Changes to Animated Dead and Undead

[Reagren Wright]

Okay I love the undead of Palladium Fantasy. I don't mean vampires, but the undead you find in
Eternal Torment and throughout Palladium Books in general. However, I have an issue with its
most basic types, the animated dead, mummy, and zombie. Have you really taken a good look at
their stats in 2nd edition? A guy who in life has 3 S.D.C (no physical skills) and let say a P.E of 8
dies, you raise him from the dead, know he has 80 S.D.C. That's more S.D.C. than a 14 foot (4.2
m) peasant troll or a 20 foot (6 m) tall Horror Deevil. Zombies have 150 S.D.C.! That makes them
more resilient than any greater demon or deevil. Plus their immune to normal weapons (only Jinn
have that claim among the infernal).

This annoyance goes back to the days when I was playing D&D in the 1980s. Once I told our D.M.
that I'm tossing a skeleton down the stairs. Shouldn't have been an issue. A human skeleton
make up around 15-20% of a person's total body weight. If a skeleton is all connected together
which is why they don't fall apart and capable of picking things up, then I should be able to pick
up the 40 lbs (18 kg) of bones from the 200 lbs (90 kg) guy and toss them down the stairs. He
was making make these stupid rolls to get pass its armor rating. I'm like I'm not hitting the thing,
I'm touching it. Needless say I would throw these skeletons around an only do 1D4 points of
damage . Skeletons should be able to be taken down in a one on one fight while becoming
more of threat in mass. This is why I rule any blow from a magic weapon destroys the magic
maintaining the skeleton causing it to fall apart. Zombies and mummies being undead are more
life like and durable, needing more than a single blow from a magic weapon to dispatch.

Another thing why are skeletons and zombies so flammable? What is it that makes human bone
acts like its soaked in gasoline when living beings die? No sort of logic to this or point of origin.

The best way to solve some of this issue I feel is to go back to the old 1st edition rules; 4 Hit
Points/S.D.C. per level of spell caster for animated), 1D8 Hit Points/S.D.C. per level of spell
caster for mummies and zombies.

I have some other ideas that I'm always glad to share with those if anyone request.

[eliakon]

My take on the SDC issue is two fold
1) these bodies are being reinforced with necromantic magic. That provides a lot of strengthening, just like magic armor does.

2) these bodies are no longer alive. A human is a delicate thing, you can easily disrupt the life process with things like exsanguination, or hydrostatic shock, or temperature changes or the like... but an undead? An undead you have to more or less cut to pieces. Hacking off bits of an undead doesn't do a whole lot. So while running a human through with a spear is very likely to kill them... it doesn't really do much to the structural integrity of the body itself...so an undead is likely to take said spear, pull it out and poke you with it

[kiralon]

Vaguely from memory in DnD second ed to grab that skeleton and toss him you would have you have made a touch attack as AC was part armour, part dodge and part deflection, but it should have been easier then their straight AC roll.
but
I play my skele's like Sinbad skeletons. Quick, fragile but dangerous in packs. (8-16hp Natural AR of 8 Bonuses to strike spd 16 etc, unless a necromancer is about). I ignore the animate dead spell unless a player uses it.
I use 2 types of zombie
One is the tank for the skeles (16-24 hp AR 10, +5 dam, spd 12)
The other zombie is out of the book and is the Elite.
But I also shamelessly stole the other undead out of dnd and other games, and converted the priests turn dead to something similar to 2nd ed dnd because palladiums version is ridiculous (not to mention confusing as different books has it working on different things and its ambiguity), because I like the idea of a priest holding up his holy symbol and calling forth the might of his god and the undead run/go pop depending on how powerful a priest you are.
Not giggle and ignore him. Look at the small list of things it effects (There are things elsewhere in the books that say they are and aren't effected)

but I'm always up for variations to undead. They make good surprises for the pc's.

[ShadowLogan]

Have you really taken a good look at
their stats in 2nd edition? A guy who in life has 3 S.D.C (no physical skills) and let say a P.E of 8
dies, you raise him from the dead, know he has 80 S.D.C. That's more S.D.C. than a 14 foot (4.2
m) peasant troll or a 20 foot (6 m) tall Horror Deevil. Zombies have 150 S.D.C.! That makes them
more resilient than any greater demon or deevil. Plus their immune to normal weapons (only Jinn
have that claim among the infernal).

I think eliakon might be on the right track. The SDC amount is a manifestation of the magic involved. We can see that in Rifts with Nxyla's Xombie (which uses essence fragments or something like that IIRC), or even in PF with Witch Pact Gifts (Power and/or Union each contain an SDC bonus) or even Familiar Link (HP bonus) or even just general Elemental Possession as examples, Megaversally I know in Rifts Necromancy/Bone-Magic has the spell "Bone & Joint Bonding" forms undetectable "muscles" (my term) and implies its description forms the basis of animated dead with the line "This is part of the magic involved in animating skeletons and crawling bones" statement in its description, so those magic "muscles" (again my term) would be adding to the SDC.

Another thing why are skeletons and zombies so flammable? What is it that makes human bone
acts like its soaked in gasoline when living beings die? No sort of logic to this or point of origin.

Since Magic is involved, logic need not apply.

But if you want some type of logical answer (take your pick or picks...:
-that what ever animating force magic uses in these cases is being disrupted (or is vulnerable to damage) by the flame
-it has to do with the creature acting as if it was alive (don't know about you but fire hurts) and acting accordingly (explains why the fear fire)
-the magic is altering various properties of the body it is animating (one of which results in them being vulnerable to fire, precedent is "Fragile Bone to Wood" or "Fragile Bone to Stone" Necromatic/Bone-Magic spells also in Rifts Book of Magic description)

The best way to solve some of this issue I feel is to go back to the old 1st edition rules; 4 Hit
Points/S.D.C. per level of spell caster for animated), 1D8 Hit Points/S.D.C. per level of spell
caster for mummies and zombies.

Or instead of per level, just have a random roll for the amount of SDC/HP.

Or just use the 1E version as a spell/ritual variant that is more/less common.