Defending A Village From Zombie Attack

[Dralnu]

Next session my players are going to find out about an impending zombie attack on the village they're in. The people are proud, stubborn folk, and would rather fight than flee from their homes. The players can get out of there, convince some of the folk to escape with them, or hunker down and prepare for a fight.

Assuming the latter, how should I pull this off? I'm picturing the players setting up barricades and choke points, commanding the local militia, and arming the farmers with crossbows. I'm not sure how to roll for everything in a streamlined fashion.

Any tips for pulling off this kind of mass combat?

[JNAProductions]

Give players something special. The villagers will defend their village-the players will strike at the necromancer in the heart of his/her lair. Or maybe there are some extra-powerful zombies that only the players can kill, and they have to fight to them and slay them before they get to the gates.

Basically, my best advice is to try avoiding mass combat at all. Leave that to narration and a roll or two on the side, while letting the players have normal adventure fighting with new flavor.

If you really want the players involved in mass combat, I can't help you there.

[Daishain]

Generally speaking, you don't roll for much in mass combat.

Give the players opportunities to turn the tide, roll for combats that they personally are in, and have the overall battle reflect their efforts.

If you want to add a bit more spontaneity, make a random events chart and roll on it every few minutes:
-Rear barrier is breached, x zombies come through
-A ranger friendly to the town arrives. He begins picking off members of the horde from a distance before being forced to retreat.
-A villager held out on the players, he's got a barrel of expensive lamp oil he's been hoarding
-etc.

[HoarsHalberd]

As already said one of the best ways to handle it is have the party be a strike team attacking a key objective while the townspeople hold. But if you want to have a siege I think I have a way of doing it. Firstly during the prep phase have the mayor or guard captain come up and say that he knows the town needs work and that he needs someone with a keen eye to scout out any potential areas of improvement and report back to him. (Roll for perception in a few locations or a high vantage point.)

When the PCs come back have him ask if any of them have any insight on what to do. (Insight or Knowledge(history) checks.) Each of these checks they pass will give a "preparation score" for later. Then if they haven't done well or want to spontaneously have them search the local area for useful items/people that could aid in the defence for more points. (Obviously don't tell them about the points.)

Before the final battle starts have the person you've been using suggest giving a rallying speech. (Persuasion check for one person give points if they do well. Maybe take a point away if they really fail.)

During the battle say that the scouts have spotted x hundred zombies marching. The defences will herd them towards the gate. Have the gate hold for about 5 rounds of shooting. Each turn the players hold the zombies at the gate the villagers kill d8+prep points of zombies, tell the players they hear the number of cheers coming from the defenders to let them know they aren't alone. For the fighting at the gate, have the maximum number of zombies be the same as a hard encounter for the players level but give the party a handful of guards to help. Every round after the party kill more than three zombies roll a d6 to see how many zombies reinforce the ones at the gate up to the low end of a hard encounter. When all zombies are either dead or fighting decide if the party are likely to hold and if not have the farmers and guard arrive in ascending die size per round (capping at d12) and overwhelm the remaining zombies.

[MaxWilson]

Next session my players are going to find out about an impending zombie attack on the village they're in. The people are proud, stubborn folk, and would rather fight than flee from their homes. The players can get out of there, convince some of the folk to escape with them, or hunker down and prepare for a fight.

Assuming the latter, how should I pull this off? I'm picturing the players setting up barricades and choke points, commanding the local militia, and arming the farmers with crossbows. I'm not sure how to roll for everything in a streamlined fashion.

Any tips for pulling off this kind of mass combat?

I've done something similar to this: ambushing a neogi slaver ship returning to pick up a brood from a Great Old Master. The players had enough warning to run to the king for help and ask for backup, and he gave them their choice of 2 dozen archers, halberdiers, or a mix of the two. I let the players divvy up the soldiers between them all, and set them up on the battle map, and during combat each group of soldiers would act on the same initiative under the direction of the player (not necessarily the PC, although the PC generally stuck pretty close to 'his' soldiers). They spent a couple of hours planning the ambush, setting up giant Indiana Jones-style booby traps undergound and sowing caltrops. And then fighting it out took a couple more hours. Everybody had fun.

The one tip I can give you is that the mass combat rules in the DMG aren't really necessary. What slows down combat is not lots of die-rolling, it's lots of decision-making. Aggregating groups of combatants into blobs of "8 archers" and "10 zombies" deals with most of that, and allowing the players to directly control friendly blobs helps with the rest. Then you just roll 8 attacks, and appropriate damage, and decide how many zombies go down. (You can either focus the fire on certain zombies or spread out the damage randomly; focusing the fire is probably less work although it's slightly less realistic.)

Of course, if you do want to go with the mass combat rules in the DMG you can simplify things even more. "It takes 6 archer-turns to kill each zombie," then round remove an appropriate number of zombies from the board each turn. Once the zombies get into contact with the archers, each two zombies removes one archer from play every turn. Simple!

Depending on whether you want the farmers or the PCs to be the main focus of the story, you can have lots of farmers and lots of zombies (PCs will be able to save some lives and shore up weak points, but it will play out more like a war game unless the PCs are high-level) or you can have a few farmers and medium amounts of zombies (PCs will have to do most of the work, and it will feel more like an RPG).

[Seruvius]

An interesting Idea I saw in advice on how to run RHoD comes to mind here. Have say 7 encounters for the whole siege, and give the players some way to split up/arm various units of the town militia. say the Watchmen, The Rangers, The general militia and a friendly local high lvl spellcaster . Now they can asign each of these groups to one of the encounters while taking care of others themselves. Each one of these encounters will be a good idea for certain people and a bad idea for others. Say the rangers and spellcaster would be good to take down the zombie Owlbears attacking, but the wathcmen and milita would get owned etc. Say have 3 events where the party has to chose one to do themselves and one to send one of their 4 npc groups to. The final battles hardness depends on how well the NPC's did in their various matchups and the PC's get some special 1 shot thing they can use in the final battle depending on which NPC hasnt been used yet, say vs som,e evil vampire lord or similar. The rangers can call down a volley of precision arrows, the watchmen can cut off vampires reinforcments, the militia can shore up the defenses and the spellcaster can privde them witha free scroll of X level hes been scribing the last bit. Might be a bit bigger than what youa re afte,r but could be pretty sweet =D Makes the players choice matter and the NPC's be useful.

[CrusaderJoe]

Have the town guard give the players "missions" so to speak. It won't matter what one they do first or last, use vague timing phrases.

Mission 1: Eastern Wall Collapse: PCs must help repair the wall and fight off the invading zombies.

Mission 2: Cattle Drive: PCs need to get the herd of *insert animal* in from the outside before the attack. Have them need to fight off zombies AND keep *live stock* from getting away.

Mission 3: My Child!: PCs find out the child of *insert villager* has gone missing. Clues point to the child sneaking into the woods to play. Let the players roleplay or skill check to find out clues about the child. In the woods a bit away from the wall they find the child... But the child a with some undead and the child is also a zombie.

Make a few more missions, some that represents waves of undead attacking the gates. Then have the final mission be that scouts have found the necromancer's hideout. Have the part sneak in there to kill the necromancer.

Have the necromancer be going through the process of becoming a lich. Give it some add on lich stuff. Have it be a 3 stage fight.


Note: while on one mission the other missions don't take place. Use movie/video game rules of "nothing happens unless the protagonist is there".

[Mandragola]

Watch the Seven Samurai, and do that.

[Dralnu]

Give players something special. The villagers will defend their village-the players will strike at the necromancer in the heart of his/her lair. Or maybe there are some extra-powerful zombies that only the players can kill, and they have to fight to them and slay them before they get to the gates.

Great suggestion. The zombies will be commanded by a necromancer, she's the partner of the main bad guy, a Frankenstein type necro-alchemist. To stop the zombie assault prematurely, the adventurers can square off against her.

Also the necro-alchemist has sent one or two of his stitched abominations -- crunch they're Ogre Zombies reskinned. I want them bashing down the barricades if the village sets any up, so that's a unique combat for the PCs.


Give the players opportunities to turn the tide, roll for combats that they personally are in, and have the overall battle reflect their efforts.

Agree with this, but I'm looking to publish this adventure after I playtest it, so I want to write some more concrete rules for the siege mechanics.

I like the random chart!


Firstly during the prep phase have the mayor or guard captain come up...

This is great. I'm definitely using this.


The one tip I can give you is that the mass combat rules in the DMG aren't really necessary.

Somehow I missed the mass combat rules in DMG. I'll check it out. But yeah, I want the PCs to reward the PCs for coming up with battle tactics, making the villagers more likely to succeed in holding.

Basically, the zombies have a static X power level. The villagers start with a Y power level if left to defend themselves, but if the PCs take steps to better prepare them and aid them in battle, the value of Y goes up, making it more likely they succeed in holding off the horde.

There's no way the PCs can defeat the entire horde -- they'll be level 3. Combat will focus on them, their mini-battles taking out important objectives, while I roll only a few dice per round to determine how everyone else is doing.


An interesting Idea I saw in advice on how to run RHoD comes to mind here...

Yes yes! Love it!


Have the town guard give the players "missions" so to speak. It won't matter what one they do first or last, use vague timing phrases.

I like! The villager's livelihood comes from their sheep, so especially relevant points.


Watch the Seven Samurai, and do that.

I heard of this movie but never seen this classic? Weird. Was there a crappy remake of it a couple years ago? I always thought it was a more recent movie.




Thanks for the advice everyone! My current plan is as such:

Victory Point system. The better the PCs prepare/defend the village, the more VPs they accumulate. More VPs = higher chance the villagers defend. Once VP reaches a set amount, village is successfully defended.

1) PCs find out about an impending zombie attack. Not sure how they'll be tipped off early enough that it matters, but I'll get there.

2) NPCs ask to scout the zombie army to know how many and what direction the assault will come from. +1 VP for successfully scouting the zombies.

3a) Villagers will go about preparing the village. Up to +2 VP for successfully coordinating the preparations in a way that makes sense.

3b) If PCs rescue lost girl, save flocks of sheep, etc. they get additional rewards after the battle.

4) Villagers demoralized. +1 VP for leading a rousing speech or doing something to get their fighting spirit up.

5) Ogre zombies attack the gate. +1 VP for taking them out (personally or otherwise). -1 VP if gate goes down.

6) +1 VP for each skirmish the PCs win.

7) Demon-worshipping cultist villager takes the opportunity to start murdering his neighbors to summon a demon. +1 VP for taking him down. -1 VP and summoned demon if failed.

8) Necromancer is leading the assault. Taking her out is +3 VP.

9) Creative stuff like explosive barrels will give +1 VP.

At the end of each round, roll a d20+VP. Success (10?) gives a Win. Village is successfully defended after 10 Wins. 10 VPs is also an automatic Win. Failure gives a Loss, 10 Losses the village is overrun.

I may need to get more specific than that, such as specific locations needing rolls (Ogre Zombies knocking down a barricade for example), so hmm.

Thank you so much for the suggestions everybody! I'm not quite done yet, but I'm getting very hyped for the next session. It should be very fun! :smallbiggrin: