The Mummy Dust Mummy

[The Flying Rodent]

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?

Looks like a pretty comprehensive list of buffs to me! I've got a character in the works that will soon get the Mummy, so will be able to provide more of a picture then as to what it could be. My hunch atm is just Elemental damage accumulation, which is a problem it can face at Umgahs.

I think a lot of spellcasters will have to rethink how they use the Mummy, as well as select for Heal skill. His offense is still fine, he's just harder to heal now.

I'd recommend using UV and Darkness to disorient groups of opponents, that combo is rather silly. This will, however, expose you as a spellcaster to things like archery fire if you happened to be invis'd or sanctuaried beforehand, as part of the tradeoff for having a giant area of vision denial. It also wont work against other opponents with True Seeing, such as Undead.

Interesting about Stone Bones too, that should work. The Mummy's race is listed as 'undead' on the character sheet. Maybe Stone Bones has another way of selecting for appropriate targets?

[The Flying Rodent]

Alright. Did some more running around with the Mummy, and I agree, it just gets ripped to shreds now. There’s still some low level Damage Reduction there, but I assume that the Damage Immunity and/or Resistance it had has just been flat out removed. At the very least, the 50% Damage Resistance to physical weapons that all mummies normally have, is totally gone.

Brigand Raiders deal full damage to it, and they're only ‘mid level epic’ opponents with pretty ordinary equipment and AB by epic standards. By this token, I can't see it lasting very long vs any other epic creatures either. I imagine Driders eat it for breakfast.

This completely removes its' ability to be a tank; it has basically no AC or elemental resistance , so its’ physical damage resistance was its’ main defense tool. This is generally what epic spellcasters want their summons to do, so if it stays as is then that pretty much removes the incentive for spellcasters to take the feat.

It still has the attack that it uses to, but unless every single opponent is incapacitated enough to allow it to do damage, it just falls over before it can even get a decent amount of hits off. And this is in addition to the fact that it cannot be healed mid-combat very easily anymore.

Given that it received the 'lack of healing' nerf at the same time, I'd be inclined to reinstate the Damage Resistance or Immunity, perhaps at the expense of some of its’ AB. It's just a piece of paper now.

[Kane0]

Still prefer the idea of Mummy = tank and Dragon = damage. Like the difference between a Pale Master + Dwarven Defender build and a RDD + Weapon Master build.

Give Mummy undead type immunities + 50% physical immunity + some resistances and DR thrown on top but no great damage output beyond a decent AB and strength bonus (plus maybe a neat poison/disease on hit). Keep speed slow and AC low to force him to soak hits through absorbtion and HP coupled with a lack of healing options.

Give dragon knight dragon type immunities, WM levels and all the wepaon feats with a good weapon for a really good AB and bonus damage types plus knockdown and maybe sneak attack but can't protect himself beyond a good AC and high saves. The short duration and ability to patch him up easier would keep it balanced.

[The Flying Rodent]

Yeah, I think the mummy is suited to being a tank than an AB Heavy Damage dealer. In it’s current state, it’s virtually the same AB as the Dragon Knight, and I’d say that’s part of the reason it got its’ resistances nerfed.

If I’m not mistaken, it currently has a +20 Weapon. Maybe bump that down to something like +10 (or lower its’ strength a bit), and give it the Resistances back.

Without the Resistances , it doesn’t really have any identity outside of something to hit grappled targets. And an Elemental summon with GMW, Flame and Ability buffs can already do that (if anything , the elemental is a more successful tank in certain situations, because it at least can have its’ AC buffed and can be healed).

[driller]

The mummy has been tweaked a bit.

[Douglas Thurman]

The mummy has been tweaked a bit.

*Giggles again*

BSK is so much damned fun it should be illegal.

[The Flying Rodent]

The mummy has been tweaked a bit.

*Giggles again*

BSK is so much damned fun it should be illegal.

Hehe. Looking forward to testing it out again as well!

In case it hasn’t been said enough already, kudos to driller for the constant tweaks and updates. It’s very hard to find an NWN server with an active dev that listens to player suggestions these days! =)

[Douglas Thurman]

The mummy has been tweaked a bit.

*Giggles again*

BSK is so much damned fun it should be illegal.

Hehe. Looking forward to testing it out again as well!

In case it hasn’t been said enough already, kudos to driller for the constant tweaks and updates. It’s very hard to find an NWN server with an active dev that listens to player suggestions these days! =)

Yup. Driller's been that way since day one back in the day.

[The Flying Rodent]

Well: I think the Damage Reduction got bumped up a bit [raiders do a 'bit' less damage to it now], but the Mummy still doesn't have its' physical damage immunity back. On top of having one less attack. So it still gets ripped to shreds.

Removing the 50% immunity makes it almost nonviable as a long-term epic summon, because it can't tank against any reasonable amount of damage on top of being difficult to heal. Not to mention that most mid-epic places and beyond usually involve fighting lots of opponents at once.

If the intention was to prevent it from being able to tank effectively because it was too strong against higher level opponents, then I get the preference for prioritizing Reduction over Immunity. But still: It had already received an indirect nerf by making it undead and thus harder to heal. It didn't need the additional hit to its tankiness.

When I said that I was afraid that the mummy would get 'completely nerfed to the ground in the wrong way', this was basically what I was afraid of. It needed nerfs to offense, not to defense. =(

[Cornflower]

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.

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.

So I have no idea how we went from these very detailed, reasonable and well-thought out suggestions of tweaks, to a completely nerfed mummy. But it's sad. The mummy was like the only reason you could tolerate playing a spellcaster in the high-level areas. Now my wizard is collecting dust. Again. It's sad.

[driller]

The damage immunities have not changed, that's the funny thing about all this. What I did was lessen the vulnerabilities.
The Mummy is %50 vulnerable to fire and bludgeoning damage.

[The Flying Rodent]

Interesting.

So does that mean that a lot of high level opponents deal Bludgeoning Damage with their bows, spears and swords? Because it seems to take an awful lot of damage from Brigands and Drider Archers, at the very least (around 25ish an arrow from Driders, was originally taking 30+ damage from Brigands with Spears, and is still taking up to 40 Damage a hit from the Leader ... with his Halberd). Haven’t had the opportunity to test against many others just yet.

But if that were the case, then that would make sense: going from 50% resistance to 50% vulnerability (I.e. 3x more damage taken from bludgeoning now), is a big hit to its’ durability, and very noticeable even in small amounts. And if a lot of high level opponents dealt bludgeoning damage in some capacity with traditional slashing and piercing weapons, then the mummy would be stripped of its’ usefulness as a tank at later levels.

I still don’t believe that it needed nerfs to its tankiness. Perhaps to fire (which is a mummy’s clear weakness to begin with), but not to Physical Damage. The fact that it’s now properly undead and cannot be healed by Doves Harps anymore is enough IMO.

Anyway: Will try it out in a few more places before I make a proper judgement then. It might just be that Brigands and Drider Archers are special.

PS. If my findings are getting a bit too specific and spoiler-ish, I’m happy to send PM’s if that’s more appropriate.

[driller]

Undead are vulnerable to bludgeoning. The Bandit's had it on their spears(probably a mis-click, this has been changed.)

[Douglas Thurman]

Tried it out today. The Sandman does 40-50 per hit to the mummy but I still took him out. The bandits do more than before but less than the last...err something in between. Definitely an improvement. I haven't been in the underdark yet so I was going to try that today. Stone Bones works now. I can get his AC to 37. His offense is good. He still has the initial dispel spells which I do not appreciate in the slightest! I know I know...minor. The biggest thing I love is that he doesn't turn undead anymore. YAY!!! Maybe take away some of his CHA and give him more WIS? He's no conversationalist and can't be that good looking so maybe lower his charisma. Hehe.

[Kane0]

AI is still dumb as a brick though, not sure if that can be fixed.
It seems to be just him, ignoring commands more often than other summons. Or maybe thats just my luck.