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Hi everyone....
What do you think? are Void Zombies really undead creatures?
I understand that the corpse will be controlled by the akata larvae like a marionette.
So my guess is:
The corpse is a kind of an armor which must be overcome to kill the larvae. A simple cleric or paladin can switch these bastards off loik enormal undead...
thanks for your suggestions
Skarfur
... Irrisen is not a good direction....
This was actually asked and not answered in the Children of the Void GM Reference thread. Since then, akatas and void zombies have been included in Bestiary 2, and it says to use the fast zombie variant and add a Blood Drain special attack.
So by RAW, they're undead like an ordinary zombie. I can certainly see a GM ruling otherwise, though, considering their parasitic nature. I remember wondering what to do about them myself when my group was on Devil's Elbow, and I think I just went with "They're zombies; they're undead" for the simplicity of it.
Honestly how pathfinder and fantasy zombies seem to work, powered by negative energy I dont think a Void Zombie would be considered undead though it would be very zombish. Because from the description it sounds more like a coprse being manipulated like a puppet by the parasite within instead of a undead being fueled by negative energy.
Just me though, it would ultimately be up to the DM.
One interpretation is that: negative energy is just a representation of evil turned to a pure energy. That being said, it's pretty evil by most standards (especially pathfinder's) to hijack a corpse and use it as a meat-shield. I'd say that Zombies in the traditional sense are just one way manifest the evil of defiling bodies, and this is another.
To be more direct, they are undead because they function in the same way. The parasite doesn't care if the body is damaged or tired (no need to eat, sleep, etc) and the parasites could reasonably be empowered by negative energy (effected by channelling etc as other zombies. ) The how of the body's post-mortem escapades is just flavour, not rule stuff.
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As my group has just now started Children of the Void I felt I needed to chime in on this thread.
To me void zombies are not undead in the same sense that normal zombies are. the are being controlled by a parasite that manipulates their brainstem.
There is already an example of this in the game, the Yellow Musk Zombie (see the bottom of the page).
The example is a plant and not an undead, it specifically states, "They are treated as plants, not undead, for the resolution of magical effects and attacks. Channel energy cannot harm a yellow musk zombie, for example, nor does negative energy heal a yellow musk zombie."
This is a great example of how a creature that is being animated is treated as a zombie in some ways (attacks, saves, etc.) but not in all ways (vulnerable to crits in this case, fast movement, etc.).
For me it's not about negative energy at all so nothing that works in those mechanics (channeling energy, disrupt undead, etc.) is going to work against them.