Owner - Black Diamond Games
|
I'm looking for some advice on encounter structure for a zombie apocalypse type attack. The current stage of the apocalypse has risen zombies underwater who make their way to a port town. I'm looking to have them attack the town in waves, but I know from experience, a bunch of mooks is rather tedious as an encounter.
The party is around 7th level, and I'm hoping to have around 100 zombies total, in waves. I'm guessing I'll want to mix up the CRs to keep it interesting. Any suggestions on how to stage this properly?
I'm planning to use the apocalypse zombie as the base.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/zombie/zombie-apoc alypse
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I just had a party do this say kind of thing. But I reversed the encounter. I made the players play the zombies and I played their characters. I gave each player 20 Zombies, lifted the metagaming curtain. I informed them that the goal was to kill your characters anyway possible. That there would be rewards for doing so.
It got their attention.
Now I am looking for some pointers myself on what to give them. See my thread.
Hadn’t seen that variant of zombie before, gosh AP.s make some vicious. Now this all depends on how you want the scenario to play out. Do you want these creatures and the disease they carry to be a threat to the PCs? If so, then you’ll have to do something about the abysmal save DC for zombie rot. The advanced creature template + switching out toughness for ability focus on a handful of them leaves you with more potent “carrier” zombies sporting a DC of 16.
The other thing to note is that as CR 2 mooks, these guys have the potential to just get blown away by AoE, so I would suggest a few ambush situations. I’m not saying that these zombies should be acting tactically, but much like in the movies, finding zombies where you neither expected, nor wanted can created some tense and realistic “ambush” scenes. Bonus, if they get blown away in tight corridors their deathburst ability becomes that much more potent.
If you really want to get to them, make sure no place is safe. Realistically by 7th level most classes have enough tricks to make zombies seem pretty insignificant. If you use them to hound the players by throwing them in situations they normally don’t have to face. Blown through most of your spells and want to catch some shuteye? Well, the horde waits for no person, and sleepers are that much more vulnerable. Speaking of the mooks and their poor ability to hit, do you know it takes a full 4 minutes to proper don full plate? It’s funny how low a fighter’s AC drops when they are awoken in the middle of the night and slept outside their armor. Imagine watching as they scramble to decide what things they take with them as they flee.
Finally, you’ll want to let your players absolutely wipe the floor with the first few waves. Give them the sense that this situation is well within their abilities to handle before you absolutely unleash the horde upon them all. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing the faces of your players start to change from apathy and pleasure to fear and anxiety.
|
Owner - Black Diamond Games
|
I'm thinking throwing in a CR5 in each wave, either a tough thug of a zombie, or a zombie spellcaster to slow down their ability to just wipe them out with Area of Effect stuff. I've got HeroLab for templates, so that's easy to work out.
I'm also thinking throwing in a handful of low level townsfolk to help defend the town, not because I want to be helpful, but because I want the cinematic gore of what happens when an apocalypse zombie kills its victim. Then we get the problem of the spread into town that they have to clean up as the line gets jumped.
My main "campaign" goal is to give them a wake up call of a bigger problem, so it doesn't need to be a final battle of any sort.
I'm wondering if maybe I should just keep them coming until a certain in-game criteria is met or whether to give them a set amount. There are D-Day invasion rules for various games that are kind of like that.
|
I'm planning a similar thing for my players. Here's some things I've been mulling over;
- How it begins? I like the idea of surprising my players. Catching them unaware. I envision something like this; players party late into the night at local inn. Roll Initiative. Winner is the PC that stumbles downstairs, hungover, unarmed, maybe unarmored only to find the common room vacant except for what appears to be the barkeep shuffling behind the bar. PC fails perception check he's bumrushed by the Zombie and has to defend himself somehow - maybe improvised weapons?
- I like the Idea of the PC's having to protect and perhaps drag around some civilians. Of course the PC's can out run, out scramble, out smart the Zombies - but can the NPC's?
- Unexpected Adversaries. Let's say the town militia/guard is over run. Who's guarding the prisoners now? Are the inmates very literally running the asylum? The guard house/Town prison may be a good place to find weapons & armor (especially if you've used a plot hook to remove these items from the PC's). Have the PC's have to break into this building to re-supply only to find that the local baddies have beat them to it. No Thug worth his salt surrenders his weapons without a fight... To make the Thug truly vile perhaps he offers to trade a weapon for that pretty little NPC the PC's are trying to protect?
- Stagger the CR. Just like you suggested I want to change it up. I want there to be at least one encounter that the PC's cannot win - at least not now. Perhaps a massive herd (CR = APL +10) is blocking the way out of town. Make the PC's use their skills (run/stealth/acrobatics/perception/knowledge local) to out run the herd and live to fight another day - I believe there are published "chase" rules to help with this.
Anyhow - those are some fo things I'm considering. I'll be looking back here for insperation!
Cheers,
D
|
Owner - Black Diamond Games
|
Here's how mine began, with the PCs in their seaside abode:
You awake the next morning to a commotion outside. Floating in the harbor and littering the beaches are bloated, green bodies. There are dozens of dead sahuagin. The people are in near panic, as they run around in confusion, certain something horrible is happening.
After some investigation, the PCs discover the bodies have been mauled, ripped and bitten by human teeth, with the brains missing. My group is doing this part online and used a Speak with Dead to realize the sahuagin were attacked by "sailors" in their home. Their home is an underwater settlement miles down the coast.
As they examined the bodies further, they notice the rot, and soon thereafter (we haven't gotten there yet), the sahuagin will "turn" and attack them as Armageddon zombies.
This initial attack will be followed the next day by waves of "sailor" zombies, who have been walking along the bottom of the sea.
My scenario, using the zombie apocalypse ideas from the Gamemastery Guide, has a center of undead power rising, raising all the dead in ever increasing concentric circles. This particular zombie invasion was when that circle expanded to the coast and overlapped an old lighthouse and site of countless shipwrecks. All those corpses of dead sailors raised at once and headed to the closest life, which was the sahuagin, who put up a good fight. Following the sahuagin, the closest life is the PC's town.