Exotic zombies at WotC

[Sir Brennen]

Count me as a BIG fan of templates. I love that toolbox approach.

Movie LotR's style Balrog? Half-Fiend Huge Fire Elemental ("Shadow and Flame") with whip and longsword.

Jekyll/Hyde style character? Lycanthrope using Ape as the base creature, sans cursed bite.

Dragon that can be ridden by a PC paladin at mid levels? Half-Dragon Heavy Warhorse.

Yes... templates allow for quick idea generation, and are great for that. But are you a big fan of sitting down and going through all the steps, checking the math, seeing what's "legal", etc? It sounds like 4E will still have templates, but streamlining their application, and dumping them where they're not really adding any benefit, such as with zombies.

 

[WyzardWhately]

The problem I found with the 3.5 templates is that adding them willy-nilly to monsters can create unreasonable challenges. A half (red)-dragon troll is far more of a challenge than a half (blue)-dragon troll, because of the fire immunity. But if you slavishly follow the CR calculation it makes no difference.

Ha! No kidding. One of the big villains in one of my old campaigns was a half-fiend troll with a single level of Barbarian. The PCs wouldn't go near him, despite my half-mocking admonishment, "He's *only* CR 8!" They were trying to figure out a way to pin him underwater so he'd drown, but they never got around to it.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

I must say I find the corruption Zombie slightly ridiculous. Throwing regenerating rotten bodyparts is too much for my suspension of disbelief even in a fanatsy environment:
"Look, there goes his liver. There goes his heart and there goes his liever again! Man, that dude has it going for vital organs..."
With one of these Zombies you could feed a whole horde of ghouls.
Or build a wall of corrupted meat.

Nope, this monster is no for me.

 

[Baby Samurai]

wall of corrupted meat.

Okay, that's awesome; someone has got to use this.

 

[Klaus]

This can be even simpler, as I used something like this in a game. He went from human to orc, and that was it.



I have horrid visions of Black Beauty caught in some kind of... provocative embrace with Smaug.

It doesn't HAVE to be the actual offspring of a horse and a dragon. The stats could be used for an equine-shaped dragon creature, like so:

 

[hong]

It doesn't HAVE to be the actual offspring of a horse and a dragon. The stats could be used for an equine-shaped dragon creature, like so:

That art is so anime.

 

[Klaus]

That art is so anime.

Saint George is SO anime!

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

Saint George is SO anime!

Please. I think we both know that, when speaking disparagingly, the word is "animu." And see if you can work "kewl" in there twelve times or so.

 

[hong]

Hey check it out, St George is bullying a hatchling dragon. Wotta wimp! That's so videogamey.

 

[Rechan]

I must say I find the corruption Zombie slightly ridiculous. Throwing regenerating rotten bodyparts is too much for my suspension of disbelief even in a fanatsy environment:
"Look, there goes his liver. There goes his heart and there goes his liever again! Man, that dude has it going for vital organs..."

I really just picture the zombie ripping hunks out of its non-throwing arm/chest/stomach and throwing the meat, as opposed to organs. There's a fiend in one of the Fiendish Codex books that does similar.

I personally like it, it's really nice and visual. But then, I imagine a zombie pulling off it's damaged arm and clubbing you with it, so.