Zombie campaign and called shots?

[BeholdenCaulf]

I'm planning a zombie apocalypse campaign using d20 modern, albeit with wealth checks and some irrelevant class skills tweaked.
My problem is I plan on doing the whole damage is pointless unless it's in the head thing.
While called shots are widely discouraged across pretty much all RPGs I'd say this is a necessity here.
Does anyone have any rules/ideas?
My first thought was to treat the head as a creature in itself, increasing the AC according to size (probably tiny).
Thoughts please, thanks in advance.

[Jenrock]

One (perhaps unusual) mechanic might be to key a zombie's massive damage threshold off their Strength instead of Constitution. Any time character deals damage under this threshold, they hit the zombie, but not in the head (thus no damage). If they get the threshold, waive the Fortitude save and kill the zombie outright.

Your solution of treating the head as a separate is a really elegant and simply implemented solution.

[Brookshw]

I like your treatment as the head as the creature. Simple, easy, done!

[Sartharina]

I'm planning a zombie apocalypse campaign using d20 modern, albeit with wealth checks and some irrelevant class skills tweaked.
My problem is I plan on doing the whole damage is pointless unless it's in the head thing.

Then what's the purpose of shooting the zombie anywhere else, if it doesn't do damage? All this really does is increase the AC of the zombie.

[BeholdenCaulf]

One (perhaps unusual) mechanic might be to key a zombie's massive damage threshold off their Strength instead of Constitution. Any time character deals damage under this threshold, they hit the zombie, but not in the head (thus no damage). If they get the threshold, waive the Fortitude save and kill the zombie outright.
Thanks for this I will playtest my idea alongside this and see what works best :)

[LibraryOgre]

I'm planning a zombie apocalypse campaign using d20 modern, albeit with wealth checks and some irrelevant class skills tweaked.
My problem is I plan on doing the whole damage is pointless unless it's in the head thing.
While called shots are widely discouraged across pretty much all RPGs I'd say this is a necessity here.
Does anyone have any rules/ideas?
My first thought was to treat the head as a creature in itself, increasing the AC according to size (probably tiny).
Thoughts please, thanks in advance.

Good idea, treating the head as a tiny creature, especially since most zombies don't particularly protect their heads.

[supermonkeyjoe]

You could always treat the zombie as a series of creatures, head, torso, left arm, right arm and legs. Killing the head destroys it, killing an arm takes away or reduces combat effectiveness, killing the legs reduces speed, the torso can soak massive amounts of damage but may be useful to note in case players want to hit it dead centre with something like a Molotov.

The only downside is that it may get unwieldy to keep track of all hat for several zombies.

[BeholdenCaulf]

You could always treat the zombie as a series of creatures, head, torso, left arm, right arm and legs. Killing the head destroys it, killing an arm takes away or reduces combat effectiveness, killing the legs reduces speed, the torso can soak massive amounts of damage but may be useful to note in case players want to hit it dead centre with something like a Molotov.

The only downside is that it may get unwieldy to keep track of all hat for several zombies.
This is actually very helpful.

Although I think Molotovs and their ilk are area burst weapons in d20 modern, I will definitely allow players to use the zombie's original AC should where they hit be irrelevant i.e. Semtex or explosive crossbow bolts.

Sounds like between us is all the ingredients for an awesome homebrew lol

[Berenger]

I gave my zombies lots of hit points and allowed my players to aim at the head at a -6 penalty. If they hit anyway, they threatened a critical hit for x3 damage and massive damage rules even though undead are normally immune to those. It was, however, possible to disable a zombie by inflicting lots of normal damage to its body (even a zombie needs intact bones and sinews to move and attack).

[BeholdenCaulf]

I gave my zombies lots of hit points and allowed my players to aim at the head at a -6 penalty. If they hit anyway, they threatened a critical hit for x3 damage and massive damage rules even though undead are normally immune to those. It was, however, possible to disable a zombie by inflicting lots of normal damage to its body (even a zombie needs intact bones and sinews to move and attack).
Did you actually run a modern zombie campaign?

If so I would be very eager to hear how successful it was and perhaps get some pointers :)

[DigoDragon]

I gave my zombies lots of hit points and allowed my players to aim at the head at a -6 penalty. If they hit anyway, they threatened a critical hit for x3 damage and massive damage rules even though undead are normally immune to those. It was, however, possible to disable a zombie by inflicting lots of normal damage to its body (even a zombie needs intact bones and sinews to move and attack).

This is what one GM did in a d20 modern game I played in. This way you had a choice of either trying to aim for a difficult shot or just hitting zombies with large weapons, like your car. :smallbiggrin:

[Berenger]

Yes, I do run one as a co-GM. It is a play-by-post and ran for 2 1/2 years so far - at times, there were about 12 different players and 40 characters, so it branched out to different parties in different locations. Not quite manageable for one person. The game itself is fun, even though players dropped out and it has slowed down a lot. Such is the fate of most play-by-posts.

The first characters met on Brooklyn Bridge during the first major outbreak and consisted of army rangers (called back from overseas and tasked with enforcing martial law due to "civil unrest" aka first zombie cases) and a score of civilians they saved when the bridge was swarmed.

They secured the Brooklyn War Memorial to use the lawn as an airfield for the evac helicopters that never came. While they took shelter in the building for the night, most of the npc soldiers reckoned the situation was hopeless and bailed out in the remaining armored transports. For the next few days they moved into a mall, until the building was attacked and heavily damaged by a black combat helicopter. Under heavy losses they went to a police station, cleared it and rescued some half dead player characters that had locked themselves in one of the cells when they were attacked by zombies some days before.

While the soldiers and able civilians were scavenging for medicine and food, the police station was attacked and taken over by the mercenaries that attacked the mall earlier (they came to exterminate the CEO of the pharmacy corporation that designed the zombie virus). Most of those mercenaries, a soldier and some survivors were killed when the soldiers refused to negotiate and stormed the police station instead.

After some, uh, enhanced interrogation techniques were employed, a surviving mercenary betrayed the nature of their mission (the guilty CEO made himself unavailable for an interview by slipping away in the dark, despite the zombies) and the location of the helicopter. In that helicopter, they made it to the Kennedy airport where a larger contingent of army soldiers had established a small green zone for refugees (they could not fly farther, since there was a quarantine going on and aircraft trying to leave NY were shot down).

Another week came and went - the airport and the few hundred survivors were mostly safe, the soldiers could re-equip and the civilians could barter for stuff they needed or wanted. Meanwhile, the quarantine ring wavered as more and more soldiers were killed by the undead, had to retreat because they lacked safe supply routes or deserted to look after their own families. The airport only fell when the army defectors (led by our old friend, the CEO, and a slightly insane Colonel Kurtz stand-in) decided to attack and try their luck with our few remaining aircraft - in doing so they sabotaged the fence seperating us from the undead as a distraction. An awful lot of people got killed back then while we retreated south towards the beach. Most of the player characters made it and were rescued by a small coast guard vessel while most of the npc were eaten alived or drowned near the shore.

We slipped out of NY and made it to Castine, Maine, where the next chapter took place. After many whacky misadventures, which included a crazy cannibal family, a stupid teenage character playing with church bells and thus calling every zombie within a mile for dinner (which killed Corporal Alexander Stafford, who had been the heart of the group) and a strange meeting with a roving band of Hells Angels, part of the group managed to build a wooden fortification (Fort Alexander) in the nearby forest. Complete with machine gun emplacement, radio tower, workshop and all. The other guys (strange bedfellows, mostly Hells Angels teamed up with army soldiers led by a Navy SEAL lieutenant) went to California where the laboratories of CEO-guys pharmacy corporation are located, in the hope to obtain some sort of miracle cure. This is a very rough summary of the plot so far...


Some general pointers:

- The most important one: other survivors. You need them for interaction, friendly or otherwise. Zombies can provide a lot of combat, but they act predictable and cannot provide meaningful social interaction. Also, "killing" them has no moral or emotional dimension. It is no hard choice, unless they are deceased friends or relatives - you can do this once or twice, but it will get old soon.

- Being creative and building stuff is really cool. Fortified log cabins, water filters, weapons, customized vehicles... There are lots of videos on YouTube showing how to make stuff like throwing stars from spoons or bows from fiberglass rods. Also, building a base of operations and "upgrading" it with defences, electricity and the like can be a lot of fun. Stuff you need for this can be a hook or a reward for trading / scavenging quests.

- On communication via radio: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?290660-Long-range-communication-during-zombie-apocalypse

- Infection Rules:

1. After each encounter in which you were bitten: fortitude save DC 15 (+1 for each incurred bite). Fail: 1d8 (+1 for each incurred bite) constitution damage.

2. If the first save failed, it is repeated every 24 hours until the victim makes the save (and recovers normally) or dies from constitution loss (and rises as a zombie after 1d4 minutes).

3. A treat injury check DC 15 can add the doctors skill rank (not value) as a bonus to the fortitude save.

4. If you feel especially generous, you can give Great Fortitude as a free bonus feat for heroic characters.

- Grab before you bite: most of the time, zombies try to grab and pull down the victim before they use their bite attack. This gives other characters a short time window to help before a downed comrade gets bitten / eaten. This reduces casualties and isn't too different from most zombie depictions in movies, I suppose.

- It soon became a standard practice to lock bitten characters up in quarantine for some days to see if they would "turn". In PbP, this can be two or three weeks of real time during which the character is basically grounded. This is sometimes a problem for offplay reasons.


That's what I remembered off the top of my head - feel free to ask more specific questions. :)