Ancient Dead?

[Sorti]

- Give him bracers of armor, they're cheap and can be used by monks.
- How did you generate his ability score?
- Consider ignoring the rule that forbids mummy rot on unarmed strike. (I onetheless suggest not to)
- Give him 1 or 2 Rank I mummies as helpers during the fight, eventually clerics casting buffs on him (warning: could increase the deadliness of the encounter quite quickly)
- Periapt of Wisdom!

[NeoTiamat]

I gave him 12 skeletons to begin with, and the ability to summon six more as a standard action (instead of a turn attempt). The skeletons are CR .33, so they're weak, but in large numbers and with Desecrate, Bane, and Bless, can be dangerous. I am considerign making rank one mummies of Mnk 2s, and a pair of rank 2 mummies of Clr 3. He's a cloistered monk, so he recieves no items. Ability Scores? To be honest, I chose them depending on what I though appropriate, then added the Rank Three Ancient Dead Modifiers.

[Sorti]

His skeletons will be blasted by the party's cleric, or they could even ignore them, since probably their AC are high enough for the skeletons never to hit them, and if your villain spends a round casting Desecrate it's quite a wasted round, since he's alone against an adventuring party ready to unleash Fireballs and full attacks...
His stats at 1st level were something like 14 13 14 16 16 13; that's around a 32 point buy, so quite fine, but a monk/cleric has no use for Intelligence, so if you want to make him more challenging consider lowering his Int and increasing Wis, Str and Dex (in this order).
Instead of sticking with standard immunities, resistances and vulnerabilities, change them to something original (fire resistance is a good way to put your players into trouble), give story reasons for them, and hint them to players who spend time trying to know their enemy before battling him (for instance I sent an ancient dead against my group who always had to wear a mask because he was burned by acid, obviously he was resistant to fire and vulnerable to acid, and scared by acid too).
I don't see why a cloistered monk should receive no items; he surely did not buy them, they could have become enchanted by being in the possessions of an ancient dead with enough strength of will to ignore death; if you don't want your players to have too much treasure add a curse to their user, like the "steal a mummy's treasure" tradition asks.

[Jester of the FoS]

And I believe a mummified dragon transmits mummy rot with the jaw and the minotaur with the horns. Actually for the bite I would give a -2 to save against the disease.

Yes, they probably could transmit mummy rot through that. However, they couldn't flurry of blows with those attacks, which was the problem. The slam damage does not improve the flurry/unnarmed damage.

Incidently, looking at the description of mummy rot, it is a contact-spread disease so it WOULD be transmitted via flurry of blows, as it is contact.

[NeoTiamat]

Um, in both the Hyperlink SRD and the 3.0 Monster Manual, it specifically says: "Supernatural Disease - Slam".

Likewise, the Denizens of Dread entry for Ancient Dead and RLPHB section on Ancient Dead say specifically that the mummy transmits disease through it's slam. VRGttAD is less specific, just saying anyone gets Mummy Rot by fighting the mummy hand to hand.

Which I take to mean that the basic Ancient Dead would be only capable of transmitting MR via it's slam attack.

On the other hand, I'm thinking of simply changing to a different disease and thus bypassing the whole problem.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

If you want the monk Ancient to transmit disease with Flurry, just make it a salient ability of this specific undead. Problem solved, and you can still withhold that quality from other monk-mummies IYC as a default.

[Jester of the FoS]

The disease section of the SRD:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#mummyRot
describes it as a contact disease (although, oddly, the DC is higher there and the incubation period longer).

I'd assume the MM entry listing slam implies that's the only way the average mummy can spread it.

[NeoTiamat]

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. I think I'll just add text to the effect that mummy rot spreads from contact with the ancient dead and leave it at that. Include it in the attack sections.

Oh, also, keeping in mind that this is designed against a gaggle of lvl 6 adventurers, what minions do I provide the dearly departed abbot? Or just make him a lone monster and up his class levels? Or is he fine the way he is?

[Jasper]

I'd toss in a few animated objects- water buckets, brooms, dusters and the like. They would help keep up the apperance of a clean and lived in monistary while not screaming "Evil monsters lair' like zombies or skeletons would. In a pinch they can be used to attack/distract the PCs and can be toned down to just a few candelabras or turned up as far as whole flocks of books.

[NeoTiamat]

Nice idea, but not implementable I'm afraid. The Abbe is more or less anchored to a single chamber deep in the catacombs.

On the other hand, a few braziers may be interesting. Hmmm. It's a possibility.

[Jester of the FoS]

Animated books and robes? Etherial phantoms of deceased monks? Waves of powerful emotion causing hallucinations?

[NeoTiamat]

I'm thinking of giving him the Mummify special ability and tossing in some rank 2 Cleric3s and Rank 1 Monk 2s. How much of each perhaps?