Creature Questions

[Vagni]

In the Core Rules Zombies are described as being immune to fatigue, disease and poisons. They also get a modifier to help resist mind control magic.

Presumably they are also immune to the effects of shock and unconsciousness from injuries?

They have a Resilience skill, which is still needed for checking if a Serious Wound disables a limb (after all they still need tendons and muscles to move, or at least a magical 'replacement' of them) - but I feel that it would be better to allow them to continue operating until they received a Major Wound/ran out of HP to either the Head, Chest or Abdomen. Hack all the limbs off you like, they don't feel it!

I like the idea of Zombies still crawling across the floor toward my players despite loosing a leg. Maybe even a Major wound to the abdomen should only disable their legs as well.

Skeletons would be a similar problem too.

How does anyone else see this one? Have I been watching too many Zombie films??

 

[Khamulcalle]

I love that too...those are the REAL zombies hehehe (well to me they are)

....aim for the head....

I love zombie movies too (send more cops)

 

[Vagni]

Avalon Hill's RQ (and Cuthulu I believe) used to only allow impaling weapons (including arrows etc.) to only do 1 point of damage to Skeletons with a successful hit.

You had to get a critical for any hope of real damage!

 

[kurgan84]

In the Core Rules Zombies are described as being immune to fatigue, disease and poisons. They also get a modifier to help resist mind control magic.

Presumably they are also immune to the effects of shock and unconsciousness from injuries?

They have a Resilience skill, which is still needed for checking if a Serious Wound disables a limb (after all they still need tendons and muscles to move, or at least a magical 'replacement' of them) - but I feel that it would be better to allow them to continue operating until they received a Major Wound/ran out of HP to either the Head, Chest or Abdomen. Hack all the limbs off you like, they don't feel it!

I like the idea of Zombies still crawling across the floor toward my players despite loosing a leg. Maybe even a Major wound to the abdomen should only disable their legs as well.

Skeletons would be a similar problem too.

How does anyone else see this one? Have I been watching too many Zombie films??

I use a simple rule inspired of runequest3:
Skeleton et zombie (and other creatures like golem, living statue ..) don't have CON caracteristic.

first because the CON for me, is the metabolic efficiency of a creature, its immune system or resistance to deprivation.

But the undead have no metabolism so they have no CON and no natural healing.

So, without CON , Skeleton et zombie have no resilience skill, they are tireless, they don't need food, drink, air or sleep and are immune to poison, age and Disease.
Without a resilience skill, they are immune to Bleed and Stun location Manoeuvres.
(because all of this is based on the CON caracteristic or need a Resilience test)

Hit points are calculated with TAI x2 and are more like structural point, if a location take a major wound (Hit Location has lost twice its starting Hit Points), the location is disable/destroyed. Before that, there is no game effect.
In fact they are just like moving Inanimate Objects ! :twisted:

Avalon Hill's RQ (and Cuthulu I believe) used to only allow impaling weapons (including arrows etc.) to only do 1 point of damage to Skeletons with a successful hit.

You had to get a critical for any hope of real damage!

I use this rule too !

 

[Vagni]

Interesting idea, makes a lot of sense.

On a vaguely similar note, one of the things I like about MRQII is that all the skills likely to be used by a spirit (only posessing INT, POW and CHA) all have a base level based on those characteristics.