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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 1388314" data-attributes="member: 158">1st level characters in default D&D have heard about zombies the same way you and I have heard about rabid dogs. They're quite dangerous, but we can also get the tools to take them down. We understand what drives them and what needs to be done with the poor creatures.Same way with a 1st level fighter or cleric. That level 1 Wizard or bard, OTOH, will be hemming and hawing and getting the heck out of the way.NOW, if we want to return that fear of the unknown, make them unknowable. Make them look different from plain zombies; give them glowing eyes, make sparks dance at their fingertips, just make worms wriggle in their eye sockets. This one simple thing will take players who have been "fighting" zombies for years, and make them think twice before engaging them in combat. If NO monster looks familiar, then they are UNfamiliar.Sorry to sound so simple, but it's advice that has aided me before. It recently worked in the WRONG direction. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> My group just fought Frost Giants, and were VERY unprepared for them, because I didn't describe them as frost giants - I described them as 15 foot tall giants with pale skin and greataxes that could split trees in one blow. They attacked because they thought they could win; had they known they were frost giants they might have acted differently, or prepared fire spells. As it is, they learned a hard lesson about underestimating opponents.</blockquote>

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