Fightfest: Supernatural Zombies vs. Biological Zombies

Recently, I have been on a very Zombie minded train of thought. I’m not exactly sure what brought this all on, but the combination of listening to lots of old episodes of The Drunk Tank (the podcast by the Rooster Teeth guys) where the subject of Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising come up repeatedly, and me watching the anime High School of the Dead, has got to have something to do with it.

So, my mind has wandered onto some very interesting subjects; chief among these is the two-fold variation of the zombie in popular culture. Zombies have always been an integral part of D&D and RPG’s in general, so I think this subject is highly relevant to our collective interests. The variation I speak of here is this: supernatural or biological. If you put these two types of zombies into a boxing ring, who would come out the victor… I wonder.

So, in the red corner, we have the Supernatural Zombie. This one is the classic. Whether raised by black magic, or through a twisted ritual of the Necronomicon, the Supernatural Zombie has the power of pure evil on its side. In Fantasy RPG’s, the Supernatural Zombie has been the enemy of more adventuring parties than I can imagine. With their incredibly low level, they make great enemies for most early adventuring parties. They make great enemies to throw into a dungeon and with some skeletons on their side, they can make for a great undead encounter. If you haven’t seen films like “The Evil Dead”, or “Night of the Living Dead”… I’m not even going to finish that sentence; you have seen these movies and you know your supernatural, flesh-eating, undead friends.

In the blue corner, we have the Biological Zombie. Biological Zombies are a bit different in terms of their origin stories, but the flesh-eating fun remains the same. We see a lot more Biological Zombies in TV and movies now than we did 50 years ago. The Biological Zombie has been created through some type of horrible virus or man-made apocalypse. The Biological Zombie is quite the nasty little threat. We have seen in “Resident Evil”, “Shaun of the Dead”, and “Zombieland” (by no means an exhaustive, or necessarily even best of list of biological zombie films – these are just some of my favorites) that the Biological Zombie spreads its “undead plague” through the world when they bite. If you get bitten, don’t count on staying as part of the living.

So, who wins? Enter Zombie Pin-Up girl to declare that round 1 begins!  -  FIGHT!!!

Unfortunately, the fight quickly becomes a stalemate since neither side recognizes the other. The lack of living flesh and brains has resulted in both the Supernatural Zombie and the Biological Zombie ignoring each-other and turning against the audience!! AAAH!!!

Really, I’m not sure which zombie is stronger, but I know I’m a lot more afraid of the Biological Zombie in the real world; but, in my D&D game I am definitely not looking forward to fighting any necromancers and their zombie hoards – those zombies always dull my dwarven battle axe.

But, a 3rd Challenger enters the ring… the biological/supernatural zombie. Raised through a supernatural plague, Bio-Evil Zombies have the power of black magic on their side and spread their biological sickness just as fast. Nothing worse than a Bio-Evil Zombie plague (check these Zombies out in Brother Ptolemy & The Hidden Kingdom by Nevermet Press).

Fightfest one is over. The fight is a draw. Sorry folks, stay tuned for match two wear we dangle a living human over the zombies and see if we can’t get some unlife out of them.

My Entry for XDMC #11 - Nobody

So, i finished my entry for XDMC #11 "Create a Little Bad Evil Guy" and posted it up with minutes to spare on the wizards forums. It isn't as good as i hoped it would be, but i am glad that i could get it in on time.

Here is a link to the competition thread.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1206693

I hope that everyone gets a chance to go over and check it out.

Laterz

XDMC #10 - The Power of Magnetism

Well, my entry for the 10th Expert Dungeon Master's Competition is up. If you want to head over to the sight and give it a look see on the Wizards forums the url is...

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1193226

I'll post my entries here after the competition is over as well as the results. i encourage anybody reading this entry to go on over and give it a try. The competition ends in a few days, but you might still have time to put together the winning entry. Good luck if you do. I know i had fun building those monsters. There was so much i wanted to do with them, but i ended up with something i think is both fun and challenging to deal with.

Game On!

Creature Building in 4e: Way Easier than Before?

Well, i've been working for about a week on my entry for the XCMC #10 and now i have 6 different monster and i can't figure out which to enter, which caused a realization in me... Monsters are way easier to build in 4e than they were in previous editions. The DM toolkit in the DMG makes basically allows the DM to put together a monster in a matter of minutes rather than days. I'm having more a problem thinking up backstory and lore for these creatures than actually putting them together.

I will start posting some of my creations here up once or twice a week. Hopefully i'll end up putting a bunch of them all together in a PDF of some kind and people will download and use them. Take Care

XDMC #10 Create a Pair of Elite Creatures

Well, the 10th Expert Dungeon Master Competition is under way. The theme this time around is to create a pair of elite creatures... sounds like fun right... well, yea it is, but something of this just seems a little complicated to me.

The rules for this particular competition are the following:

1. Provide separate statblocks for two creatures that might be encountered together. The statblocks must contain all the information found in the Monster Statblock Template in the 4e SRD appropriate for that creature.

2. Each creature must have the Elite group role.

3. Briefly describe each creature's typical appearance and behavior.

4. Set forth what characters may know of each creature with an appropriate Arcane, Dungeoneering, Nature, or Religion check.

5. Set forth at least one scenario in which a typical adventuring party might encounter the creatures, and the strategy the creatures might employ in this scenario.


The Optional Elements which can be used for this competition are the follwing, remember you must include at least 3, count 'em 3, in your entry:

1. Each creature gains a mechanical benefit from standing within two squares of the other.
2. One creature has a Good or Lawful good alignment; the other has an Evil or Chaotic Evil Alignment.
3. One creature serves as a mount for the other.
4. Only one creature has a burrow speed.
5. The creatures appear almost identical, but one is at least five levels higher than the other.
6. The creatures are both thematically associated with a solo creature of the paragon or epic tier found in the Rules Compendium.
7. The creatures do not share the same type, origin, or size.
8. The creatures have different abilities that complement one another.
9. The creatures would suffer damage or a deleterious condition if they touched one another.
10. The creatures’ powers are antilogous in some way (fire and ice, light and darkness, etc.) but the creatures still believably might be encountered together.


I strongly encourage anybody interested in creature building to go on over to the Wizards forums and check this one out. You can find the competition under What's a DM to Do? on the Dungeons and Dragons Forums.

I'm sure everyone has lots of good ideas and that entries will be very interesting... I've got a few brewing around in my head at the moment, but the first thing i'm doing is putting together an Exel Monster Builder Sheet to make the whole process a little bit easier. The DDi Monster Creator is good, but it doesn't let you build Elite or Solo creatures very well and so i'm not a huge fan of it. The fact that you have to run it out of your browser as well isn't that great and there isn't a save function for the creatures, other than the usual copy and paste. So, i think an excel spread sheet should do the trick nicely. It will also make putting things into your DM tools account very easy and thus making creation of Monster Cards much more simple. I'm about half way done at the moment, just finished putting together some important forumals and stuff. Next will be on to actually creating my monsters... whatever shall i build... hmmmmmmmm........