Survival horror in 3.5/PF

[danzibr]

I'm looking to run a survival horror few sessions in an upcoming campaign. Specifically, start in a new city with a zombie outbreak, party's level 1 and has to escape, etc. For more background
It'll be E6, party's in a city as mentioned above, there's a little bit of technology. Something unknown causes a zombie outbreak (in the long run they'll use Travel Through Time and fix it). There are different types of zombies, slow weak ones with a longer incubation period, faster strong ones with incubation period of only a few rounds. Their immediate goal is to escape a scary environment to somewhere safe, then bad crap keeps hapening like in RE.
I have some generic ideas from watching scary movies and playing scary games, but I'm not sure how to implement them. In fact, it might be a total flop. I'm interested in if other people have tried, what successes there are, what failures, or just any ideas.

One thing I'm *not* after is stuff which is stupid deadly like Tomb of Horrors (at least to a novice group).

[Fosco the Swift]

For the horror part, check this thread for some good tips on making your player's scared:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?346728-Oh-The-Horror!

Since zombies only have strength in large numbers (in my opinion at least) you're going to need to use giant hordes of zombies. Of course, controlling large numbers of enemies is a huge hassle. Luckily, D&D 3.5 has an amazing template called "Mob" which is the equivalent of swarm for creatures larger than diminutive. This website not only gives all the rules for the template, the example at the bottom of the page actually is a Zombie Mob.

http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Mob_(3.5e_Template)

A few things to remember:
-try to avoid using clichés from those horror movies, it might just annoy your players or remove the fear from the situations.
-Jump scares don't work in D&D/Pathfinder (sadly)

Also, you're going to need to decide what kind of zombie system are you using. Walking dead? Call of Duty? D&D/Pathfinder? A mixture of these? This basically covers how the Zombie syndrome is spread, if they can only be killed by head wounds, if bites are dangerous, etc.

I'm trying to avoid actually telling you what to do, but giving you guidelines on what you should pay attention to when creating this scenario. If you want, I can be more specific.

I've tried some zombie games with mild success. My first was basically a D&D version of CoD zombies without the points using standard D&D weapons. It was ok, but not much replay-ability. A more successful game was with Pathfinder classes (No spellcasters) using d20 Modern guns. One thing I did that my players enjoyed very much was that I made sure not to make it a zombie killing spree: I made sure that sometimes the PC's had to run from overwhelming zombie odds occasionally, not just blow them all away. This happened at the beginning where the PC's met in a bar in Ireland and zombies started breaking through the windows and doors. About half the other people were killed, while the PC's and bartender (who had a shotgun) escaped the back because they were unable to kill all of the zombies.

[Auron3991]

These are really more general horror tips, but they should help:

If you're going for the more eldritch horror route, my suggestion would be to read some Lovecraft and take good note of how he builds tension and a sense of wrongness about the whole situation. He's basically a master class in non-jump scare horror.

Otherwise, find the part of the humanity that zombies represent, then model the events based on that.

[Coidzor]

Instead of just an endless succession of save or dies every time they take damage from zombies, consider something like a wounds and vitality situation or taint or like corruption and depravity from Heroes of Horror(IIRC), maybe?

Maybe 2 separate tracks, one which takes more points to fill up on and there's opportunities now and then to reduce it which covers turning into a shambler, and maybe at the end there's some fort saves to stave it off for a bit longer, and one which takes fewer points to fill up but it's harder to get those points and getting dropped to negative HP has a chance of causing spontaneous reanimation as a rager/fast zombie and if someone dies with any points they become either a shambler in 2d4 rounds/minutes or a fast zombie/rager in 1d4 rounds/minutes.

If you wanna borrow further from Resident Evil, you could sprinkle around some red and green herbs as loot and have them reduce one's number of shambler points and/or rager/fast zombie points.

That'd make it pretty deadly for even a shambler to attack a Commoner, but keeps you from entering a situation where every individual attack is a potential campaign ender for a player.

[SwordChucks]

I had started working on a zombie campaign styled like Left 4 Dead. The players would try to survive as they headed for the docks of a large town. Road blocks and burning buildings would funnel the players into preplanned fights and routes so it was easier for me to plan. There were to be a couple "safe house" rooms so the party could have a breather and regain spells.

When the players arrived at the docks, other survivors would tell them the last ship in port needed repairs and that the repairs would attract the horde. The players would need to hold off the horde until the repairs are finished and climb aboard while trying not to die.

Having left 4 dead as the inspiration led me to create different special infected. You might consider banning clerics if you think turn undead would be unbalancing.

[Psyren]

Instead of just an endless succession of save or dies every time they take damage from zombies, consider something like a wounds and vitality situation or taint or like corruption and depravity from Heroes of Horror(IIRC), maybe?

Maybe 2 separate tracks, one which takes more points to fill up on and there's opportunities now and then to reduce it which covers turning into a shambler, and maybe at the end there's some fort saves to stave it off for a bit longer, and one which takes fewer points to fill up but it's harder to get those points and getting dropped to negative HP has a chance of causing spontaneous reanimation as a rager/fast zombie and if someone dies with any points they become either a shambler in 2d4 rounds/minutes or a fast zombie/rager in 1d4 rounds/minutes.

If you wanna borrow further from Resident Evil, you could sprinkle around some red and green herbs as loot and have them reduce one's number of shambler points and/or rager/fast zombie points.

That'd make it pretty deadly for even a shambler to attack a Commoner, but keeps you from entering a situation where every individual attack is a potential campaign ender for a player.

Seconding this idea. Bonus points if you make the players' eventual trip back in time be the reason herbs are around to save their future selves in the first place. (Pime Taradox!)

[danzibr]

Oooh, I do like these ideas. I've read a fair bit of Lovecraft, and was initially thinking to stay away from that type of horror, but I read somewhere that there's a GOO whose approach brings about a zombie apocalypse. Afb but I'll have to check.

And definitely doing an infection and/or sanity tracker.

Thanks!