I am looking at the statblock for the Carnivorous Crystal, which both has an Aura that forces creatures who start their turn in it to make a DC 28 Will save or become Stunned 1. They must do this every turn. In addition, this creature has the ability to Split if it is critically-hit with sonic or bludgeoning damage.
Let's say that crystal splits into 3 copies of itself. Does each of the player characters now need to make 3 saving throws at the start of each of their turns?
(And is this true for all auras? Let's say a PC enters the auras of 2 Mummy Guardians. Two Will saves?)
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Yes, multiple auras imply multiple saves. But on the bright side, their effects don't stack, so you can only be Stunned 1 at worst.
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Yes, and this can get pretty nasty. Even when a save DC isn't that high, if you have to roll it a dozen times you're going to fail.
I tend to interpret lines in such abilities like "The creature is then temporarily immune for 24 hours." as applying to the auras of all such creatures - if you saved against mummy A, you're also immune to mummy B's aura.
I agree. But...
RAW: If you enter in overlayed auras you test twice but unless described the effect does not stack. So for Carnivorous Crystal you test twice until the player becomes affected. But in case of Mummy Guardians's Despair is just one save because "The creature is then temporarily immune for 24 hours" make the char imune to the Despair ability not the that Mummy only.
RAI/Homebrew: I probably do not stack from Crystal Copies, it's just not make much sense. Maybe for non-divided Carnivorous Crystal but not for the same. I will just increase their range only. For Mummy Guardians's Despair I probably just increase the DC just to avoid multiple rolls and to reflect the afraid of face 2 Mummys at same time.
I think it is fair to assume that if being near one of a creature is frightening or sickening or whatever, then being near two or three is probably worse, and that the multiple saves represent you being overwhelmed by the multiple auras, so I am fine with it being run RAW (though I do think I would rule that the immunities granted by critically succeeding the saves apply to all instances of that ability, not just ones from the first creature)
I agree with everyone. Now, I wish it were a little easier to deal with this in a VTT.
(I'm in Foundry) Instead of asking everyone to roll X Will saves at the start of each of their turns, I'm going to program a macro for myself to publicly roll 10d20 for when situations like this come up.