Walking Dead: the Hollywood Zombie

[trav_laney]

I am calling this zombie variant the "Walking Dead," for lack of a better term. It is based on every single zombie movie that I have ever seen, where all of the zombies have the following traits (among others):

1. they spawn more of their kind from the bodies of their victims,
2. they can only be destroyed by damaging their brains,
3. they have heightened senses and physical attributes, and
4. they are never called "zombies."

So here is my attempt.


Walking Dead (Hollywood Zombie)
As per the SRD zombie template, except as noted below:

Special Attacks: A walking dead retains none of the base creature’s special attacks, and gains the following:

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a walking dead must hit with its slam attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can bite.

Special Qualities: A Walking Dead loses most special qualities of the base creature. It retains any extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee or ranged attacks. A walking dead gains the following special qualities:

Scent (Ex): This extraordinary ability allows the walking dead to detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes, and track by sense of smell. Walking dead can identify familiar odors just as humans do familiar sights. For more information on the Scent special quality, refer to pg. 314 of the Monster Manual.

Create Spawn (Su): Any creature bitten by a walking dead becomes a walking dead itself in 1d4 hours. These spawned walking dead are not under the command of the walking dead that created them. EDIT: replaced with the "Disease" special quality, below.

Fast Healing (Ex): A walking dead heals 5 points of damage each round, even when reduced to 0 or fewer hit points. When reduced to 0 or fewer hit points, the walking dead is considered "dying but stable" for the purposes of combat (unconscious, cannot move or take any actions) until its current hit points are once again above zero.

Single Actions Only (Ex): Walking dead have poor reflexes and can perform only a single move action or attack action each round. A walking dead can move up to its speed and attack in the same round, but only if it attempts a charge.

Brain Vulnerablility (Ex): As undead creatures, the walking dead are not subject to critical hits and do not take extra damage on a successful critical hit. However, any critical hit scored against a walking dead is considered to have struck the creature in its only vulnerable spot: the head. A walking dead struck by a critical hit takes damage as normal and must make a Fortitude save (DC 14) (DC = 10 + damage dealt) or be destroyed outright, as if by a disrupting weapon.

Challenge Rating: determined by hit dice:

HD         CR
2 or less  1
3          2
4          3
5-6        4
8-10       5
12-14      6
15-16      7
18-20      8

What do you think? Any special attacks or abilities that I might be missing?

 

[Destil]

I'd make the fort save 10 + damage dealt, myself. I'd also make it so the spawn are only created if a creature is bitten them is killed within that 1d4 hour window (otherwise their pretty deadly for their CR, as is I read it as Save or Die without the save...).

 

[trav_laney]

I'd make the fort save 10 + damage dealt, myself. I'd also make it so the spawn are only created if a creature is bitten them is killed within that 1d4 hour window (otherwise their pretty deadly for their CR, as is I read it as Save or Die without the save...).

How about a disease instead? Instead of the Create Spawn ability, I give them this one:

Disease (Su): A living creature bitten by a walking dead must make a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + walking dead HD) or contract a magical virus known as zombi fever (incubation period 1d4 hours, damage 1d4 Constitution). Damage is dealt each hour until the afflicted creature succeeds on three consecutive Fortitude saves, the disease is cured magically, or the creature dies. Creatures slain after contracting the disease (whether by the disease or by other means) rise as walking dead in 1d4 hours.

Of course, then I would have to give them a bite attack. (shrug) That's not a problem either.

Attacks: a walking dead retians all the natural weapons, manufactured weapon attacks, and weapon proficiencies of the base creature. A walking dead also gains a slam attack and a bite attack.

Damage: Natural and manufactured weapons deal damage normally. A slam attack or bite attack deals damage depending on the walking dead's size. (Use the base creature's slam or bite damage if it is better.)

Size        Slam Damage   Bite Damage
-------------------------------------
Fine             1             1
Diminutive      1d2            1
Tiny            1d3            1
Small           1d4           1d2
Medium          1d6           1d3
Large           1d8           1d4
Huge            2d6           1d6
Gargantuan      2d8           1d8
Colossal        4d6           2d6

 

[Felnar]

how about grapple as a primary attack?

and maybe a system for decay, to represent the difference between fresh and run-down "walking dead"

 

[scholz]

hand maybe a system for decay, to represent the difference between fresh and run-down "walking dead"

One way to deal with it would be to give each "Walking Dead" a "Negative Level" each time it is reduced below 0 hps. So a Walking Dead beaten down, again and again becomes pretty pathetic, but still a threat. Of course, this would be a virtual "negative level" since it is already undead. But the idea would be that it suffers -1 SKill/Ability Checks, -1 To Hit, -5 HPs, -1 Effective Level.

I think this is a cool idea. My only concern would be the accounting. A single walking dead would be easy enough, but a mob might be a bit hard to deal with.
Perhaps there could be a Swarm Template applied to such a mob

 

[trav_laney]

how about grapple as a primary attack?

Hmm...you know, I think that Improved Grab would be quite fitting. Thanks for the idea!

One way to deal with it would be to give each "Walking Dead" a "Negative Level" each time it is reduced below 0 hps. So a Walking Dead beaten down, again and again becomes pretty pathetic, but still a threat. Of course, this would be a virtual "negative level" since it is already undead. But the idea would be that it suffers -1 SKill/Ability Checks, -1 To Hit, -5 HPs, -1 Effective Level.

I think this is a cool idea. My only concern would be the accounting. A single walking dead would be easy enough, but a mob might be a bit hard to deal with.

Yeah, I agree...cool idea, but it would be a bookkeeping nightmare for the DM if there were more than just a few of them. And really, the whole point will become moot once the party realizes how to finish them off (beat it down to negative hp, then coup de grace the thing before it can revive).

 

[trav_laney]

What about ghouls?

After watching a couple of zombie movies over the weekend ("Resident Evil" and "28 Days Later," if you must know), the undead in these films appear to be more like d20 ghouls than d20 zombies. They aren't slow, they have very distinct claw and bite attacks, they have a limited intelligence (they can open doors, figure out alternate ways into a room, etc.), they are ravenously hungry, and their undead trait appears to be spread by some kind of virus very similar to d20's "ghoul fever."

And the fast healing bit doesn't seem to fit them, either. Zombies in Hollywood don't repair their wounds; they tend to collect them. I think damage reduction would be a much more accurate way to portray that "takes a licking, but keeps on ticking" ability that the movie zombies seem to have.

There are two things that I don't like about using d20 ghouls, however: the paralysis, and the spawning. In the movies, the undead do not paralyze their prey. And in the d20 rules, there are no non-humanoid ghouls. (In "Resident Evil," for example, undead dogs are pretty common...but under the d20 rules, only humanoids can become ghouls.)

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix these two things, without changing the CR of the ghoul? If I trade their Paralysis ability for Improved Grab and DR 5/slashing (as a zombie), I think I would be getting close...

 

[smootrk]

After watching a couple of zombie movies over the weekend ("Resident Evil" and "28 Days Later," if you must know), the undead in these films appear to be more like d20 ghouls than d20 zombies. They aren't slow, they have very distinct claw and bite attacks, they have a limited intelligence (they can open doors, figure out alternate ways into a room, etc.), they are ravenously hungry, and their undead trait appears to be spread by some kind of virus very similar to d20's "ghoul fever."

And the fast healing bit doesn't seem to fit them, either. Zombies in Hollywood don't repair their wounds; they tend to collect them. I think damage reduction would be a much more accurate way to portray that "takes a licking, but keeps on ticking" ability that the movie zombies seem to have.

There are two things that I don't like about using d20 ghouls, however: the paralysis, and the spawning. In the movies, the undead do not paralyze their prey. And in the d20 rules, there are no non-humanoid ghouls. (In "Resident Evil," for example, undead dogs are pretty common...but under the d20 rules, only humanoids can become ghouls.)

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix these two things, without changing the CR of the ghoul? If I trade their Paralysis ability for Improved Grab and DR 5/slashing (as a zombie), I think I would be getting close...

I also think that ghouls are a better choice for these 'hungry-dead' as I like to call these disease propagating 'zombies'. I would drop the paralysis and simply add your 'disease' quality, although I would boost the DC a tad (in lieu of the loss of paralysis - with the loss of such an immediate effect like paralysis, the delayed effect should be much tougher ie. the propagating disease). I would remove the claw attacks to grant improved grapple - and specify wording that explicitly states that any creature involved in a grapple with a 'hungry-dead' will be bitten automatically on subsequent rounds.

The humanoid only rule would really depend on how I want encounters to work... and anyway, if there were such a disease based undead state which spreads so quickly would work on any type of creature, then the entire world would be overrun quickly by undead critters of all types (like rats, squirrels, dogs, etc.) - one might want to add something like only mammals with sufficiently complex mental functions (ie INT 3+) can qualify to become such undead... this would limit most animals out of the equation, unless you wanted to specifically include some certain animals (such as canines or other animals).

 

[Darklone]

I don't like this single action stuff for zombies at all. They should feast like hell, I'd simply lower their movement speed to 10ft.