Zombies! New Dungeoncraft article up

[Stone Dog]

And they are. The assumption that all humanoids are equal is false though. Looking at the zombie examples now, we have things ranging from kobold and human, which are very similiar, to troglodyte and bugbear, which kick things up a bit.

All humanoid corpses of similar size are similar enough to have equal stats. "Medium" is similar enough for me.

Eh? The SRD has an example of a wyvern and while it doesn't have the stinger, it can fly. This is a huge issue with winged flying creatures if they all of the sudden become some generic brute: 20 ft. (4 squares; can’t run), fly 60 ft. (poor)

I know what the wyvern can do now. I don't care much for it. I don't feel that zombies should have the coordination or speed of limbs or residual magical whatsits for effective flight. Gliding should even be outside their abilities. Their wings become pretty much useless once they die and drag behind them in sad memory of what they once were capable of.

Heck, sounds more like a race then a template.

It is a race you can turn into with the right circumstances. This makes it either an acquired template which you can apply to anything, or a separate monster. If only humans turn into them then that is great and they can be a simple monster. If hobgoblins can turn into them and retain a shadow of what they once were then a template would be better. Either way is fine, really.

This isn't a preferance of simplicity over complexity for me. This is liking the idea that becoming a corpse levels the field for all humanoid races. In death, or at least this kind of death, we are all pretty much equal and all very very hungry.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

They don't need to stat out every possible type of zombie. Having standardized zombies by size is fine for the majority of the time. But give us the ability to customize for those non-standard zombies.

Taking away the zombie template is a dumb move, IMO. If you don't want to customize, then don't. But for those of us who do, taking away the mechanics to do so is just plain dumb and smacks of game designer laziness.

 

[JoeGKushner]

All humanoid corpses of similar size are similar enough to have equal stats. "Medium" is similar enough for me.

But different races have different builds no? For example, an orc zombie would probably be stronger than a human zombie.

I know what the wyvern can do now. I don't care much for it. I don't feel that zombies should have the coordination or speed of limbs or residual magical whatsits for effective flight. Gliding should even be outside their abilities. Their wings become pretty much useless once they die and drag behind them in sad memory of what they once were capable of.

Nah, too many cool undead that can fly.

It is a race you can turn into with the right circumstances. This makes it either an acquired template which you can apply to anything, or a separate monster. If only humans turn into them then that is great and they can be a simple monster. If hobgoblins can turn into them and retain a shadow of what they once were then a template would be better. Either way is fine, really.

This isn't a preferance of simplicity over complexity for me. This is liking the idea that becoming a corpse levels the field for all humanoid races. In death, or at least this kind of death, we are all pretty much equal and all very very hungry.

Different strokes for different foks.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I don't think it's bad design, it depends on the philosophy. I'm sure your aware that I'm all for individual customization of monsters with the xxyth and the carcaetan in Denizens of Avadnu, but to me zombies are just a generic horde monster and they all do the same thing.

But here's the thing. I don't trust the designers. They're taste have proven to be different then mine on several occassions (points of light, changing established campaign settings, some oddities in core race cohices, naming conventions, taste in 'classic' modules, etc...)

Personally, I think skeletons fall in the same category and I would do the same thing. Really, I'd be surprised if skeletons weren't a single statline at different sizes. I can see what you're saying, but I don't think its all about simplicity and types. From their blogs it seems as if they are adamant about making each monster fight differently.

I get the feeling they are approaching monster design like we did in Denizens of Avadnu. Everything has a purpose and its own unique abilities. With that in mind, a unified statline like your mentioning won't work. If you want to clean up some of the garbage on a mindless undead critter, that philosophy works fine like in this case.

Well, we already know it's not each monster. After all, a zombie wyver may fight differently than a zombie halfling. So is it type? Functionality? Why do we need a pit fiend and a balor? Why do we need fire, frost, hill, stone, storm, and cloud giant? Especially the fire, frost, and hill. I mean, what couldn't a line of text on a generic stat block of giant not classify? "Fire Giants have black skin, red hair and are immune to fire."

Why do we need a skeleton warrior and a death knight? Both warriors with sword skills right?

N'ah. I think that the deisgn team is out to punch out some standardized encounters based mainly on combat and for many people it'll work because it'll be easier but I've run Rolemaster and Hero and have The Deluxe Book of Templates and the Advanced Bestiary.

 

[frankthedm]

Here is the article if no one else posted it.

[sblock=article]Shambling, mindless corpses are getting all gussied up for 4E Although it might be hard to believe that something as simple as an animated carcass needed an overhaul, with ample influences in movies and video games, the designers knew the zombie was an ideal guinea pig for applying the new monster philosophy. So they set about keeping the zombie simple to run, but they gave it a clear role and made it feel more like the zombies from the big screen.

Every 3rd Edition D&D player thinks of a zombie, at best, as a tough bag of hit points that can take a beating. At worst, the zombie is seen as a really slow fighter or grist for the turn undead mill. Unfortunately, a Large or smaller 3E zombie really required a weapon to be scary on the damage-dealing side, and they were a lot easier to take out than any movie zombie.

Rethinking the zombie required harkening to the zombie in popular culture while maintaining the D&D elements that make undead cool. Zombies move slowly, dragging their lifeless feet, and it takes a heck of a blow to kill one, so tough is right. But zombies don’t pick up weapons, even convenient ones. They tear you apart with their bare dead hands. They overwhelm you with numbers, drag you down, and eat you.

The new zombie is a brute with just enough reasoning power to know who to kill. It’s easy to hit—zombies don’t dodge—but it’s rotten body just soaks up blows that would kill a living creature. You had better be hitting the zombie hard every time, or it’ll just keep coming. If you manage to hit it really hard, say with a critical hit or a power that deals hefty damage, you might just take the creep out in one fell swing.

That’s right. I did say, “critical hit.” The zombie is vulnerable to that now, which is sweeter than a head shot in any zombie flick.

If you’re a player, take a moment right now to thank the merciful designers that turn undead is still in the game. That power doesn’t send the zombies running off to gods knows where, but if it doesn’t turn them to putrid dust, it does hold them at bay. Believe me—you don’t want zombies close to you. Even though they won’t come wielding greataxes, zombies can take your head off with their vicious slams. The bigger the zombie, the uglier the thump. And when zombies swarm you, some of them are going to grab you, maybe even pulling you to the ground. That’s not the place to be when the dead come knocking.

As a DM, you don’t have to worry about creating the gnoll zombie or the orc zombie. The one set of Medium zombie statistics should do you fine. The players won’t know the difference, except by virtue of your descriptive talents. They should be most worried about the pummeling their characters are taking anyway.

At appropriate levels, a fight against zombies should look more like a horror movie scene. Protagonists have to maneuver to keep away from the possibility of devastating damage while trying to cut their way through a relentless wall of dead flesh. The players get a thrill when a zombie goes down to massive damage, and the DM gets the satisfaction of using a monster that lives up to popular expectations.

It’s a whole new game, even from the very bottom of the undead barrel. Now if we only had a few zombies that added some spice to the basic shambling corpse recipe. Perhaps I’ll go dig a few up for our next look at zombies....[/sblock]

 

[Mortellan]

I like the sound of these changes. My players will be ecstatic they can crit these undead too. Damn 4e, one week I loathe it then this week I'm digging it.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I'm glad the zombie/skeleton templates are going the way of the dodo. I mean in all honesty, how often did you actually USE a specialized zombie?

Often.

I've have cyber-zombies ala Doom, mutant zombies ala Resident Evil, and LOTS of flying and animal zombies. As well as the 'stock' variety.

ZOmbies are classic low level fodder with the occasional high level "zombie dragon" or some such nonsense. Looking at the creativity levels across this board, i'm sure any of us could make a reasonably functional "zombie dragon" or other specialized zombie in a few minutes of work.

In other words, the rules cease to be adequate and REQUIRE a houserule? That's bad - terrible - game design.

Certain types of zombie stories also call for them to be MORE than just another monster. 3e zombies can be EITHER (albeit the stock ones are too lame to fill their proper role), but Small-Medium-Large 4e ones can only be one of the two.

What this change does do is makes it darn easy for new players to the game to go "Oh hey lets fight a bunch of zombies" without haveinbg to worry about annoying details like "well we have 3 elf zombies, 2 dwarf zombies, an orc and a troglodyte, ok...um which one looks tougher, umm should i burn the orc before the elf?..: etc etc etc.

As opposed to the pre-made Human Zombie, which is what 99% of zombie encounters call for?

I'm all for simplifying the game for new players. Removing or curtailing templates, ALL of which came with perfectly intuitive and useful SAMPLE CREATURES, is NOT simplifying. It's removing a fast and elegant design solution in favor of "stock monster, and, oh, you can houserule it if you need to." Which seems to be the 4e design standard for monsters.

No. HELL no. I CANNOT "houserule it if I need to" if I'm a newbie. And I shouldn't ever - EVER - HAVE to houserule it.

That's bad design.

A zombie is a zombie is a zombie. I like it. Same with skeletons. Nice simple undead for low level players. We have zillions of other undead in the game for more complex interactions at higher levels, so im not going to shed a tear if i no longer have a template to make my "half black dragon, half ettin zombie" or whatever.

Whereas I will, if not shed a tear, at least almost certainly stick with SWSE, which can use D&D monsters simply by flipping the defenses. Because hey, a half-dragon ettin zombie, whether it's actually a half-dragon and an ettin or not, can fill a ROLE different from a "Large Zombie."

P.S. Templates DO make sense for some creatures (including zombies), but they add a level of complexity to the game that I dont think needs to be there for zombies and skeletons.

How complex is the zombie template... when there are sample humanoid Small, Medium and Large zombies that are basically going to be exactly like what you're talking about? It provided the exact same thing - but it ALSO allowed for wyvern zombies, to name one example, that made great mounts for mid-level necromancers.

P.P.S. What I hate about templates is template stacking. By the Time Monster manual 5 rolled around, I basically got sick and tired of seeing monsters with 2 or 3 templates stacked on. Great..I mean how often DOES a dragon breed with an ettin who happened to be infernal, and then die and get raised as a zombie? Waaay to may templates for a mindless monster who shambles along looking for brains.

So? Don't use infernal zombie half-dragon ettins if you don't like them.

To me, that sounds a lot like a Resident Evil tyrant-type 'upgraded zombie,' and would make an awesome boss monster. The template system allowed me to make said boss monster within the rules, and did not force you or anyone else to do so. REMOVING the template system FORCES me to go outside the rules, or hope they randomly chance across the upgraded zombie type I want.

 

[GSHamster]

From an theoretical point of view, templates made huge sense. You had a creature that undergoes some drastic change. You represent that change by applying a template to the base creature. It just makes sense.

In practice, however, it was a lot of effort to apply templates to monsters. Sure you ended up with some cool monsters, but it really wasn't worth the effort except in very special cases. 99% of the time, a generic zombie is good enough.

I've often thought that templates are a technology that's a bit too early for the hobby. If you had a program where you pick a base monster, and apply a template, and it does all the calculations and generates the new stats for you, templates become much more useful.

But D&D is still primarily a pen and paper game, and effort involved in templates is too high for such a game. Perhaps in a future edition, there will be more integration with computers, and templates will return as a very powerful tool.

 

[Gloombunny]

I have to wonder how all the people raging about the no-template zombie managed before 3.5.

 

[Merova]

Minions of Decay

I'm glad the zombie/skeleton templates are going the way of the dodo. I mean in all honesty, how often did you actually USE a specialized zombie? ZOmbies are classic low level fodder with the occasional high level "zombie dragon" or some such nonsense.

I frequently use specialized zombies. I often DM using the Ravenloft campaign setting. The minions of decay are intrinsic the the Gothic horror aesthetic. Yes, generic zombies can be used as "low level fodder" but their potential reaches far beyond that arbitrary limitation.

Within the literary genres of dark fantasy and supernatural horror, zombies come in many shapes and types. Yes, winged beasts fly with rotting wings. Moldering hounds trip their prey. Putrifying krakens grapple and drag their hapless victims into the depths. These are not unusual examples within the source materials.

Now, I'm aware that D&D is not a Horror game. That's cool. However, overly simplifying the zombie (or other undead types, such as the skeleton) actually creates more work for those DMs that intend to run a horror or dark fantasy campaign. As I've indicated above, I have no great aversion to tinkering, but I'd rather have more options out of the gate. Moreover, telling DMs to "do it yourself" flies in that face of the declared intention of making things easier for new players.

I'm not off the 4E enthusiasm yet, but, if this trend of simplification for ease of gamist implementation at the expense of nonintrusive simulationist nuance continues, I'll start thinking twice about making the change. I'm all for streamlining and refining a game for smooth implementation that will help new players pick up the hobby, but, if the new design makes me work harder to run my game, then I will not play with the new rules. I hope this will not be the situation.

In any case, good gaming!