Advice for running a zombie plague in DF

[b-dog]

I am designing an adventure where there is a zombia plague in a DF world. This was started by an evil cleric who called forth a zombie plague that killed a lot of people in a town and then they rose as zombies and any one they infect by biting or clawing becomes a zombie. The zombies are almost impossible to turn because the evil god the evil cleric serves has granted them strong resistance to turning. My questions are how would you go about running a game world lie this in DF? And how many zombies would you throw at the PCs at a time? And would there need to be a lot of more powerful zombies to help challenge the PCs? The end of the adventure will be when the PCs kill the evil cleric and destroy the temple he worships at but I wonder how many zombies before people get tired of zombies? Does anone have any experience running these types of campaigns with high level fantasy characters? And if you do can you give me some pointers to make sure the PCs are challenged? Thanks

[Kale]

The challenge level of the zombies is going to be totally dependent on how tough you make them. I would make up a few typical zombies as NPCs and see how they turn out. Injury Tolerance 'Nonliving' is a classic advantage for zombies. Basically the only way the PCs will be able to take them out is with headshots, or cutting attacks to sever limbs or the head. This will make them quite durable. If the PCs are wearing armor, then the zombies will probably not be able to bite them effectively. You can get around this by making the zombies super strong, have some kind of enhanced teeth, or they don't bite, they REND LIMBS: That is, they grapple and try to tear limbs off, possibly with extra striking strength for doing this. This will make the zombies more dangerous to armored PCs. Just start playing around with different designs, and think about what kind of PC you want to face them.

[bcd]

Originally Posted by Kale

The challenge level of the zombies is going to be totally dependent on how tough you make them. I would make up a few typical zombies as NPCs and see how they turn out. Injury Tolerance 'Nonliving' is a classic advantage for zombies. Basically the only way the PCs will be able to take them out is with headshots, or cutting attacks to sever limbs or the head. This will make them quite durable.

Zombies will also tend to have Fragile (Unnatural) which is quite devastating for them (unless they're already considered mooks anyway).

Originally Posted by Kale

If the PCs are wearing armor, then the zombies will probably not be able to bite them effectively. You can get around this by making the zombies super strong, have some kind of enhanced teeth, or they don't bite, they REND LIMBS: That is, they grapple and try to tear limbs off, possibly with extra striking strength for doing this.

I think you generally get your normal DR vs rending attacks so they probably need that extra Striking ST for this to be a credible threat.

For a zombie hordes type of scenario I would perhaps try to go with surrounding the PCs so they can't maneuver (or Retreat) and then just pile on zombies into close combat for takedown attempts. Once a PC is on the ground and pinned it becomes much easier to get to the fleshy juicy bits by taking AoAs, Telegraphic Attacks, Ready maneuvers to remove annoying pieces of armour, etc.

As for the PCs, I can see them using the following techniques to great effect:
- True Faith and Turning (but this will be nerfed)
- Area attacks, with burning attacks being traditional: combine Resist Fire on allies with a Create Fire+Shape Fire(+Fast Fire if you have the spare energy) combo centered on the party to barbecue all those incoming zombies
- Flying/levitation/Walk On Air to stay out of harm's way entirely, unless you have zombie fliers

[Nymdok]

First lets talk about what you mean when you say Zombie.

Zombie in its contemporary definition is a little different from certain 'Classic DF' zombie definitions.

Is zombie just slow, quiet, shambling undead or is it the flesh eating kind (Romero/Dawn of the Dead) that would have been called a 'ghoul' in the old days?

Story
From there, the difficulty largely depends on what story your trying to tell with the zombies.

For the 'Theres evil in everyone' theme, I like a contagious, infecting, flesh eating kinda zombie. Use a high Basic speed, suprise, and some targeted AOA at exposed flesh to make these guys truly terrifying.

For the 'Blind Followers' theme I like non infectious, slow moving, club em with decaying bare hands kind of zombie. Slow and dim witted, these guys have to rely on the fact that there are more of them than you have ammo.

Detail Level stuff like:

How much of their past life do they remember?
Are severed Limbs still animate?
Do head shots work?
Turn undead?

Mechanics
For contagious zombie plague, determine what attribute you will be using to 'resist' the plague. For evil i recomend Will. Then decide on a number you think is suitably risky (we'll say 25% chance to Zombify if you get bit).

From there its just a matter of looking at the Will of your party and finding the 25% line.

For example:
Barbarian:10, Thief:13, Cleric:14, Wizard:15.

For the Barbarian, Will-2 (8-25.9%) is about right, so when you build it Make it resistable at Will -2.

For somethign truly Frightening: The parties AVERAGE Will is 13, therefore to get it down to the 25% line, it would have to be Will -5!

There are alot of ways to vary the zombies.

What were they wearing when they died: SOme will have no armor at all, others will have plate!

Fresher Kills : Zombies that jsut got created more recently might be radically different from the ones that have been a zombie for a while.

More Evil=More Power : The zombies of the Truly Evil might be more powerful than their average counterpart and may even merit some boss-level zombie powers.


A final note, try to find a way, either through exposition or experience, to communicate to your players what the Zombie Rules are in your game.

Nymdok

p.s. The above listed themes are just 2 of dozens of excellent Zombie suited themes/tropes etc. Feel free to work in your own, or check at tvtropes.com for inspiration.

[Agramer]

Zombies = mooks (big numbers)

Add Acolytes of Evil Cleric/god to add some punch to horde of Zombies if needed.

Give PCs innocents to protect(families,kids,pregnant mothers....etc) so they dont just have hack/slash on their terms.

Make transformation rather fast so PCs figure out that blood contact(your cghoice) would lead to transformation.
Incase PC gets bitten...make him do HT rolls/will rolls to resist for some time with good Cleric being able to cure him(costly in ftg or time consuming).

Give them City guards,random mercenaries passing by...etc to organize(someones got to guard civilians in strongpoint when they figure out whos likely to be guilty of this and when they go after evil cleric)...

Add zombie Dogs(as Resident Evil)...etc

Edit: Hard to give you any numbers when we dont know CPs of PCs and/or skill levels and tactical skill of players in combat(not tactics skill but how well do players know and utilise all options in combat+are you playing on hexes or not).

[thulben]

Originally Posted by Kale

...or they don't bite, they REND LIMBS: That is, they grapple and try to tear limbs off, possibly with extra striking strength for doing this.

Since this is a zombie plague, this limits the infectiousness of the plague. If the only way that the zombies can attack is to tear arms off, only the first generation will be able to attack since the second generation won't have any arms! Bites are usually used as it introduces a somewhat credible way for body fluid transfer. You might be able to come up with others (sexy cathouse zombies anyone?).

[ammocase]

Its always good to remember that zombies were (and to some, especially family members; still are) people. A little detail will go a long way to focusing on the fact that they were once kids, mothers and fathers, and even though they share blank eyes and rot, they are still slicing the intestines of a men and women. I always like focusing on the sadness of the situation, of the theft of these peoples lives, and the theft of their peace in death, and the fear of knowing that it can easily happen to you too.

Good luck, hope you post how it went.

[b-dog]

The zombies I have in mind are the "evil dead" kind. They like to claw and bite people to kill them and then those that are killed rise up and do the same to other living beings. They are going to be reasonably fast and somewhat stealthy but they are not going to be very smart. The evil cleric was granted this gift to create havoc in the mortal realm and he must be slain and the temple destroyed for the zombies to be turned by clerics. These zombies take damage from holy water and holy items. They also take damage entering holy temples but for every point of damage they take in in the holy temples they begin to lower the sanctity as the evil negates to holiness. I am saying 10 points per hex and the zombies take 1d per second entering the holy site but there are enough of them that they will quickly defile it if the PCs don't find ways to keep them out.Thus characters holed up in a holy temple will have to secure it or the zombies will defile it and make it unholy. Anyway, thanks for the help.

Oh yeah, the evil cleric can see through the eyes if the zombies.

[Crakkerjakk]

If I were doing it, I'd include some resident evil/left 4 dead style special zombies to challenge the higher point adventurers. Basically just slap some of those templates from Mailanka's monster thread on your basic horde zombie template.

Oh, and have the evil temple be in a big fantasy city that has been entirely converted into zombies, so they have to sneak in to destroy the temple or wade through thousands if they go for a frontal assault. Mass Combat time!

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by ammocase

Its always good to remember that zombies were (and to some, especially family members; still are) people. [snip]

An excellent point, especially in this setting. The emotional ties between zombies and survivors would normally just be a source of drama in a setting where the motivated individual can't make much of a difference, but this is DF where the motivated individual can ruin your day with a blinding quickness. How will it shake out when the PCs want to decapitate a group of zombies and a high-power Barbarian, or Wizard, or delving party won't let them because it's their spouse, kids, Mom, etc and they're (not entirely unreasonably, given the setting) convinced that there has to be some kind of cure? Even if your Holy Cleric tries a Remove Curse on them to no avail, desperation will have them claiming that he doesn't know the right spell or just isn't holy enough (or is an agent of the enemy, when they really panic).

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

[snip] Oh, and have the evil temple be in a big fantasy city that has been entirely converted into zombies, so they have to sneak in to destroy the temple or wade through thousands if they go for a frontal assault. Mass Combat time!

Me Too. Bonus points if it's a city they know and love. :)