Zombies! New Dungeoncraft article up

[Rechan]

And if this is the case, what do we need a monster manual for?

If it is this... simple, why do we need multiple stat blocks for golems, giants, humanoids, etc... ?

The same reason why you have a recipe book with "if you want this, substitute y for x" rather than a Big Book of Ingredients.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The same reason why you have a recipe book with "if you want this, substitute y for x" rather than a Big Book of Ingredients.

No, I honestly think it's going to be a huge return to fluff. See, outside of the usual editing errors, fluff tends to have less game mechanical issues in game play then well, game mechanics that bring real difference to the tabletop.

And some people love fluff. I know I enjoy a good story. But I'm not paying for high cost gaming books for it when I already have a full library of various fluff ranging from myth to other game systems to the internet itself.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

Now perhaps I missed it but Night of the Living Dead, the girl zombie uses a spade.

Dawn of the Dead, Bub uses a gun.

Land of the Dead, the undead are using guns.

And those are just the ones I think of off the top of my head.

Yeah. And each of those was less interesting than the last, in no small part because the zombies ceased to be an unsettling shadow of humanity and gradually became an unnecessary palette swap of humanity.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Yeah. And each of those was less interesting than the last, in no small part because the zombies ceased to be an unsettling shadow of humanity and gradually became an unnecessary palette swap of humanity.

So in one of the very first movies about zombies in this fashion, Night of the Living Dead, it's less interesting than... ?

I'm afraid I'm missing your point about shadows of humanity vs palette swap of humanity especially as in Land of the Dead there's still much flesh eating and ripping going on.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I remember one of the options for zombies in Libris Morte was that zombies would only go down if they took more than their hp in damage in a round, otherwise they still be shambling around no matter how much damage they took.

 

[JDJblatherings]

This is what I want out of zombies.

If I get this at the expense of wyvern zombies, then good!

YMMV.

(Also read post 119.)

An EL 10 encounter?

 

[Imaro]

One of the things that has me worried after reading this and listening to the "Monsters" podcast is...I really hope that a bunch of variations on certain monsters, whch could be represented as a single template don't end up padding the MM and forcing a smaller variety while technically increasing the number of monsters. In other words I hope there's not 5 pages of zombie types, another five different skeleton types, etc. If monsters are really as easy to create on the fly as has been suggested I would really be dissapointed in this type of approach to the MM.

Right now it's just a feeling, and it may pan out that I'm totally wrong (I really hope I am) but it's something I've been thinking about lately.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

And if this is the case, what do we need a monster manual for?

If it is this... simple, why do we need multiple stat blocks for golems, giants, humanoids, etc... ?

For the rules in the first place? For gathering a lot of classical monsters in one place so you don't have to read up all the various monsters and create your own mechanical representations? As a showcase of what you can do with the rules (and how you do it)? As a sparkle for your imagination?

Or maybe the list of monsters are the rules for monster creation themselves - to figure out XP and Level for a monster, compare yours to these ones, and check if the number match.

 

[TwoSix]

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.

Wow...I'm of the complete opposite opinion, because I view almost all of the "simulationist nuance" as intrusive. Different strokes, huh?

 

[ThirdWizard]

An EL 10 encounter?

Is it possible to get a real EL 10 encounter with Medium zombies in 3.5?

EDIT: Not that I really care about using zombies by 10th level.