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Severus Snape wrote:So, I'm in the process of writing (and running on the storm watch forums) a campaign for PFRPG, and the undead hordes are going to be a large part of the campaign. Don't ask me why, but I enjoy having skeletons, zombies, vampires, and other undead beasts attacking and being attacked by PCs.

Anyhow, I'm going through the undead monsters (and they are truly scattered throughout most of the books), and there are a few things I don't like about them. Such as:

1. They have HP and SDC;
2. They continuously come back to life after being reduced to 0 HP/SDC;
3. They are supernatural creatures with supernatural PS;
4. With the exception of skeletons, they are all mostly intelligent;
5. They have no bonuses/vulnerabilities that would be unique to their stature (such as bladed weapons inflicting less damage to skeletons as they are nothing but bone and the blade could be considered to catch a lot of "air" when slicing through them).

There are more things that I don't like about them as a whole, but these are the ones that really get my bacon sizzling. So I've taken some serious liberties with the undead ickies that I've already got coming for the PCs (boy, I hope they don't read this thread!). They are:

1. The undead do not have HP. They aren't alive, and have no life essence. No life essence = no HP. They have SDC, but not HP.
2. Once destroyed, they are destroyed. They don't keep coming back (except in a few instances specifically designed to torment the PCs).
3. Most of them no longer have SNPS.
4. Most of them are now mindless and have next to 0 IQ/ME/MA.
5. I've started giving some of them vulnerabilities that match what they are. Skeletons only take 1/2 damage from bladed weapons, but take full damage from blunt weapons.

Again, these are the ones that in my mind really needed to be changed.

Has anybody else made changes to the undead in PFRPG or across the megaverse that they thought needed to be made?

• Mindless (no IQ, ME, or MA)
• Can be harmed by normal, non-magical weapons
• No HP. Once reduced to 0 SDC they are destroyed
• Once killed, they are destroyed permanently
• AR reduced to 4 (I mean, why are they harder to hit than anybody else not wearing armor?)

• Mindless (no IQ, ME, or MA)
• Can be harmed by normal, non-magical weapons
• No HP. Once reduced to 0 SDC they are destroyed
• Once killed, they are destroyed permanently
• AR reduced to 4
• Slashing/Piercing weapons do 1/2 damage
• Are not considered to be animated and controlled by a necromancer, so they can wander around much like zombies

• Slashing/Piercing Weapons do no damage
• Once they are reduced to 0 SDC they stop regenerating
• They have an AR of 8 (or of whatever armor they are wearing)
• They aren't completely mindless

Severus Snape wrote:There are more things that I don't like about them as a whole, but these are the ones that really get my bacon sizzling. So I've taken some serious liberties with the undead ickies that I've already got coming for the PCs (boy, I hope they don't read this thread!). They are:

1. The undead do not have HP. They aren't alive, and have no life essence. No life essence = no HP. They have SDC, but not HP.

Severus Snape wrote:2. Once destroyed, they are destroyed. They don't keep coming back (except in a few instances specifically designed to torment the PCs).

Severus Snape wrote:3. Most of them no longer have SNPS.

Severus Snape wrote:4. Most of them are now mindless and have next to 0 IQ/ME/MA.

Severus Snape wrote:5. I've started giving some of them vulnerabilities that match what they are. Skeletons only take 1/2 damage from bladed weapons, but take full damage from blunt weapons.

Severus Snape wrote:Again, the higher forms of undead do not follow the same rules that I've already outlined. This includes Vampires, specters, mummies, etc.

dragonfett wrote:I think that the reason so many people playing Palladium Games get that confused (myself included) is because in other, more popular games (read: D&D), skeletons, zombies, etc. (the lower forms of undead/animated dead) are considered undead, just like the higher forms of undead (vampires, wraiths, liches, etc.).

Severus Snape wrote:

dragonfett wrote:I think that the reason so many people playing Palladium Games get that confused (myself included) is because in other, more popular games (read: D&D), skeletons, zombies, etc. (the lower forms of undead/animated dead) are considered undead, just like the higher forms of undead (vampires, wraiths, liches, etc.).

Agreed. It also confuses players of PB games when even PB classifies zombies as not undead in PFRPG, but as undead in DR.

KonThaak wrote:Since they've been brought up, I have been using DR zombies as a basis for some of my PFRPG zombie encounters for a while, now. They typically arise in areas where necromancers practice their magic a great deal, and the air stinks of death magic so strongly that even the densest of warriors feels ill-at-ease in those areas... The area around Kaash is a common place to find these creatures roaming the wilderness, feeding on ambient PPE and travelers who happen by.

Having said that, the undead (both the "lower" classifications such as animated dead and full-blown zombies and such as well as the "higher" undead such as vampires and the slew that're listed in Land of the Damned) are supposed to be horrific and frightening in the world of Palladium. They are supposed to be frightening to the characters (even if they're just ho-hum to us as players), difficult to deal with, and defeating even just a small group of basic zombies (DR zombies, animated dead, zombies created by the level 12 wizard spell, whatever) is supposed to earn major bragging rights at the next tavern the adventurers cross.

For this reason, when I'm running the "undead", they have both SDC and HP, as in the books...though they are immune to spells which affect HP directly, drain life, etc. SDC is depleted appropriately and has the visual effect that no damage is being done--the corpse (or whatever) is being worn down, but the characters have the sickening visual that their attacks aren't affecting the creature. The HP (which isn't HP in a traditional sense, but rather more like SDC, itself) is when the characters finally see results in the damage they're doing...which can be misleading, depending on the kind of creature they're facing. ("Good it's dead... Now we can finally move on and--OH CRAP! IT'S MOVING AGAIN!!! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!!!!111ZOMG")

For animated dead that have SDC but no HP, I treat the first 3/4 of their damage capacity as SDC above, and only the last 1/4 as HP.

This leaves me open to force the players into HF rolls in the middle of combat, as the players begin to wonder if these things will ever just stay dead...and gives both the players and the characters a satisfying feeling of triumph when they finally succeed.

Severus Snape wrote:Yeah, I need to clarify the whole intelligence thing. Some of the undead are going to be intelligent - vampires, specters, vortan the undying (as an example). So their intelligence is going to stay as is. I'm talking about the lesser variations - skeletons, zombies, etc.

The reason I see the need to eliminate the HP is that because they no longer have a life essence, they don't have HP. Granted, they aren't truly alive and they aren't truly dead. But the undead are no longer truly alive, and as such wouldn't have HP.

KonThaak wrote:Since they've been brought up, I have been using DR zombies as a basis for some of my PFRPG zombie encounters for a while, now. They typically arise in areas where necromancers practice their magic a great deal, and the air stinks of death magic so strongly that even the densest of warriors feels ill-at-ease in those areas... The area around Kaash is a common place to find these creatures roaming the wilderness, feeding on ambient PPE and travelers who happen by.

Having said that, the undead (both the "lower" classifications such as animated dead and full-blown zombies and such as well as the "higher" undead such as vampires and the slew that're listed in Land of the Damned) are supposed to be horrific and frightening in the world of Palladium. They are supposed to be frightening to the characters (even if they're just ho-hum to us as players), difficult to deal with, and defeating even just a small group of basic zombies (DR zombies, animated dead, zombies created by the level 12 wizard spell, whatever) is supposed to earn major bragging rights at the next tavern the adventurers cross.

For this reason, when I'm running the "undead", they have both SDC and HP, as in the books...though they are immune to spells which affect HP directly, drain life, etc. SDC is depleted appropriately and has the visual effect that no damage is being done--the corpse (or whatever) is being worn down, but the characters have the sickening visual that their attacks aren't affecting the creature. The HP (which isn't HP in a traditional sense, but rather more like SDC, itself) is when the characters finally see results in the damage they're doing...which can be misleading, depending on the kind of creature they're facing. ("Good it's dead... Now we can finally move on and--OH CRAP! IT'S MOVING AGAIN!!! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!!!!111ZOMG")

For animated dead that have SDC but no HP, I treat the first 3/4 of their damage capacity as SDC above, and only the last 1/4 as HP.

This leaves me open to force the players into HF rolls in the middle of combat, as the players begin to wonder if these things will ever just stay dead...and gives both the players and the characters a satisfying feeling of triumph when they finally succeed.