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Gamebird
2007-01-22, 11:49 AM
Players in my games - read no further!

The PCs:
Human Bard 10/Rogue 2/Fighter 1
Human Fighter 12
Halfling Rogue 4/Ranger 6
Elf Fighter 7/Wizard 1
Elf Wizard 9
Dwarf Cleric 11

Important cohorts likely to come along on an adventure:
Human Cleric 11
Human Fighter 10
Intelligent horse, the equal of a basic paladinic steed
3 HD Pegasus
Celestial raven animal companion

Everyone who wants it has a magical weapon and armor, but individuals only have about 3/4 WBL gear. Most of this is taken up by each person having a Vest of +4 CON.

Their enemies, at least tentatively:
Ulrich the Master, CE orc (undead, morgh) male Fighter 2/Cleric 3
Wight 1
Wight 2
Wight 3
Wight 4
Corpse wight (corporeal undead, no spawning ability, 1/2 damage from slashing or piercing, DR 10)
4 Shadows
10 skeletons – run as human warrior skeletons. None have armor or weapons.
10 zombie heads – 2 hp, counts as 2 HD, can’t move or attack in most cases
47 zombies – run as bugbear zombies with armor and weapons
2 ogre zombies – with armor and weapons
1 wyvern zombie – with barding and saddle

The zombie heads are mounted on sticks inside a low (6-8 foot) wall as sentries. The rest of the undead usually sit around inside some stone buildings (locked doors with skeleton doormen). The main one is 70x70 feet, two story, with a slightly sloping roof of slate tiles. There are some underground tunnels.

There is the possibility of negotiation, but since the undead don't want to move away and the PC's job is to get rid of them, combat is almost guarenteed.

The bad guys are out in the woods, surrounded by a few miles of relatively virgin forest. The PCs know they are going after undead. They know I tend to equip my bad guys with useful equipment (undead nearly always have weapons and armor) and often give the leaders levels if they're smart enough to have them. The bad guys do not know they are going to be attacked. They do not have access to any significant resources to recruit even if they did know (though if they understood the scope of the PC's power, they would hide in their tunnels and make the PCs fight them on their terms).

I want this to be a combat the PCs actually fight out, as opposed to casting two or three spells and being done. At high levels, with full casters in the party and the party having the benefit of surprise, it gets harder to scale encounters. Do you think the encounter is balanced as is? Is there specific equipment I should toss in? Should I tack some levels onto the wights so they're tougher? Do you think it's too tough?

Edit: Oh, the PCs are unaware their enemies have any air power or spell casting ability.

ken-do-nim
2007-01-22, 12:05 PM
Weird party. You've got an 8th level character and a 13th level character, and a cohort at 11th who could make a huge difference since the foes are undead.

So yeah, if the 11th level cleric cohort comes along, between him and the dwarven 11th level cleric it looks like enough turning power to make this quick. If not, hopefully the dwarf cleric uses up his turns on the skeletons and zombies, making the party actually have to fight the wights and shadows. Even then with a 6 character + cohort party, if all your players show up this doesn't look hard. Add some wraiths maybe? How about a spectre as the lieutenant?

Gamebird
2007-01-22, 12:34 PM
Bugbear zombies are 6 HD (wights 4 HD, ogre zombies 8 HD, wyvern zombie 14 HD, morgh 14 HD + 5 levels). Desecrate is a 2nd level cleric spell, giving -6 on turning checks within a 20' radius. Each of the clerics will get 5 or 6 turn attempts in a day. They'll get about 20 HD each attempt, able to turn up to 9-10 HD creatures. So three zombies at a whack - or maybe all the wights. But there's 47 zombies and I was planning on having the wights hang back. They're smart, unlike zombies. Maybe have them use crossbows or chuck spears.

So you still think add a spectre or a couple wraiths?

ken-do-nim
2007-01-22, 01:58 PM
Hmmm... okay I confess to having no clue as to how it will turn out.

One thing I've seen DMs do is have some monster hang out in the back, not engaging in the fight. Perhaps this monster is some ally of the BBEG but not a minion. This gives the DM to option to bring the monster in if the fight is going badly for the badguys, but otherwise to leave him out. So in this case, the spectre could just watch from the sidelines. From a player's perspective, it's quite a conundrum as to whether this obviously powerful critter should be attacked or not.

Runolfr
2007-01-22, 02:37 PM
The first question, I think, is how many of those 4-6 HD undead are going to go down to the first fireball or lightning bolt from your L9 wizard. How are the monstrous leaders going to avoid all that energy damage? The wizard is the one who's going to turn this from a serious fight into a few magic blasts with a mop-up. Your intelligent undead leaders need to take such threats into account when planning their standard defensive strategy.

Gamebird
2007-01-22, 02:49 PM
The first question, I think, is how many of those 4-6 HD undead are going to go down to the first fireball or lightning bolt from your L9 wizard.

None. He's a diviner with banned Evocation. His primary high level spells are Mind-Affecting, so I don't think I need to worry about those. He has Fabricate, which can quickly create a door... and lots of scrying-related abilities.

Though honestly, having a good strategy to fend off high level casters isn't a bad idea. I was thinking a few scrolls of Dispel Magic. The cleric 3 has a decent chance of reading them and they're all-purpose. Making good use of cover and corners should help otherwise. Your suggestions?

Yakk
2007-01-22, 04:52 PM
CR 2 6 HD Bugbear zombies x47
CR 3 8 HD ogre zombie x2
CR 13 Mohrg CR8+5 class levels
3 CR Wight x4
4 CR Corpse Wight x1
CR 3 Shadows x4
CR 1/3 Skelitons x10
CR 0 Zombie Heads x10
CR 4 Wyvern Zombie x1


sound right?

Gamebird
2007-01-22, 04:54 PM
I suppose so. What's it add up to? Not that I've found CR to be a good indicator of an entertaining, but not lethal, combat.

Edit: Never mind. I can use the Encounter Calculator as well as anyone else. Leaving off the skeletons, 7 zombies, the zombie heads, corpse wight and wyvern zombie - it comes up as a "Very Difficult" encounter for the party's ECL, if I treat the two cohorts as full members rather than part of the PC's "stuff". No adjustment for PCs under the WBL, for fortifications, situation, this being the only encounter the PCs are likely to have in the day, or the PCs being able to prepare for it.

Raum
2007-01-22, 09:21 PM
You may have difficulty creating challenging encounters without making them deadly. With a 5 level difference between lowest character and highest anything challenging the L13 character will be deadly to the L8. Especially with the L8 being a fighter type and probably wanting to be in the midst of combat.

The best solution I can think of is to have fewer opponents with relatively low AC (so the L8 can still hit) and high HPs. With a limited number of opponents you can have them concentrate attacks on the higher level characters who are more likely to survive.

Of course if you're looking for deadly, just send ten or so zombies after the L8. :->

Yakk
2007-01-22, 10:09 PM
Plugged into http://www.d20srd.org/encounterCalculator.htm we get an EL of 16 and a party EL of 12.9 if fought all at once. (I had to neglect the skellitons)

By the math, 15% of encounters should be this hard, and it will be worth between 4600 xp (L 8 person) to 570 xp (L 13 person) each. It is "very difficult".

So, by the RAW, this should be a medium challenging fight.

...

Now, how to make a fight challenging without being lethal? Defensive layers and an opponent who responds to incursions, and superior mobility on the part of the players. With all of these zombies, the party can outrun most of the enemies in full retreat mode.

...

In fact, that is the largest weakness of your horde. They move damn slow, with only a few exceptions.

Stress this when describing the engagement -- "lumbering" is a good adjective. Hopefully your players will catch on, and figure out that if they are overwealmed they should make a fighting withdrawl.

The Zombies, being led by someone intelligent, will realize this.

Are all wights above Corpse wights, or is there just one? If they are full wights, you'd expect an entourage of lesser wights created by the real ones.

The same would hold of the shadows. Harvesting peasants and feeding them to shadows and wights makes a heck of alot of sense.

I'm assuming the motivation of the horde is self preservation? Are they aggressive or defensive?

You can add a difficulty slider to the fight by statting out multiple "harvesting parties" that are out patrolling. The horde should seek to delay in order to wait for the harvesting parties to return. In the event of a successful delay, the harvesting party gets into position to cut off the party's escape, or arrives and reinforces the main camp, or arrives during the battle.

Hint this to the players by having the zombies ask for more time, and 1 hour later having the players get a chance to witness new recruits showing up...

Shadows actually fly faster than the wyvern does. 80 ft/round vs 60 ft/round.

Is the wyvern a mount for the boss?

The consequences of party retreat should be simple -- the BBEG goes into recruitment mode. A few dozen new shadows and wights, plus some zombie horses, and maybe a new zombie monster or two, havested from nearby villages should make up for the losses.

A miniature undead apocoplyse can kick in. Shadows and Wights can reproduce exponentially. Armies of wights and shadows can be used to overwealm monsters, which are then fed to the BBEG to turn into uberzombies.

Would be a fun result of failure. :)

ken-do-nim
2007-01-22, 10:23 PM
You may have difficulty creating challenging encounters without making them deadly. With a 5 level difference between lowest character and highest anything challenging the L13 character will be deadly to the L8. Especially with the L8 being a fighter type and probably wanting to be in the midst of combat.

The best solution I can think of is to have fewer opponents with relatively low AC (so the L8 can still hit) and high HPs. With a limited number of opponents you can have them concentrate attacks on the higher level characters who are more likely to survive.

Of course if you're looking for deadly, just send ten or so zombies after the L8. :->

Of course note that the level 13 character has 10 bard levels, and I know many people on these boards would equate that to maybe 7 levels of a more potent class. (I wouldn't; but I'm in the minority).

Koji
2007-01-23, 07:17 AM
Add some minor fortifications to the undead group's position that can slow down incoming PCs--setting snare traps that grab a hapless pc and swing him in range of a zombie head is sure to be fairly terrifying. Try having a pitfall-type trap, where zombie hands reach up through a thin layer of earth and branches when they sense movement up above, and pull PCs down into pits filled with zombies. You could even make it so that the pit is crowded (like shoulder to shoulder), removing dex bonuses from anyone who falls in, something which will only minimally affect the zombies. Perhaps these pitfalls branch off into the (mostly empty) undead tunnels, or are old barrows containing neat gear to pick up after the fight (if the pcs are comfortable looting them). These traps work best if they are on the edge of where any real combat might happen, as they could alert the undead and break up the party just as the fight starts without completely forcing the players to be slaughtered, not to mention that tension should be high among the players as they approach this group.

Think about what the undead are doing out in this forest. If they have tunnels, the fact that they need no sustenance should mean that they usually remain in the most easily defended position out of fear for their lives. Are they mobilizing, or on the move? Some big ritual?

One last thing that is oh-so-flavorful when done right. Zombies are often laughable opponents, but if a zombie can land a successful grapple on a character (particularly a caster), the fight turns deadly serious as the zombie drags him to the ground and others move in to begin the feast. Zombies can also use the "aid another" action, which should be described as the zombies all lunging en masse and it becoming difficult to evade them.

Just remember that if it's a temporary position, any traps should be simple, fairly quick to build, and as always, very brutal.

Bears With Lasers
2007-01-23, 07:40 AM
All I really know is that I feel pretty bad for the Fighter 7/Wizard 1.

PinkysBrain
2007-01-23, 08:49 AM
The wizard might not be throwing fireballs, but he will probably throw out a black tentacles. Also the clerics will throw flame strikes and blade barriers.

Even without an evoker large groups of mooks are caster bait.

Gamebird
2007-01-23, 09:54 AM
Are all wights above Corpse wights, or is there just one? If they are full wights, you'd expect an entourage of lesser wights created by the real ones.

The same would hold of the shadows. Harvesting peasants and feeding them to shadows and wights makes a heck of alot of sense.

I'm assuming the motivation of the horde is self preservation? Are they aggressive or defensive?

The morgh moved a few zombies to the haunted ruin of a destroyed human village about 400 years ago. Since then he's done virtually nothing, except entertain undead from nearby humanoid lands once or twice a decade, and collect new undead as opportunity presented itself. He doesn't send out harvesting groups - doing so would stir up ill will in his neighbors (humanoids) who would eventually counter attack in a mass and wipe him out. So instead, being undead and having the advantage of not actually needing to eat, he's not doing much of anything.

The shadows and corpse wight were created by the original sacking of the human village. The wights are individuals he's "collected" in the intervening centuries, who have had their masters destroyed or gotten into hot water with whatever humanoids they were living with (and most likely lording it over).

I can change some of this, but that's the situation I envisioned.


Is the wyvern a mount for the boss?

Yes. Note the barding and saddle.


A miniature undead apocoplyse can kick in. Shadows and Wights can reproduce exponentially.

I have some house rules as to why spawning undead don't create exponential armies. More later.

Gamebird
2007-01-23, 11:31 AM
And to add... (bolding for emphasis)

Why spawning undead do not rule the world:
o No master can control more than 2xHD in number of thralls*. A “master” is someone who controls other undead, whether as a living necromancer or an undead sire/spawning undead. Undead controlled temporarily by Domination, rebuke undead or similar powers do not count as thralls.
o A master who has their maximum thralls cannot create new ones. Any spawning undead with their maximum thralls, who kills new victims with their energy or CON drain power, does not create new undead. Their victims simply die, unless the spawning undead releases another thrall.
o A master can release a thrall at any time. The thrall does not have to be present. Once released, a thrall can only become a thrall again if the thrall consents to it willingly.
o A master knows if a thrall still exists and knows immediately if their thrall is destroyed.
o A spawning undead can choose not to create a thrall when killing a victim with an energy drain or CON drain power. A victim who is not turned into a thrall does not rise as an undead and can be raised normally.
o Thralls will try to destroy anyone who controls or threatens their master as part of their fanatical loyalty to their master. This includes their master’s master. In most cases, the thralls will attack their grandsire as fearlessly as they attack their master’s other enemies – and with as little regard for their own safety. Although a master can command their thrall not to attack their grandsire, the command only works while the master is present.
o Free willed, intelligent undead are rarely disposed to work together. When they do, there is no mystical limit on the number who can work together.
o Undead created directly by an Evil god count as free willed, though they are unable to work against the god that created them and are bound to fulfill the god’s orders when an agent of the god delivers them.

* Certain feats and special abilities can exceed this maximum. The morgh, for example, can control an unlimited number of zombies (but only zombies, and they can be easily "stolen" by anyone else who can control zombies).

Yakk
2007-01-23, 12:40 PM
That works well.

Give the creatures defence-in-depth. Have a patrol party or two outside of camp. Have scouts out that attempt to spot incoming forces.

If attacked, the undead should respond with a raid. That both allows the undead to rebuild their losses, and they can leave a message like "You intruded on the woods. This is the price. If you stay out of the woods, this will not happen."

Which is sort of wonderful, if you think about it. The undead will be protected by the folk around the forest -- they know that if adventurers head into the forest and attack the undead (and fail like the last 3 groups), the undead will retalliate, grow stronger, and cause damage.

Otherwise, you would expect the undead to have been slowly wittled away by the occasional lucky peasant/noble. People have an annoying tendency to reproduce, and young males do stupid adventurous things to gain status.

And if the boss in charge can give the wights/shadows the cultural inclination to release spawn, and force their own spawn to immediately release their own spawn, you can have a mini apocolypse under your rules.

Instead of statting the encounter for "the party beats it with effort", stat the encounter for "the party gets beaten by it, and has to retreat". Zombies run slower than players do (any dwarves?), so when retreating they only have to deal with the fast moving undead (shadows, wights) which really won't want to engage the party alone.

The undead should be in a fortified position. Only a few viable approaches, area around the camp cleared, lots of deadly traps along most approaches (even primitive ones, like large pits with spikes, slow attackers down). 100+ years of fortification from 40-odd super-strong zombie slaves can build a rather decent fort.

Heck, have 3 forts guarding each other's approach, and a tunnel complex connecting them. Man the extra forts with some additional grunts (2HD human zombies) just there to sound the alarm if attacked, and with the tunnel complex itself assumed to be comprimisable. Now the unwary party can have people attacking it's flanks. And the undead will win a siege war.

<- evil.

Gamebird
2007-01-23, 02:00 PM
There will be some traps... and certainly there will be a level of retaliation if the PCs attack and appear weak (if they have to retreat). The set-up is a little different than you're imagining. There aren't peasants and nobles within arm's reach, though the undead could go raid a humanoid settlement (which will cause it's own retaliation, because humanoids are more social than undead and an unprovoked raid will cause other humanoids to come find out what's going on and if the undead plan on offing them next).

Anyway, I figure there's been some level of attrition going on for the last 400 years, which is why the guy has 47 bugbear zombies with weapons and armor and a couple ogre ones. He only showed up with 8 or 9. The rest he's collected as time passed, having them fight or whatever so that only the toughest zombies survived (the 6 HD ones - losers end up on sentry duty as zombie heads).

It doesn't fit the rest of the campaign for this to open up into a longer sub-campaign (barring the PCs doing something dumb, like not finishing the job). I also sometimes have bad guys just leave. If they think they're no match for the PCs, then why go into human territory and stir them up - making SURE the PCs or someone similar will hunt them down and end them? Intelligent undead will only do that if they're phenomenally vengeful (these aren't, though a few of the wights are), protected against most means of death (vampires and liches), or feel they have no choice.

These guys aren't going to move away without the PCs making a big demonstration of kicking their asses. By the time the PCs have done that, the idea they'll have mercy on the poor undead survivors and let them escape into the hills is ridiculous. They're PCs, for gods' sake.

PinkysBrain
2007-01-23, 02:49 PM
To make things a little more interesting why not bury all the mindless undead (except the Wyvern) in shallow graves, it's not like they'd care ... and they'd represent a nasty surprise to your PCs when they start rising from their graves on the Mohrg's command.

Person_Man
2007-01-23, 03:10 PM
I would suggest eliminating the 47 zombies. You already have a ton of figures on the board, and one round of combat could easily take an hour to complete. I'd consolidate them (and maybe the ogre and wyvern zombies as well) into a single Titan or Dragon Zombie/Skeleton, or something similar.

Gamebird
2007-01-23, 03:28 PM
I would suggest eliminating the 47 zombies. You already have a ton of figures on the board, and one round of combat could easily take an hour to complete. I'd consolidate them (and maybe the ogre and wyvern zombies as well) into a single Titan or Dragon Zombie/Skeleton, or something similar.

Very important point, especially given I'm running an online game with limited ability to get useful maps to my PCs. On the other hand, a few tough monsters =/= lots of less-tough monsters. 47 is an awful lot though. Maybe I could eliminate 10 or 20 of them and replace with a few more ogre zombies or a dragon zombie.