Undead Encounters

[AlanBruce]

Greetings! My group may, in the near future, traverse an undead valley.

The group should be ECL 12 by then, close to 13.

The valley used to have stone giants, but these have been killed and raised as undead of different types (most have the zombie template, but I gave a select few the wight template, being relevant npcs for this arc).

However, fighting undead giants again and again can get tedious. Variety is important and I'd like to include some interesting undead for the group to face/run from.

The game is D&D 3.5 and the monsters may come from all 5 MM, Fiend Folio, Libris Mortis, Heroes of Horror and pretty much any published material, except Dragon Magazine.

I was thinking roughly ELs to range between 2-12, not counting boss encounters (which may be random as well)

Any and all ideas are more than welcome!

Thank you very much in advance.

[Jergmo]

Goblinoids often wind up in mountain ranges. Goblin skeletons and ghouls (gravetouched template) that feed upon burial grounds scattered throughout the region. Given the use of goblins it would be beneficial to look up bonedrinkers. If the entire valley is afflicted by undead, it may be the result of some curse which could have drained the life of local fauna, resulting in ghost brutes, shadows and wraiths.

Perhaps undead dragons or drakes, that showed up after the giants were slain without realizing how they would be affected and died in their sleep?

Environmental effects caused by this curse may also be a factor if you wanted to go that route, negatively affecting the PCs the longer they spend in the area, which means using resources to restore health or forcing them to prepare resources to counter the effects.

If there are burial grounds in the area that allow for the various types of undead I listed above, it could be that there are even goblinoid mummies, which I've honestly never heard of before. However, many cultures practiced mummification - for example, there are mummies in Great Britain and Scandinavia. It could be that the goblins mummified their shamans, which leads to mummies with cleric or spirit shaman levels, and mummies often have cleric levels.

There may even be vampires, or cultists drawn to the area, viewing it unholy ground sacred to their deity. (Cultists who undergo the necropolitan ritual).

I don't know what the main bosses of your area are, or what caused the undead explosion, but a lich can also be thrown in for good measure - perhaps a lower level lich (level 11-13, around the same as the party) that figured security would be high surrounded by other undead, lacking the power of greater liches.

[Jergmo]

Also, at ECL 12-13, a couple of giants, particularly zombies, won't necessarily be challenging as they can easily be misdirected. If you have spellcasters that take command of the mindless undead, they can be used in a more tactically sound sense. They may also be surrounded by lesser undead, making turning them a near-impossibility due to lesser HD being affected first.

Stone giants have elders with spellcaster levels. Those turned into intelligent undead may have been the spellcasters among them, who now Command their mindless brethren as bodyguards.

"One in ten elders is a sorcerer, usually of 3rd to 6th level." - from SRD. Command Undead is only 2nd level.

[AlanBruce]

These are all amazing ideas.

A little background on this valley...

A child who is an incarnation of the Negative Energy Plane crash landed in the valley, which was home to a gentle and reclusive tribe of stone giants. The giants welcomed the child as a blessing, but as the years wore on, his influence spread through the valley, killing all life and reanimating it as corpses.

Being a source of negative energy, the child has attracted all manner of undead into his valley- all which serve him. The environment mimics that of the Negative Energy plane, causing untyped damage to living creatures every round they are inside.

Years before the campaign began, as part of the history of the setting, a large army lead by two sisters- a warrior and a caster, lead a battalion of humanoids and monsters to rid the valley of the undead infestation.

It did not end well, and now that army lumbers about, servant to this being- the sisters are now vampires.

Meanwhile, a cult of Nerull wandered in, seeking to commune with this power. They too would fall, with the cultist leader being turned into a lich and his men into various undeads, retaining their previous classes.

I like the goblin idea very much and will likely implement it. The sight of mummified globlins hiding behind fog ridden boulders while vampire spawn goblins attack the PCs should make for an interesting encounter.

Thank you very much!

[Jergmo]

No problem! I would be cautious about the effects of exposure, but I'm not sure of your party's divine capabilities. I would personally bump it up to minutes, hours, or a mix of alternating damage, ability penalties, and even the rampant spread of diseases, some even unique to the area in a Negative-infused ecosystem. I actually have an undead plague that was designed for my campaign setting, which inflicts with disease that causes those who die of Constitution damage to raise as zombies.

It is simply Contagion with Fell Drain, Fell Animate and Empower Spell, with a Constitution disease spread by touch. It is presumed to have been originally cast by a necromancer with feats from the Corpsecrafter line of feats. This means that any person touched by the disease gains a negative level if affected (and the initial infection has a much higher DC). This is plenty to kill a commoner in my case, but it could also be what killed and animated so many goblins.

So you have a mess of goblin zombies, all of which have a chance to spread the plague and have bonuses to strength and hit points, along with any other goodies chosen from the feat line.

Nimble Bones is a good option, which grants +10 movement speed and +4 Initiative, making your zombies something to take a bit seriously given that they can charge.

[AlanBruce]

The Party:

Pixie bard/lyric thaumaturge

drow paladin of freedom/wizard/ Abj. Champion, with the lolth touched template refluffed for Eilistree (goddess of good drow)

Human Prestige paladin/cleric/inquisitor

Grey elf conjurer

Grey elf beguiler

Human dragon shaman (white dragon)/marshal

They just got a bunch of boons from a goddess (the positive aspect to this guy's negative). Among them, max HP/HD- all future levels gained are rolled normally.

So they can take a beating damage wise. I have implemented the corpsecrafter feat line with the undeads, but I had not considered the disease. A really nice idea.

Naturally, by their level, the cleric should be able to cast a spell- I forget the name, but it lasts hours/level and protects the group from the hazards of a certain plane- in this case, the damage/round.

As far as encounters, I was thinking spectral lyricists and corpse chanters(I think that's the name) from Libris Mortis, along with a few brutes on the ground.

[Jergmo]

That all sounds good. I think you're set!

[Neknoh]

Also don't forget the wildlife.

Especially if the wildlife is carrying "Disease by bite."

Wolves, birds, squirrels and other things, not everything has to attack them, not everything must be hostile and not everything must give the players a match.

10-12 zombie wolves dropping like flies but carrying something very, very nasty with their bite could well serve to hinder the players, if there are even more wolves stalking them after one of the disease-attacks get through, the players might be weary of fighting them.

Now add in the horde mechanic of players bypassing slower things (or things that stalk them and wait for the right opportunity) and eventually ending up in a fight where these other things get a chance to close in.

Those goblin zombies they just decided to "Keep ahead of"?
Those undead wolves that have been stalking them?
The giants they saw standing off in the distance, watching?

Now the players are lying on top of a hill overlooking the old giant village? Not moving? Giants in front of them?

This is where the bushes start to rustle and the forest starts to moan.


Read this amazing campaign-log for further inspiration
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116836

The first adventure in particular handles large ammounts of dead that wont stay dead.

[Chester]

You know, has the Necromental--undead Elemental.

Could add a bit of flavor and unpredictability to the encounters. Not to mention maybe something of a challenge.

[Anxe]

I'm running my players through an undead dungeon right now. The most successful encounters were:

A Nightshade monster from the MM1
A Vasuthant from MM3 (You'll need to play with this one to make it the right challenge level)
An Effigy from MM2 (Just a ghost with the possession power. I had it already in possession of a giant strangely enough. After the giant's body died, it took over one of the player's next)