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TSED
2009-05-16, 12:04 AM
I kind of got sick of not being able to find a group so I put one together. I'm the DM, because, you know, I put it together.

So, ok, whatever. I'm not entirely sure I have enough actual tabletop experience for this but I'm sure I'll be fine - I'm quick on my feet and know the rules pretty well, and have a fair sense of 'don't worry about that silly prereq'ing. Rule of fun and all that.


So how did I attract my friends to this idea? Easy! Zombies. They're nerds, after all. I'm planning on starting it survival-horror esque but I know it will mutate out of that. It just will. As a side note, when I FINALLY get this rolling (it will be a while yet, I think) I'm going to put a campaign journal up here. Good times.


First things first, I'm a little unsure of what to do about some things:

1) I have a kobold dread necromancer as a PC. Uh. Claws + charnel touch = ? Basically, can you make touch attacks with claws?

2) It's a magical disease put out by some pretty bad guys. Archvillains of the campaign are actually the Unseely Court. Blah blah blah the purpose of telling you this is two-fold:
a) The fey kidnap children, right? But what do they use them for? I want to have some sort of twisted children monster later on but I have no idea what to do for it.
b) Shambling Death, magical disease can infect any corporeal living non-plant creature. DC15 fort save, 2d4 con damage / day. After they die they become special zombies (go into that later) under the control of the Unseely. Does this seem like a reasonably dangerous disease? This will be fairly devastating to basically all the infrastructure of the continent the PCs are on, with many societies and ghost towns and etc. crumbling and falling apart entirely. Additionally, upon being zombified, zombies can make a DC25 to retain sentience and class abilities (only they are now fanatic devotees to the Unseely Court). This lets there be nasty zombie-bosses and scales up with level with the PCs.

Think it'd work as written?

c) Infected template! I think I need a new name for them, even though that's what the players will call them.



Infected Template
Change type to Undead
10' Climb Speed
+8 Racial Bonus to climb checks
+2 str, -2 dex, -2 wis, 1 cha, Con-, Int-

Mindless (most of the time)
Most undead traits (still vulnerable to crits)

Not Quite Undead (Ex):
The Infected aren't as undead as usual. For starters, they're not immune to critical hits. Secondly, they are still healed by positive energy and still hurt by negative energy, though they are immune to negative levels, ability damage, and the like. DM hoc and all that rot. Also, as part of the fact that they're not quite as undead as other undead, they gain +2 turn resistance. They gain other undead abilities and such as normal.
[This lets the rogue SA, lets the dread necromancer use charnel touch on them, and makes rebuking them into being her slaves require a little more time to keep the tension up]

Spread The Infection:
DC15 fort save or acquire Shambling Death on a successful bite attack.

Swarm Grapple:
Can use the Aid Another option with grapple checks.

Bite:
The Infected can bite when engaged in a grapple for 1d4 + str mod damage.

Retain All (Ex)
Sapients retain all (Su), mindless do not.

Sapients use the following statistic adjustments instead:
+2 str, -2 dex, -2 wis, Con-, -2 cha

CR for Infected: 1 per 3 HD
CR for sapient infected: as base creature.




Sound right?

Olo Demonsbane
2009-05-16, 02:10 AM
1. I dont think you can do this, otherwise whenever you brushed your leg you would do damage. You can charge it up before battles though.

2. Thats a very deadly disease. Id recomend making it a somewhat lower damage and not constitution damage, but making them still die when reduced to 0. However, if your players can get access to wands of lesser restoration or whatever, it is all good.

Olo Demonsbane
2009-05-16, 02:13 AM
Oops, hit the wrong button :smallannoyed:

3. The Diseased? I ussually like to call whatever it is whatever the players call them...it avoids some confusion. "So you meet the Diseased..." "Who?" "Is it that band of Mercanaries?" "No, no no, its the Infected, nevermind!"
Also, I think you need to change the CR scale.

Learnedguy
2009-05-16, 02:18 AM
You can deliver touch attack through unarmed melee attacks.

I don't remember if they count as armed attacks though. And naturally they lose the "touch" aspect, turning them into normal attacks.

Quietus
2009-05-16, 02:30 AM
I don't know what Charnel Touch is, but as a rule :

If it's cast like a touch spell, you could cast it, hold the charge, and discharge it the next time you touch something. Natural attacks can be made as secondary attacks afterward, with no special bonus.

If it's a special attack, it takes an attack action all its own, as though it was an attack with a typical weapon. Natural attacks can be made as secondary attacks afterward, with no special bonus.

If it's added to existing natural attacks (generally not the case), then it'd be applied to the claws. I doubt this is the situation here, though.

TSED
2009-05-16, 02:51 AM
1) Charnel touch is basically a free action that they can do once per round, inflicting their touch with 1d8 + 1 / 4 levels of negative energy. I think what I'll do is make it so you can combine them, BUT it stops being a touch attack. That makes sense. Thanks, Learnedguy.

Anyways, Charnel Touch is a Dread Necromancer class feature, but touch spells do exist on their class spell list too. I can see it coming up again later.
(Dread Necromancer is in Heroes of Horror for those curious)


2)
The PCs are well aware that it's going to be a nasty, deadly campaign. A non-deadly disease simply wouldn't make sense. After all, zombies. As the trope goes, if you get bitten / whatever you get infected.

Eh, I'll probably just call them zombies.


3) The CR is specifically what I was looking at. I mean, help? I've got no DM experience and as such I don't have a feel for that. Eyeballing it just won't work because of that, and I can't think of anything that helps a guy figure this out.

Quietus
2009-05-16, 02:58 AM
1) Charnel touch is basically a free action that they can do once per round, inflicting their touch with 1d8 + 1 / 4 levels of negative energy. I think what I'll do is make it so you can combine them, BUT it stops being a touch attack. That makes sense. Thanks, Learnedguy.

Anyways, Charnel Touch is a Dread Necromancer class feature, but touch spells do exist on their class spell list too. I can see it coming up again later.
(Dread Necromancer is in Heroes of Horror for those curious)

Sounds like a touch spell, in which case I would say "Hey Player, I'm going to treat your Charnel Touch as though it was an at-will touch spell". This also prevents stacking problems, and makes the rules for it clearly laid out.



2)
The PCs are well aware that it's going to be a nasty, deadly campaign. A non-deadly disease simply wouldn't make sense. After all, zombies. As the trope goes, if you get bitten / whatever you get infected.

Eh, I'll probably just call them zombies.

If you don't just call them zombies, the players probably will. However, with a DC 15 save, that means your average commoner has a 75% chance of contracting it immediately from a single bite. Combined with the whole "I got bit!" deal, the 2d4 con is likely to outright kill them - if the bite didn't in the first place. Expect entire cities to fall in a few scant days. Any survivors will take to removing the heads from the bodies as soon as it's realized what's going on.

TSED
2009-05-16, 03:11 AM
Sounds like a touch spell, in which case I would say "Hey Player, I'm going to treat your Charnel Touch as though it was an at-will touch spell". This also prevents stacking problems, and makes the rules for it clearly laid out.

Hmm, I remember reading somewhere that it can be combined with touch spells but I'm not sure where. I think it was the Revised Necromancy Handbook...





If you don't just call them zombies, the players probably will. However, with a DC 15 save, that means your average commoner has a 75% chance of contracting it immediately from a single bite. Combined with the whole "I got bit!" deal, the 2d4 con is likely to outright kill them - if the bite didn't in the first place. Expect entire cities to fall in a few scant days. Any survivors will take to removing the heads from the bodies as soon as it's realized what's going on.

Exactly! This isn't some wussy strain of the flu or whatever, this is an attempt to destroy civilization and bring the entirety of the Prime Material Plane into the hands of the Unseely Court.

PCs are starting at 3rd level with a very generous point buy, they have a respectable chance to survive as they're starting out in a dwarven mining outpost (ie: zombies have 20' speed or worse, most have fort saves getting close to +5 or better, and there will be a couple of cures lying around as rewards). That reminds me, I need to make it so the infected can't run...

I was, however, thinking that the disease effects happens at the end of the day / hours later / whatever. Was I mistaken about this? If so, how to correct it?


I am essentially planning on it wiping most civilization out clean, and for the few outposts and the like to be absolutely paranoid (with good reason!) about their quarantines. What other kind of zombie apocalypse is there, after all?

nysisobli
2009-05-16, 06:48 AM
diseases fun E|

Hawriel
2009-05-16, 08:35 AM
If a cat raked you with its claw did it touch you?

This is a desease so think about how deseases are transmitted. If its not airborn then I you need to get it into the victems blood stream. Make the desease transmit when damaged by a claw or bite attack. If its a spell then a simple touch is fine. Also if its a spell you just need to touch. However if you want to have your evil kobald attack with its claws then it should be a normal melee attack to do damage with the claws. Eather way a spell effect is trasnmitted.

TSED
2009-05-16, 08:46 AM
If a cat raked you with its claw did it touch you?

This is a desease so think about how deseases are transmitted. If its not airborn then I you need to get it into the victems blood stream. Make the desease transmit when damaged by a claw or bite attack. If its a spell then a simple touch is fine. Also if its a spell you just need to touch. However if you want to have your evil kobald attack with its claws then it should be a normal melee attack to do damage with the claws. Eather way a spell effect is trasnmitted.

You seem to mistaking two different questions for the same question.

The PC kobold isn't going to be pulling the disease out.

And yeah, the zombies transmit it by biting. I am pretty sure I mentioned that. EDIT::: Turns out, I didn't. Go figure. My apologies.

shadow_archmagi
2009-05-16, 08:54 AM
Yeah; let the Kobold PC do his thing. If his attack beats the full AC, it hits and does claw AND charnel damage. (He hit the enemy in a weak spot) If his attack only beats the touch AC, then only the charnel applies. (He hit the enemy, and his claws bounced off, but he did still touch them so -!ZAP!-).

SilverSheriff
2009-05-16, 09:32 AM
I would have been slightly interested if it weren't for the fact that these so-called 'Zombies' have a climb speed and don't shamble around like the undead monstrosity they are.:smallmad:

People just don't seem to have any respect to the good-old Romero Zombies anymore... :smallsigh:

TSED
2009-05-16, 09:50 AM
I would have been slightly interested if it weren't for the fact that these so-called 'Zombies' have a climb speed and don't shamble around like the undead monstrosity they are.:smallmad:

People just don't seem to have any respect to the good-old Romero Zombies anymore... :smallsigh:

They do shamble! Honest! Put in that they can't run, though I guess I should've edited the OP.

Uh. The climb speed is for that nasty zombie-ambush-out-of-nowhere. It'll be used for good times.

rampaging-poet
2009-05-16, 09:56 AM
Most diseases have an incubation period. If you fail your save, you take damage at the end of the incubation period. Every day thereafter, you make a Fortitude save to resist the disease. If you succeed, you take no damage for the day, and if you succeed two days in a row (or three for some particularly nasty plagues) you fought off the infection and are cured.

For this disease, I'd have the incubation period be "until next sunset" or something like that. Roll the Fortitude saves and damage secretly, then apply the damage slowly over the course of the day. That way, they don't know exactly when they're going to drop :smallamused:.

TSED
2009-05-16, 10:15 AM
Most diseases have an incubation period. If you fail your save, you take damage at the end of the incubation period. Every day thereafter, you make a Fortitude save to resist the disease. If you succeed, you take no damage for the day, and if you succeed two days in a row (or three for some particularly nasty plagues) you fought off the infection and are cured.

That's how I thought it worked, thanks for bringing that in.


For this disease, I'd have the incubation period be "until next sunset" or something like that. Roll the Fortitude saves and damage secretly, then apply the damage slowly over the course of the day. That way, they don't know exactly when they're going to drop :smallamused:.

That gave me a wicked idea. If PCs get Infected, I now plan on applying the con damage so that they take the damage over the course of 24 hours (ie a 2 con damage would be once on the 12 hour mark and once on the 24, where as the full 8 would be once every six hours).

And I'm going to have full access to their character sheets at all times, so it'll be super-evil.

rampaging-poet
2009-05-16, 10:37 AM
That gave me a wicked idea. If PCs get Infected, I now plan on applying the con damage so that they take the damage over the course of 24 hours (ie a 2 con damage would be once on the 12 hour mark and once on the 24, where as the full 8 would be once every six hours).

Sounds great!

Hmm... Maybe instead of rolling 2d4 every twenty-four hours, roll 1d4 every twelve. It works out to the same amount, but that way you never have to deal damage every 3.428571... hours.
That, and it changes the timing more often, which makes it harder for them to tell exactly how much damage they took.

Knaight
2009-05-16, 10:47 AM
On the kidnapped children. A monster from them isn't subtle enough. Have a scene where they meet one that has been completely brainwashed by the fey, using fey magic. Later have them witness the kid killing his own parents, and remembering who they are too late. Throw in dialogue from all involved, and just make it a really tragic moment. Its much more terrifying than any monster.

rampaging-poet
2009-05-16, 10:53 AM
Alternatively, turn them into monsters, but make it perfectly clear that the feral beast or emotionless killing machine or whatever used to be somebody's little boy. Maybe keep much of the face the same except for the addition of fangs or something like that. Be absolutely certain everybody knows exactly who the beast used to be as its mighty claws rend the flesh of all who stand before it.
Then have the kid remember just as he kills his parents.

TSED
2009-05-16, 11:21 AM
Ok, so what I really need is an opinion on the Infected template. CR adjustments need to go up?


Sounds great!

Hmm... Maybe instead of rolling 2d4 every twenty-four hours, roll 1d4 every twelve. It works out to the same amount, but that way you never have to deal damage every 3.428571... hours.
That, and it changes the timing more often, which makes it harder for them to tell exactly how much damage they took.


...Yes. Heck, I could even just make it "roll 1d8 and that is the number of hours until the next point of con loss" or something... I guess it depends on how much bookkeeping I feel like doing once the infections hit.



On the kidnapped children. A monster from them isn't subtle enough. Have a scene where they meet one that has been completely brainwashed by the fey, using fey magic. Later have them witness the kid killing his own parents, and remembering who they are too late. Throw in dialogue from all involved, and just make it a really tragic moment. Its much more terrifying than any monster.

Hmm, I like that.

I think what I'll do, to make this really insidious...

They're the carriers. The fey kidnapped them, made them immune to this disease, infected them, and then let them go. Sure, it takes a while, but a little kid's saliva is going to get SOMEWHERE eventually...

Not even sure I'll leave them to the 'suddenly remember' part. It'd be so much more horrible if they were clever and figured it out on their own...