Show me the magic!

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Kieddicus

IQ 18 - Unlife Plague (C)

Create a plague inside a MH (use the center for determining the range). infect all living creatures in the MH for 12 turns. If the plague hits a corpse or if an infected creature dies they turn into a zombie with ST & DX 2 less than they had in life, and 0 IQ. Plague zombies loss 1 ST every day like normal zombie but can only get this ST back by eating a living creature (every 5 ST they eat they heal 1). If you suffer a wound from a plague zombie you save 3/ST minus hits taken to avoid becoming infected (GM rolls). Plague zombies are mindless and cannot be controlled so the wizard that creates them better have an escape plan. Cost 20 ST.
(Once the plague starts infecting bodies it will reproduce on its own so it will last after they 12 turns if there are victims.)

Due to the dangers of this spell the wizards guild is highly protective of it, unauthorized reproductions incur the death penalty, and the reproduction burned.

IQ 10 - Shove (T)
Converted from Amtgard

Move the target back 2 hexes for every ST spent. Max ST cost of 3.
For multi-hex creatures divided the shove distance by their size round down.

Excellent. I especially like the Unlife Plague. May well use this one.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by phiwum

Excellent. I especially like the Unlife Plague. May well use this one.

Same here, though I would add some language clarifying that it cannot be countered by the lower IQ spell CLEANSING or even the Universal Antidote potion.

[phiwum]

As I was thinking about the Unlife Plague spell, I wondered how hard it is for the wizard to cast it and remain safe. Invisibility would work. But then I wondered about Unnoticeability.

Does that spell work on IQ 0 critters? Will a slime, zombie or plant not notice an unnoticeable guy (aside from critical success)? Or does not having a brain prevent one from prioritizing attention to things around him, so that unnoticeability is useless?

Sorry, I know this isn't really the right thread, but this is just a little musing, not important enough to put in its own thread.

Just to keep things on track, I might increase the ST cost for Unlife Plague. I'm not sure it should be easier to cast than Create Gate, say. I think the apocalypse should take effort.

That said, I had already planned a necromantic threat coming from the wilds of Tanander but was struggling over how many zombies a wizard could create and maintain, even while draining ST from captives. But the plague zombies put that to rest. You only need to seed a few places and encourage them to head in the right direction (namely, to underdefended hamlets and farming communities). This will start the orc refugees heading to Dran that I need for my story.

[Kieddicus]

Honestly the ST cost was just kinda tacked on at the end so not a lot of thought went into it. As such I'd be totally cool with bumping it to something like 75.

I'd probably let you slip past the zombies with an unnoticeable spell, but that is a fair point about maybe it shouldn't work on mindless creatures. You could also use flight or LD teleport. Though the best way is just leave a couple of snacks tied up for the zombies while you make your get away.

I was also thinking after I submitted it that the zombies should have -2 MA.

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

Same here, though I would add some language clarifying that it cannot be countered by the lower IQ spell CLEANSING or even the Universal Antidote potion.

I'd say you could cleanse it from an infected person so long as they haven't died and turned yet. After all you should have someway for players to remove it without a wish.

[phiwum]

The feral zombies in Book of Unlife are more or less the same as your plague zombies. Perhaps you know this and altered the feral zombies for this purpose, but here are the differences I see.

In BOU:
* There's a straight 50% chance of infection rather than an ST test.
* The ST of a feral zombie is the same as the ST prior to death, not ST - 2.
* The MA of a feral zombie is the same as the MA prior to death.
* The daily ST loss for feral zombies requires eating the flesh of the living, but the amount is not specified.

I'm a Romero fan, so slow zombies are good. I mean, for thematic reasons, I might just say they can't run at all, so one MH per turn, but that would make them useless unless we really do a full scale zombie plague where a battle involves dozens of zombies and the characters are required to fall once every three turns to keep things interesting. One or two characters would be dubbed the leads and would fall only once every battle, always just far enough away from the zombies to escape at the last moment.

But maybe I should swallow my deeply held convictions and let them run. Bah.

However we prevent ST loss, whether 5 points per loss regained or some other method, feral/plague zombies can't heal normal wounds and also are limited to using clubs. I guess I'd go with not healing daily ST loss but preventing it instead, but all this concern about healing/loss prevention will not play much of a role in typical gaming. The zombies will be strong if they have a regular food source, weak otherwise.

Unless, of course, a player insists on continuing to play his favorite character after he's been zombified. Which I would be cool with. (Sorry, with which I would be cool.)

One comment about infection rates: If you go with an ST check minus wounds, as you suggested, the rate will be higher than a 50/50 chance, since the average person will have ST 10 minus wounds. Whether this is good or bad, I don't know. In the movies, anyone flat out killed by a zombie always rises, but that might just get out of hand.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Kieddicus

IQ 18 - Unlife Plague (C)

Plague zombies are mindless and cannot be controlled so the wizard that creates them better have an escape plan.

IQ 11, Control Zombie (T) Like Control Animal, but affects zombies and skeletons, which resist with the higher of their ST or (ST+master's IQ)/2. Costs 2 to cast, 1 to maintain.

IQ 14, 3-hex Control Zombie (T) Like Control Zombie, but affects all zombies and skeletons in a triangle of hexes. Each Zombie resists separately. Costs 5 to cast, 2 to maintain.

IQ 17, 7-hex Control Zombie (T) Like Control Zombie, but affects all zombies and skeletons in a megahex centered on the target hex. Each Zombie resists separately. Costs 10 to cast, 3 to maintain.

[Kieddicus]

Phiwum, the plague zombies could totally just be feral zombies from the BOU. Though TBH in my own game I'd probably change the feral zombie to the plague zombie. Because I too like my zombies to be slightly slower. I don't think I'd allow clubs though, just HTH and biting.

I should also be a little more clear on what I mean by ST -wounds. I was just meaning how much damage the one attack does. So if you have ST 12 (8) and take another 3 hits from a zombie it is only a save versus your ST -3, not -7.

Putting all numbers aside the spell could be worded as such:
"Unlife Plauge - (C)
infect all corpses and living beings in a MH with a zombie infection."

Shostak, I like that spell idea. I think I'd drop the 3-hex one though to make it fall in line with other single target / MH spells. It also might just be easier to say the greater of ST or master's IQ to avoid dividing and 0.5s

[phiwum]

Pretty reasonable additions. I don't think any other spells allow multihex control, do they? That's pretty powerful.

Control Elemental is IQ 13, Create/Destroy elemental is 16. You have Control Zombie as IQ 11, while Zombie is IQ 19. That lets pipsqueaks take over zombies, but at a running ST cost, and the save roll is easy since master's IQ is at least 19 so the save roll is at least ST/2 + 9.5.

Hmm... With that save roll, I'm not sure it's worth casting this spell. You have only a 50% chance to take over an ST 1 or 2 Zombie, dropping to 37% for ST 3 zombie and by the time you get to ST 9 or 10, you're down to 1 in 10 and you're spending 2 ST for that privilege.

When I first read the suggestion, I thought it would nerf Zombie, but on the contrary, it's not all that cost effective.

I might suggest changing the odds of success, increasing the IQ required and tossing the multihex variants. At the least, the odds of success need to be adjusted. IQ of the Zombie-casting wizard should matter, but maybe in terms of difference with the Control-casting wizard or is that just too much complication?

Oh, how about this? Make it a competition roll, perhaps between the IQs of the Control and Zombie wizard? This has an issue too, since I've dropped the ST of the Zombie for the sake of simplicity. You could bring it back in as the maximum calculation you suggested before, but again that's complicated.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Kieddicus

Phiwum, the plague zombies could totally just be feral zombies from the BOU. Though TBH in my own game I'd probably change the feral zombie to the plague zombie. Because I too like my zombies to be slightly slower. I don't think I'd allow clubs though, just HTH and biting.

Yeah, probably right about the clubs. Romero Zombies didn't really club people much (ignoring his later movies). Don't know what I was thinking.

I should also be a little more clear on what I mean by ST -wounds. I was just meaning how much damage the one attack does. So if you have ST 12 (8) and take another 3 hits from a zombie it is only a save versus your ST -3, not -7.

Putting all numbers aside the spell could be worded as such:
"Unlife Plauge - (C)
infect all corpses and living beings in a MH with a zombie infection."

Shostak, I like that spell idea. I think I'd drop the 3-hex one though to make it fall in line with other single target / MH spells. It also might just be easier to say the greater of ST or master's IQ to avoid dividing and 0.5s

Then the save roll is against at least 19, since that's the minimum IQ for Zombie. Only autofails would result in a takeover.

[Kieddicus]

What if the control zombie spell was just an IQ contest. You could even have distance from the zombie affect both wizards if you like.
Additionally the spell would be good against any non-controlled unlife.