Zombie Minions are too weak

[Heselbine]

Yes, actually, and I've seen it done effectively with significantly more than that...

In fact, in the zombiegeddon in Sharn campaign, there were dozens of zombies at a point when there were *level 1 NPC classes* in the PC roster (due to a rather unique, low-powered, "organic" way of making PCs to bolster the unique flavor of the campaign), along with low-powered stats. Beat up the zombies good, they did. And the fights weren't held up by delays or anything.

You had 1st level characters against dozens of zombies? Excuse my scepticism, but at 1st level on average all it would take is three hits from a zombie max to take down a character. You're going to have to share more detail to retain your credibility!

 

[Lacyon]

I still think the zombie is overall a slightly stronger combatant than the goblin, though not enough to justify the 2-level difference... unless there is an expectation that zombies will attack in total darkness or some such.

Keep in mind that the "2-level difference" is a whopping 13 XP. When you put 4 of them in action (the expected number of minions to replace a level 3 normal monster), the differences in strength (and weakness) will be magnified.

 

[Dausuul]

Keep in mind that the "2-level difference" is a whopping 13 XP. When you put 4 of them in action (the expected number of minions to replace a level 3 normal monster), the differences in strength (and weakness) will be magnified.

That 13 XP looks a lot bigger when you consider that the goblin minion is only worth 25 XP to begin with. That's a 50% increase.

Of course, something else just occurred to me... the zombie is presumably balanced against 3rd-level characters, not 1st-level characters. 3rd-level characters will have better defenses (which make the zombie's edge on attack rolls loom larger) and better attack bonuses (which minimize the impact of the goblin's superior AC and Reflex).

Going off the progression we saw with the legion devils, if we assume a 3rd-level PC has +2 to attacks and defenses over a 1st-level PC, then the zombie's advantage versus the fighter rises from 12% to 22%. Still not as big as it should be, but a noticeable improvement.