Zombie Natural Armour


Rules Questions

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I'm trying to put together some zombies to update the 3.5 summon undead spells, and in using the Pathfinder template, I couldn't help but notice that the phrasing is different with regard to the natural armour the zombies receive. In 3.5 the template increased the creature's existing natural armour, and in Pathfinder it reads as though it flat-out replaces the creature's natural armour. This is a pretty substantial nerf, and I wondered how intentional people believe it was. This isn't just a misreading of the 3.5 version either, because the statblocks in the old MM all support the increased natural armour. I feel like these zombies are all going to be terrible, despite CR, if I go by the letter of the law with Pathfinder on this one. Thoughts anyone?

Scarab Sages

It was absolutely an intentional change, if you ask me. The 3.5 system would regularly result in some zombie creatures that were way too hard to hit for their CR. The Pathfinder system fixes that, making all creature types (more or less) identical based on the desired CR.

Now, I agree an in-world argument can be made that some creatures *should* make better zombies than others, but from a gamist perspective the Pathfinder system is better, as it allows for less gamism. Thus I choose the Pathfinder system. Your mileage may vary.

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