Myconid Servants

[Malimar]

I'm told that Monster Manual II was written in the 3.0 days of yore, before such novel things as consistency and balance were invented, so it may just not be possible to squeeze anything sensible out of it. But perhaps quixotically, I still want to try.

To wit: a myconid servant "has all the characteristics of a zombie of the same size, except that it retains its previous creature type and it cannot be turned or otherwise affected as an undead." As far as I can see, no mention is made of the myconid servant in the MMII 3.5e update.

The thing I'm hoping somebody can clarify is this: what does that even mean, in these days of massive chunks of a creature's abilities deriving directly from its type? Does the servant still gain all the undead traits such as d12 hit dice, no constitution score, and the long list of undead immunities, or does it instead get the traits and hit dice of whatever its original type was?

(Relatedly, is the assumption I seem to be making vis a vis "type always dictates certain things in 3.5e" even accurate, or am I just confused on a really fundamental level?)

[Urpriest]

Type dictates a lot when it comes to racial hit dice. If a template gives the (Augmented) subtype, then it doesn't change things like hit dice and BAB even if it changes type. Otherwise they change.

In this case, my advice would be to simply give the creature the zombie template but have it retain its previous type. Then yeah, it would probably keep its old BAB/HD/etc. and not gain the undead immunities.

[Yora]

I would probably make them plants. The plant type has a lot of the nice immunities of undead.

[Cog]

Characteristics tied to creature type are often hard to get rid of, but they can be overwritten. I think the "all the characteristics of a zombie" line is strong enough to do that; one of the characteristics of a zombie is the undead immunities, as zombies otherwise have the undead type. So the servant would get immunities, poor BAB and HD, and so forth, but would have immunity to turning because they're not a negative-energy creature. This has the benefit of being quicker to apply, too - the Plant type workaround is interesting, but it's got different BAB and saves among the other differences.