Dragon Zombies & Fear?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

See Draconomicon, p. 197-198. According to this template, zombie dragons lose their frightful presence. Yet the example white dragon zombie retains its frightful presence. Which is correct?

 

[Scharlata]

See Draconomicon, p. 197-198. According to this template, zombie dragons lose their frightful presence. Yet the example white dragon zombie retains its frightful presence. Which is correct?

Hi Ogrork!

Even if I've got no errata for you, WotC says that the text has priority of [?] tables and other stuff (like examples, I guess).

Kind regards

 

[Thanee]

That also seems to be in line with the general zombie template, so losing the Frightful Presence ability looks right.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Bront]

I would think they would loose it, as while an animated zombie dragon is indeed frightening, the pure presance of a dragon is no longer there (Force of personality, intelect, and will), and so would not be the same.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Anyone know if the white zombie DDM has a fear effect?

 

[Mr. Patient]

The text under "Creating a Zombie Dragon" is pretty unambiguous, but I'd actually be inclined to leave the frightful presence in. For one, skeletal dragons explicitly retain the ability, and I can't see a reason why one would have it and not the other. And second, the zombie dragon entry appears to be a hodgepodge of cuts-and-pastes from various places that was never properly edited. It claims that the template "can be added to any dragon of at least adult age," which contradicts the sample (again), and also violates the rules of the vampiric dragon, which specify that a blood-drained dragon of young adult age or younger rises as a zombie dragon. I'm guessing the "at least adult age" was pasted in directly from the creation rules for a vampiric dragon. The sample zombie dragon looks more like a final or corrected version than the main text does (although there are still problems, like its Cha score).

I'd also be inclined to have the zombie dragon's alignment be "Always neutral evil," rather than "Always neutral," so that they actually match the 3.5 zombie. But these would all be house rules, I guess, unless Wizards ever decided to release errata.

 

[Steve Jung]

Anyone know if the white zombie DDM has a fear effect?

Nope. It keeps blindsense, breath weapon, DR 5/magic, icewalking, darkvision, immunity to cold, low-light vision, SR 16.