I have noticed how in most retro games, the zombies are often represented as extremely dumb, only able to fight by using bite, or their hands, or their own flesh, etc. While the skeletons often have more intelligence and know to use weapons, wear helmets and armors and even some of them attack with magic. Its like zombies have the intelligence of a insect while skeletons have the intelligence of a warrior or a wizard. Why skeletons are smarter if they have no brains? Why skeletons know how to use weapons and even magic while zombie do not?
DnD logic
maybe the creation process
If the zombie is too smart, then it's basically just a human enemy with a skin condition.
Zombies can be made through magic or science Skeletons can only be made through magic since you cant explain how they move otherwiseThe pure magic makes them smarter
Zombies are dead. Skeletons are death.
zombies are normal humans who have a disease that makes them retardedskeletons are entirely magical. they dont have a brain. the fact that they can even stay together requires magic since all the tendons/ligaments have rotted away so theres no non-magical way they can even stay together.
Zombies are recently deceased, skeletons are decomposed, they had more time to prepare.
>>12642350It's not just a retro game thing. Skeletons have traditionally been depicted as doing intelligent things and not just mindless monsters. Here they are playing instruments and dancing in a 1493 woodcut.Zombies were mindless or controlled from the start.
>>12642807The one on the right still has some of his flesh and organs though, he's a zombie. Poor guy's just trying to fit in.
me leik zomby
>>12642386This anon is probably correct. I'm just not familiar entirely with DnD so I'm going to assume he's correct. Skeletons being reanimated is more magical OP. It really does not make logical sense. However you can buy into the idea of a human being made into a brain-dead zombie as how they are depicted in Resident Evil. In fact I would say RE did the best interpretation of zombies which is why the series remains so strong to this day. Its very buyable that some evil corporation would conduct experiments using science, make a virus that zombifies human beings and even has a vaccine as the fix to what they themselves created. Also if you want to count the RE4 ganados as a type of zombie then they would be an example of zombies with intelligence as they can use guns, use strategy, etc. They can even talk.
>>12642909Zombies and skeletons are both mindless trash mobs in D&D, what intelligence they show is entirely from the magic that creates them due to having no souls. Only the ones with a bound soul like skeleton warriors have any real intelligence and even then they're hellbent on a single goal.
>>12642350Everybody's getting into the technicalities but the important reason is what they represent. The zombie represents humanity at its worst when society breaks down. Lynch mobs, stampedes, panic and stupidity. Skeletons just don't fit the stereotype.Also I like the idea that if they both exist in the same universe the skeletons are smarter because they're older.
