D&D 5E Zombies: Sink or Swim?

[Baldurs_Underdark]

Slightly off topic
If they've been down for a long time, fish will eat the flesh and you get barnacle-covered skeletons, with an anemone-armor (you take poison damage if you touch it or hit with melee attack).

On topic
Any airpockets that a zombie has (e.g. whatever is left of the lungs) will certainly have leaks, so air will escape and they will sink.
Drowning won't make them any more dead, so they will just slowly walk along the bed, maybe bobble a bit, and perhaps stab the nearest lobster.

 

[aco175]

They must have air in the lungs, since all of mine sound like Frankenstein from the old, black and white movie.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

They must have air in the lungs, since all of mine sound like Frankenstein from the old, black and white movie.

That's because air enters/escapes form all sides of the lungs, and not just past the neck!

Not sure if the artist of this picture meant to have the pipes stick out from the lungs directly, or from an actual bagpipe. Both should work imho.

 

[Umbran]

Not sure if the artist of this picture meant to have the pipes stick out from the lungs directly, or from an actual bagpipe. Both should work imho.

Well, if they were thinking that much, they'd realize that putting a pipe in a mouth that doesn't have lips would be ineffective.

 

[Voadam]

I played in a D&D game where to get close to an important plot NPC we bought tickets on the maiden voyage of the unsinkable luxury liner the SS Colossal out of Necrmantic Lovecraftian fantasy New England, otherwise known for their Kraken hunting and rendering industry and the mass animating of the poor after death for industrial work. As a safety precaution "just in case" there were bloated zombies aboard who were commanded to, in the event of the sinking of the ship, come and wrap their arms around passengers to be emergency floatation devices.

So yeah, nothing to worry about there. Because bloated zombies float and always follow their commands and would never chow down on the necks of grappled people. It would take something else supernaturally taking control of them to cause them to deviate from their commands, and what could possibly have the power to do so in the middle of the ocean and be motivated to do so?

 

[Steampunkette]

They sink or swim depending on what I need to make the specific encounter fun and challenging.

 

[Stalker0]

Alright time to go the science!

(Voice whispers in my ear)
“Oh, zombies aren’t real, but fantasy creatures without basis in scientific fact?

Well…do what you want then!”

 

[Mind of tempest]

what kind of zombie are we talking about here? voodoo, Romero what?

 

[Oofta]

what kind of zombie are we talking about here? voodoo, Romero what?

Throw in 28 Days Later, World War Z, Resident Evil, The last of Us, Left 4 Dead and so on. Some zombies are still living creatures controlled by some other force, be that virus or priest. Others are on their way to becoming animated skeletons. Some are weirdly in-between depending on type.

I've toyed around with doing a zombie themed campaign or side-arc but if did there would definitely be different types. So it just depends, the types of zombie are quite varied.

 

[Voadam]

what kind of zombie are we talking about here? voodoo, Romero what?

While D&D has long had variants like the plant yellow musk zombies and olive slime zombies and things like hangman tree zombies, I think it is generally safe to assume a baseline of stock D&D undead zombies in these types of discussion unless otherwise specified. I think if they were talking about non-D&D voodoo zombis of a specific type instead of D&D zombies that would probably be specified.