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Merlin the Tuna
2007-10-22, 08:26 PM
Link (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20071022).

After you get through another proclamation of how cool 4E is as well as a few puns, there's a second article on zombies up on the WotC page. This one outlines three zombies that do a bit more than lumber around and eat brains. Interesting stuff.

The simplest monsters are cooler in the new edition of the D&D game, and zombies are no exception. But even though they're soulless animated corpses, zombies don't have to be dead simple. The 4th Edition designers threw the new zombie a bone, coming up with a few ways that everyone's favorite corpse creatures can function in the game to give more chills and kills.

To this end, in the Monster Manual, three exotic zombies appear. The first is the chillborn zombie, the coldness of the grave given just enough volition to be bent on murder. The corruption zombie is a paragon of rot with a great throwing arm. The final new zombie is the gravehound zombie.

That list might spark some preconceived notions about what these undead do. All three possess the implacable resilience of regular zombies, but each comes with an added spin. You might expect easy clichés and predictable performances, but the ideas behind these new breeds of zombie aren't dead on arrival.

A chillborn is cold, but it's not merely an icy zombie. Whatever accursed rites or foul maledictions gave a semblance of life to the chillborn made it even tougher than normal, its body and mind hardened by the freezing hand of death. Life-sapping cold streams from the creature, and the more chillborn zombies in a group, the deeper the freeze. As might be expected, the remorseless fists of the chillborn deal some cold damage, but when a chillborn strikes you, you just might freeze in place, still able to fight back but unable to flee the biting aura the zombie exudes. All chillborn deal more damage to immobilized victims, and your inability to maneuver certainly benefits anyone relying on the chillborn to provide a defensive front line.

One creature that requires such a line of defenders, although probably provided by allies other than the chillborn, is the corruption zombie. This creature is so tainted that its body constantly exudes putrid flesh. It tears off chunks of its own rotting body to hurl at its foes, but leaving itself unharmed due to the supernatural nature of its tissues. If one of its thrown motes of corruption strikes you, however, you're in trouble -- not only does the gobbet hurt, but the unclean flesh also weakens you. Your instincts might dictate charging the zombie to stop its ranged attacks. But the stink of death is so strong near the creature, so sickening, that it can overwhelm the fortitude of the hardiest warrior, slowing his movement and enfeebling his attacks. Even so, if you can stand the smell, pressing the corruption zombie into melee might be an effective way to put an end to the creature.

This isn't true of a gravehound zombie. So named because it's usually created from the corpse of a sizeable dog, a gravehound zombie is a melee monster like many other zombies. It's much faster than normal zombies, and its bite makes up in damage what it lacks in accuracy. The real problem with gravehounds is that their bite causes continuing decomposition around the wound. That trouble can persist even after the gravehound is destroyed. When the gravehound goes down, it lashes out one final time. If it hits you, its jaws lock. Until you can use brute force to open the death grip, you have to drag the hound around and deal with the decay its teeth cause. Being hindered like that during a battle can be more than just a minor nuisance.

When you're playing D&D, you want exciting entertainment. Defeating these exotic zombies is all the more satisfying, the possibility of horrible death all the more threatening, given their terrifying abilities. They set a great precedent for the zombie category's future expansion, and the prospect of even more terrifying fun.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-22, 08:29 PM
How boring.

An ability damage zombie, a disease zombie, and a poison zombie, with the last two having extra roles. Yawn.

toddex
2007-10-22, 08:34 PM
I remember reading a resident evil d20 modern book somewhere, if you wanna play a zombie game that to me would be the most fun way.

Tallis
2007-10-22, 08:55 PM
I like the ideas, but they don't really feel like zombies to me. My zombies are old school, shuffling undead, probably animated by a dark voodoo priest.

Jarlax
2007-10-22, 11:30 PM
I like the ideas, but they don't really feel like zombies to me. My zombies are old school, shuffling undead, probably animated by a dark voodoo priest.

that is what the core zombie is for. these are additional undead that happen to have the name zombie in them, obviously a skeleton would not be able to throw diseased flesh at people.

i like them, especially the greavehound. the idea that it lockjaws someone as its final action is pretty cool. i also see a lot of funny moments coming out of gaming groups about where the hound locks onto.

seems to me the idea of these three zombie subtypes is probably to mix one or two into a existing zombie mob. you have three slow moving core zombies with two gravehounds to give the mob a speed factor. or 4 regular zombies and a corruption zombie bringing up the rear. used sparingly they keep a pack of zombies a fresh encounter, stopping them from becoming stale.

brian c
2007-10-22, 11:58 PM
I really wish D&D insider would have a "Forgot your password?" email reminder feature, but considering the sign up link is broken, I'm not too optimistic.

Zombies... eh. I like the 3.5 zombie fine, nothing against movie zombies but that's for movies, not for D&D.

(I apologize if I sound like one of those people who doesn't like ToB because they don't want anime in their D&D)

0oo0
2007-10-23, 01:56 AM
Does the corruption zombie remind anyone else of Half Life 2? To me, it seems very reminiscent of the black headcrab hosts.

I personally like DnD Zombies to be shambling hordes. I don't really like the new feel, but I'm pretty sure it'd be easy to get around.

Merlin the Tuna
2007-10-23, 01:58 AM
I personally like DnD Zombies to be shambling hordes. I don't really like the new feel, but I'm pretty sure it'd be easy to get around.These are specifically noted as "exotic zombies." Presumably that means that the shambling horde-style zombie described in the first article is a separate beast.

shadowdemon_lord
2007-10-23, 02:36 AM
I kinda like the idea of the Chillborn. Throw a few of these into a horde of classic zombies, then watch the carnage as the enemy's front line is frozen in place. Doesn't matter if the zombies are slow if your frozen eh? Adds a bit of spice to the classic zombie encounter.

Anyway, it seems like with all these differnt zombies you could make a tough encounter just by using zombie variants. Think about it, mostly classic zombies as mooks, a few of the tougher chillborn as tanks (and to add a nasty surprise to the enemy fighters who will be trying to simultaniously fight back and manuever out of the way of the zombie horde) the gravehounds as skirmishers, and corrupted zombies as the artillery. You could also throw in the necromancer that created them as the battlefield controler :).

Mewtarthio
2007-10-23, 02:37 AM
The chillborn zombies seem to me the most "zombie-like" of the exotic zombies. The regular 4e zombie is apparently designed to mob the living in melee and win through sheer attrition. Chillborn zombies do pretty much the same thing, except they prevent you from fleeing and regrouping. I found the line about "the more chillborn zombies in a group, the deeper the freeze" interesting, as it seems to synergize perfectly with the idea of lots of monsters in tight spaces making life hell for their victims.

I'm not quite as excited about the corruption zombies. Ranged attacks just don't seem very zombiesque to me. The horrific stench and weakening is a nice touch, but zombie artillery just seems incongruous. Besides, it also makes the zombies appear intelligent: Even if tactics are said to come from a necromancer controlling them, the very idea of projectile weapons seems more advanced than I'd give a zombie credit for.

Gravehounds are a little better. I've always found the idea of zombie dogs that are somehow faster than their living counterparts (running alongside zombie humans that are decidedly slower than regular people) strange, but it works out mechanically. While the Striker and Leader are in the fray and the Defender is fending off the advancing tide, the gravehound dashes past all three and eats the controller. The tactics work fine from an instinctual standpoint as well, since most predators target food that doesn't fight back as much (yes, I know most zombies don't even get that intelligence, but we've already established that dogs die better than people). The poison's decent, since every zombie horde needs a festering disease, and the death grip looks to be tons of fun. Now, if only I could wrap my head around the whole "zombie dog" thing...

In short:
Chillborn: Tons o' fun
Gravehound: Mechanically fun, conceptually odd
Corruption: Why did they call this thing a zombie?

kamikasei
2007-10-23, 02:45 AM
Does the corruption zombie remind anyone else of Half Life 2? To me, it seems very reminiscent of the black headcrab hosts.

GAH KILL IT WITH FIRE god I hated those things so hard.



...

Naturally this means I'd relish throwing their D&D analogue at players...

Bryn
2007-10-23, 06:33 AM
Does the corruption zombie remind anyone else of Half Life 2? To me, it seems very reminiscent of the black headcrab hosts.

It reminds me more of the 'evolved' (or something) headcrab zombies from Half Life 1's expansion Opposing Force (in which you are one of the Marines). They would reach inside the chest cavity and throw their guts at you, and they were also tougher than the standard zombies. They vanished by HL2 though.

On-topic, the article seems fairly interesting, but I'd probably only use standard zombies to be honest. Possibly the gravehounds too. I might use the others with changed fluff, but I'm not so keen on the concept of an 'ice zombie' for example.

fendrin
2007-10-23, 08:13 AM
I could see using the chillborn in a few very specific ways (a manifest zone of Risia, or a necromancer's army sweeping in from the frozen tundra, etc.)

I don't like the corruption zombie. It just seems... unzombie-like. Could just re-image it as a non-zombie, semi-intelligent undead, though. Same mechanics, even the same visuals, just taking away the 'zombie' label.

Gravehounds are nifty, they remind me of the infected dobermans in... one of the Resident Evil movies... I think... the second one?

I could see using them as zombie huskies for that northern necromancer's horde.

I think maybe I've found my first 4e campaign :smallamused:

Honestly, I hope they keep some vestige of template creatures in 4e. sure, they were more work than straight-from-the-book monsters, and the difference between a zombie human and a zombie orc was negligable, but I always liked throwing in weird things like the a zombified menagerie. A zombie elephant might be strange, but it is definitely intimidating.

Rex Blunder
2007-10-23, 08:34 AM
Well, the article mentioned there would only be one set of stats for medium zombies. Hopefully they have a stat block for large and larger zombies too.

Morty
2007-10-23, 09:09 AM
Well, the article mentioned there would only be one set of stats for medium zombies. Hopefully they have a stat block for large and larger zombies too.

Unless they deem it as too complicated and/or unnecessary.:smallsigh:

Techonce
2007-10-23, 10:07 AM
I can picture it now.

THe fighter in our grou pwanders off and gets attacked by 3-4 gravehounds. He barely manages to win the fight and he limps back into camp with the dead dogs still stuck to him.

He asks, "Can I get a hand here?" as he falls over from the poison.