What skill for barricading a house?

[Deathwindfr]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Forced Entry would let you rip all sorts of interior doors off the hinges and break furniture into pieces that could be used by someone with Carpentry to more efficiently nail an exterior door or window shut. Forced Entry is explicitly what they teach firemen and breachers, so if you need a room with boring functioning furniture, doors and hinges converted into its component parts, someone with an axe or crowbar and the Forced Entry skill is perfect for that job.

Carpentry would be the simplest, most efficient way to close potential entryways, at a solid bonus +4 TDM for a very simple Carpentry task (which you can use to do it faster), but as long as there's someone directing the effort, you could use Soldier or Housekeeping for doing it, inefficiently and with less than perfect placement of nails or screws, but it does get done.

Observation can count the numbers of potential entry points, Tactics identifies which one intelligent opponents would be likely to focus on, and if the kind of unintelligent ones in play are familiar to the character with Tactics, maybe even where they will try. Animal Handling or the appropriate Survival specialty might tell you where a polar bear would try and get through, most likely.

Urban Survival is at minimum a Complementary Skill, but I might allow it to replace almost any of the skills above with it, at a penalty for some uses. Two groups of people routinely learn it. The unhoused and soldiers who've been through urban combat courses. Constructing a shelter is a typical Survival task, so barricading the house you are squatting in seems like a fair enough Urban Survival task.

Engineer (Combat) could replace both Tactics and Observation, and it's also the perfect skill, along with Leadership, to direct a team in turning an abandoned house into a strongpoint that is hard to take. Note that this is not just barricading the entries, exits. You will have a way of escaping, ideally more than one, and you will establish firing posts to interfere with anyone trying to destroy your barricades.

Architecture can replace Observation for determining entry and exit points, number of windows, etc. It can also be the skill directing people with Carpentry, Forced Entry and Scrounging with the actual breaking down stuff or scrounging for materials, as well as the construction. It won't tell you where enemies are most likely to attack, though. Finally, it's a classic Complementary Skill for basically all these tasks.

Great overview, thanks !

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Architecture can replace Observation for determining entry and exit points, number of windows, etc. It can also be the skill directing people with Carpentry, Forced Entry and Scrounging with the actual breaking down stuff or scrounging for materials, as well as the construction. It won't tell you where enemies are most likely to attack, though. Finally, it's a classic Complementary Skill for basically all these tasks.

Also help with knowing what you can break or tear apart that is not structurally important. What I was getting at with my initial post that others did more succinctly was almost any skill could be useful in the right circumstances.

[Emerikol]

Funny, when I read barricade I didn't immediately think of world war 2. I thought of the zombie apocalypse and keeping zombies out of the house.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

Funny, when I read barricade I didn't immediately think of world war 2. I thought of the zombie apocalypse and keeping zombies out of the house.

That's something of an argument for soldier being a /TL skill, or having some other specialization, because while there are some universal features to good defensive structures, there are others that are specific to the weapons and capabilities of the attacker and/or defender.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That's something of an argument for soldier being a /TL skill, or having some other specialization, because while there are some universal features to good defensive structures, there are others that are specific to the weapons and capabilities of the attacker and/or defender.

Soldier is a TL skill, for a multitude of reasons. (Realistically, it should also have a specialization indicating whose doctrine you were trained under, but that's tangential.)

I'm not sure it's true there are any concrete universal features for good defensive structures beyond 'sturdy enough to not get knocked over by rough handling'. And that can be quite a low bar, AIUI there was a period of North American fortifications where the attackers having metal axes significantly compromised their efficacy.

Many historic defensive structures emphasize limited and difficult points of entry, but modern entrenchments de-emphasize that and can omit those features entirely. Positions to allow defenders to use missile weapons while sheltered from incoming missiles are common, but are irrelevant against animals, typical zombies, or any other aggressor with no missile attacks.

[Kromm]

Zombies in particular get rules. Zombies, pp. 34-36 mentions several skills for creating barricades, with Carpentry, Machinist, Masonry, and Smith getting top mention. The rules for zombies tearing into said barricades are on Zombies, pp. 122-124.

What it comes down to is that since zombies cannot pick locks or use tools, they are stopped by the DR – and, if that isn't high enough, HP – of whatever is in their way, and must use major force to break through. One zombie probably can't do that against any significant barricade, but you rarely get one zombie. You get a horde, and they can collectively press and tear and climb over one another, greatly multiplying their menace to structural integrity.

So, in a perfect world, avoid attracting a horde. This is about scrubbing your scent from the area, not making noise, and not being seen. Against a zombie or two, that's easy. But per Zombies, p. 114, against enough zombies to qualify as a "horde," you're going to need to beat 16. This is possible if you take suitable measures.

Hiding from Vision is easiest. Any opaque obstacle blocks it completely, so stay indoors. Any skill that lets you erect a suitable barrier should work, from Survival to pitch a tent to Carpentry to build a shack. Failure means gaps that the zombies can see you through.

Not making noise is trickier, as it's basically the group's worst Stealth vs. 16. Still, distance is helpful here (p. B358); so, build your hideout somewhere far from your first barricade, such as in the center of a fenced area (even a fence 4 yards from your hideout keeps the zombies where they're at -2 to hear you talking in there). Any wall should give another -1 or -2. Designing acoustic insulation is trickier, but someone with a relevant skill – say, a sound engineer with Electronics Operation (Media), or anybody with Physics – could try, and change that to -4. That's probably the best you can do without exotic materials, but if your barrier is far enough out, it can suffice . . . and if you stay out of sight, the zombies might not ever approach close enough to hear you.

Scent masking (High-Tech, p. 77) gives -4, so someone with, say, Chemistry could probably manage that. If you're spending a long time there, that's likely the best you can do . . . your scent will diffuse across the area, making distance somewhat moot, and is probably what would give you away. On the other hand, if the zombies neither see nor hear you, they may not get close enough to roll in the first place.

When the horde eventually forms, you want DR first (p. B558). Nothing is better than metal here; if you have corrugated steel (anti-skid) plate, or better, trench plate, you're home free. Weld using Machinist, Mechanic, Smith, or whatever. Concrete, stone, and brick aren't bad, either, but they're slower to deploy. Use Engineer (Combat) or Masonry. The GM might permit other skills if, say, the person with Artist (Sculpting) regularly works with hard materials.

Don't ignore bulk materials (p. B559), though. Shipping crates filled with dirt are another good use of Engineer (Combat) – in real life, hasty fortresses are built this way in the field – and would be as good as steel plate. If you lack that, enough sandbags are good; Soldier would do here, as would Survival for terrain that floods or Professional Skill (Firefighter). Just be wary of the sort of cover that has "*" on its DR, because the zombies can claw it away a bit at a time.

Absent sufficient DR, enough HP serve only to give you a few minutes to escape. One zombie can't claw or tear or punch through DR 16 wood, but a horde will just cause the nails to pop out or the joins to give way. Still, it's better than nothing, and Carpentry is the go-to skill.

The idea is to use defense in depth. Build a ring or square of tall, high-DR fence as large as your materials and time will allow. In the center of that, as far as possible from the nearest fence, reinforce a stronghold or build one, using the highest DR you can, and with as many HP as you can get, just in case. Line the inside with blankets and other sound-absorbent items. Scrub everything with chemicals that remove scent. Then make sure that people don't do stupid things like scream or walk around in the open; that sounds like a good use of Leadership.

Even if you disagree with or, heck, hate the rules, the above measures, materials, and skills should at least provide a place to start.

[Ulzgoroth]

Unless you're expecting a rescue or to wipe the horde through defensive firepower, you'd better have an escape route from that high-HP keep.

Buying a few minutes to regret your choices as the horde claws through the barricade from all sides is best avoided.

[Kromm]

Yes, a way out is always a good idea. The trick is for it not to be a way in for enemies. A means they can't use is ideal . . . Few zombies can fly, so if you have a chopper on the roof or whatever, that would be swell. Against humans, you're always taking a risk.

If it's for foraging, scavenging, scouting, and going out to do external maintenance, it has to be (easily) reusable and probably shouldn't be noisy. I'd counsel against the helicopter. A tunnel you can collapse in an emergency could work, but you'd need Engineer (Mining) to design it in a way that doesn't collapse some of your defenses along with it.

If it's just an escape route, I like explosives: Blast your way out and blow up all the bad guys nearby. You won't be coming back, but they might not be in any shape to follow. Indeed, if you blow them all up, you might be able to come back if you don't think that big a boom will bring trouble faster than you can rebuild.

[Flowergarden]

I would probably use some hidden way out. Zombies aren't the smart ones. Cover exit with some sheets of metal, wood, etc. Camouflage is underappreciated.
Or climbing exit. Depends on zombies, some can climb. And if there is enough of them... Still, they shouldn't be able to see the entrance.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Unless you're expecting a rescue or to wipe the horde through defensive firepower, you'd better have an escape route from that high-HP keep.

The thing about fortifications is that there are almost always tradeoffs to make. Yes, a way to escape is nice to have, but it may need to be sacrificed for some other priority. If you have an unlimited horde of zombies, you don't want fortifications to start with, you want to run away.