Zombies! New Dungeoncraft article up

[danbuter1]

Sounds really cool to me. And I hope to God that templates are dead, dead, dead. What a bunch of crap. I want a ready to play monster, not something that I have to write out myself by applying a stupid frigging template to a completely different monster.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Sounds really cool to me. And I hope to God that templates are dead, dead, dead. What a bunch of crap. I want a ready to play monster, not something that I have to write out myself by applying a stupid frigging template to a completely different monster.

Templates will get a ton better if it's just "add quality X, +10 HP, and increase attack by Y, instead of massively interlocking everything.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sounds really cool to me. And I hope to God that templates are dead, dead, dead. What a bunch of crap. I want a ready to play monster, not something that I have to write out myself by applying a stupid frigging template to a completely different monster.

Conversely, the notion of a whole book of Shadowfell or Feywild monsters that are almost identical to prime material plane monsters, but not quite makes me weep. I'd rather have a template that says "generic Feywild creatures add quality X and subtract quality Y from prime material creatures."

Yeah, there are lots of bad templates, and template stacking often leads to stupid places. But bad designers and bad DMs will create plenty of suck without templates (and did, before 3E) and templates are an incredibly valuable tool, if one that has to be used carefully. Sort of like fire.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

Sounds really cool to me. And I hope to God that templates are dead, dead, dead. What a bunch of crap. I want a ready to play monster, not something that I have to write out myself by applying a stupid frigging template to a completely different monster.

We already know that Death Knights use a template rather than a pregenerated monster.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Not thrilled.

Why bother having more than say, ten monsters that do different things and little sidebars on how to customize them to represent something else?

Don't need seperate stats for the gorgon and medusa. They just both ahve the ability to turn enemies into stone. THat's the important thing.

Weak.

 

[Stone Dog]

I'm going to add my voice to the "Love this" crowd. my players are stoked about the changes too.

I also am adding my support to the "No zombie template" change. I don't care what the creature used to be, it is a zombie now and the only thing that matters about the previous form is how many grasping and biting bits it has. If it had any other special ability it is gone. If it had any natural armor it is inneffective in the new dead state, brittle or falling off or whatever.

There is no part of that article that I didn't like.

 

[Ilium]

They have made a point of saying customizing critters will be easier. Maybe it will be something as simple as:

1) Take Medium Zombie
2) Add ability from list of "+1 level" abilities until it does what you want
3) Use at new level.

That would be sweet if it works.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Unanswered: do they still eat brains?

Braaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

 

[Reaper Steve]

Unanswered: do they still eat brains?
[/i]

The ones that can't spell will prefer brians.

' These zombies? Completely docile and perfectly harmless... unless your name is Brian.'

 

[Mouseferatu]

The ones that can't spell will prefer brians.

And the vegetarian zombies prefer graaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnssssssssss...