How to Create, Survive and Control World War Z as Necromancer Wizard (3.P) Real World

[Xar Zarath]

What it says on the tin...

TnC
- Wizard (specialist necromancer) is vanilla level 20
- no shenanigans except of course the undead apocalypse
- only zombies and their variants, no other type of undead allowed (following movie version of World War Z)
- Wizard cannot leave the planet to escape the apocalypse created. No demiplanes/extradimensional spaces (rope trick etc) allowed either. Can have a base but must be on Earth.
- Epic Magic not allowed and Wizard wont gain xp in this scenario
- For all intents and purposes, damage done to zombies/the necromancer can be calculated through Modern D20
- This has been a confusing point but the wizard and necromancer are the same person. The wizard is specialising in necromancy.

1) How does a wizard specialist necromancer create a World War Z on our world? *Note that this is a zombie apocalypse, no other undead type is allowed*

2) Kinda easy but how does the wizard survive here on Earth?

3) How does the wizard maintain control over so many zombos? I understand the wizard could control some but how to maintain control over mega swarms of zombies?

[trikkydik]

1.)easily, as long as he can infect a person with zombify, that creature can spread it to another. With no knowable cure, the disease will spread like contagion. And even with modern technology, as long as the necro is calculated he can effectively infect the majority population.

2.)I think the more important question is, "How do I kill this PC, being the DM of the campaign?" Lol in which case it gets to be pretty easy.

The zombie apocalypse is a scenario of wits, survival, endurance, and critical thinking on crack.

As a DM use everything to your advantage. Terrain, atmospheric conditions, weather, natural disasters, zombie numbers, mutations, surprise encounters, puzzle scenarios, NPC back stabbing and trickery, hunger, exhaustion, sickness, loneliness and possible delusions, nutritional delusions, mental effects, if the necro becomes aware of a wizard attempting to foil his plot what would she do.

3.) the necro need not control all zombies, just the ones she needs for specific tasks. But if you're looking for book specific spells, just use meta ship feats and/or ps ionic augmenting. The possibilities are endless. Artifact, really strong antagonist, divine intervention, alien technology, planar travel (which could explain the reason for dimensional anchor encompassing the entire planet. Maybe it's a god level entity, having fun.)

Good luck friend. Hope I helped.

[NevinPL]

Disclaimer:
Sans the equipment book, I have no knowledge of Pathfinder.

1. Starting the Zobiecalypse.

use the necromantic infection from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft,
teleport the infected zombies around the world,
???,
profit



2. Survive.

well, zombies can't fly very good, so a floating fortress would be a start,
equipping it with a lot of balistas that fire some antiundead things (SBG), just to be safe,
the Periapt of Health (DMG) if you'll go with the disease angle, would be a nobrainer,
stacking on invisibility to undead (PHB), antiundead spells and items would be next step,
taking from the real world disease outbreaks - shooting anyone that comes near you\your fortress.


3. Control.
I don't know if you can control a whole world of zombies. Maybe "outsource" other necromancers via permanent Dominate Person ?

[Xar Zarath]

well, zombies can't fly very good, so a floating fortress would be a start,
taking from the real world disease outbreaks - shooting anyone that comes near you\your fortress.

Wouldn't others flock to the flying fortress to seek shelter/safety?

[trikkydik]

Wouldn't others flock to the flying fortress to seek shelter/safety?

Thats exactly what they'd do.

My question for you is, are you DMing this Campaign? Or are you a player?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Survive: Teleport to a large television and/or radio studio, use the last moments of mass communications anyone is going to get to get as many people in the general area as possible up to date on a plan, any plan. I might try to gather everyone in a relatively secure place (for instance over here in the Netherlands that could be behind the New Hollandic Waterline). Set tasks that need to be accomplished for specific experts (the army engineers corps has to block the river Vecht to flood the line. Please guys, I'm the only one who got a plan out so you'd better follow my lead). Set steps towards safety for the general populace (if you can fight or own a weapon gather in any of the old forts and walled cities along the line, which is here on this weather map, if you cannot go to the harbor of Amsterdam or Den Helder for evacuation to Britain, where nothing bad ever happens. I just hope they will still have us after that anti-migrant Brexit vote. If you're on a ship, help in the evacuation. If you're in the reserves of the armed forces and can't get to where you're ordered to go come organize people at one of the previously mentioned old forts). Aside from the first quick teleportation spell you don't even need to be any kind of wizard. After the initial panic is over you can retake all land pretty quickly anyway, and if only got that far because there is a necromancer behind the zombie executing a carefully laid plan. Because really, **** zombies, were they ever scary?

EDIT: O right, the wizard is the necromancer. Then how is there any question of how he will survive? They're his own low level monsters. That's like asking a high level druid to survive all the badgers he summons.

[Morcleon]

For survival, just get a shirt of wraith stalking from the MIC and be permanently invisible to the zombies. They're also mindless, so they won't be able to realize the random attacks are from an invisible wizard. :smalltongue:

[Xar Zarath]

...My question for you is, are you DMing this Campaign? Or are you a player?

TBH, this is just a scenario I made up. And on point of this thread, the wizard and necromancer are the same person. The wizard is just a specialist necromancer.
The scenario was that how would the wizard(specialist necromancer) create a zombie apocalypse? How would he survive what he created? and How would he establish/maintain control over what he had created? I'm sorry if that wasn't clearer. I'll amend the OP?

[Gildedragon]

Does the necromancer even need to keep control of everything? Raise walls to corral and herd the undead as you see fit... Or traps of Undeath to Death.

[Sun Elemental]

This is ... difficult, as it showcases some of the failings of using D&D "In Real Life". As a side note, the WWZ book is an amazing read, pls don't judge it by its movie.

First, what are our zombies? Pathfinder's basic Bestiary has variant Plague Zombies, and I'm sure Libris Mortis has similar material for 3.5. But we run into problems.

1) Their disease has a low Fort difficulty, but in WWZ / Walking Dead / every zombie movie, the disease is 100% infectious. Even lvl1 commoners would resist bites a good percentage of times.
We'd have to handwave that. Maybe have some high level "patient 0" zombies, as the DC is HD based.

2) The disease has an onset of d4 days, and inflicts d2 Con every day. That's a slow apocalypse. In WWZ, everyone dies within 16-24 hours, Walking Dead less than an hour.
Fine, we can handwave the onset and frequency to be faster. Extra special plague zombies from necromancy research?

3) Actual CDC, police, national guard, and eventually the military. Level 1 zombies would be ripped apart by guns, and a widespread outbreak would be contained. Assuming people on earth are level 1-5, you would need to create very high level zombies to have a chance at killing all the feds, outlast all the bullets and bombs and napalm and maybe nukes(?)

So yeah. Get some corpses of high level humanoids, turn em into variant Plague Zombies with super fast disease onset. Easily doable with Legend Lore, Wish and spell research. As for controlling / avoiding them, what everyone else said. You have Wish and teleport and stuff, it isn't hard.

[NevinPL]

Wouldn't others flock to the flying fortress to seek shelter/safety?
1. You're wizard 20, if you can't hide, protect your fortress, then the discussion is moot.
2. The second part that you quoted there.

[Tvtyrant]

The problem is that the middle ages is in some ways much more resistant to zombiew already then we are. Chain mail is capable os stopping shark bites, and human nouths are much weaker. A large fraction of the population lived in fortifications of the exact kind zombies are weak against, and those same people often were trained in combat and had access to zombie proof armor.

In a d&d world it is even worse for the zombies, as they cannot harm golems and golems do not get tired. You could literally send five of them just outside the walls of your city wearing cowbells and kill all of the zombies that come by and eventually the golems would clear them all.

[trikkydik]

Why would a wizard/necro infect the world?

who is playing the necro?
who is playing the world?

is it the PC's job to thwart the wizard?
is it the PC who is the wizard?

Is this scenario starting like the terminator? (as in the wizard just one day appears.)

What time period?

Do you need a player? (Im in.)
Do you need a DM? (LOL, also im in.)

[ExLibrisMortis]

Zombies are mindless. Hiding from them is very nearly the easiest thing for a specialist necromancer to do. Even an unoptimized straight necromancer can command some ten thousand of them, which quickly rises as you optimize caster level, spell slots and metamagic costs (Chain Spell, and perhaps Echoing Spell, if you really want to go all-out).

A bigger problem is that 3.5 zombies don't infect anyone, so there is no snowball effect, like in most zombie films. The wizard would have to flood busy areas with Fell Animate boreal wind or some other big AoE (not sure on the best area:spell slot ratio here), to create some seven billion zombies manually. That's a drag, I tell you.

In addition, human commoner zombies are slow, dumb, and their natural attacks wouldn't break down doors or car windows, even if the zombies thought of attacking them. Objects take half damage from slams, which are only 1d6+str; only zombies with 20+ strength can damage wood, with hardness 5, at all (a one-inch door takes about six minutes of determined grinding). Zombies have 1d12 hit points, and die at zero hp. As such, they die easily to fire, although their DR helps a bit against guns and ramming (with cars).

I don't expect that cleaning up any amount of zombies is very hard in a developed nation, unless large parts of the work force are zombified, or the zombies are evenly spread and mixed very well with living people. At that point, the wizard is putting less effort into making zombies, and more into shutting down the forces that can shut down the zombies.

Essentially, you create a zombie apocalypse by first creating a regular one, then add zombies.

[Xar Zarath]

Why would a wizard/necro infect the world?

Hmm because he wants to practice for a bigger target.


who is playing the necro? who is playing the world?

Youre the necromancer. Assume a real world response for the world or at least how you think they would respond accordingly to a zombie apocalypse created and led by a wizard.


is it the PC's job to thwart the wizard? is it the PC who is the wizard?

Real world govts must thwart the wizard. You're the wizard.


Is this scenario starting like the terminator? (as in the wizard just one day appears.)

Hmm not really. He decided to try out his zombogeddon on the first world he happened across.


What time period?

Modern day, right now.


Do you need a player? (Im in.) Do you need a DM? (LOL, also im in.)

Just a scenario I cooked up in my brain for funzies.