Zombie Apocalypse!


Advice

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Hey Brambleman.... welcome to my homebrew world.

Although not quite as grim as the one you described it is not far from it and it is 100% due to PC actions in the past =)

My current gaming group "made" me run again so they could try and fix several of the disasters they created last time. The game has been moving along pretty well. They finally just reached 8th level and have managed to free one of the gods from the place in which they were imprisioned.

Sorry, I digress...

Party is:

Paladin
Paladin
Paladin
Ranger (undead favored enemy)
Cleric
Druid/Rogue

My advice... never allow 3 paladins in a party again... UGH.


Why? What's wrong with 3 Paladins?


Ashiel wrote:
Why? What's wrong with 3 Paladins?

Anyone else hoping they're based on the knights of the cross?

Maybe three pallys is TOO awesome?


KrispyXIV wrote:
Ashiel wrote:
Why? What's wrong with 3 Paladins?

Anyone else hoping they're based on the knights of the cross?

Maybe three pallys is TOO awesome?

Having GMed a group of 4 clerics once, I can't imagine how 3 Paladins could be "too awesome". If you want to see an amazingly awesome party, 4 clerics is where it's at. That party is exceedingly difficult to dismantle.

1) Healing, healing, healing, and more healing.
2) All of them are capable of casting Summon Monster I-IX and animate dead.
3) All of them are 2nd tier warriors who are capable of wearing medium to heavy armor very efficiently.
4) None of them need a lot of Wisdom since their spells don't rely on saving throw DCs to work (most of their spells are buffs, wards, or summons).
5) All of the have excellent saving throws and hit points.
6) All of them get really strong via spells like Righteous Might.
7) They can swap positions easily (tank taking too much damage, swap to cleric #2 while cleric #3 heals cleric #1, while cleric #4 is summoning a horde of angels or transforming into a titan to clobber folks).
8) All of them can remove diseases, break curses, etc. Each of them can take different domains (optional) to cover certain roles more effectively.
9) All of them are full-casters who can craft magic items.
10) All of them can provide most of their own buffs or wards, or they can rotate buffs and wards, meaning that you will easily be able to sport resist energy, death ward, freedom of movement, and mind blank more or less as needed with no worries.
11) They get a variety of useful skills, and being crafters can make skill boosters, and can all specialize in different skills, allowing them to comfortably go without a dedicated skill monkey.
12) All of them have Sense Motive and Diplomacy as class skills, meaning they're good at them even if they dump Charisma.
13) You get some amazingly good divination abilities, including commune.

Then, if all of your clerics are Neutral or Evil, then let's also add...

14) Your entire party plus undead minions can be healed via channel energy or spontaneous casting.
15) Your party gets lots of milage out of raising each other with create undead to come back as ghasts or mummies, granting them significant racial enhancements to their statistics (mummies make excellent tanks, ghasts own at everything, etc).
16) You gain a variety of cute immunities and often fear auras, stench, etc. You can take Civilized Ghoulishness to happily exist in society.

And thanks to recent splatbooks...

17) You can cast a single spell to become a 10th level Paladin in addition to a 20th level cleric. Whee!


OK, so we've done 2 sessions of Zombie Apocalypse and here's what's happened:

1) Party finds crazy Alchemist trying to make a super-mutagen using human test subjects is the progenitor of the zombie infection.
2) Low-magic world based on Medieval Scandinavia.
3) Society has broken down, no economy, must scavenge for the GP value of stuff to craft items...and it takes a LONG time...
4) Players thought channel energy was going to be the best thing ever...and have discovered it is not in the least. Like screen doors on a submarine...
5) By far the biggest threat is the party Alchemist with his bombs -- DEVASTATING to groups of zombies.
6) One of the party members has contracted and gotten over Zombie Rot.
7) The party has fled their island home (P.S. they were on an island at the start) and are sleeping in the middle of the water on a tiny boat.

The players seem to really like the setting, and I'm having fun, too. I created a Zombie Swarm by modifying the Swarm rules that keeps the concept of bunches of CR 1/3 Zombies roaming around scalable to higher levels, and I made a modified Zombie Lord template that can summon and control Zombie swarms, are intelligent, and can have class levels so they'll never get stale or too easy.

The next phase is to introduce the party to a broken world. I need some ideas for factions of not-undead that will allow some variety in role-playing and encounters. Any ideas, Pathfinder Community? And let's be inventive...I don't need suggestions for Lawful Good clerics and paladins trying the "cleanse" anything... :)


Can you tell more of how channeling was used, I'd think that with decent investment it should be at least a Meat and Potatoes kind of reliable.


It was used like channeling...there's really only one way to use it...problem is, Charisma is a dump stat for clerics except for channeling, and he's the closest thing the party has to a tank, so he didn't have the extra stat points to invest in CHA. He did 2d6 damage and the Zombies made their saves more often than not...so he was doing around 4 damage per channel...and got 3 channels...he wasn't that effective against 30 Zombies in one encounter and 2 leveled Zombie Lords in another with no rest in between.

As discussed previously, channel is the most overrated class ability in the game. It sounds MUCH cooler than it actually is. Its only useful purpose is non-combat healing that doesn't burn a spell slot. Are you really surprised at the reault?


Im just surprised they didn't invest in their supposed win button. I feel Channeling is solid, but limited. It mostly just extends the party's endurance and frees cleric spell slots, unless you really work at it.

As for world advice, I assume you got the usual raiders, but what of Zombie herders? Anyone who has found a way to direct the undead could be a good break from the norm.

Examples: Low level clerics with command undead and whips, herding huge hordes like cowboys.
Pirates who have vehicles moved by undead. Either hitch them up to a cart. Lock them onto galley oars, or my personal favorite; use zombie limbs attached to a crank shaft as a crude undead engine.

Druid or Powerful fey who holds a bubble of uninfected forest against all comers, zombie or live alike.

Umbral Dragon; supposed to feed on undead.

Convert Fallout factions if you haven't already, The Brotherhood could salvage magic as easily as technology.

Other partys, with their own style based on how they survived. For example, based a party on stealth, another on flight.


Great ideas, thanks! I love the herders idea!


Cool. Keep me posted on the game, ill see if i think of anything else.


dot. thinking of running the same thing. love the ideas.


cranewings wrote:
Ashiel, skeletons have like 4 hp. Close to 25% of the time the cleric can wipe out a group with his first shot. He usually will get all of them with a second. Groups of zombies or other small undead add up to big CR that the cleric can beat basically automatically. It's too much free xp to overwealm that power. I still do it, but with so much free damage coming from the character with no thinking involved, I can't justify awarding much of anything - certainly not CR 4 or 5 worth of xp just for spamming the channel hot key..

Bro, no one expects a challenge out of a mass of skeletons at higher levels. If the cleric doesn't deal with it the wizard will and if the wizard doesn't then the archer will and if the archer doesn't then the cleaving 2hander will. CR doesn't scale always in the way intended.


Antipaladins @ lv 3 are immune to disease but still contagious. Zombie Rot was a disease right?

Mooncaller Druids get immunity to disease at lv 9.


I'm not even playing out fights with standard Zombies anymore...I just assume a few encounters with a pack of 10-20 per day, no xp awarded. The players are fine with this...it just gets tedious to roll out the ridiculously one-sided encounters.


Also Monks at lv 5.

All of these could be out and about without being turned into zed.


MeleeMonster80 wrote:
I'm not even playing out fights with standard Zombies anymore...I just assume a few encounters with a pack of 10-20 per day, no xp awarded. The players are fine with this...it just gets tedious to roll out the ridiculously one-sided encounters.

One of the most important things you will have to do in this kind of setting is maintain pace and tone. Think of left for 4 dead. The game intentionally pushes the pace along. If the players dawdle too long, zombie horde. But there isnt a constant stream of zombies, because it can get tedious (or too threatening).

It is ok to handwave a few minor encounters with zombies but you dont want them to become just a background image. There are always ways to spice up encounters with low level undead, such as having a carriage/barn/other vehicle or building with survivors trapped in it surrounded by undead. Of having a seemingly normal pack of undead with some much more powerful versions snuck in there.

If you are going for a walking dead style survival horror theme, the key is the players can never get comfortable. Otherwise the zombies might as well be orcs or whatever. Yatzee over at zero punctuation said it best about left 4 dead. You could take the zombies out and put in fluffy teddy bears and it still would have been a zombie game. That is the atmosphere you want to create.


Dotting.


MeleeMonster80 wrote:

I'm toying with the idea of running a zombie apocalypse-themed campaign and I'm looking for cool ideas. It seems like the various zombie templates available in PF will allow the game to scale well as the PCs advance...plus, I really like AMC's "The Walking Dead"! A few concepts I'm wanting to incorporate include:

1. The zombies are caused by a disease, not raised by an evil nemesis.

2. The zombie threat has caused a complete breakdown of civilization.

3. While big evil nasties did not cause the apocalypse, they are using the situation to their advantage.

Basically, I'm imagining that "The Walking Dead" and "The Road" had a baby, then "Fallout 3" and "Oblivion" had a baby, then those babies had a baby.

I'm open to suggestions...whaddya got, Pathfinder community?

You may want to look at the called shot rules in the UC. You could adjust the zombies so that anything other than a head shot does far less damage.


Kolokotroni wrote:
MeleeMonster80 wrote:
I'm not even playing out fights with standard Zombies anymore...I just assume a few encounters with a pack of 10-20 per day, no xp awarded. The players are fine with this...it just gets tedious to roll out the ridiculously one-sided encounters.

One of the most important things you will have to do in this kind of setting is maintain pace and tone. Think of left for 4 dead. The game intentionally pushes the pace along. If the players dawdle too long, zombie horde. But there isnt a constant stream of zombies, because it can get tedious (or too threatening).

It is ok to handwave a few minor encounters with zombies but you dont want them to become just a background image. There are always ways to spice up encounters with low level undead, such as having a carriage/barn/other vehicle or building with survivors trapped in it surrounded by undead. Of having a seemingly normal pack of undead with some much more powerful versions snuck in there.

If you are going for a walking dead style survival horror theme, the key is the players can never get comfortable. Otherwise the zombies might as well be orcs or whatever. Yatzee over at zero punctuation said it best about left 4 dead. You could take the zombies out and put in fluffy teddy bears and it still would have been a zombie game. That is the atmosphere you want to create.

I solved the problem nicely by treating the masses of low-level Zombies as a swarm (I cheated on the rules a bit...I know normally nothing larger than Small creatures in a swarm...but it works). In certain areas, the players are engulfed in a swarm of Zombies and take damage and make Fort saves against Zombie Rot each turn. This does a variety of things:

1) Discourages sitting still
2) Discourages player complacency when dealing with Zombie-infested areas
3) Discourages overt, hack-and-slash tactics
4) Makes for easy and frequent minions for higher-level undead "bosses" and others that can control undead

It worked very well this week -- the players wanted to save some townspeople and tried to just walk through an infested walled town...every round they were not in a building with the door shut they were considered in difficult terrain, taking 2d6+3 damage and making a DC 15 Fort save against Zombie Rot. They got the point in a hurry!

The campaign seems to be going well thus far...I plan to incorporate a Graveknight Antipaladin as the major villain over the next few sessions...we'll see how that goes.

I'd like to thank everyone who has posted their ideas here...I either cannibalized them for my own purposes or outright plagiarized them! Any other tips or suggestions from the community?


Hey so my campaign is starting, finally, I was wondering if we could get a campaign update and manybe stats for that zombie swarm?


I've just played The Walking Dead game, and I'm trying to think of a campaign idea. I've decided all PCs must rank in NPC classes instead of regular classes. It's a valid idea, because you aren't adventurers before the apocalypse, so why should you be trained as such, unless you've got a good backstory for it, aka military training, or post-outbreak society requirements. Characters will face numerous situational lose-lose situations, must struggle for medicine, food, and other supplies. Deal with fatigue and exhaustion when they can't get the sleep they need, or they've been running long and hard without a moments rest.


J-Rokka, sorry this thread went dead. Shortly after my last post the campaign kind of fizzled out -- I got really busy at work then got a job with a new company so I didn't have the time necessary to sustain the campaign. My group has just been periodically playing canned adventures to keep our skills sharp.

The zombie swarm was easy:

#1, it's "huge" in size
#2, it has the Str, Dex, Wis and Cha of the component creatures (in this case, standard human zombies with the "Advanced" template)
#3, Make that ALL STATS use the component creature. I assumed 10 creatures PER SWARM for HP purposes
#4 Read the Swarm rules and apply them:
**It doesn't make attack rolls. If a PC is adjacent to or inside the swarm, they take damage and whatever other nasty effects that result from being attacked by the component creatures.
**Immune to spells/effecte that target individual creatures

#5 Be flexible -- you might have to fudge a few things to make it go.

I used multiple "swarms" in a few encounters. It worked.

Hope that helps, and good luck with your campaign!


I'm kind of tardy to this party, in fact it seems to have ended! But if you want to put a party through a Zombie Apocalypse type scenario, then just make them Geb's Most Wanted! Voila! A nation full of hostile Undead!


Don't forget about the aid another action for your zombies. Flanking and charging are important too and they work with unintelligent undead.
+2,+2,+2 this can start to really add up. Most people complain that low level undead don't pose any threat to a party.
Also this feat
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/charnel-soldiers

Gives a team work feat to all the undead that were created by the same person.

Get the feat that turns flanking bonus to +4 instead of +2

Just something to consider


This threads last post was in 2013. Why necro it?


Covent wrote:
This threads last post was in 2013. Why necro it?

You're seriously asking why he necros a thread about necromancy and zombies?


My Self wrote:
Covent wrote:
This threads last post was in 2013. Why necro it?
You're seriously asking why he necros a thread about necromancy and zombies?

I missed the date I forgot how posts get old.

I like the pun ^


There are great rule in the Mummy's Mask for an undead up-rising from a how it affects the community point of view. I'm playing it not running so I cannot offer more.


Dot for use


Hello.

I'm sorry if someone covered this earlier but it's a bit TLDR up there.

I've run MANY zombiegedon games in d&d and Pathfinder, in high or low magic settings and I can tell you about some control mechanism.

1: bites are f!#&ing deadly!! Make it a one bite one death setting, where if you get bitten it's not a question of If it's a question of when. I usually go with fort save DC 15, +1 per hour. Tough characters last longer and all.

Unusually make it curable by heal, miracle, or a succession of remove curse then remove disease (be careful with that one since players tend to abuse it once it's found. To counter this, I have zombies have a slam or claw attack without disease, and the grab ability. If they grab you then they bite you with a massive bonus the next round. This creates some awesome "oh s&!# he's grappled by a zombie, free him, FREE HIM" moments. Also make the zombies slow, but tough. I have mine 18 str and 4 had with toughness and 14 Cha so they had around 38 hp. I also made them die on a crit automatically. Ultra tough zombies that can one s&!% your character makes your players wary after even the first encounter. They realise that this isn't a stay here and fight them kinda game and they will start avoiding encounters in general and melee in particular.

As for magic, really make the masses of zombie a problem. Sure hide from undead is fun, but it's not when they can touch you since they're so pressed. Players stay on rooftops and pelter zombies with arrows and cantrips? That's bound to dra
w enough zombies to destroy your barricades and topple your s%%%ty made buildings.

Zombiegedon only work at low level though, 1-6 being the sweet spot. Above that players get too many f@+% you spells.


Pardon the typos it was a post from my cellphone, couldn't wait for home to post this.

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