Decaying Zombie

Decaying Zombie
Mod	Born in Chaos
Type	Hostile
Health	25 ♥×12.5
Attack damage	4
Armor	0.5
Speed	0.2
Follow range	35
Size	0.6 × 1.9 blocks
XP dropped	5
Spawns in	283 biomes
Category	Monster
ID	born_in_chaos_v1:decaying_zombie

Decaying Zombie is a hostile mob added by Born in Chaos. It is one of the most common hostiles in the overworld, appearing in a wide range of biomes including caves, oceans, rivers, and plains. It is a melee attacker that avoids direct sunlight in clear weather, and it fragments into a Decrepit Skeleton when badly wounded, so a player who fights it in the open should expect a second enemy partway through the fight. A persistent variant, which never despawns, is placed in the Observation Tower structure.

Spawning

Decaying Zombies are natural spawns with weight 30, one of the highest weights among the mod's hostiles, and they spawn alone (group size 1). Their spawn table covers 283 biomes, including caves, deep and shallow oceans, rivers, plains, forests, and underground biomes such as Lush Caves and Deep Dark. The generated spawn table below lists the full set.

Natural spawning is gated by light level. A spawn position that can see the sky must have a light level of 4 or less, and a position underground must have a light level of 0. Spawns are blocked in the Deep Dark and Mushroom Fields biomes. In the overworld, spawns are allowed only in biomes that match the overworld tag, the Terralith biome tag, or the Alex's Caves toxic caves tag. Plains biomes are accepted regardless of the light, dimension, and biome-tag checks. The light and biome rules above are disabled when the decayingZombieSpawn game rule is set to false, which defaults to true. Plains spawns are not affected by that game rule.

Structures do not place the standard variant. The persistent variant is the one placed by structures, in the Observation Tower.

Behavior

The Decaying Zombie is a Monster with 25 health (12.5 hearts), 4 attack damage, 0.5 armor, a movement speed of 0.2, and a follow range of 35 blocks. Its melee attack has a knockback of 0.1. It is immune to drowning damage.

Its AI works as follows:

• Targeting: It attacks the nearest player. It also attacks villagers and iron golems, and it retaliates against any mob that hurts it.
• Movement: It breaks doors, and it strolls randomly at 80% of its base speed when it has no target. It can step up blocks 0.6 blocks high.
• Sunlight: In clear weather it seeks shade, using the vanilla sun-avoidance goal. This avoidance is disabled while it is raining or thundering. In clear daytime it also catches fire for 5 seconds whenever it is exposed to the sky, not in water, and not already burning. Standing in water or rain extinguishes it.
• Infestation: If it has the flies infestation mob effect with 20 ticks or less remaining, it is replaced by a Swarmer.

Its attacks inflict two effects on the target, unless the target is blocking with a shield:

• Hunger I for 5 seconds.
• Rotten Stink I for 30 seconds.

Fragmentation

When the Decaying Zombie drops to 5 health or less, it splits. The mob is removed and a Decrepit Skeleton appears at its position, facing the same direction. It also drops two rotten flesh with a 10-tick pickup delay. The split plays a stomach-opening sound and a slime-break sound. The threshold is the same for the persistent variant, which has 30 health, so the split happens at the same absolute health value.

The skeleton is a separate mob with its own health, so the fight does not end when the zombie splits.

Drops

The Decaying Zombie's fragmentation drops are listed above. Its death loot is shown in the table below.

Decaying Zombie

No item drops.

Variants

The persistent variant, which uses the Decaying Zombie Not Despawn entity, has 30 health instead of 25. It otherwise has the same stats, targeting, sunlight behavior, attacks, and fragmentation threshold. It does not spawn naturally in biomes. It is placed in Observation Towers in forest and plains biomes. Each variant has its own spawn egg.

Tips

• Expect a Decrepit Skeleton to appear once the zombie is brought to 5 health or less, and have a plan for it before the zombie reaches that point.
• Fight in rain or thunderstorms if possible. Sun avoidance is disabled in those conditions, and the zombie will not catch fire from daylight.
• Keep a shield raised when you can. A blocking player does not receive Hunger or Rotten Stink from its hits.
• Rotten Stink lasts 30 seconds after each hit, so a long fight in the open leaves a lingering effect even after the zombies are dead.
• The persistent variant is placed in Observation Towers in forest and plains biomes, which is a predictable place to find one.