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Oct 10, 2012 -- 3:52PM, pauln6 wrote:

There is still something screwy with some of the stats.  Ogre strength needs to start at 20 and giant strength needs to build from there.  In previous editions ogres were as strong as the strongest humans, now they aren't even as strong as the strongest halfling.  The weirdest one is zombies - they're mindless and yet they are more intelligent than most of the humanoids and one of the most charismatic monsters in the packet.  I think maybe their stats might have been ineligently merged with the more intelligent, more self-aware ju-ju zombies (who are based more on resident evil and 28-day later zombies rather than the ambling Dawn of the Dead zombies.  I don't really like it...

I'm sorry but ju-ju zombies were around before D&D and they were certainly around before resident evil and 28-days later.

Ju-Ju Zombies showed up as early as 2E...

Oct 12, 2012 -- 12:37AM, pauln6 wrote:

Oct 10, 2012 -- 8:22PM, lokiare wrote:

Oct 10, 2012 -- 3:52PM, pauln6 wrote:

There is still something screwy with some of the stats.  Ogre strength needs to start at 20 and giant strength needs to build from there.  In previous editions ogres were as strong as the strongest humans, now they aren't even as strong as the strongest halfling.  The weirdest one is zombies - they're mindless and yet they are more intelligent than most of the humanoids and one of the most charismatic monsters in the packet.  I think maybe their stats might have been ineligently merged with the more intelligent, more self-aware ju-ju zombies (who are based more on resident evil and 28-day later zombies rather than the ambling Dawn of the Dead zombies.  I don't really like it...

I'm sorry but ju-ju zombies were around before D&D and they were certainly around before resident evil and 28-days later.

Ju-Ju Zombies showed up as early as 2E...

Ju-ju Zombies were in 1e.  I like them but I don't want the standard zombie to be merged with them.  I want my dumb, barely conscious shambling zombie and my scarily fast, scarily intelligent zombie to be clear and separate.

Actually they took them from Voodoo and Hoodoo which is at least 100 years old...

Oct 14, 2012 -- 10:19AM, pauln6 wrote:

Oct 12, 2012 -- 10:29PM, lokiare wrote:

Actually they took them from Voodoo and Hoodoo which is at least 100 years old...

True but 4e definitely took a fair bit of inspiration from computer games like resident evil when updating its monsters - the zombie dogs spring quite literally to mind.  I realise that lots of contradictory sources make up the bestiary but the difference between 'normal' and juju zombies is clear enough that they should be kept separate.  I've never thought of standard animated zombies as being more intelligent than skeletons.  In fact, I've thought of them as being slightly less aware than skeletons because they are so slow to take in their surroundings.

Despite that most skeletons are just zombies that completely rotted away?

FYI I sent 20 zombies against my group of 4 players in a dungeon. It took them 18 rounds to kill them all. Players go first in every combat vs zombies so I don't know why you even give them the silly inishative roll just say players go first and save the DM some needless rolls. My party is a fighter archer, thief thug, and two mages all level 2. they popped every spell as a burning hands even adding 6 flasks of oil to the mix and there were still zombies alive.

With 10 zombies left one of the Mage crits with burning hands 21 pts of damage with a spell save of 16. 7 of the zombies save vs spell out of that 6 make their save vs damage and are left at 1hp.

second mage firse off burning hands with only 13 damage all 6 fail their save vs spell then all but 1 fails the save vs death needing a 13.

Basicly the zombies are eithor nearly undying or fall over in a stiff breeze depending on the dice gods.     

I don't think so. They are not that hard for players to kill. They have a slow movement rate crapy inishative and don't hit that hard individually. They do make a good denial monster for keeping players from wandering into areas that you don't want them in and make a good tension based fight. If they were able to hit harder or had a normal inishative value or movement then they would be broken, but as is they are not that bad.