The Tavern

The title says it all really.
I really like mummies, and I don't know why.
Perhaps it's penance for all the times I played wizard in D&D 3.5.
Anyway, does anyone have some advice?

I can't think of any specific advice. Mummies play like a normal character, except you should be aware that you suck, and can't just quaff HW out of a tough situation, and are extra-flammable. Oh, well, and if you get confused you die. That's lovely too.

I found MuNe^Kiku to be pretty straightforward. Raise skeletons/zombies, get pain, get Simulacrum, don't neglect defenses. Vampiric Draining really helps early on. Requires high minion tolerance, though - at least the way I played it.

Mostly just play like you would play a human that cannot haste/heal for much of the game, and treat confusion like instant death (which is what it is).

Thanks! Also, a more specific question: would abusing the lack of food clock be a good idea, and if so how much grinding would be possible before OOD stuff shows up?

I don't recall specifically abusing lack of hunger clock, though I'm a pretty slow player with or without mummies.

When I played a mummy, it was a summoner (well, actually started as a wizard). Summons protect you, and no food means spamming the biggest spell is possible.

But that was back in the old days. I don't know if a summoner is still viable after the recent nerfs.

Why is confusion instant death? Is it because they can't quaff curing to fix it, or is it literally instant death if a mummy gets confused?

It's because they can't quaff !curing, yes. It makes confusion nearly as bad as paralysis, and way more common. At least noxious fumes don't affect you.

Yes.

Confusion as a mummy is much worse than paralysis. From most sources, confusion lasts several times longer than paralysis, and you don't get confusion immunity from being confused.

Axes and/or Ashenzari can help a lot with confusion, so they get better with mummies.

edit: the axes is a lie as seen below, don't trust it. I wonder why I thought I remembered that working?

Cleaving is disabled while confused.

Can't remember if it was 11 or 12 I played a MuSu with, but if you can survive long enough to get Summon Ice Beast castlable, it's a fairly powerful combo due to infinite summons. Mummies still suck, but infinite dragons was quite nice, albeit terribly boring.

Except now you can't have as many summons around you as you want. They are hard-capped now. Channeling is still abusable by Mummies but that's about it and it doesn't nearly make up for the liabilities, at least not until pretty late in the game.

Necromancer, Summoner, Wizard are less terrible as far as Mummies go, with Sif and Kiku being good god choices. But basically yeah Mummies are just terrible humans and your chance for terrible unfair deaths goes from "practically 0" to "actually quite possible" whenever you play one. Good luck!

Mummy Warpers are perhaps the hardest mummy class to play, in my opinion. It feels like I have a 70% chance of dying to the first rat I come across when I play as one.

I've always found Mummy Summoners, Mummy Necromancers, and Mummy Wizard/Conjurers to be actually really good if you go with Sif, though.

I dont understand how a mummy conjurer of ash is considered difficult. I suck at crawl and even I feel like that's easy to play...

Also, I don't think confusion has ever killed me as a mummy. Maybe it's just because I haven't played more than a few hundred, but it never seems to be an issue since I usually find a source of clarity.

I don't understand how you can say about non-difficult if you played a few hundreds. My second MuSu (or maybe Wz?) of Sif Muna stupidly died in late Lair, that's what I call non-difficult

Edit. I haven't played Mu since that game.

If something requires getting a specific god relatively early to be strong it is pretty bad by definition, though. Yes if you get a star of Sif piety by D4 or D5 you can bend Mummies that start with a summon to being not terrible. You still can't get confused though, and you have rF-, and you have terrible aptitudes and that matters more now that there are summon caps, because it is harder to just coast with imps for a long time through sheer number. So I think "some backgrounds make for a less terrible mummy" rather than "make for a strong start" seems warranted IMO.