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2007-10-19, 02:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
New article up on the WotC site. What have we learned?
- Turn Undead is still in 4th Ed. I smell divine/turn undead fueled feats as well, since they've figured prominently in most of the recent supplements.
- Critical hits are still in 4th Ed.
- Zombies are subject to critical hits. I'm guessing that they're getting rid of the whole Precision damage/critical hit immunity thing. But that's just a guess.
- Zombie is no longer a template?
Discuss
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2007-10-19, 02:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2006
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
There's also some mild implication of death by massive damage. At one point, he mentions something about a sufficiently powerful blow killing a zombie in a cooler manner than a headshot, and he actually uses the phrase "massive damage" in the final paragraph. Of course, that could also be interpreted as some form of fast healing.
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2007-10-19, 03:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2006
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- Poland
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
I don't like zombies not being a template. There should be a difference between a zombie created from big and muscled orc and from fragile elf. Otherwise, meh. Lots of talking about one creature.
My FFRP characters. Avatar by Ashen Lilies. Sigatars by Ashen Lilies, Gullara and Purple Eagle.
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2007-10-19, 03:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2004
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
Well, I hope they don't retain death by massive damage, or if they do it has a much better application. Such as basing it off of HD, or total HP, not just a flat number.
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2007-10-19, 03:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2007
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- Boston, city of awesome
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
What!? Zombies aren't templates? What sort of idiocy is this?
Awesome avatar by Threeshades. And the funny sig by sparkey477
Spoiler
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2007-10-19, 03:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2006
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- Croatia
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
Thanks for the link!
It's simple. Elegant. Devious. I like it.
In an age of coming improvements, even if I have less trivial things to worry about, articles like these fill me with happiness.
p.s.
Originally Posted by Metal_Head
THIS IS SPARTA!Last edited by KIDS; 2007-10-19 at 03:55 PM.
There is no good and evil. There is only more and less.
- Khorn'Tal
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Kalar Eshanti
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2007-10-19, 03:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2005
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- Ohio
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
When I do massive damage in D&D it's 5 times your Constitution. This rewards tougher characters and makes the squishy squishier. I based it off of d20 Modern's massive damage which is just your Constitution. Sticks very close to the "one bullet can kill you" mentality.
Last edited by Eldmor; 2007-10-19 at 11:49 PM. Reason: CON != HP
Libras D'lnar avatar by CSK
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2007-10-19, 03:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- Watching the world go by
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2007-10-19, 04:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2005
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- Bellingham, WA
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
I don't like this very much. This is all implications that zombies rely on what's inside them instead of just bones and muscles to scoot around. In the D&D I know, you don't kill a zombie by putting a hole in it's head, you just break up it's body. Also, a lot of that article seems to imply the zombies of D&D are going to be like the zombies of the movies, where the zombies of the movies are really more like mindless ghouls. That is an aspect of movies that bugs me, I don't want it at my table.
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Homebrew by Krimm Blackleaf
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2007-10-19, 04:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Easton, PA
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
GAH! How come I can get on to my Gleemax account but D&D Insider doesn't recognize me? Aren't they supposed to be the same account? As you can guess, I can't read the article, could someone copy it into a spoiler or something? Please?
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2007-10-19, 04:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2007
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2007-10-19, 04:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2006
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- Croatia
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
Wait I don't understand - why the hate towards lumbering and mindless? Isn't that what zombies are supposed to be?
(I'm talking about classic zombies, not voodoo or similar ones which are closer to ghouls and spirit-wraiths)There is no good and evil. There is only more and less.
- Khorn'Tal
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Kalar Eshanti
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2007-10-19, 04:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2007
Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
SpoilerShambling, mindless corpses are getting all gussied up for 4E Although it might be hard to believe that something as simple as an animated carcass needed an overhaul, with ample influences in movies and video games, the designers knew the zombie was an ideal guinea pig for applying the new monster philosophy. So they set about keeping the zombie simple to run, but they gave it a clear role and made it feel more like the zombies from the big screen.
Every 3rd Edition D&D player thinks of a zombie, at best, as a tough bag of hit points that can take a beating. At worst, the zombie is seen as a really slow fighter or grist for the turn undead mill. Unfortunately, a Large or smaller 3E zombie really required a weapon to be scary on the damage-dealing side, and they were a lot easier to take out than any movie zombie.
Rethinking the zombie required harkening to the zombie in popular culture while maintaining the D&D elements that make undead cool. Zombies move slowly, dragging their lifeless feet, and it takes a heck of a blow to kill one, so tough is right. But zombies don’t pick up weapons, even convenient ones. They tear you apart with their bare dead hands. They overwhelm you with numbers, drag you down, and eat you.
The new zombie is a brute with just enough reasoning power to know who to kill. It’s easy to hit—zombies don’t dodge—but it’s rotten body just soaks up blows that would kill a living creature. You had better be hitting the zombie hard every time, or it’ll just keep coming. If you manage to hit it really hard, say with a critical hit or a power that deals hefty damage, you might just take the creep out in one fell swing.
That’s right. I did say, “critical hit.” The zombie is vulnerable to that now, which is sweeter than a head shot in any zombie flick.
If you’re a player, take a moment right now to thank the merciful designers that turn undead is still in the game. That power doesn’t send the zombies running off to gods knows where, but if it doesn’t turn them to putrid dust, it does hold them at bay. Believe me—you don’t want zombies close to you. Even though they won’t come wielding greataxes, zombies can take your head off with their vicious slams. The bigger the zombie, the uglier the thump. And when zombies swarm you, some of them are going to grab you, maybe even pulling you to the ground. That’s not the place to be when the dead come knocking.
As a DM, you don’t have to worry about creating the gnoll zombie or the orc zombie. The one set of Medium zombie statistics should do you fine. The players won’t know the difference, except by virtue of your descriptive talents. They should be most worried about the pummeling their characters are taking anyway.
At appropriate levels, a fight against zombies should look more like a horror movie scene. Protagonists have to maneuver to keep away from the possibility of devastating damage while trying to cut their way through a relentless wall of dead flesh. The players get a thrill when a zombie goes down to massive damage, and the DM gets the satisfaction of using a monster that lives up to popular expectations.
It’s a whole new game, even from the very bottom of the undead barrel. Now if we only had a few zombies that added some spice to the basic shambling corpse recipe. Perhaps I’ll go dig a few up for our next look at zombies....
It seems like an acceptable conversion to me.
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2007-10-19, 04:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2006
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- New Hampshireland
Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
I like the new zombies. I like the warlocks. I tolerated the cosmology. But I can't STAND the removal of saving throws! Not cool, WoTC! Not! Cool! Saving throws have been a staple of D&D for almost its entire existence!
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2007-10-19, 04:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2007
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
The way I understand the use of massive damage is just that: lots of damage. Meaning they're going to have DR and lotsa HPs with which to back it up and make it meaningful.
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Mega-Awesome Avatar done by Dawn!
The Many Faces of GimliFett.
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2007-10-19, 04:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2006
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2007-10-19, 04:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2007
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- The Abyss
Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
zombies should still be immune to criticals, it makes sense and adds flavor
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2007-10-19, 04:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
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2007-10-19, 04:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- North Yorkshire, UK
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
Yeah, zombies...scientifically, they make no sense
I want to see how this works before making my final opinion (as with most of 4E), but I have to say, I don't like the idea that zombies are going to be more like movie zombies. I've always used them in the past as moving corpses, possibly minions of a necromancer. They don't need intelligence to do their job - a formless pile of flesh and bones can do it just as well
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2007-10-19, 04:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2006
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
I kinda like the move away from saving throws. The huge volume of save or lose effects makes quite a lot of battles turn into a 'who can avoid rolling a 1 the most' competion. Depending on the mechanic used to replace them, I'm cautiously optimistic about saving throws dying.
Don’t date the sane ones, they’ll only make you crazy. Date the really insane ones but never let them know where you live or work.
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2007-10-19, 04:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2007
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
It always bugged me that zombies were immune to critical hits.
Look, I don't care whether they're dead or not, a body functions on a certain mechanical design and can be effectively disabled with minimal effort if the right parts are attacked:
Broken spine = body can't do anything meaningful at all
Severed Achilles = body can at best drag itself
Exploded head = no way for body to navigate ... and no way to do anything if the brain is needed (sure, it's a dead brain, but those are dead limbs with dead muscles inside, too, and that doesn't seem to be slowing them down)
And so on.
I maintain that precision should let you disable a zombie efficiently.
But even more, I like the promise of zombies being made actually scary. I hope they can deliver on it.
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2007-10-19, 04:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2006
Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
I am a poor man, some say I’m half crazy,
son of the sword and the knife
Lady I pledge you my sword and my honor,
my heart and my pride and my life
--Bella Doña, by Joe Bethancourt
Spoiler
Alas, poor Draknir. By Mephibosheth
Owl-atar by KingGolem
You will be missed, dear 'stache...
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2007-10-19, 04:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2007
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- Oh gods i wish i knew
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2007-10-19, 04:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2007
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- Oregon, USA
Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
FeytouchedBanana eldritch disciple avatar by...me!
The Index of the Giant's Comments VI―Making Dogma from Zapped Bananas
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2007-10-19, 05:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2007
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- Moscow
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
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2007-10-19, 05:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2006
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- Northen Virginia
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2007-10-19, 05:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2006
Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
I am a poor man, some say I’m half crazy,
son of the sword and the knife
Lady I pledge you my sword and my honor,
my heart and my pride and my life
--Bella Doña, by Joe Bethancourt
Spoiler
Alas, poor Draknir. By Mephibosheth
Owl-atar by KingGolem
You will be missed, dear 'stache...
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2007-10-19, 05:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2007
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- Oregon, USA
Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
FeytouchedBanana eldritch disciple avatar by...me!
The Index of the Giant's Comments VI―Making Dogma from Zapped Bananas
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2007-10-19, 05:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
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- Carnegie Mellon
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Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
You're all missing the most important bit. The article mentions that a zombie can still "take your head off with a vicious slam". This means that the zombie's attack is still a slam.
Now, nobody has ever given me a satisfactory answer to this question:
What in the name of $DEITY is a slam?
This would have been the perfect opportunity to fix this once and for all. How could they have screwed this up?Love the Third Amendment?
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2007-10-19, 05:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
Re: 4th Ed Design Article: The Zombie
At last...no more death-stares at the DM every time my character ends up in a crypt. Go rogues!