The Mummy Dust Mummy

[The Flying Rodent]

So: recently I put a post up in the Bug Report alluding to the fact that the Dragon Knight [the ~2 minute duration epic summon] wasn't properly making use of his Weapon Master levels. This has since been rectified and the result is rather nice, and IMO not too overpowered given that it can still be critical hit and doesn't last very long.

https://blackstonekeep.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3297

However, it was also alluded to in the same post that the Mummy also was not making proper use of their Weapon Master levels [I wasnt even aware that it had Weapon Master levels, but there you go], and that since got rectified too. The result, as DM Eaze at least has observed in game, is that the new Mummy is quite overtuned.

Thanks to the WM levels syncing up, a buffed mummy can compete with high-level maximally geared Weapon Master characters for attack and damage ... yet can be procured by any old epic spell caster.

DM Eaze said this was being looked into. I'm actually quite fond of the BSK Mummy as a decent long-term summon option for spellcasters [for which there was basically no option in traditional NWN], so I thought I'd post some suggestions about what could be done with it, in the hope that it doesn't get completely nerfed into the ground in the wrong way.

1. Drop the Weapon Master levels. It was a plain old Fighter to begin with [i.e. the original Epic mummy dust mummy], and the damage output as a plain old fighter was quite reasonable, whilst not competing with Weapon Masters.
2. Get rid of all the redundant Paladin abilities that it has. It is currently marked as an 'Epic Paladin' [even though it doesn't have paladin levels], and when confronted with fellow undead, will continually use Turn Undead despite having no associated levels to back it up. This could just be flat out removed.
3. Make it properly undead. Despite being '10 Undead' at present, it's actual race is Human. This means that Heal spells work on it, which should not be the case for Undead creatures. Traditionally, only Inflict Wounds, Harm and Heal kits [and perhaps greater restoration but I'm not even sure about this one], should be capable of healing an Undead creature.

[Kane0]

Perhaps make the mummy the tank and the dragon knoght the glass cannon?

Just my two coppers.

[Douglas Thurman]

I agree with the Paladin part of the mummy being annoying. It will just stand there happily turning undead to no effect whilst being pummeled. I wouldn't take away any of its attacking ability though, as it is pretty fragile in the underdark. Fully buffed with maximized abilities and shielding, I can only get it to AC 35. It will be eaten alive by most things in the underdark and the lost city of Vor...trust me, I tried it.

I like the fact that the primary weapon is able to be buffed by a spellcaster to +5 max, keen, and flamed.

I like the fact you have to haste him to keep up with you. Makes the extended metamagic useful.

I hate the fact that after a time it will decide to ignore any commands you give it to attack. It will just stand there while things attack it. I have to cast a spell or attack something for it to come to its senses and start fighting. Makes things interesting, and I've adjusted my play style to compensate so if it's just the engine being stupid, I'm okay with it.

[The Flying Rodent]

I agree with the Paladin part of the mummy being annoying. It will just stand there happily turning undead to no effect whilst being pummeled. I wouldn't take away any of its attacking ability though, as it is pretty fragile in the underdark. Fully buffed with maximized abilities and shielding, I can only get it to AC 35. It will be eaten alive by most things in the underdark and the lost city of Vor...trust me, I tried it.

I like the fact that the primary weapon is able to be buffed by a spellcaster to +5 max, keen, and flamed.

I like the fact you have to haste him to keep up with you. Makes the extended metamagic useful.

I hate the fact that after a time it will decide to ignore any commands you give it to attack. It will just stand there while things attack it. I have to cast a spell or attack something for it to come to its senses and start fighting. Makes things interesting, and I've adjusted my play style to compensate so if it's just the engine being stupid, I'm okay with it.

Yeah, it currently has negligable AC, which makes sense being a slow ponderous mummy. It's in-built DR and Concealment spells are its' best bet at defense.

And yes, it's annoying when ~5 minutes after summoning the Mummy, it's like all the NPC's and creatures in the sector get spaghetti code syndrome and stare into the middle distance instead of fighting each other ... which can 'sometimes' be rectified by engaging in melee as a squishy mage. I get the feeling that this is an NWN problem rather than a BSK problem, and there's probably not much that can be done about it.

That said, I have not noticed this problem with other summons such as Elementals or Spiders; only the mummy. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the mummy has a plethora of combat modes and feats that could be clogging up the command chain and causing it to freeze.

Anyway. In its' present state, the main problems I see with it is that it does too much damage and that it's not actually Undead. Which means it can overcome some of its' weaknesses by just out DPS'ing difficult opponents, whilst being healed by medic priests with Mass Heal.

The damage certainly should be addressed [making it Fighter 30 Undead 10 instead of Fighter 23 WM 7 Undead 10 would solve this without changing much else] , and perhaps some of the other quirks it has could be addressed at the same time, like its' redundant paladin abilities and the fact that it's not a proper undead creature [again, Harm should be healing it, not Mass Heal].

Other than that, I think it's fine, but I guess it's up to driller to decide what to do with it.

[driller]

I have adjusted the summon, let me know how it goes.

[Douglas Thurman]

*logs in giggling like a schoolgirl*.

[The Flying Rodent]

The mummy is still the same, maybe wait another 1/2 an hour or so for the reset to take effect.

[Douglas Thurman]

Yeah will wait. It's still the turning undead fool we've known and loved for a while.

[The Flying Rodent]

WM crit feats removed, turn undead malarkey removed, now a proper undead which means that Dove's Harps and Heal spells do nothing [as they should on undead]. This forces the summoner to index into heal skill or harm spells to repair chip damage on the mummy. Everything else pretty much the same.

Like the changes. Thanks Driller! =)

[Kane0]

AI back to normal too?

[The Flying Rodent]

The AI still seems the same as I remember it a couple of weeks ago ... in that it still suffers from the same issues. Not sure exactly how that could be fixed, as it’s probably an NWN problem.

[Douglas Thurman]

I'm not sure what happened, but it's getting its butt handed to it by raiders in arid wastes. I could go around a couple times before I needed to heal him, and now it's like the raiders have the codes to break into his...whatever. And don't get me started on the driders in the underdark...Before the tweaks I BARELY finished that quest before the mummy bit the...erm...dust. Now? One drider and the mummy is gone.

What happened? It still shows the thing as fighter/wm/undead. I can still use healing kits on him but they do piddly healing. Hrm...

[The Flying Rodent]

What probably happened is that the fact that the Mummy is properly undead now, which means it can't be healed reflexively with Dove's Harps anymore. This means it's more important to manage the mummy and make sure it doesn't get swarmed... as it's a lot harder to heal it mid-fight now if you aren't a Cleric or Druid.

I noticed the same thing when I took it to Umgahs; if the mummy gets overwhelmed by opponents, you just don't have the option as a Wizard to run up and top it back up to full with a Harp mid-fight anymore. Which means mages can't just hang back as much anymore, and makes it more important to use crowd control [Darkness, Bigby Hands, etc.] to break up a fight if it gets out of hand. It's also a good idea to make sure the Mummy is topped up to almost full after each engagement [Heal skill helps preserve heal kits here, 40 skill with +10 kits = 70 HP per kit].

To be fair, this is how it should've been from the beginning. The drawback of being Undead is that it is hard to heal yourself, and thus Undead generally have damage reduction or damage resistance to compensate [which the mummy has]. Perhaps a tankiness buff might be a good idea if it consistently gets ripped to shreds now [probably extra resistances or higher tier DR, I'd be reluctant to give it HP], but so far I'm not noticing too much of a drawback from the old mummy, other than the in-combat healing component being unavailable as a get-out-of-jail free card.

If there's anything I can suggest for stuff in the UD like Driders: Load up on crowd control spells as a spellcaster, and use Haste/Flame/GMW/Improved Invis on your mummy [and UV if you plan on using Darkness]. As for stuff like the Raiders bugging out its' AI [probably with their on-hit ball lightning axes spazzing it out] ... well, not much can be done about that part of the mummy sadly. Maybe just avoid fighting those guys for too long lol.

[Douglas Thurman]

Seems I'm going to have to rethink my character then. I fully buff the mummy, with Mind Blank (Redundant I know but what the heck), TS, Prot. From Spells, Stoneskin, Elemental Prot., Imp. Invis., Maxed Bull Cat and End, Mage Armor, Prot. From evil., GMW, Keen, Flame Weapon, and ext. haste. Am I missing anything? It's funny though because he does better against the sandman but worse against the Arid Waste Bandits. He used to be able to handle the bandit leader and the four guards with just over half his HP left. Now...the Sandman get's knocked down more often and the bandits fill him full of holes in a few seconds.

Maybe it's the piercing damage? The raiders use spears as do the driders. Hmm... Thoughts?

[Douglas Thurman]

Oh, another note on the "undead" thing...Stone Bones still doesn't work on him. If he were undead it would.