I've found that zombies are very unimpressive compared to most other monsters in the core game. Do you think they could be improved by increasing the number of zombies in the monster group? This is a hypothetical question as it's not the kind of thing that could ever be officially changed.

Not all monsters need to be balanced against each other, ti's okay for some to be on the weaker side and only be used as flavoring in quests. They serve their purpose.

I think I've had a good "grab" by a master zombie... once... and it was AGAINST me as a hero... it did turn the quest if I remember correctly.

Yea they are weak, but every now and then they can work well in quests that automatically place them in. Also you do get 4, and in the off chance you can get them to mob one hero you can do a bit of damage. Also there's 5 of them, so that's 5 actions to kill them all (in the early game anyway, then comes blast and such...)

Braaaaaains...

Also whitewing's got it right in that they are purposely weaker. Basicaly think of it this way. During designing a quest one might have thought:

"Hey this quest is way to weak with just 2 monster groups"

"Yea Bill, but 3 would really put it over the edge..."
"ZOMBIES!"

Shouldn't there be a ton of zombies? Thematically, there should be a huge mass of them and they shouldn't roll defense. Something like 12 and 3 with 2 health (gotta hit the brain).

Walking Dead wouldn't be very tense if the zombies were as weak and there weren't many of them like Descent.

Uh, big mass of zombies wouldn't be much different than kobolds.

I' believe zombies are best used as intentional quest monsters (and not an open group choice) in quests which feature special rules for them, such as reinforcement rules (mass rezzing the zombies) or killing villagers and having them be raised as zombies, or as is done in the cardinal's plight.

Zombies when they appear in quests are generally quite annoying because the quest is designed for them to work well.

I think as long as that exists, and we have the quest generator tool here on the website, it's quite okay for zombies to be weaker. I'm concerned about certain monster groups being OP, but not having the occasional one on the UP side of things.

I too think that zombies needs some changes.

The master is a bit too powerfull and broke balance in most case, and others are way too useless. They should be 2-3 more, less powerfull, having swarm, and a master that reduce movement point from adjacent heroes.

I think the Zombies could be reworked. I think if they didn't roll a brown dice for defense and to actually allow them to move twice instead of once would be enough of a change. A grey defense dice would work well, after all you must aim for the brain and not their soft mushy bodies to kill them. More Zombies would just get crowded.

If kept close together they can be effect. But they are soo easy for a hero to kill with a weak defense and no movement to run away or towards something.

I think if these were changed they could be a fun open group to use.

I'm with Whitewing- zombies are fine just the way they are. Variety in monster difficulty and abilities is what makes choices of monster interesting for the OL. Also, as Whitewing pointed out, zombies make a great group for a quest that needs a few extra monsters on the board, but doesn't want to throw the balance hugely in favor of the OL.

I'm with Whitewing- zombies are fine just the way they are. Variety in monster difficulty and abilities is what makes choices of monster interesting for the OL. Also, as Whitewing pointed out, zombies make a great group for a quest that needs a few extra monsters on the board, but doesn't want to throw the balance hugely in favor of the OL.

Also, I forgot to add this earlier, it's good to have a couple kinds of monsters in the game that can be annoying in the right quests and can be helpful when used properly, but still die very easily to the heroes, as it's fun for the heroes to be one shotting mobs.

Another example of a quest where zombies are used well is in Trollfens. I can't remember the name of the quest, but it features a sinking wagon. In that quest, you get 2 zombie minion reinforcements per turn: they just keep coming. They spawn reasonably close to an important objective so they get over there in 2 turns even with their slow movement, and it doesn't matter that they die quickly: they just come back quickly. It still feels like endless ranks of the dead.

Zombies fill a nice niche spot in the game for monsters intended for specific quests, and can be used quite well in these cases. It's fine that not every monster group (given how many there are) aren't ever chosen for open group slots. Hell, I never choose goblin witchers either.

There's another quest in Labyrinth of Ruin were Merrick Ferrow can summon zombies up to group limit. He's basically performing a ritual with Alric and you can use the zombies to slow them down. Summoning the whole group at once has a pretty decent effect at making the heroes waste actions. I won that quest and I realized it was through "zombie-clogging."

Then again I also won this quest in the early days before I went online and downloaded the Errata... that quest has elementals... MAN Air was insanely powerful...