"Half" a zombie?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all. Sorry for the multiple posts today. Having a bit of a brainstorm day.

So, 3.5. The epitome of fantasy. There is a rule for almost anything, and for everything there isnt you are usually able to cobble together 3 or 4 other rules to make it work.

So why cant I find stats for zombie torsos? Or half a skeleton dragging itself towards the party. Theres a couple of monsters that look like torsos but they are usually super high CR and crazy fast. I am looking for zombies that just rotted in half, or skeletons with their legs missing.

At the moment, Im thinking just drop a CR1/2 zombie from 2 to 1 HD, and stick in a slower movement speed, but it would be nice if someone knows of the template hiding somewhere.

[DrMotives]

I don't think there is a template for it. I did once place a zombie three-legged horse in a campaign though. All I did was take zombie template to horse as normal, and then cut the movement speed down by half.

[Inevitability]

Well, there's the half-zombie template in Dragon Magazine... It may not be what you're looking for, though. :smalltongue:

[ShurikVch]

Vile Rebellion spell (Dragon #300): target creature's arms, legs, and torso bloodlessly disconnect and turn into undead (count as Zombies 2 size categories smaller than target creature)

[Calthropstu]

Well, there's the half-zombie template in Dragon Magazine... It may not be what you're looking for, though. :smalltongue:

I do not want to think too hard about how those are made.

[Inevitability]

I do not want to think too hard about how those are made.

The default explanations are botched Resurrections, necromantic experiments and evil deities' meddling. No Lichloved business: you need not worry.

Then again, 'necromantic experiments' can be interpreted in various ways...

[MuddlingThrough]

I don't know if there are any actual rules for that sort of thing specifically, but crawling cuts move speed to 5 feet and incurs attacks of opportunity from anyone that threatens the crawler at any point of the crawl. That, and the modifiers for attacking/defending while prone, seem like decent places to start for homebrewing something.

If the zombie (or whatever) lost its legs a while ago, maybe it's gotten pretty good at dragging itself around attacking people, so you could use half the normal move speed instead of 5 feet and cut the prone modifiers in half. Or just alter its stats to what they would be if it was constantly entangled (which would be pretty similar) to reflect its difficulty in moving around.

I'd probably treat it as a lower CR because of the penalties and lower movement rate, but with the same HD (though possibly with lower actual hit points, to reflect the damage of having lost its legs).

[Calthropstu]

The default explanations are botched Resurrections, necromantic experiments and evil deities' meddling. No Lichloved business: you need not worry.

Then again, 'necromantic experiments' can be interpreted in various ways...

Well there IS the goddess of love and undeath...

[Silva Stormrage]

Hi all. Sorry for the multiple posts today. Having a bit of a brainstorm day.

So, 3.5. The epitome of fantasy. There is a rule for almost anything, and for everything there isnt you are usually able to cobble together 3 or 4 other rules to make it work.

So why cant I find stats for zombie torsos? Or half a skeleton dragging itself towards the party. Theres a couple of monsters that look like torsos but they are usually super high CR and crazy fast. I am looking for zombies that just rotted in half, or skeletons with their legs missing.

At the moment, Im thinking just drop a CR1/2 zombie from 2 to 1 HD, and stick in a slower movement speed, but it would be nice if someone knows of the template hiding somewhere.

I mean frankly you could just use the standard zombie template. All basic zombies have is a slam attack really you could just reduce the speed and maybe their to hit bonus.

If you want a more already in the rules solution look up the spell "Withered Limb" and apply it permanently to a zombie. That should be about the same effect.