Changes To The Zombie - Vers. 1

Changes to the Zombie - Vers. 1

As part of my Ravenloft/Domains of Dread Hopping Campaign, my players are going to be visiting Falkovnia and defending a small lumber farm over the course of a few days leading up to the full moon. While I love fighting and/or playing zombies (my main PC is literally a spider-infested corpse), I find 5e's basic zombie stat block a bit lackluster, particularly when using it in mass combat with low level PCs. Of course, there's the Strahd Zombie, but the extra limbs become a pain to track, and when working with a party of four level three characters, I can't have too many of them in a fight.

With the session less than 12 hours away as I write this, here's what I'll be test running:

I'm using the RAW statblock as a starting point, and will be making only small changes to the AC, HP, and Damage details, to keep the CR close to 1/4.

Rather than just the Slam attack, I'll be adding a Bite and Claw/Slash attack. Each attack will have the same Damage dice, before taking into account the changes mentioned later. The main variations will be the Damage type, with slashing for the Claw/Slash, and piercing for the Bite. One of my favorite house rules I've played with and used is that the damage type for some weapons can change depending on how the attacks are described, and I want to provide the zombies with a few different options.

To keep with the CR, they won't receive Multiattack, and just have the option to shift between attack methods.

To make it easier to come up with descriptions for the zombies, and to create some mechanical variation between them, I created a simple table to roll on as needed. Most are purely aesthetic changes, though a few change speed, buff or debuff damage/attack rolls, and impact AC.

A Missing Jaw have a -1 to hit, along with the debuffs from a Broken Jaw or Missing Teeth.

Zombies with Missing Teeth, Missing Fingers, or a Broken Jaw have a -1 to damage rolls of their respective attacks.

A Limp drops speed by 5, and Missing a Leg by 10. Those Missing Both Legs are prone and must crawl.

Armor, even when broken, adds some kind of protection. Wearing it provides the zombie with +1 AC.

Larger zombies receive an extra hit die and +1 damage to Slam attacks.

Anyway, I'll be testing this stuff out tomorrow, I'll give an update as soon as possible about how it all went. I don't do a lot of homebrew, at least not beyond reflavoring stuff, so this will probably need a few revisions before it's actually decent.

An early "thank you" to my players, who don't yet know how much help they're going to be.

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