Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Latro 11-26-05, 07:08 PM	... and hopefully a quick answer *hint hint* ;) I have this thing for the smelly shambling (and occasionally rattling) hordes. Zombies and skeletons all the way! I really want to put the fear into my gaming group of these undead hordes. Unfortunately, the statistics of them leave much to be desired when it comes to actually making the players fear for their lives. :mad: I expect the average zombie to go down hard when facing an experienced adventurer, but when ganging up on him the zombies should have a chance to (literally) drag him down and slowly tear him to pieces. So how do I do this? - Should I allow the zombies to really gang-up (multiple zombies occupying the same square)) when trying to grapple the player? Otherwise the attack of opportunity before the grapple and narrow corridors make it almost impossible for the zombies the effectively threaten them. It's also quite in character for zombies to be almost climbing over eachother to get to their prey. (brains!) - Make them take half damage (like skeletons) from slashing and piercing weapons? - I'm pretty sure I'll drop the action-limit on them. - Some other nifty option I haven't thought of yet? Changing them into something more frightening is easy, but I do not want to overdo it. Any ideas, experiences and thoughts on the matter are really welcome. :cool:
shadowmimiiru 11-26-05, 07:29 PM	You ever see Army of Darkness? Well there's this scene when the main character is thrown into a small confined watery pit and has to fight a single ghoul like being. Now make that pit more confined (maybe 5' diameter) so that no archer types can really use their weapon, make the pit nearly inpendable darkness, then throw a couple hundred zombies or such at them. Now personally I like to use Drowned for this type of thing but whatever you go for. Now question is if its so tight how did the monsters (that many) get here? Well have it so that if the PC's get enough of them they realize the pit is actually much larger (maybe even with a passage way out or two) then the could make out with all the baddies. Does that help? later shadow
TheChilliGod 11-26-05, 07:30 PM	A good idea for this sort of thing is to use the Mob template from the DMG2. It instantly turns one zombie into a whole horde (like a swarm, really), capable of moving through players' squares. (still provoking AoO's, but they have mega hit dice anyway) They have one grapple mod, and don't take the -20 penalty for not being considered grappled. They also deal a fair amount of damage to those in their area. (like a swarm does) Better hope you have a DMG2. Also, skeletons have damage reduction 5/bludgeoning, instead of take half damage from piercing & slashing. Zombies have DR 5/slashing, so that concept is already there. Just so's you know.
FriendoftheDork 11-26-05, 07:34 PM	... and hopefully a quick answer *hint hint* ;) I have this thing for the smelly shambling (and occasionally rattling) hordes. Zombies and skeletons all the way! I really want to put the fear into my gaming group of these undead hordes. Unfortunately, the statistics of them leave much to be desired when it comes to actually making the players fear for their lives. :mad: I expect the average zombie to go down hard when facing an experienced adventurer, but when ganging up on him the zombies should have a chance to (literally) drag him down and slowly tear him to pieces. So how do I do this? - Should I allow the zombies to really gang-up (multiple zombies occupying the same square)) when trying to grapple the player? Otherwise the attack of opportunity before the grapple and narrow corridors make it almost impossible for the zombies the effectively threaten them. It's also quite in character for zombies to be almost climbing over eachother to get to their prey. (brains!) - Make them take half damage (like skeletons) from slashing and piercing weapons? - I'm pretty sure I'll drop the action-limit on them. - Some other nifty option I haven't thought of yet? Changing them into something more frightening is easy, but I do not want to overdo it. Any ideas, experiences and thoughts on the matter are really welcome. :cool: Well the thing is zombies are only scary if the PCs are weak. That is, they are all unarmed and unarmored commoners with average 2 hp each. That way zombies are dangerous. Also the hollywood notion that zombies are slow makes them alot less scary. If you can evade zombies just by walking fast away what's to worry about? So how do you make zombies more scary? 1: Nerf the PCs. This only works at the start of a campaign, and the PCs should be allowed to become heroes and not just horror victims. 2: Power up the zombies. Make them faster, alot better to hide (pretend they're dead), and alot tougher in combat. Simply improve on the zombie and skeleton template, and increase the CR of it accordingly. Equipment might also be fitting, zombies and especially skeletons in their old soldier armor and weapons can be quite difficult to beat simply because of high AC. 3. Make ALOT of them. A single PC fighter may be able to chop the zombies up fairly easily, but if there's a never ending horde out to get them... 4. Who says zombies have to be human, or even humanoid? Take any big and bad creature out there and turn it into a zombie. A zombie giant perhaps? 5. Make a zombie angry mob. Check out rules in the DMG2, and use it only in open spaces. Perfect for when PCs have to flee out of a zombie-infested town. Note that in 3.5, skeletons don't take half damage from certain weapons, but gets DR 5 which is ignored by bludgeoning damage. Narrow corridors always favors the defenders. If a corridor is only 10' wide the zombies will probably only get one grapple attempt per round, and mass tactics will not help. Grapple is probably a bad idea, so rely on getting natural 20s eventually. But it will be a very long and boring fight for experienced PCs. So don't attack the PCs in narrow corridors!
MorandirNailo 11-26-05, 10:40 PM	Remember the Aid Another action. You can fit 8 zombies around a single player; have one of them actually make the grapple, and the other 7 Aid him. That's a potential for a +14 on the grapple check, effectively representing a group of zombies dragging someone down. Have the zombie pin him, and in subsequent rounds have a few continue to Aid, while the rest feast. Works quite well with low-level players, which are the only ones who are going to be afraid of zombies anyway. Giving the Zombies improved grapple wouldn't be too far-fetched using this scenario, thus avoiding the AoO. Mor
Neonivek 11-26-05, 11:00 PM	I like giving Zombies Cumulative bonuses when with other zombies since basically they just swarm on you. dnd doesn't really let you feel the whole "You may take down a ton of zombies in one shot but they just KEEP COMMING!!!"
Treetrip Danglefoot 11-26-05, 11:21 PM	Technically Ghouls and Ghasts are indistinguishable from zombies. So you could retain your shambling horde with much nastier nasties.
Tharivol Nailo 11-26-05, 11:30 PM	Umm, use the zombie (or other templates) from Liber Mortis.
Solidcobra 11-26-05, 11:32 PM	Have a huge zombie horde with simply a few stats. namely...Grapple mod, speed and damage. that's it. they can hack, fireball, shoot, etc. until they die from exhaustion, the zombies will keep coming, new ones replacing the fallen in a neverending horde. This doesn't work if the PCs can fly, of course.
Lord Ian Stark 11-27-05, 12:18 AM	I made the zombies in one of my game worlds be the fast aggressive zombies like in the movies Dawn of the Dead and 28 days. I also made their bite give off a very hard to stop disease. It could also spread if someone did a certain amount of damage in one hit to any of the zombies it splattered it's body fluids and the PC's in the area had to make a reflex save to avoid getting it in there eyes/ears/mouth/nose/etc... If they failed the reflex they had to make a fort save. Within 24 hours they had to get a rare cure made from an extract of a rare plant.
Pz.Az.04Maus 11-27-05, 12:19 AM	Have a huge zombie horde with simply a few stats. namely...Grapple mod, speed and damage. that's it. they can hack, fireball, shoot, etc. until they die from exhaustion, the zombies will keep coming, new ones replacing the fallen in a neverending horde. This doesn't work if the PCs can fly, of course. Then the Zombies should break out the bows n' arrows, and start going Ack-Ack on them. That simple. Let there be Zombie Dragon/LOTR Elephant HYBRIDS! An Armored Dragon with a ton of zombies able to shoot bows (albit very badly) at them are nice-nice scary.
a_psh 11-27-05, 12:36 AM	Hmm... what if they just keep coming? Take the basic zombie; beef it up just a bit (say, maybe 1 or 2 more HD and slightly better DR or a better grapple modifier) if you want (make sure they're still only fit to lick the PC's boots, though); then, give the zombies some sort of ability to get back up or regenerate. For example, if zombies always rise back at full hp 2 rounds after you kill them unless you use X, they're suddenly unstoppable, short of the PCs being able to hit them where they're weak (or maybe this is a full-on horror game and there is no weakness at all - though use this sparingly and play along if the players figure out a great way to stop them). Really, though, it's all in the ghouls and wights, which are fast and sneaky and have lethal side-effects to their attacks. Or, for even more soul-chilling fun, use incorporeal foes. High-level guys don't fear 10 or 20 hp worth of damage, but level drain is always scary.
Latro 11-27-05, 01:06 PM	Thanks! The swarm version sounds useful, maybe I should get the DMGII. So far I haven't even bothered upgrading our game to version 3.5. We have everything in version 3, we don't play that often and don't really care about exact and complicated rule-option ... relaxed all the way! As long as the game feels good we will have a good time anyway. Still, maybe it's worth looking into if version 3.5 plays better. (still a lot of money though). Anyway, I decided to make them a bit more effective by allowing them to move and attack, and allow several in the same square to really gang-up on their victim. They finally got noticed by roaming zombies when they were trying to kick-in a locked door down a hallway that was protected by trapped statues casting burning hands ... so they were charged by burning zombies! :D The big guys of the party, a fighter and a rogue, had a tough time taking down the zombies fast enough to help their little buddies. The gnome ranger and the halfling druid were soon taken down by grappling zombies and were slowly being ripped to pieces by the burning corpses! ... they survived, but they came very close to dying. Massive grappling seems the key to what I want to achieve. The only thing I'm not entirely happy with is the way to get the numbers right. In this dungeon there was a 20% noise of d6+1 zombies turned up when they made considerable noise (round of fighting, kicking in doors, setting off traps) ... but it is to random for me. I don't want an un-ending flood of them either ... playing smart, avoiding combat are going for quick fights and moving on should be possible. Maybe I'll try with cumulative chance ... after a failed 20% chance, the next round of fighting will trigger a 30%, and so on. :cool:
thought_riot 11-27-05, 02:30 PM	In 3.5, skeletons have 5/bludgeoning damage reduction, and zombies have 5/slashing. Check the SRD for more about the newer version of zombies.
Ekranoplan 11-27-05, 04:12 PM	Zombies are really only scarey when you are locked in a room with some strangers, completely surronded and low on supplies. In addition, you have no idea what exactly is happening, or why it is happening. Watch any zombie movie by George Romero to see this in action. His films are all extremely well done, have excellent parodies to society, and deliver a message. The purpose of zombies is to inspire paranoid fear, and to bring out the short-comings on humanity on the big screen and in stories. ( and talking with friends on how to survive is zombies attacked right now can be fairly entertaining aswell) In order for zombies to be scarey in the D&D setting, this is what I would do: - use the mob template - zombies should be caused by a plague, so the potential of running into a zombie exists at any point. - have zombies cause constitution damage. If a pc takes to much constitution damage they become a zombie eventually - read the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. You will learn of many interesting ways for your zombies to act and zombie related events that can happen. For example, the PCs board a ship on the ocean that has succumbed to the zombie plague. -Remember that in all the zombie horror movies, the main characters generally have a pretty easy time dealing with the threat until they become cocky and/or stop cooperating. This results in a big disaster and everyone dies. Make some challenges where the PCs must work together with NPCs to overcome certain obstacles. -have lots of zombies. Your players will eventually become fatigued from all the fighting and will have to work to avoid the zombies in order to survive. Things can become pretty scarey when you thought a safe house in the distance is over run, and now you are stranded in a zombie infested area with no place to rest. - all the other advice in this thread is also good. Incorporating any of these ideas in this thread should result in interesting zombie encounters.
Sildatorak 11-27-05, 09:20 PM	Libris Mortis has several suggestions on modifying zombies that have pretty minimal CR adjustments. Disease from natural attacks, extra hp+ fast healing 5, being fast, giving them scent and the track feat, and having a bite attack that deals Con damage on a crit are the ones I remember off the top of my head.