Advice for how to run an undead horde battle and make it epic?

[Captain Marsh]

Hi folks.

I'm running a part of the Slumbering Tsar campaign tomorrow and in theory it looks epic. This is a chapter where the PCs make a desperate stand on a hill top with a gang of dwarven adventurers, facing wave after wave of undead.

Eventually, things get really sticky - more powerful undead, and a fairly lethal big bad evil guy to top it all off. But the part I'm a little uncertain about is how to run the horde portion and have it feel claustrophobic and desperate and panicked.

My specific problems are these:

1. How do I handle what will eventually be roughly 100 NPCs at the same time (including the dwarven 'good guys') without the whole mess bogging down? I'm looking for really cool, cinematic ideas that will make this really elevate. (We are using minis for this episode, btw...)

2. What do I do about the fact that my PCs have really high ACs? I mean, the truth is that the vast majority of these undead hordes are basically almost certain not to hit except on nat-20s. I've thought about having them essentially do grapple checks, trying to overwhelm the party. But most of the PCs also have high CMD...

I want this to feel more like Walking Dead, not like swatting mosquitoes...any ideas appreciated.

--Marsh

[Scott Wilhelm]

Handling the Dwarves fighting their share of undead, you need to streamline the combat mechanic somehow. Just create some formula for the party's dwarven allies to be slowly overcome by superior numbers, maybe work in reckless counterattacks that cost the dwarves some poorly-timed avoidable disasters.

The Undead Horde could have some other kind of military objective than the destruction of the party: a powerful artifact the Dwarven King insists on wearing proudly around his neck while fighting in the front lines with his men, and when the Army of Darkness gets a hold of it, a whole new storm of evil awakens. Now the party has a whole new way to lose, and it could be a lot of fun watching them struggling to keep a reckless, tough, old dwarf alive when their personal protection is the LAST thing he'll want.

In general, I'd say you should use what you know about your players and their characters to figure out what motivates them best, and use that to scare them and get them emotionally involved.

[deusvult]

if you have Ultimate Campaign you could use the mass battle rules.

I'm not sure if the troop subtype* exists in UC or anywhere else outside the PFS scenario Assault on the Wound, but that's another great way to run hundreds of zombies efficiently (and effectively) while still staying on the conventional battlegrid scale.

*=short version of troop subtype: basically group zombies into 20x20ft swarms. Some minor differences from swarms apply, but you get the idea. Best part about it is they ignore AC. In reach? Take your swarm troop damage.

[Broken Zenith]

Your could try using some Zombie Scores, or apply the score template to any other monster. That's what I use whenever I have massive battles.

[Tharadon]

If you have a copy of the sixth book in the legacy of fire AP, it has a sidebar about cinematic combat. in a nutshell, each player makes a skill check each turn... using their sword, casting spells, channeling energy, whatever. if they succeed, a number of enemies die, if they fail, they take damage from the swarm of monsters. its been years since i even opened that book, but i think it'd be worth a look into.

conversely, you could set it up as something completely different. use the chase scene rules from the game masters guide and set up a series of events that happen during the battle, and require skill checks or attack rolls or whatnot for them to go as planned. then have some back up events if they screw up enough times, so that this doesn't become a TPK.

or you could just have a ton of minis on the map... its really fun, and the pcs feel satisfied when their fireball kills like thirty.

anyway, there's my two bits. i hope it helps.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

Hey, i just ran this. It was huge fun.

1) the dwarves are the PC's problem. I broke them into groups, leader, spellcaster, and groups of three identical warriors, and handed out simple stat blocks to the players to run.

That helped a ton, and provided something to do if a player got knocked out of the fight, or, like one of our spellcasters, didn't have much to offer for these opponents.

2) hit point piles.

I used the idea of hit point piles from the blog ars ludi. Worked perfectly, fast and easy to adjudicate. Made the skeletons threating (somewhat), and they were clearly dangerous to the dwarves, which was the important bit.

Players realized that they would probably be standing at the end of the skeleton fight, but they needed to hustle to keep the dwarves alive. Also worked for the bad guys, quite a number of AoE spells and channel energy attempts were burnt on the horde.

For attacking, the skeletons did damage like a swarm. Anyone around got hit 2-3 times. Way easier than rolling 100 d20s. The players were cool with it, when i explained the math.

For each group of 20 skeletons, lets assume they rolled each number once, 1-20. We can figure out how many hits that is. So, if two of those would hit your character, you're going to get tagged once for every ten skeletons attacking you.

The players saw that they still benefitted from a high AC, and that they benefitted from a faster, more fun game.

[sowhereaminow]

High AC? Have a few apocalypse zombies in the horde. They explode. Got to love area effects. :-)

[Tharadon]

if you want some flavorful undead, use the baneguards from the 3.5 monsters of faerun book... semi-intelligent skeletons with the ability to blink and cast magic missile every 1d4 rounds. keep those guys on the periphery of the map, firing a volley of force bolts every few rounds. that woul,d draw someone into the horde of undead, knocking down skeletons like sauron as they carve a path to those magical snipers. the pc would kill a few, then the baneguards would blink. that would leave a pc or two exposed, in a field full of sekeltons, and there are still snipers. sound dramatic enough?