ahahah! this happened to us with a vampire once (except i was a player) It ended up in TPK ( I was really pissed to find out ti was a ooopsie) Totally ended our LoF campaign.... and it wasnt even a monster in the AP totally a side thing (hence the screwed up stats)
give them ad hoc XP, like an extra 500 each, maybe have them find evidence that there was some potion or spell in use that made them so hard to hit and/or unhallowed ground, combined with a witches curse blah blah blah.
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With level 1 characters facing 22 AC zombies (those must be some tough buggers!), I'd have to say that it would be at least a CR 2 encounter; 22 AC at 1st level is pretty powerful, and quite difficult to hit with melee. The PCs encounter level would equate to CR 4 (each level 1, plus 1 for each additional creature), so I don't think it would've been too bad, but I wasn't there, so I wouldn't know how well-built the characters are, how well they did, etc.
Give it your best call. I'd be honest with them and come forth with the fact that you gave them adjusted ACs; a good and respectable DM is an honest DM. Reward them with a bit of extra experience (that is what the CR 2 encounter is for), and some extra treasure from the Big Bad Evil Guy that is the Professor, he had a hidden stash of "experimental gadgets" in his private quarters or something.
I'd reward them with a CR 3-4. The AC is a big difference, but nothing a few lucky rolls couldn't have made up for (I mean one 17 or higher and a fighter would 1 shot the 5 health armor tanks).
Just give them the +1 full plate the zombies were wearing. I'm sure they'll be happy.
I don't really have a better answer off the top of my head, but as penance for posting the above, I'll look around for you.
+1 to +1 Full Plates
I like the full plate idea.
Heck, even normal full plate is rare at level 1, so I'm sure they'll appreciate it.
you know, +1 glammored full plate, what two suits? That'd be the way to do it, DM Fiat covers up DM slip?
+2 for my vote.
I would also go with the fullplate plus a bit of extra exp.
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If you go with adding loot to make up for the AC boost, here's another way you could do it...
Since you're no stranger to 3.5 rules, you might be aware of a Level 2 Sor/Wiz spell called Stone Bones. It gives corporeal undead a +3 natural armor bonus for 10 minutes/level. That gets you to AC15. Then, you give the zombies masterwork hide armor, masterwork heavy wooden shields and +1 Amulets of Natural Armor for a total of AC22.
This way, everyone in the party can get something out of the encounter. The party's wizard can look forward to getting a new spell and take an amulet, the druid can wear the hide and take a shield, the rogue could take the other amulet and the warrior can take whatever's left and wear it or sell it to buy some better gear. You could mix and match other types of gear combinations too to see that everyone gets a bit of loot.
I don't really know anything about the adventure, but maybe these zombies were a pair of well-equipped bandits or ruffians before they were killed and reanimated? This mad doctor could have left them in their gear and cast the Stone Bones spell on them before sending them out to gather more subjects for his experiments, figuring they may encounter resistance.
Also, probably raise the CR of each zombie by +1 to cover the difficulty.
Reminds me of the first encounter of our game.
End up on the beach, giant crabs appear. DM miscalculated the HP count and AC for these crabs and we spent an hour and a half of botched rolls and ineffectual hits killing 6 of the damned things.
Has been a great game from there though, and as many have suggested for your particular predicament, we got extra Exp. Though you actually have an excuse to start handing out cool stuff to people here so that would be a good substitute/supplement.
This is a bit of a hard one to fix "by the book". Look at this: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/monsterCreation.html
See where AC 22 is? Yeah, pretty high up there. Now there is a couple tricks for boosting a CR of an encounter. One is give it PC wealth. A level 1 PC is CR 1/2, similar to the zombie. Give it lvl 1 gear in the form of consumables (already applied by maker prior to battle? why not). Still not there though, as PC wealth doesn't add enough bonus to quite get there.
I would just suck it up and award them a reward for a APL+3 encounter (which honestly is the highest award you should give out, APL for the party is 1, so that is a encounter level 4). Give them some loot later on (hidden away in log, a RP windfall, ect, anything to make up the wealth gain represented by such an xp gain). Then apologize for running the monster a bit higher than you meant to. Or don't, the AP has a horror bent to it, and it sounds like the druid found out about the old "don't split up in a horror story". Give them the impression that similarly tough encounters await PCs that wander around dangerous areas alone.
^Onesie.
It's actually a brand name.
It is entirely kosher to bump the XP award up (or down) based on how challenging an encounter ended up being. Just don't go too crazy. CR8 seems a bit steep an increase. CR 2-4 would probably be closer to the actually challenge they faced.
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We had a DM do this once. It was a all night gaming session. He was supposed to throw a Bear at us. It was getting late and he was tired.
So it started to attack us. It Charged, Head butted, Trampled, Bit, clawed... we where like... what the? How is this bear using a head but and Trample? Is it a special bear?
We end up killing it and the DM says "Wow... that Bison is a wicked hard bear. There is a stunned silence for a second, followed by a player saying "Dude... A Bison isn't a Bear... its a Buffalo!"
We couldn't talk for a good 20 minutes, we where all laughing so hard. Even the sheapish DM was crying he was laughing so hard. He had been throwing us against a Buffalo and had just added the claw and bite attacks cause he thought it was just missing from the stats.
Ahh good times. Sometimes a DM mistake can make for great fun.
Haha, @Dragonamedrake, sounds like a good time, and both sides took it in good stride.
Mistakes will happen, but ultimately just own up to it and compensate the group.
I agree with the give them CR+3 for this fight, especially sinse any melee must have been frustrated trying to hit them.
Plus i really agree with Velcro zipper mixed loot, this way no one is getting a OP item while the whole group is getting something.
Also try to tie this into the story, possibly even offering a couple hooks for any future adventures you are about to put them on as to why they were there and why so tough ext.
In the end though, you should let the players know it was a mistake and you want to 'make it up' to them, i am willing to bet the players will think better of you and it will only strengthen your groups support.
Make it up by giving them extra Xp - DON'T give them extra loot! That would put them way ahead of WBL - and would make it harder to make future encounters challeging without buffing them..
Mistakes happens - I once made a TPK because I had a wizard and his apprentice - unfortunatle i hadn't printet the apprentice - so the party meet the wizard (which had a few more levels than the apprentice)...
To my defence the party had the chance to run away - after the melee fighter lost more than ½ his HP in the first round, from a single empowered orb of cold. They didn't - so they died... But okay my bad...
I came into this thread expecting to hear about Game Master lingerie. I am disappointed.
OP, you owe your group some extra xp for the error, and you owe me some cookies in recompense for unrealized expectations...
I'd say a Zombie with AC 10 higher that should be a Zombie with the Advanced template which adds 4 AC but also adds hit points and attacks. I'd count this a +6 bonus to AC in trade for the other bonus. Then I'd add a Chain Shirt fluffed as sunken into the flesh as to why they couldn't see it and set the CR 3 for each zombie for 600 XP each.
I wouldn't give them extra loot. It's easier to deal with and 1200 XP divided by the party size. Assuming a party of 4 that is 300 XP each. Not hard to deal with. Giving magic item or gold can be problematic at level 1.
Make it up by giving them extra Xp - DON'T give them extra loot! That would put them way ahead of WBL - and would make it harder to make future encounters challeging without buffing them..
If you give them loot equal to what the xp gain should be, you won't have this problem. If you give them XP without loot, then they become under geared. More XP = level sooner. Level sooner means they need the gear values for the next level.
As for leveling out of the module, too many random encounters can easily do this. Also playing the wrong xp track does this. I've honestly switched over to a benchmark leveling system for the APs, they level when the module calls for it. Probably because I ran the 3.5 ones first and their xp budgets were a bit off for modern play.