but I really want to come up with a homebrew style zombie campaign for me and my fellow zombie lovers.
I have looked over "All Flesh Must Be Eaten", Amethyst "Biohazard", DnD "Opengrave", d20 Modern Core Rules.. and I like and dislike things from all of them. So maybe, with a little help from the all-knowing brains on this forum, I can run a very fun and interesting story.
So here is a few things that needs workin:
1.) Character class and how to level up. Everyone will be human, so no racial bonuses.
I was thinking maybe have a point buy system similar to "All flesh must be eaten" where all ability
scores start at 0 and max out at 6. Example: 1-5pts in Strength is 50 x Str = Lifting Capacity (lbs).
2.) Character ability scores and how they affect each aspect of the game.
Such as Str obviously affecting how hard you hit, how much you can lift, etc. Maybe Int is bonuses
to computer skills?
3.) Weapons!
I need a good solid way of using guns and melee to make it balanced. I want variants of one kind of
gun (pistol - 9mm, desert eagle) but not a hundred different ones, 2 or 3 would work. I want the
weapons to be tiered like in L4D, this will replace the magic weapons like in DnD.
4.) The virus...
I need a disease tract to follow, I want it pretty hard to contract for the PCs, but not something
where they are fearless facing a mob of Zack.
5.) Finally, the undead.
I plan on making 95% of the zombie crowd minions like in DnD, it takes one shot to kill em. The
other 5% will be "special infected" that probably wont have as much infection percentage but will be
harder to kill (i.e. Tank, boomer, smoker like in L4D)
Im sure I left some things out.. but any help would be appreciated. And I hope this is the right spot, I was going to post in d20 modern thread but I want the 4E feel that DnD gives..
thanks!
Well I've never done a modern zombiepocalypse but i've dont plain 3.5E D&D so i'll throw what I did out there so it might help or give some refrence :D
1. 3.5E core rule books pretty sure this won't help with the feel you're goin for tho 
2. Roll 4d6 reroll 1's and drop lowest
3. Started at level 1 so the players wouldn't have any cash or magic weapons. Players had to rely on what they found. (DM's discrestion so when you feel they need more powerful guns they "find" them)
I've found that the best way to balance ranged vs melee in this type of game was "Melee needs no ammo, but is in danger of getting hit. Ranged needs ammo" so if the ranged players start hoggin all the action reduce the ammo they find. Once they start runnin low the player 'should' (PC's are notorius for defying expectations >.>) slow down on the shootin' and then the melee players will have a chance to shine. Also, putting the players in close quaters works to.
4. My favorite zombie virus idea that I've seen was at the end of each day the PC's would make a fort save. If the PC hadn't been hit that day it was DC 5. If the PC had been wounded it was DC 10+1 for each hit. If a cure disease spell of some sort were cast on the pc's that day it gave +2 cirmstance bonus.
5. Since the PC's in my game were so low level I didn't need any special zombies aside from fast and slow variants.
Hope that helps, or at least gives some ideas.
I really like the simple fix to the gun question.
Also what to do about vehicles? hmm
Anyone else have ideas?
.22, 9mm, .40, .45, etc. for handguns/revolvers
.22, 5.56, 7.62, .50 cal for rifles
10 and 12 gauge for shotguns
and so on. Depending on your campaign you can decide whether to add "uncommon" or "rare" weapons like assualt rifles, machine guns, and flamers (really rare)
ammo should be scarce, no weapons they find should come with full ammuntion. If you're basing this of 4e combat standard/move/minor, at-will/enc/daily firearms should be a little difficult to implement because they take so little time to fire.
Maybe look at Call of Cthulhu rules for firearms- smaller calibers have more shots per round, do less damage, and malfunction more.
How about LMoEs (Last Man on Earth's)? Will the PC group encounter survivors that may or may not be unstable/bat**** nuts?
As for the PC's, yeah they will encounter many diff dangers than just zombies. I plan on using NPC survivors that will keep the party guessing their motives.. (are they bitten, are they psychotic, are they really trying to help.. that sorta thing).
For say, the handguns, would a .45 do more damage than 9mm? how would you work out the mechanics for that? Any help is appreciated
thanks again!
www.chaosium.com/article.php?story_id=87
If you've never tried CoC, that may suit your survival horror themes better than DnD, especially since PCs are much more "squishy". The ruleset is entirely different, though, basing all checks off a d100 roll instead of a d20. That and CoC focuses more on research and study (roleplay), rather than balls to the wall firefights (combat). I do love the sanity point concept, though.
When I said LMoEs (Last Man on Earth's), was referencing crazy survivors in Max Brooks' World War Z, an essential fiction book if you're going to run a Zombie Apocalypse game.
as for the difference between 9mm and .45, the damage difference in a CoC game is like a d8 vs a d10. Looking at firearm websites there's little difference between a .40 and a .45 in damage or stopping power aside from being able to load more .40 into a magazine.
Ill look into the site you gave, thanks alot Atomic
The players would probably be "purestrain humans" rather than robots or mutated psychic octopii, so a good deal of the rules would be of no use to you, but the remaining rules would have that 4E feel, and would add some fun rompy gameplay taht seems to fit well in a game where death would be commonplace. You wouldnt' want your PCs surviving to level 30, and you're not going to want them to invest a lot of time in making builds.
Again, I haven't read much about Gamma World beyond what has already been previewed by WotC, but one of the first thoughts I had was "I wonder if I could repurpose this for a post-apocolyptic zombie game..."
do you know where I can find any reviews or scoops on this setting?
Thanks for the reply btw
www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4...
www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4...
www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4...
www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4... <-- BTW it was this one that mentions guns/ammo/salvaging
www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4...
and on their last "In the Works" article:
www.wizards.com/dnd/article.aspx?x=dnd/4...
However, it is a reboot from an old TSR IP, so you could probably find a lot of setting and game info for the older editions online. The previews will give some good hints as to how they're going to give it a 4E feel, and that's really the part that interests me the most.
Depending on how soon you are looking at starting this campaign, Dias Ex Machina games is going to publish a 4e modern game (different than Amethyst which is what their Biohazard adventure was based off of) that will include rules for guns, explosives, vehicles, modern classes, new skills, etc., and will be compatible with standard 4e so you can easily import zombies and such into the game.
wow, when does that come out? I prob wont get around to playing it until a little later..