably best suited for ending it quick (though Sorcerer and Druid with fire magic can also put a hurt on it real fast: even on a successful save, Fireball takes an average of over 4th of its HP so 4 characters casting Fireball kills it). And ending it quick is the opposite of what you want, anyways; for it to be epic it needs to take a while. You could just cut down on its offensive numbers a bit and not have it use its Guardian of Faith beforehand. This way it won't be doing that much damage but it will be doing a lot of short duration stunning, blinding, heal negating, etc. which makes for an interesting encounter.


TFTYP has a Lesser Mummy Lord that just lacks the spellcasting. That's certainly not overpowering but probably tad less interesting. You could of course just pick spells that aren't that powerful offensively but introduce interesting twists to the encounter. And perhaps energy resistance against fire of some kind to make the PCs have to dispel first.

[Dmdork]

TFTYP has a Lesser Mummy Lord that just lacks the spellcasting.
Can't find this, it's sounds perfect

[Eldariel]

Can't find this, it's sounds perfect

Tales from the Yawning Portal, page 224. It's just the MM Mummy Lord without the spellcasting and legendary actions though (I recommend keeping the Legendary Actions to keep it interesting but certainly, cutting away the spellcasting does a ton). There's no separate stat block listed for it.

[MaxWilson]

Tales from the Yawning Portal, page 224. It's just the MM Mummy Lord without the spellcasting and legendary actions though (I recommend keeping the Legendary Actions to keep it interesting but certainly, cutting away the spellcasting does a ton). There's no separate stat block listed for it.

Without legendary actions or spellcasting its 20' movement speed spells irrelevance. That legendary movement action is crucial.

[DevilMcam]

CR 15 for a group of 6th level chars? I think not. It's possible, with very good players that know the game inside out, with a cleric, and they got lucky. Otherwise, I would say that whoever is playing the mummy is not playing it to its potential....fairly easy you say? Something isn't right

Initiative : cleric goes first then monk mummy lord, rest of the party and mummies goes last.

Round 1 : Cleric cast bless. monk goes in (no stunns applied). mummy lor goes in for the rogue using his movement legendary action. glare gets saved rotting fist miss thank to the cleric warding flare. wizard get a couple of scorching rays on the mummy lord and te rogue get hit by rotting fist lenegdary action. Mummy dets out of sacofagus from each corners pf the room and dash towards party.

Round 2 : cleric turn undeads 2 mummies get affected, granting 1 clear side of the room. Party shifts towards the clear side (avoiding all 4 mummies for the round). Everyone focus fire the mummy lord (with fire damage from the wizard) and the rogue get killed and the monk get cursed.

Round 3 : Cleric cast fireball finishing the lord and almost killing the 2 mummies that are not turned. At this point the paty won, it's just a matter of leaning the mummies.

Maybe that wasn't the most optimal way the lord could have been played but it only has 97 HPS. Two regular scorching ray that only hit for 2 out of 3 of the beams deals on average 56 damage. 3 shaprshooter hits from the fighter (assiming 6 attacks in 2 rounds thanks to action surge) is 55 damage (or half if he doesn't have a magical weapon). a saved fireball is 28 damages. the monk is gonna do and extra 15 per round if he misses half of his attacks, and there is going to be a bit more from the rogue and spiritual weapon from the cleric.

Sure a mummy lord hits hard. BUt it dies fast, REALLY fast.

with a party that is weaker versus the mummy lord the extra 4 mummies are likely too much and need to be tuned down. but the lord himself is not likely going to be TPK material

[Cry Havoc]

I'm running Desert of Desolation with the 5e conversion. What a great mod. Anyway the end of part one is the tomb of Amun-Re. It's a mummy encounter. I'm looking for a CR 10 mummy to throw at them for the final battle. What would that look like? Anyone have access to a 5e monster advancement matrix, so I don't mess up and TPK the party?

What level are the Party?

[Dmdork]

Level 6, 5 players

[MaxWilson]

Initiative : cleric goes first then monk mummy lord, rest of the party and mummies goes last.

Round 1 : Cleric cast bless. monk goes in (no stunns applied). mummy lor goes in for the rogue using his movement legendary action. glare gets saved rotting fist miss thank to the cleric warding flare. wizard get a couple of scorching rays on the mummy lord and te rogue get hit by rotting fist lenegdary action. Mummy dets out of sacofagus from each corners pf the room and dash towards party.

Alternate reality: cleric casts Bless. Mummy Lord uses legendary action to move next to the cleric. Monk goes in (no stunning strike). Mummy lord hits cleric with Rotting Fist legendary attack, breaking concentration and cursing with Mummy Rot. Mummy Lord takes a turn and casts Hold Person VI, paralyzing Rogue and Monk and Wizard. (Cleric gets lucky but it could just as easily have been someone whose who got lucky.) Spends its movement to approach the wizard, shrugging off opportunity attack from cleric. Rogue takes a turn (paralyzed, rolls to overcome paralyzation, fails), Mummy Lord uses its legendary action to attack paralyzed wizard, crits for 67 HP of damage, wizard goes down and catches mummy rot (can't regain HP). Wizard takes a turn and fails death save, but makes save vs. Hold Person and is no longer paralyzed. Mummy Lord uses legendary action to crit the paralyzed Rogue for 67 HP of damage. Rogue also goes down with mummy rot. Other mummies Dash toward cleric.

Round 2: cleric casts Healing Word on wizard, discovers that Mummy Rot prevents regaining HP. Turns mummies 3 and 4 with Action, leaving Mummies 1 and 2 in melee with Cleric. Monk takes a turn, miraculously passes save against Hold Person, is no longer paralyzed, ends turn. Mummy Lord recasts Hold Person III and paralyzes the cleric but not the monk. Other mummies miss the cleric once and auto-crit the cleric once for 38 HP, and also Frighten the monk with Dreadful Glare. Cleric goes down. Mummy Lord uses Legendary Action after mummy 1 to blind monk, uses Legendary Action after Mummy 2 to hit for 35 HP. Wizard and rogue fail some more death saves and Mummy Lord takes the opportunity to Legendary Action the monk again for 35 HP. Monk goes down. TPK has occurred.

If the Monk had flurried with Stunning Strike on round 1, or if the Cleric had Turned the Mummy Lord immediately instead of casting Bless, or if the party were more spread out so that the Mummy Lord could only be in melee range of one of them at a time, or if the party had gotten unusually lucky on die rolls, things might have turned out differently. But TPK is very possible.