A zombie horde is a solid mass of clutching zombies and you have to fight the whole mass at once. But if it's forcing its way through a narrow door does it have to come through one at a time so you can fight it as individual zombies? Albeit LOTS of individual zombies?
If they DO have to break up, I would guess 9 + 2d6 individual zombies. My reasoning is that a zombie horde can take 110 HP damage before it breaks up into 2d6 individual zombies. I'm assuming that 110 HP of damage represents 9 normal 12 HP zombies that have been killed.
The alternative would seem to be that since a zombie horde takes up 30 feet of space, then it can't come through a narrow door and jams up against it while while our adventurers slash at it and back off for occasional healing.
The horde type says it works as the swarm type except as noted. The swarm type says "The area occupied by a large swarm is completely shapeable, though the swarm usually remains in contiguous squares."
That means the colossal horde of zombies can fit down a (very long) 5' hallway and attack through a doorway using the full characteristics of the horde.
So much for my two best ideas to fight them. :( Run away! Run away!
If you don't want to use handwavium to allow zombies to flow through a doorway bottleneck, you could allow for the stoppered zombies to just pull the doorway open. Like, pulling the walls down. They'll make a nice BIG door in short order, depending on the building's construction materials.
The easiest way to deal with a horde of zombies is to drink a potion of fly and attack them with a glaive. The horde doesn't have reach or any ranged attacks, so a 1st level fighter could solo the entire horde this way without any risk (if he could afford the potion).
Since the Fly potion is only giving him a +2 bonus to his Fly check, he does have rather significant chance of plummeting to the ground and into the clutches of the horde any turn he tries to hover or move slowly (less than half his fly-buffed speed).
Unless of course the scenario involves a nice wiiiide open field where the fighter can lazily swoop in for an attack every few rounds, and nothing important the zombies might break/kill so that said fighter can spend all this time killing them slowly.
There is no need to hover or ever make a fly check, the fighter can fly 30 ft each round and attack at the start or end of the movement as needed. This works on any terrain with about 20 ft clear above the zombie horde.
In more restricted terrain (such as in a cave) the fighter could instead attack the horde from 10 feet away, and then fly to get 70 feet away (or around a corner at least 30 ft away). The horde is too far away to charge and too stupid to play range manipulation games.
Of course if there's something important to protect everything changes, but so would fighting it on the negative energy plane or countless other complications.
deusvult wrote: Since the Fly potion is only giving him a +2 bonus to his Fly check, he does have rather significant chance of plummeting to the ground and into the clutches of the horde any turn he tries to hover or move slowly (less than half his fly-buffed speed).
Unless of course the scenario involves a nice wiiiide open field where the fighter can lazily swoop in for an attack every few rounds, and nothing important the zombies might break/kill so that said fighter can spend all this time killing them slowly.
He doesn't need a wide open field, because as long as you can see some part of the horde you can attach the horde as a whole. So he should be able to lazily swoop in and attack.
The only real risk is that there is someone/something he needs to protect.
Nothing wrote: The easiest way to deal with a horde of zombies is to drink a potion of fly and attack them with a glaive. The horde doesn't have reach or any ranged attacks, so a 1st level fighter could solo the entire horde this way without any risk (if he could afford the potion). actually their is a easier way or at least not reliant on a potion take a hunter with undersized mount feat and reach weapon give them a roc under bull animal focus and cast ant haul on it light load now 173.
now assuming your defending someone put them on the roc and then drink your potion.
Now that you mention mounts, anyone riding a horse or dog with a sling and a backpack full of sharpstones could also solo the horde with no risk (as long as they weren't in a confined space).
alternis sol wrote: Nothing wrote: The easiest way to deal with a horde of zombies is to drink a potion of fly and attack them with a glaive. The horde doesn't have reach or any ranged attacks, so a 1st level fighter could solo the entire horde this way without any risk (if he could afford the potion). actually their is a easier way or at least not reliant on a potion take a hunter with undersized mount feat and reach weapon give them a roc under bull animal focus and cast ant haul on it light load now 173.
now assuming your defending someone put them on the roc and then drink your potion. Even easier, play a small character like a gnome and you don't even need the feat.
true and that would give me DR/1+(1/2*(lvl-1)) magic to boot
wouldn't solve how to protect a person tho without potion of fly.
alternis sol wrote: wouldn't solve how to protect a person tho without potion of fly. This would be very situational, but in general you just need to keep any innocents more than 60' away from it (and further away than your party members) and the mindless horde of zombies should focus on you unless being directed by someone.
Which brings up an interesting point - a 20 hd zombie horde would be far more effective than 20 hd of individual zombies for an evil cleric or necromancer to control, how many individual zombies would you have to create to make them into a horde?
P.S. I see now that 7+ are called an apocalypse... now I want to throw 7 of these hordes at a party just so I can say "you see an apocalypse of zombies approaching"
Nothing wrote: The horde type says it works as the swarm type except as noted. The swarm type says "The area occupied by a large swarm is completely shapeable, though the swarm usually remains in contiguous squares." More importantly (since that refers to multiple swarms), the rules say "A swarm can move through cracks or holes large enough for its component creatures."
deusvult wrote: Since the Fly potion is only giving him a +2 bonus to his Fly check +6 actually, Good manueverability grants +4.
Majuba wrote: +6 actually, Good manueverability grants +4. Only of you consider a fighter under the effects of a fly spell "A creature with a natural fly speed" (quote per the fly skill).
Personally, I would say the fly spell is an unnatural fly speed, but it's certainly a DM call. In any case, there's no need to be make fly checks in this situation.
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