Silus
2012-01-27, 04:37 AM
Ok, I started a thread in the 3.5/PF section but I wasn't getting the feedback I was really looking for (It was mostly in the vein of "Casters/Clerics/Ranged will pwn"), so I figure here in the generic forums might get more of what I'm looking for.
What am I looking for anyway? Well some mechanics that I could use (I'm leaning towards Pathfinder, mostly 'cause I have about 90% of the printed source books), some homebrew that would work well for the campaign, general thing to watch out for and ways to give the PC's a fighting chance.
Scenario
This campaign would be used as the opener for the setting I'm making (More later. Maybe). The PCs start out separated in the "We're not a party yet" sort of dealy. Something happens (Attack in the street maybe?) and a zombie virus begins to spread among the people. The options here is either the plague starts slow and the PCs can investigate, or we jump right into the "Ok, zombies are roaming the streets. What do you do" part.
The objective of the scenario is that the city gets locked down to keep the plague from spreading. Relief is coming in ten days from a neighboring city in the form of clockwork soldiers (Or similar disease immune soldiers). The PCs main objective is to survive the ten day period with side objectives cropping up here and there. Save the townsfolk at X location, secure X amount of food from Y location, gather supplies to make a barricade, ect. ect.. Completion of these objectives would net the players rewards in the form of supplies, contacts (assuming the NPCs survive) and/or XP.
The target level for this game would be between levels 1-3.
Current homebrew
1. At character creation, the PCs will receive HP as normal (Max class HP + Con bonus). For each level gained during the plague, the PCs will only gain their Con score in HP per level (Min of 1 HP gained regardless of Con score). After the plague, the PCs will roll their health as they normally would have upon gaining levels (So after they finish the plague scenario they would roll up however much class HP they would have gotten. A Barbarian that gained two levels would roll 2d12 for their HP at the end for example). The reasoning behind this is that, well, it's a necromantic plague. That stuff messes with people's health. In addition, it would encourage smart fighting instead of "Rawr, I've got plate armor and a greatsword, bring'em on!" or "lol fireball" or the like. A group of three zombies starts to become a very real threat to a party of four (more on zombies later).
2. The disease is contracted as normal for zombie movies. Upon taking damage, the player has a % chance to contract the disease (the type of armor worn help mitigate this % due to how much of the body is covered). If they fall within the %, they will have to make a fortitude save or contract the disease. Every hour, they take an unspecified amount of Con damage (seems best as zombies have no Con score and it's the most likely target for a zombie disease/virus). If a character dies while under the influence of the disease, or falls to 0 Con and dies, they will rise an unspecified number of hours later as a hostile zombie. As with any disease, divine casters are able to cure it with a Cure Disease spell or similar.
3. The zombies will be the "slow" variety. They will only be able to take a move or a standard action during their turn. Aside from this and the disease, they will function as the printed zombie creature in whatever system MM/Bestiary is suitable for the system (For Pathfinder, all the zombies would be classified as "Plague Zombies" in the first Bestiary). The only other change is how many zombies will be fielded at a time. Depending on the location, the groups of zombies will go from solitary (1) to a horde (30+). The idea is to make the players think about how they proceed. If they have to cross a marketplace and it's swarming with zombies, they may have to actually, you know, plan something. In addition, while having poor observation skills beyond "Mmmm food", noise and light will attract hordes of zombies.
Known issues:
1. Casters
1a. Clerics will more than likely be the major problem for someone running this (Likely myself) what with their undead destroying powers. With any luck, the sheer number of zombies will keep them from flexing their divine powers overmuch, and the risk of turning and the little HP the others possess will, hopefully, keep them concerned with playing a support role for the duration of the plague as opposed to a zombie-turning-whirlwind-of-plated-doom that others have though they would be.
1b. Mages are likely to make short work of the undead hordes with their blasty magic and AOE. And this is fine, but wearing cloth/light armor and causing a magical ruckus will more than likely be bad for the party as it will draw the undead by the score.
2. Ranged. Sure, they can pick off zombies from a distance, but there are two factors that work against them. 1) Limited ammo supply. I cannot for the life of me think of a class that has access to an unlimited supply of ammunition (barring the Warlock from 3.5), and 2) you can usually only target one creature at a time. Either they'll get overwhelmed or have to fall back.
Both are useful, but not game breaking for the task at hand IMO.
So, with all these walls'o'text in mind, am I forgetting anything? Any suggestions for...well...anything? Anything that I've not thought of that I should look out for, either for or from the PCs? I wanna try to get this to be perfect (Hard, I know).
Edit: Also, I hate posting long things like this late at night, because every time I do I end up posting it during the forum backup.
What am I looking for anyway? Well some mechanics that I could use (I'm leaning towards Pathfinder, mostly 'cause I have about 90% of the printed source books), some homebrew that would work well for the campaign, general thing to watch out for and ways to give the PC's a fighting chance.
Scenario
This campaign would be used as the opener for the setting I'm making (More later. Maybe). The PCs start out separated in the "We're not a party yet" sort of dealy. Something happens (Attack in the street maybe?) and a zombie virus begins to spread among the people. The options here is either the plague starts slow and the PCs can investigate, or we jump right into the "Ok, zombies are roaming the streets. What do you do" part.
The objective of the scenario is that the city gets locked down to keep the plague from spreading. Relief is coming in ten days from a neighboring city in the form of clockwork soldiers (Or similar disease immune soldiers). The PCs main objective is to survive the ten day period with side objectives cropping up here and there. Save the townsfolk at X location, secure X amount of food from Y location, gather supplies to make a barricade, ect. ect.. Completion of these objectives would net the players rewards in the form of supplies, contacts (assuming the NPCs survive) and/or XP.
The target level for this game would be between levels 1-3.
Current homebrew
1. At character creation, the PCs will receive HP as normal (Max class HP + Con bonus). For each level gained during the plague, the PCs will only gain their Con score in HP per level (Min of 1 HP gained regardless of Con score). After the plague, the PCs will roll their health as they normally would have upon gaining levels (So after they finish the plague scenario they would roll up however much class HP they would have gotten. A Barbarian that gained two levels would roll 2d12 for their HP at the end for example). The reasoning behind this is that, well, it's a necromantic plague. That stuff messes with people's health. In addition, it would encourage smart fighting instead of "Rawr, I've got plate armor and a greatsword, bring'em on!" or "lol fireball" or the like. A group of three zombies starts to become a very real threat to a party of four (more on zombies later).
2. The disease is contracted as normal for zombie movies. Upon taking damage, the player has a % chance to contract the disease (the type of armor worn help mitigate this % due to how much of the body is covered). If they fall within the %, they will have to make a fortitude save or contract the disease. Every hour, they take an unspecified amount of Con damage (seems best as zombies have no Con score and it's the most likely target for a zombie disease/virus). If a character dies while under the influence of the disease, or falls to 0 Con and dies, they will rise an unspecified number of hours later as a hostile zombie. As with any disease, divine casters are able to cure it with a Cure Disease spell or similar.
3. The zombies will be the "slow" variety. They will only be able to take a move or a standard action during their turn. Aside from this and the disease, they will function as the printed zombie creature in whatever system MM/Bestiary is suitable for the system (For Pathfinder, all the zombies would be classified as "Plague Zombies" in the first Bestiary). The only other change is how many zombies will be fielded at a time. Depending on the location, the groups of zombies will go from solitary (1) to a horde (30+). The idea is to make the players think about how they proceed. If they have to cross a marketplace and it's swarming with zombies, they may have to actually, you know, plan something. In addition, while having poor observation skills beyond "Mmmm food", noise and light will attract hordes of zombies.
Known issues:
1. Casters
1a. Clerics will more than likely be the major problem for someone running this (Likely myself) what with their undead destroying powers. With any luck, the sheer number of zombies will keep them from flexing their divine powers overmuch, and the risk of turning and the little HP the others possess will, hopefully, keep them concerned with playing a support role for the duration of the plague as opposed to a zombie-turning-whirlwind-of-plated-doom that others have though they would be.
1b. Mages are likely to make short work of the undead hordes with their blasty magic and AOE. And this is fine, but wearing cloth/light armor and causing a magical ruckus will more than likely be bad for the party as it will draw the undead by the score.
2. Ranged. Sure, they can pick off zombies from a distance, but there are two factors that work against them. 1) Limited ammo supply. I cannot for the life of me think of a class that has access to an unlimited supply of ammunition (barring the Warlock from 3.5), and 2) you can usually only target one creature at a time. Either they'll get overwhelmed or have to fall back.
Both are useful, but not game breaking for the task at hand IMO.
So, with all these walls'o'text in mind, am I forgetting anything? Any suggestions for...well...anything? Anything that I've not thought of that I should look out for, either for or from the PCs? I wanna try to get this to be perfect (Hard, I know).
Edit: Also, I hate posting long things like this late at night, because every time I do I end up posting it during the forum backup.