Converting Creatures from Other Campaign Settings

[Cleon]

On second thoughts I'm starting to like 18HD for the Huge version.

 

[freyar]

You know, maybe we shouldn't just go by the space to determine the number of "zombies" per lost soul of a given size. They probably cram in and even pile on top of each other. So we could get the HD up to much larger numbers for the Huge and Gargantuan versions.

Also, should it really be "absorb corpse" or just "merge" with other lost souls?

 

[Cleon]

You know, maybe we shouldn't just go by the space to determine the number of "zombies" per lost soul of a given size. They probably cram in and even pile on top of each other. So we could get the HD up to much larger numbers for the Huge and Gargantuan versions.

I thought about that, but the problem was we'd be getting an awful lot of "zombies" if their number was proportional to the volume/weight of a typical Huge+ creature.

A 4000 pound Huge creature weighs as much as two dozen or so man-sized zombies, and a 32000 Gargantuan creature weighs as much as 100 or so zombies. Do we really want them being 48 HD or 200 HD creatures?

I thought about having them Merge in a non-linear fashion (e.g. X zombies per HD increase for size Y), but that would make it tricky to figure out the HD of merged lost souls.

I guess we could do a # of zombies vs HD of lost soul table of some kind, and just say you add the number of zombies together, but I was concerned you might consider that a bit too fiddly.

 

[freyar]

For advancement, it might be ok, as long as we have a base set of stats at each size for DMs to use.

 

[Shade]

I guess we could do a # of zombies vs HD of lost soul table of some kind, and just say you add the number of zombies together, but I was concerned you might consider that a bit too fiddly.

You read me like a book.

 

[freyar]

You read me like a book.

Counterproposal?

 

[Shade]

On second thought, fiddly may be the only solution at this point.

 

[Cleon]

On second thought, fiddly may be the only solution at this point.

Okay, if we just think of it by mass, then assuming an "average zombie" weighs 150 pounds and using the basic 500 lb / 4000 lb / 32000 lb et cetera for Large/Huge/Gargantuan creatures, the fiddly table is:

Medium Lost Soul: 2-3 zombies
Large Lost Soul: 4-26 zombies
Huge Lost Soul: 26-212 zombies
Gargantuan Lost Soul: 213-1706 zombies

Rounding the numbers to something neater and setting HD = 2 per square of Space gives something like this:

Size Table
. Size . .. . . #Zombies . Hit Dice Range .. Weight (approx)
.. Medium .. . 2-5 zombies . . . 4-7 HD .. . 300-750 lbs
.. Large . . . 6-23 zombies . .. 8-16 HD . . 900-3450 lbs
.. Huge . . . 24-199 zombies .. 17-31 HD .. 3600-29850 lbs
Gargantuan . 200-1799 zombies . 32-71 HD . 30000-269850 lbs
.Colossal .. . 1800+ zombies . . 72+ HD . . . 135+tons

HD Advancement (by size)
. . Medium = 2HD + 1HD per zombie
. .. Large = 5HD + 1HD per 2 zombies
. . . Huge = 15HD + 1HD per 12 zombies
Gargantuan = 27HD + 1HD per 40 zombies
. Colossal = 54HD + 1HD per 100 zombies

Is that fiddly enough for you?

 

[Shade]

Is that fiddly enough for you?

Very much so.

 

[freyar]

I like the advancement, but perhaps we could figure out how to do it without referring to "number of zombies"? I also think the way the HD range is laid out in the 2nd table is slightly confusing because the "base" HD is below the "starting" HD of the size. I also don't want to call the individual bodies "zombies."

To simplify a bit, could we make the merging process something that takes long enough it won't affect a battle immediately, so the DM doesn't need to track the corpses? Then we might be able to keep this framework but simplify somehow.