Hi Guys, maybe it's a dumb question, I checked the FAQ and couldn't find it but seems it should be so simple it should have been answered before.
If a character is attacked by an occult zombie, unless it starts it's round next to the character, the zombie can only approach him. Lets assume he reaches melee.
On his turn, the character can use his move on a guarded step to be out of reach and shoot at the zombie's head.
Assuming the zombie survives he's right where he started, he needs to spend his only action on moving, character guard-steps and fires, not even an AoO. Given a long enough runway a single character can "kite" 3 zombies like this forever, 5 on a diagonal.
Being mindless the zombies should just move to the closest square, meanwhile the character doesnt even shoot or reload some rounds, instead laughing at them, or checking space-social-media, or taking a selfie with his new zombie friends.
This cant be right or is it? I know it's a traditionally a low CR enemy, but you could still do this to a CR20 zombie. Is the creature just useless?
I mean... you literally just described how anyone with a gun, in basically any media, deals with a couple of zombies.
Aside from that:
Any singular, or relatively small amount, of CR 1 monsters isn't likely to be very powerful.
If you're using a projectile weapon, the DR 5/magic is really going to make your plan turn into more of a "I kite the zombies and hope I deal a damage or 2 to one of them enough times that they don't box me in and kill me before I drop them."
If you're not using a projectile weapon, and instead have a weapon that deals some kind of energy damage, well, congrats, you're better equipped to deal with a zombie.
I can't think of a single reason to use a CR 20 zombie. Unless you want some cheap, easy fodder to stand in front of your more important enemies.
Well, thanks, no long runways around zombies then...
I get your point, just seemed strange to me coming from pathfinder where a staggered zombie could still charge and attack.
Oh, a lot of things are going to seem strange coming from Pathfinder. It's really best to pretend Pathfinder doesn't exist.
A little more details on the kiting aspect: If your party is level 1 or 2, ranged weapons are doing from 1d4 to 1d12, with the vast majority of them falling into the 1d6 to 1d8 range. There's no weapon specialization at these low levels, so all you've got is your dice for damage.
At KAC 13, EAC 11, I expect the best shooters at that level to rock a +4 to +6 to their ranged attack roll, depending on if there's an Envoy around. So you're looking at around a 30% (for EAC weapons) to 50% (for projectile weapons) miss chance, and when you hit, your highest damage projectile weapons are unlikely to do more than a few points of damage each. These zombies have 24 hp, so even if everyone is using lasers instead of bullets, you still need the whole party to roll above average on both attack and damage rolls to kill a zombie a turn.
If there's, say, 5 or 6 zombies? You're probably looking at hoping nobody rolls a nat 1, or gets trapped by terrain, or flops a skill check trying to climb or something for 4-6 rounds straight, before they get mobbed by zombies.
So, you're mostly right, with a little bit of luck and planning, no, they're not a big threat. But if a couple things go wrong, yeah, they can be a little rough.
Yes, that's why I was building CR 1/3 zombies for my encounters with only a few "big" CR 1 bruisers in the mix. Big? LOL. Just seemed strange to me that 1v1 a zombie becomes a just a zero threat ammo dump, not even that for a melee character. Probably they could kite it all the way to the BBEB's room. XD
I'll keep in mind "big open spaces" should decrease the challenge of the encounter while tight tunnels with the horde closing in from all directions sound much funni... I mean deadlier.
Again thanks for your comments.
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You don't even need to guarded step. You can just walk away from the zombie. A staggered creature can't take reactions.
That's what makes slow a good spell against melee enemies.
Seems to me like Zombies *should* be all but harmless if there's only one of them.
Note. A single CR 1 zombie is, on its own, an Average difficulty encounter for a party of level 1 heroes. Six creatures of a given CR is equivalent to CR +5, so six CR 1 zombies? A CR *6* encounter. This is otherwise known as "If your PCs can't run away then they *will* die."
Carefully read the challenge rating rules, and take them to heart. Starfinder *is not* Pathfinder, and they have much better balanced it this time. The days of expecting PCs to slaughter encounters far above their level are over, and pretending otherwise will lead to TPKs.
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