Special Conversion Thread: Moldvay's Undead

[Shade]

Added to Homebrews.

I think we should allow for HD advancement to account for creating larger or more powerful versions. The tyrantfog zombie, for example, allows for up to double its HD while remaining Medium size. If we want to account for absorbing zombies created from ogres and hill giants, we could go to triple HD and Large.

Since we dropped single actions only, I think we should also drop "cannot run" from the movement line. Heck, it might be fun to have their movement increase by 5 ft. per spell level stored.

 

[Cleon]

Added to Homebrews.

I think we should allow for HD advancement to account for creating larger or more powerful versions. The tyrantfog zombie, for example, allows for up to double its HD while remaining Medium size. If we want to account for absorbing zombies created from ogres and hill giants, we could go to triple HD and Large.

Since we dropped single actions only, I think we should also drop "cannot run" from the movement line. Heck, it might be fun to have their movement increase by 5 ft. per spell level stored.

Heck, why not go up to Huge and quintuple Hit Dice!

4-5 HD (Medium); 6-9 HD (Large); 10-15 HD (Huge).

It's a non-standard progression, but I like a bit of variety.

 

[Shade]

Sounds good. Any thought on the speed boost from absorbing spells?

 

[freyar]

I like this! Making it a normal monster works!

I like the speed boost, but maybe not so fast. How about 5ft/2 spell levels?

 

[Cleon]

I like this! Making it a normal monster works!

I like the speed boost, but maybe not so fast. How about 5ft/2 spell levels?

Using 5 foot increments it a bit fiddly, I'd rather have the speed go up in 10 foot steps. Maybe 30 ft. at 1 or 2 stored spell levels, 40 ft. at X levels and 50 ft. at 2X levels, with 2X being some sizeable faction of their "fully charged" capacity?

Of course, we'd have to decide what "fully charged" means. Maybe four-five times its Hit Dice for 12-15 spell levels? The original's max capacity of 24 spell levels seems too high to me.

How about aiming for 30 ft. speed at 2 spell levels, 40 ft. at 5 spell levels, 50 ft. at 10 spell levels and max charge at 15 spell levels?

If we scale the spell capacity on HD we could make the steps as follows:

1+1/2 HD for 30 ft.
2+ HD for 40 ft.
4+ 2*HD for 50 ft.
6+3*HD = max charge

What thinks thee?

 

[freyar]

This seems a lot more fiddly than usual for a straight monster; aren't DMs supposed to scale things themselves when advancing monsters?

 

[Cleon]

This seems a lot more fiddly than usual for a straight monster; aren't DMs supposed to scale things themselves when advancing monsters?

Well I think the thresholds should get higher for tougher Absorption Zombies, but I'm flexible about the numbers. That said, I would prefer to set them out. When you're advancing a monster and don't know how (or if) a number should increase I find it a bit irksome.

We could just have a little size-table instead, that'd be simpler than a HD formula.

 

[Shade]

I assumed we were capping the stored spell levels at 5 for our base zombie.

How about we just add 5 to the threshold at each size increase (thus 10 for Large and 15 for huge)? That would make the death throes 6d6, 11d6, and 16d6, respectively.

For the speed boost, how about a flat 10 ft. boost when fully charged? Alternatively, we could just state that it is treated as hasted when carrying a full charge (and will of course blow up on the next spell unless it discharges the levels).

 

[freyar]

That's a good compromise on the spell level cap. And I like the hasted when fully charged idea, too.

 

[Cleon]

I assumed we were capping the stored spell levels at 5 for our base zombie.

How about we just add 5 to the threshold at each size increase (thus 10 for Large and 15 for huge)? That would make the death throes 6d6, 11d6, and 16d6, respectively.

For the speed boost, how about a flat 10 ft. boost when fully charged? Alternatively, we could just state that it is treated as hasted when carrying a full charge (and will of course blow up on the next spell unless it discharges the levels).

5/10/15 at Medium/Large/Huge is fine by me, as is the improved death throes.

I would prefer to have the speed-up happen somewhere midway in the process. If they're only one level away from exploding they are unlikely to demonstrate the ability very much.

What if they had the 10-foot speed-up whenever they held any stored levels, and were hasted when they reached "max capacity"?