Horror Zombies in 3.5

[stranglebat]

Im planning an upcoming session to feature a nightmare like state in which an agent of the blood of vol is trying to get the PCs to reveal the location of some artifacts they recently aquired and hide. In this nightmare they will be in a zombie apocolypse, and the agent will be posing as another trapped traveller in the town they are in (probably stormreach in xendrik).

They are lvl 8 characters
gnome paladin5/silverflame exorsist3 pretty standard feats and CFs
grey elf beguiler1/psion3/cebremancer 4 who seems to ignore his beguiler list and only cast energy missle from his psion half
human Sorc6/Elemental Savant 2 mainly a blaster
human Druid5/Planar shepard3 its his first char so its not a terribly powerful one. he picked fernia
Dalkerye Halfblood Ranger5/impure prince 3. behaves like a standard tripper with a tentacle whip and abberant reach
Goliath barb3/fighter2/frenzied berserker3  PA leap attack large valourious great sword rhino armor can throw out about 80-100 damage on a charge non crit

That aside im looking to beef up the standard zombie to horror movie levels, IE no death unless you can take out their head/brain. Probably some sort of rules for slowing them down if/when they lose legs and basically have them batter at doorways/barricades until they get through. i also want to try incorporate infection into it giving players who become the living dead a chance to eat their old party members. They will suffer no permenant damage from this, im just hoping to give them a different themed session.



Has anyone used zombies in this way before? or does anyone have an ideas on how to make zombies more dawn of the deadish?

[Garryl]

If you want to make your zombies more unkillable except by blowing off their heads or soemthing, try giving them a sort of regeneration (and ignore the fact that zombies are immune to nonlethal damage and don't have a Con score, both of which make regeneration problematic or illegal). Make the regeneration bypassable only by attacks that could be considered going for the head or weak spot, like coup de graces, critical hits, sneak attacks, heavy power attacks, and maybe failed saving throws against damaging spells. It's your campaign, feel free to take some liberties with the monster design to pull off the feel you want.

As for battering at barricades, you don't have to do anything special for this. The rules are already there. A makeshift wooden barricade should have hardness 8, maybe 50 hp or so, and a break DC anywhere from 15-25 or so. A single zombie will have trouble breaking it down, assuming it even can at all. For a horde of zombies using aid another on the break checks, however, it's only a matter of time. Check the exploration and environment rules for more info on doors and walls and their statistics, that should give you an idea of what size a horde of zombies can break it down and how long it will take them.

[veekie]

Well, I got an idea for a truly horrifying zombie. Have them spawn <Chunk> zombies as you deal damage to them, so damaging a big zombie eventually leaves you with a battered big zombie and lots of arms, teeth, etc dragging towards you.

[altpersona]

dr/head

or

to kill them you have to deal their full hp in damage in a single attack.. not the hardest thing in the world, but it i should make it a bit harder...

[dna1]

you could use some ravenloft like rules. just say each zombie has a chance to reanimate. or maybe give them a percent to reanimate based on what type of death they suffered.. like say death by fire = no chance. where as death by massive crushing has a 20% and death by magic missle has a 45% or something.

also one trick i used to make zombies seem more deadly is to have massive massive ammounts. since they are so lame you can seriously have like a 100 of them wandering around, then make the PC's punch a hole thrue them to get by them

[golden-one]

strangely enough I'm thinking along the same lines.

You will of course need to include all of the zombie survival horror tropes.

You need to decide up front, if you're using Romero Zombies, or 28 days zombies.

Romero zombies are never really (after the first couple of encounters, anyway) a threat.

28 days zombies ARE most definitely a threat, even if they're not supposed to be the main threat.


In either case, you need to initially provide one particularly tenacious, bad tempered example.

(Check Libris Mortis,  pages  170 to 173.  plenty of example zombies there, as well as several templates. 

A Blood Thirsty (+1) (attacks gain improved critical, and do con drain on crit) ..
 .. Unkillable (+1) +2hp/hd. fast healing 5,  and improved toughness..
 .. Diseased (+1/2) save if injured or get filth fever
 .. Fast (+/12) +30ft base move and are not slow
<location specific race> monk 7, With appropriate feats and Flurry of blows...
(total Cr is 10, which for 6 cr 8 characters is pretty reasonable)

Should come as a bit of a shock.   

Then, and this is key, with no chance for them to heal / cure / re-group,    have a wall fall in, the doors to the underground lair swing shut,  the "seemingly innocent village" suddenly erupt with zombies..  or something equally shocking.

After that, the next thing you need to look at is the  swarm template (MM pg something)

"You see a seemingly living wall of the recently deceased Romeroing/sprinting towards you.  the lead zombie, a somewhat corpulent Dwarven Merchant, his neck broken at an alarming angle, reaches out with the blooded stumps where it's hands once where."

"I Say a prayer to the silver flame, and set about the foul being with my sword".
(some dice are rolled)

"with deft skill you fully dismember the zombie.  pieces fly to the four winds, as you perform the death of a thousand cuts in double quick time.  However despite there now being a good 6 or seven feet between its head and arms, the remains seem to gather themselves together, as what's left of <location>'s Last remaining dwarven lingerie salesman attempts to strangle you to death with what's left of it's lower intestine".

After that it's standard Survival horror Tropes.

Never give them a chance to rest in one place for to long.
Make them USE those per day abilities, use up the spell slots, all of the turning attempts,

you also need to swarm the melee combatants,  and  make sure that the spell casters are always threatened. ...

After a few rounds of wailing on the players, have them start to make spot checks, or just plain INT checks..  to realize that they're HERDED towards a central structure. 


"If we can just hold out till dawn.."
   "It's winter.  Dawn is over 12 hours away"

"We Need To Leave NOW"
    "But we cant move the entire orphanage/hospital/retirement home in one go.  some of these people need to be carried"

..  that's all for now.
If i get any more ideas....

[saethone]

watch the walking dead on AMC - awesome show and will really help build the horror feel youre looking for here.

one zombie, not an issue, unless it surprises you.

two-5 zombies, a fight, but winnable

horde of zombies, oh dear god run for your life


also remember mob rules. play on characters claustrophobia - small confined spaces will scare them, especially with a horde heading towards them, how will they get out?

[kevin_video]

Got it! Take the fleshvigor template from Dragon 315, page 59 and add it to a zombie. It's even got the whole eating aspect to it. Or, add it to a ghoul, which ever you feel like.

[stranglebat]

i just started the walking dead series actually, the zombies are pretty cool in that show.

Im running this in 2 weeks ill let you guys know how it goes, my players are pretty wile so hopefully they can be pushed the way zombies push people in film and TV, im expecting them to do some strange things though

[Sohala]

I didn't notice this topic until now, all I got to say...challenge accepted.

[Littha]

The issue with zombies is that by the time you are level 8 they will be absolutely no chalenge even in vast numbers.

Also i suggest you read the Zombiegeddon links here:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19905354/Lessons_from_DMing_with_my_GF

[kevin_video]

The issue with zombies is that by the time you are level 8 they will be absolutely no chalenge even in vast numbers.

Agreed. So for that, I would suggest that this be no more than an E6 rule type game.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-house-rules/200754-e6-game-inside-d-d-new-revision.html

[Bozwevial]

Could always adopt the Left 4 Dead stance on zombies. Common Infected pose absolutely no threat individually or in small numbers, but Horde attacks are dangerous, especially if you're not working as a team, since they usually swarm from multiple directions. Then you have Special Infected designed to make things interesting. The Boomer is a great example of this--if left to its own devices, it'll vomit on a player, summoning a Horde to attack only that player while handicapping that player's ability to respond, forcing the group to cooperate to protect that one member. Of course, when the Boomer is killed, it explodes and covers anyone nearby in bile anyway, which keeps the group from mindlessly shooting anything that moves.

[Senevri]

Hm. What I did on M20 was, each zombie could go for a grapple+bite which meant infection and eventual death. (only save was possible via Plot. ) Dismemberment of zombies could spawn new enemies in the form of body parts (less damage, more AC, few HP) and so forth. It's all cool if the PCs just get appropriate rewards.

Now that they're escaped the city, and gained enough levels to go from gritty to heroic tier, I'm thinking of turning it into a B5 / starcraft situation: Dragons see a threat and sterilize areas infected with plague zombies, and the PCs are caught between zombies and dragons....