Part 1:
Shambling, 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....
Part 2:
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.