Zombie dire rats - filth fever?

[Sejs]

Thanks for the thoughts, folks.

My take on all this:

By the book, no, they shouldn't have the disease attack, because the rules for the zombie template specifically disallow it.

No problem at all, heh.

As for by the particulars of the template, there's a few notes in Libris Mortis about alternative zombies. Ones that want to eat brains and the like. One of the listed options there are zombies that deliver filth fever. I tend to use that one myself. That and giving normal (humanoid) zombies a bite attack with an identical damage profile to their slam, mostly because when they get up real close the whole flailing slam thing just doesn't sit quite right with me image-wise. I likes my zombies to smack ya at arms length, then try to get up close and eat ya.

Filth fever isn't an improvement on a melee attack, IMHO. It's just a special ability.

Delivered by melee attacks.

 

[Sound of Azure]

For the non-ability thing: From the Monster Manual, page 300:

Charisma: Use Charisma for anything pitting the creature's will against another opponent: gaze attacks, charms, compulsions, or energy darin. The creature's Charisma modifier affects the save DC for any spell-like abilities it has (no matter what form they take).
Also use Charisma for any DC that normally would be based on an ability score the creature the creature does not have.

Emphasis mine.

I think it's thematically appropriate for the Zombie Dire Rats to retains the disease attack, though I don't believe the RAW supports it.

 

[pawsplay]

Delivered by melee attacks.

Yeah... like shocking grasp.

 

[Suldulin]

Personally, themantically I'm of the opposite feeling. . .

Let me explain.

Disease has always seemed to me one of those 'hidden' positive energy things that you had to worry about. . . most diseases being living things, and well, like the cartoon-ish version of yeast + oven, so to can be disease + positive energy (plane). . . (I have the Remove Disease spell be careful/magically guided precise hits of negative energy)

(This goes well with the old 2e 'Mummies are animated by positive energy' thing. . . doable now by ret-retconning Mummies as being of the Deathless type rather than Undead type. . .)

But I guess that just as most living things can be animated by negative energy, so can disease maybe. . .

Such a thing could be interesting, but maybe have the following: Such reanimated diseases, while like 'micro-zombies' could wrack havok on a living being, it would be unable to spread from living being to being/be easier to 'fight off' than a normal disease. . .

For the disease to reproduce it would need a supply of negative energy. . . ala the plane or animated dead, ecctera. . . Yes it would essentially be a type of disease that would ironically wrack more havok on undead beings than living beings. . .