D&D 5E adjusting 5E zombies to be like walkers?

[wicked cool]

I know I will probably get some grief for this but I want my 5E zombies to have a little more bite than they currently stand. I want them to have some sort of infection/disease ability where dead npcs will rise up and pcs bitten could have negatives applied

also looking to see if theres a way to give them a frenzy ability(triggered under certain conditions such as loud noises/bloodshed) where they get a little tougher


basically walking dead walkers

 

[Elon Tusk]

Perhaps make so that only penetrating skull damage kills a walker so an attack would need to do at least 3 hp of damage and get disadvantage for a called head shot.

In TWD, [spoiler alert] everyone is infected and turns to a zombie when then die, biting just causes an infectious wound that brings death quickly.
You ptobably don't want that in your campaign, perhaps a player has to do a DC 12 Con save for bites to prevent turning.
Loud noises and fire attracks walkers, not really frenzying them but creating large herds that are difficult to escape from.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What you want is to use Wights, rather than Zombies.

I mean essentially they are the same thing, undead corpses that rise up and go after people... except that wights aren't mindless like zombies are. But wights do have Life Drain, wherein each hit has a chance of reducing a character's Max HP, and if the wight drains all of it it will rise as a zombie 24 hours later.

As far as a frenzy ability... easiest thing to do might be to just bring either the gnoll's Rampage ability or the orc's Aggressive ability across whole-cloth and give it to the wight.

-Rampage: When the gnoll reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on its turn, the gnoll can take a bonus action to move up to half its speed and make a bite attack.

- Aggressive: As a bonus action the orc can move up to its speed toward a hostile creature that it can see.

 

[jasper]

Double the hit dice since we don't do call shots. Give them pack tactics or something similar.
Now the disease save. This is a bother said Pooh.
Nice way. Unless you are dropped to 0 no problem. No saves the bites did not get flesh. At 0. you must make a DC 20 con save hourly or start to lose 4 hps per hour. Once you hit 0 you turn.
Not nice way. For every bite attack you must dc 15 con save. If you fail you start to lose as above and then turn.

 

[Kabouter Games]

What you want is to use Wights, rather than Zombies.

I mean essentially they are the same thing, undead corpses that rise up and go after people... except that wights aren't mindless like zombies are. But wights do have Life Drain, wherein each hit has a chance of reducing a character's Max HP, and if the wight drains all of it it will rise as a zombie 24 hours later.

As far as a frenzy ability... easiest thing to do might be to just bring either the gnoll's Rampage ability or the orc's Aggressive ability across whole-cloth and give it to the wight.

-Rampage: When the gnoll reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack on its turn, the gnoll can take a bonus action to move up to half its speed and make a bite attack.

- Aggressive: As a bonus action the orc can move up to its speed toward a hostile creature that it can see.

Forgive me, I'm the last nerd in the universe that's never seen a single episode of TWD, so I'm assuming the zombies depicted therein are mindless; if that's wrong, this goes out the window. I have seen quite a few zombie movies, though.

What DEFCON1 wrote above is really good. It's easiest to use the wight as written. Remove intelligence. Add the gnoll's Rampage. You're taking away one dangerous ability - intelligence - and adding one dangerous ability - rampage - so you can continue to use the wight's CR and XP values.

At least it makes sense to me.

Bob

www.r-p-davis.com

 

[Oofta]

Individual zombies are little threat to people that are aware of their presence, so I use mobs. When zombies attack, they are like a giant, amorphous blob of undead. It also makes it easier to scale them up and the image of zombies packed so tight their stepping on each other seems pretty appropriate.

I've debated about the disease thing, because that's their biggest threat and one of the harder things to mimic with D&D's simplified damage system. I'd probably go with an infection that starts if you drop to half or less, with DC increasing if you actually drop to zero. You have to receive magical healing in order to receive saving throws.

 

[wicked cool]

thanks. im going to do some type of abandoned town scenario but a some point they get freed/unclocked . I like the new 5e version I just want them to be more deadly so combining the wight and gnoll abilities are good ideas

 

[Lanliss]

I don't really see them getting tougher. When agitated, walkers try harder. Since they will already be agitated at the beginning of the fight, you can cover this with something like extra attacks, or harder hitting attacks.

The disease is easy. If they drop a Humanoid to 0 hit points, and it dies, it comes back as a Walker. There is no avoiding that part, so there is no reason to make it a disease or Con save of any sort.

I would also rule that a Ranger whose favored enemy is Undead ignores their Fortitude ability, much as all of the Characters in Walking Dead know better than to aim for the body.

EDIT: I forgot about the biting zombies do. For that, I also wouldn't give any sort of save, since people die from a zombie bite.

I would also give the Walkers pack tactics.

 

[Shiroiken]

Have zombies grapple; once Grappled, they can use a special Bite Attack. Low bonus and deals low damage, but the character becomes Infected. They must make a Con Save every hour/day (with increasing DC) until they turn into a Zombie. You can have things like Restoration or Cure Disease remove the Infection before the character turns.

 

[cmad1977]

Have zombies grapple; once Grappled, they can use a special Bite Attack. Low bonus and deals low damage, but the character becomes Infected. They must make a Con Save every hour/day (with increasing DC) until they turn into a Zombie. You can have things like Restoration or Cure Disease remove the Infection before the character turns.

I 2nd this idea. My standard zombies use grapple as their default attack. With the help action(assuming there are many Zeds) they can become a problem for adventures that should be 'beyond' them.


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