Paid Sponsor THE BIG BAD BOOKLET: Go to / thedeckofmany or Bigbadbooklet.com my links- / zeebashew / zeebashew I find zombies in D&D to be missing something pretty essential to what I think of as the problem with zombies: infection.
@@henryeberman6342 You had me worried about Jocat's channel... Turns out all his Crap Guide to D&D videos are still there. Now, If I had a ring of wishes, the first wish would be to restore all of Zee's missing videos penalty free. ;)
@@epser5842 Well, before The Great Sundering, Zee's channel was packed full of videos. Then the great juggernaut, RU-vid, lost their battle against The Great Power "US Federal Regulations" when their mighty cleric TFC used the ability "WTF, dude! You Can't Track Children Online!". In it's random and capricious nature, RU-vid then turned its rage at being overpowered and took out its wrath upon the lowly artisan group known simply as The Content Creators. Entire channels were killed in the Great Sundering, and few were left unscarred and unbloodied. And now, we peasants must satiate our desire for a higher knowledge on what little that has remained after The Great Sundering.
I changed this up a little to make them much more powerful and made it so if they fail the con save they also take 2d4 poison damage or half on a succuss among other cool tropes
Well, actually, the animated one is Skenk McGenk, his Chaotic Evil Necromancer. I'd say Skenk is his self-insert, but he also has another wizard, a little gnome guy, literally named after himself, Bashew.
My two cents: there should be two kinds of zombies: "arcane zombies" and "plague zombies". Arcane zombies are animated dead, fueled by necromancy, and though relatively harmless can take a lot of damage (arm cleaved off? Just keeps going). Plague zombies are less tough, but are infectious.
Even if there isn't some special virus like is common in modern media, a zombie is a corpse and getting bitten or scratched by a rotting corpse is going to lead to a mundane infection that will kill you without treatment. If a real life person bites you most of the time it leads to an infection. This is a big problem for police. There was also the Viking who cut off some guys head and swung it around in celebration, he wound up dying because the head hit his thigh and a tooth nicked him.
@@elitemook4234 True, but this is Dungeons & Dragons. You've got magic for that kind of stuff. Healing magic and potions clearly does help protect against infections as well as actually heal, as you don't actually roll for infection after regular injuries (that bandits sword probably isn't exactly clean, and who knows where those arrow tips have been...)
The single greats thing I've found for making zombies scary is the shove action. Have every other or so zombie make the shove action on a given player attempting to knock the player prone. This might not be a threat with one or two or five zombies, but ten? Oh boy, that's scary, you'll usually fail at least one shove if upwards of five zombies have attempted it and once you are down, every following attack is at advantage. Furthermore, they now take AOO when they stand and are at half of their movement. This can really spook players the first time you use it and it gives them a healthy respect for zombies from then on. Even barbarians will keep close to allies, just in case, the horde topples them.
That sounds like hate speech. Is that hate speech? I can't tell in these modern times were you're either a vegan or a bigot now. What happened to the middle class. And, uh.... Don't be a Limb-lengthist alt-radical hate guy. Ok?? Did I do it? Am I woke? Can I have my Twitter account back? I did good, right...? Ooh God!! I just know I screwed up. Dammit! Dammit Damn IT! What do I have to do to prove I'm not a Nazi?!?!
I'll never live down that forsaken panini comment, and I'll have to look over my shoulder forever more when I'm not in total societal isolation.... I'm so screwed.
Fun concept in tandem with this: In real life there is a type of bee that eats rotting flesh. They make their honey out of meat. I use these Vulture bee hives occasionally as an indicator of undead nearby in my games. They look like normal bees for the most part but with a high enough Nature check, their exact species is revealed, and the player is given a little knowledge about them. Essentially if there is a nearby, long-established or steady supply of undead, a hive may get constructed in the area, but a newly-constructed vulture bee nest would indicate a lot of rotting meat nearby.
@@timwoods2852 I don't doubt sampson found a beehive in the lion corps, however I'm reading that vulture bees live in the americas- if it were vulture bees it would need to be an undiscovered type to live in the middle east
@@timwoods2852 I'm not sure about that timeline there- but also an ocean is a bit far to migrate for most animals. Perhaps some type of vulture bee went extinct or hasn't been found, but I think the more likely explanation is that some normal bees made a nest in a dead lion
3 года назад
"Each Zombie starts with 1 HP" *Flashbacks to my party's Cleric casting Spirit Guardians and doing a drive-by massacre of the entire Zombie horde*
Nice video and if you didn't see my comment on the livestream (dicebreaker) just wanted to say again keep up the good work. I always enjoy your videos.
Zee, we know that cameras have a hard time focusing on polymorphed creatures, and we also know that gold dragons can polymorph at will. (Why they feel the need to change shape in the presence of Will, I will never understand gold dragons.) Needless to say, we know you and your wife are the kindly gold dragons looking over us mere mortal D&D players and DMs. By the way, if you're looking for topic suggestions, maybe a video about homebrewing spells or the underrated spell gems that DM's should be using for their NPCs (especially the BBEG).
@Zee Bradshaw I would have lesser restoration cure the infection, but give the zombies another ability. This one is to emulate the swarm of undead grabbing somebody and ripping them apart like ants. Gnawing swarm: At the end of the zombies turn, every character that is adjacent to a zombie must make a strength save, DC is 0 + 5 per zombie, or be grabbed and pinned to the ground. Characters who are prone during this check have disadvantage. At the start of the the zombies turn, any creature that they have pinned will take 2d8 damage per zombie adjacent to the target, save for half (str or dex save , DC 8 + 2 per zombie). To escape the pin, do a contested grapple check against just one zombie, but the zombie gets an additional +1 for each zombie also adjacent to the pinned creature. Any character brought to zero hp by Gnawing swarm is instantly killed and their corpse is left torn and mangled. Hope you like this idea
See, what's interesting is that Zee is basically talking about turning arcane or thaumaturgical zombies into viral zombies. The zombies you find in DnD are _animated_ dead, rather than _infected_ dead. Their limbs move through arcane majicks, their wills are driven by a hatred of the living. It's not a viral or fungal infection driving living tissue and driven through hunger and a want to spread. While viral zombies are scary, yes, they're not magical. My own version... Zombies can't die. They start with full HP, normal stats. However, they don't roll a save when they drop to 0 HP- they just pop back to 1. BUT! Each time this happens, they lose 1 foot (or 5 feet, or whatever) of Movement- and after that, they start losing Damage. So it's easy to make them unable to chase you in a couple hits, but you basically have to hack them apart, to fully dismember them, in order to get them to be not dangerous anymore. Of course, you could keep the Critical Hit/Radiant weakness, as well. The HOLY LIGHT OF THE DIVINE should be able to cleanse the taint of undeath, certainly.
Much prefer this. Default DnD zombies are not what we currently understand in popculture as zombies, probably also the reason why they have a slam attack in the MM and not a bite.
In folklore, zombies were mostly used as slave labour and were more an objext of pity than fear - what made them scary was that there was someone nearby who might turn you into a zombie. The Living Dead movie monsters were originally envisaged as a form of Ghoul - so if you want that horror movie feel, I'd use ghouls instead of zombies to start with.
It sounds like the way to fully destroy your style of zombie, is the same way you kill Dead Space necromorphs, and then take steps to prevent reanimation. Which is to target limbs when they're animated. So your players are rewarded for calling shots (saying that you're specifically targeting a body part before you roll to hit) on zombies. Another reference to Dead Space logic, is to chop off limbs of random uninfected corpses that you come across. A proactive measure to prevent additional zombies/enemies.
The best way to scare/control players that are a bit too much full of themselves is doing this Everytime you die and is brought back by magic spells or potions you lose 1 point in you Con, and you die permanently after you reach 0 Con Permanent max hp loss is also a good way to warn the players not to be reckless
Even still being a game, players should value their characters lives and their hp When you can magically heal, stitch or regenerate severed limbs and resuscitate, the fear of death or getting hurt can disappear As a bonus (if you want to be cruel or just want your campaign to be on lvl hard) you can make only powerful spells to completely restore damages. As an example, a wound that it's not healed withing some hours after the fight will leave an ugly scar and severed limbs can't be stitched together without medicine+healing spells or potions that same way or by strong healing spells. "But that's it? Ugly scars? Missing a finger or two? That's nothing", maybe, if you are not considering you will lose ability points with this Many scars can diminish your Charisma. You can be me most charismatic adventurer of all, but you will lose the passive effect of your high Charisma if you are covered with scars or is missing some teeth, an ear, nose or finger. The common first impression anyone get after seeing a very scarred person is shock Plus, sometimes you may lose perception or dexterity if your body is missing some parts. A 5 finger hand is steadier with arrows than a 3-4 finger one and you can lose some perception points if you can't distinguish with more accuracy where the sound came from, since your are missing an ear or both of them. There is also the option to give disadvantage to some specific checks, if you don't want to cripple your players that much. You may not recover well if that bone was healed far too long after the fight (not being able to use your full strength in some moves, loses some mobility, agility or your physical resilience, your Constitution)
@@Heron11177 why would scars lower charisma? Charisma is essentially how well you get your point across. Hell, if anything I'd give a bonus to intimidation if you are covered in scars.
@@louiesatterwhite3885 I read about this before, but I do think it said that having a scar gives you disadvantage on charisma persuasion checks, but advantage on intimidation checks (I can find the book and number for you if you want)
I love how infectious zombies are then still just a minor annoyance to paladins with their disease immunity/save bonus(though it's then on them to protect their team even moreso than normal.) Also, along with each notable loud noise, combat itself is loud and would probably draw progressively larger numbers of zombies out of an infested area, good if as a DM you want to make the point about discretion being the better part of valor.
In my games certain diseases are too strong to be fixed with a Paladin's lay on hands, or they require a larger pool to be expended. If Paladins are the level needed to be immune, that's fine, but they can't be curing every type of disease just by using 5 HP.
@@william4996 I would make it take more, if you're going to change a core-class feature. Making diseases that are too strong for a paladin to fix just results in a player that has to lock themselves in a few select playstyles (by their oath) that now can't use the tools on one of the few things their tools are meant to be good for (effectively punishing the paladin for playing paladin). Remember, paladins are resource-intensive (often burning through their spell slots (and lay on hands) in rapid bursts, causing them to use spell slots obscenely fast, compared to other spellcasters/halfcasters). If they've always got more than enough Lay-on-hands available, you're not throwing them into enough combats.
@@main135s Totally agree with you. I've been playing a paladin in my current campaign just because I like the idea of being able to cure curses and diseases with all that godly goodness just for every disease to be more powerful than the gods apparently. So now I guess I'm just a fairly glow-in-the-dark fighter who doesn't hit as hard or often. :/
@@herpmcderp7666 I get what your saying, but a distinction to make is that in 5e, paladins aren't necessarily tapping into a gods power. It's weird and really is handled on a per player basis, but even in the class descriptions, it mentions something along the lines of "Maybe your code is more ancient than even the gods themselves" or something like that. How I run it with my DM is that the gods that care about having paladins sort of champions a code and creates and/or contributes to almost like a "battery" of divine power that the paladins of that particular code can tap into to do their paladin things. It's this explanation that allows even atheists to become paladins (as in 5e, characters are no longer required to be religious to be a paladin, despite most oaths operating under fairly holy causes). Gods that champion the same code just add to the battery that already exists for that code. This allows the gods to focus on their clerics, as the "battery's" themselves choose who they lend their power to (and consequently stop lending power to if the paladin willingly breaks their oath). This explanation also offers reasoning as to why paladins aren't really as strong as the gods themselves (using divine powers and all) as it can be reasoned that the "battery" is bottle-necked per person. I would also like to clear something up, paladins don't hit as often as fighters (since fighters get to attack so many times within 6 seconds, their arms should be on fire from the friction), but they can hit just as hard (per attack) if not harder. Paladins are the kings of single-target burst damage. My friends and I have a joke: "Power world: kill may be the fastest way to kill most enemies, but an angry paladin is a close second." Paladins (particularly paladin multiclasses (sorlockadins are scary and will make your DM hate you)) are just really good at killing single targets really fast, since they can expend so many resources to do it so quickly. I can't think of any other class that rolls as many damage dice against a single target in one full turn as a paladin. In addition, their burst damage in incredibly reliable for the resources it takes, since you can decide AFTER you hit/miss if you would like to smite. I got a little bit off topic there, but yeah; sounds to me like you need to tell your DM that them not letting you cure diseases is actively hampering your role within the party/world.
I am actually not the biggest fan of this free choice as the 'hit' already occured at this point and you don't have the chance of deflecting blows in may other situation. By default players make CON saves against sickness. As CON kind of encapsulates your ability to 'not die', I'd say it's fine to let your players just make a CON saves. If they do not want to get hit in the first place that is captured by the DEX bonus to AC and your ability to take the dodge action. If you want to be hit on an armored body part, this is captured in the AC you get from your armor.
Love this. The only change I would make as a DM is, rather than having a Strength or Dexterity save initially to try to redirect the hit from a zombie, I'd make it so there is only threat of infection if the attack would leave the character at less than half health, with infection guaranteed if it drops the character to 0, or if the player is hit while at 0. This just fits more with how I tend to flavor combat. I usually don't describe blood being shed until the character is at half health, with some exceptions based on the specific attack. This gives the players a bit more of a buffer and helps the squishy spellcasters out a bit, but would hopefully make resource and health management more important as well. Still inspire that cautious style of play, but maybe allow the players to try something crazy and cinematic every once in a while as well. Side Note: A bunch of 1 health zombies makes the more impressive undead that I'd definitely throw in that don't have 1 health a LOT more impressive. Very Left 4 Dead. Hahaha
I fell it depends on the type of zombies, I imagine zombies are week in DnD because they are just a magically reanimated pieces of flesh, the weakest form of necromancy. now a zombie that spreads fells more like a disease or a curse, its a different kind of evil. something that creates a curse that can destroy a entire city or empire should be more powerful than a 3rd lvl spell like animate dead.
I threw i think 6 spawn of kyuss at a 8th level party once that included a paladin and a cleric. A fight with Spawn can really get out of hand quickly if the players get to mant of the worms on them.
The Spawn of Kyuss are such sick monsters. The way I'd run it is to have the person still able to talk. Begging to be killed, or fearfully warning people to not let the Spawn touch them, "lEsT yOu EnD uP lIkE mEeEeEe!" Very _System Shock 2._
@@Coryn02 Kinda, realistically the only thing making it CR 5 instead of 2-3 is its hp pool. Remember, immunity to disease makes you immune to the worms hp reduction (or the worms in general if you're a very kind dm).
Is there a way to heal zombies? Either by accident or by choice? Are only wild zombies homebrewed? Or how do you deal with something like the finger of death and party created zombies?
Isn't a trope in fictional media that using healing/cure spells on the undead actually hurts them? I think the only proper way to heal is by consuming flesh, and if is fresh(alive) it heals more. that would make more sense, and if you want to up a bit, make it gain skills of those who the zombie ate.
They could be a variant of regular zombies; “Fresh” zombies are the recently deceased infected that survived an outbreak from another town, only to succumb to their wounds later... And now, ironically, they’re probably going to start the next outbreak. Yeah, these would basically just be the 22hp zombies, but nevertheless...
How about using Izombie esque rules? They have to eat fresh flesh (not human specifically, although you could rule it as they have to eat the flesh of whatever race they were before) or they start to rot and become dumber and more aggressive until their motor functions and mental faculties deteriorate enough that they're a shambling zombie. I would rule it as the zombie has to consume 2 cubic inches of flesh from an intelligent (read any playable race) per day or they lose 1 point of int until they consume said flesh. This effect is cumulative for each day after initial infection using the rules presented in the video. Once their int drops below 4 the condition is permanent and they are now a phb zombie but with their AC being that of whatever armour they're wearing. Anytime before their int drops under 4 they can be cured if a greater restoration spell is cast on them. If you want to make it harder you can say that the spell has to be cast at higher level depending on how much they've degenerated. I would say if their int is 4 its a 9th level spell slot, if it's 5 it's 8th etc.
@@elizataylor1726 Cool but when would there be time for this mechanic to come into play? The party encounters zombies, and kills them immediately, or dies, no?
Wonderful vid as always and excellent advice. But I have to mention this: Horde. Instead of hoard. A dragon’s treasure hoard is threatened by the zombie horde.
Great video - it's inspired me to write a one-shot about defending an ancient castle from a circle of wights and their zombie hordes. Can't wait until I move, and can afford to start donating through Patreon again. Keep up the great videos, especially the animated segments!
I’ve been looking for something to base a story arc around for my party’s death clerics. This is great! I can already imagine a lich or a mad necromancer creating a new breed of zombie based off an infection. Released it in a populated city to test it but didn’t realize they were immune to turn/destroy undead, so the holy people find it difficult to destroy them in mass and they begin to take over. The paladins are the only ones who can keep the front lines cuz they’re immune, but often get overwhelmed by the sheer numbers. The dead take over the city, civilians can’t leave due to a neighboring city barricading them in, and the party are trapped in like the rest.
This is actually extremely pertinent to a Bodak one shot I need to have done by today, so thanks! Perfect timing, great advice. Already have some neat ideas for implementation.
One of my favorite Zombie encounters was in a post apocalyptic hospital that had a Nano-Zombie outbreak. At one point hunks of infected flesh would jump off the zombies and come after the players, developing small tentacles and eyes if they were not killed quickly. The players burned that hospital to the ground and escaped in a stolen hot air balloon. Boy that balloon came in handy later in the game.
In the Elden Times, somewhere between year 124 of the Elder Age and timeline -63867 of Ye Olden Days, a character of mine was prone to casting "Summon Shadow" (summoning at the start or just before combat, instructing the summoned monstrosities to finish off any humanoid opponents he'd afflicted with a wand of Ray of Enfeeblement, and then instruct any spawn produced (victims of shadows immediately rose as shadows under the command of their killer) to leave with them upon the expiration of the spell (originally it was "Serve my master" but a small army of shadows following my character around got on the game-breaking side of things fairly quickly). Shadows can be reeeeeally scary, especially to non-Strength based parties. Pitting them against commoners and such can inspire that sense of dread you were talking about since they can enter spaces the size of a keyhole and are effectively invisible in darkness. Imagine whole villagers fully lit and awake during night hours. The anxiety of not letting the fire burn too low, of the risk of fire, the local privy could hold a deadly threat, not just the local stinking cloud!
The endgame area of my campaign world is a cursed landscape where everything that dies becomes undead. It's also slowly spreading. This mechanic would be pretty perfect to represent that beyond-the-borders spread. Also another thing I've done with zombies is give them a slam attack that grapples on a hit, and an infectious bite attack they can only use on a grappled victim. So as soon as some unfortunate gets grappled, the surrounding zoms all pile on with their bite attacks.
Ya know, I read the name “Scarier Zombies” as “Spider Zombies”, and that’s the solution: Make Spider Zombies. What’s this about updating the stat block? Nah man, *spider zombies.*
Love your zombies. Only addition I made was to add the use of cure disease, one casting adds back 1 of PCs max HPs but fully cure the zombie curse. This way I was able get a bunch of low level PCs infected and it became a resource management exercise that they had to juggle until they reached a cleric capable of casting greater restoration. Chased by wolves and suffering exhaustion they really appreciated the cure disease of their paladin. An ability that rarely gets any love in the game. Thanks
In my homebrew setting for D&D zombies are mostly created through a magical plague. I think if your game isn't focused on zombies you could lessen the severity by having a zombie require to grapple an enemy, in which case they can bite as a bonus action and then a PC can make a save. If you want them to be harder but also not be too hard on your players i suppose this could work.
Another fun thing with zombies is that they're one of the few pseudo-templates that can be put onto NPCs, which allows you to also get in on the fun times of having special types of super zombies. Should be able to model the ambusher/sneaky type of zombies, fast zombies, and big hulking zombies pretty readily without too much additional modification. Things like spitters and boomers would probably be a bit trickier but still within the realm of possibility without going full homebrew.
These zombies CAN actually be fun. I had a guy run these exact ones from the video in a one-shot tower defense sorta deal where it was me and I think 5 or 6 other players, all surviving a large horde of undead. You get clever enough with your spell combos and you can hold them back pretty well. They were all coming down this one road, so we comboed our spells to throw up every defense we could, one of which was this ice spell that made the ground difficult terrain while also raining down hail, while another cast wall of thorns like right on it, which at some point the zombies stopped running forward when they couldn't get through the wall or the ice storm. I was playing a crazed fire mage at the time, so to light up the fucking world, I cast wall flame in front of the thorn wall, with the zombies able to run through the wall of fire but getting scorched when they passed through to the other side, this ended up setting the wall of thorns on fire and only added to our defenses. We burned through our spells in clever enough ways that the horde of undead never made it to the house.
This is going to be so helpful with some upcoming sessions in my campaign! I had home brewed some infectious undead mechanics, but I really like the way you've set up infection and spread in this. Thank you!
You can still have the infection even if the source is a spell or curse Lycanthropy and vampirism can both be achieved by curses or by getting them from a cursed/infected enemy. I'm not sure, but I even think that the infected Lycanthrope can be cured with a spell that can cute diseases and not specifically spells that cleanse curses
@@Heron11177 remove curse does work on lycanthropy, only if the individual was not born as one. Greater restoration also cures lycanthropy. Its is considered by games rules both a curse and a disease. However, if someone is born a lycanthrope, only wish can cure them.
Yeah, the fantasy zombie should be more Voodoo style: you don't become an undead, but you *do* rack up fatigue via disease. Get enough fatigue, and you fall unconscious, at which point the zombie's owner can start giving you basic orders, and the player eventually starts going to a place where orders can be given. If the players don't notice something is wrong early enough, they now have a sudden rescue mission and zero prep time. They also won't know a player in that state can be given simple orders, so may suddenly get shanked by their friend during the rescue if they aren't careful. Most importantly, they have no idea *why* this is happening, since it could just be a curse, and the zombies just a distraction. That's important, because a key part of Zombies is not knowing why they're such a threat at first.
I once had an encounter where the players had to hold off a horde of slimes. They only rolled to hit as each slime only had 1 HP and auto failed all saves. All they had to do was hold back the slimes for about 10 rounds while the town guards tried to unjam the gate mechanism. Well the players were having so much fun slaughtering dozens of slimes each turn that they didn't notice that the guard tower had been overrun and the guards were dead and no progress had been made on unjamming the gate and the players collectively shit themselves when I dropped a hand massive handful of tokens indicating another wave and they had basically burned through all their resources. Eventually the barbarian sacrificed himself to distract the slimes long enough for the other players to perform the needed repairs on the gate. (There were sigils on the gate and when all the gates were closed it would activate a magic bubble around the city. So all they had to do was close the gate and allow the slime migration to pass over them.)
My favorite thing to do when it comes to Homebrew and zombies: Give the undead resistance feature to other creatures, and in turn lower their Dex by 2, and then set their mental stats to 4 or less. I also lessen their speed by 5 or 10, depending on what it is already. This has terrified my players' characters, even when confronted with simply zombie kobolds. I think the 'biggest' zombie I've ever run was a Zombie Hill Giant
My personal idea: Sometimes just explaining how infected players are slowly turning is all you need to send shivers down the team’s spine. It’s best if you start with them just being strangely weak and tired to having their skin start withering and falling apart to changing their personality completely and fully turning. Or if you REALLY want to make players cry, give them a choice to kill the infected team member if they fully turned or amputate the limb in earlier stages (CON save for infected). But that’s just my opinion.
The D&D zombie is pretty much the only D&D creature that doesn't slam together the most common traits seen in other depictions of that monster, instead hewing closer to the "original source material". It's also one of the few monsters where the original source material's version is so much more...boring, across the board. If I want an evil wizard turning corpses into soldiers or slaves, I have flesh golems.
Golems are always scary Ok, I know AD&D is a hardcore mode to earlier D&D editions, but the bone Golem from AD&D 2.0... good gods... It had a laugh that could kill everyone that could hear it. Of course, not as strong as a banshee scream, specially because ou needed to fail 2 tests to instantly die, but still...
I love your content! I don’t even play d&d but just seeing your excitement and creativity on display makes me want to try it. I was trying to show someone your stuff and I couldn’t find some episodes wats up wid that.
It's not so much confusion as pointing out that D&D zombies aren't really very scary (because they're really not), but if you add certain cinematic elements to them, you can potentially have a much more interesting story. And you can always say that 'plague zombies' are different than 'necromantic zombies', or something like that. Me, I've got a whole new adventure idea to add to my Homebrew campaign!
Yeah, I was gonna say something similar. Fantasy zombies aren't some kind of infection like the modern idea of zombies. They're much closer to the real-world origin of the zombie concept, which comes from voodoo and is the idea of bringing the dead back to life as servants, using magical powers.
I just did a thing where their health was reduced by half, and so was their movement. Any shot that doesn't kill them only reduces their HP by 1, but has a chance to cripple them. If they attack you, you have to make a strength saving throw to push them away -if you have a reaction, or they bite/infect you. Getting infected gives you 1 point of exhaustion every hour until you die, at which point you rise from the dead as a ghoul. You could cure the infection with a lesser restoration, but there were enough people getting infected eventually that there just weren't enough to go around. tried it against a group that wanted a "fantasy zombie apocalypse"
@@nuqueerwarhead3564 I feel like it works, thematically, more than just slowly dying over time. it's more like you're progressively getting sicker. Also the consequences are a lot quicker, so as soon as you get infected, the race is on.
Zee thank you for uploading cool and interesting videos. You have inspired me twice now to run one-shots for my DnD group, first with gritty realism/goodberry and now with this. You and your work has brought and will bring much joy to this bunch of nerds.
Ok so I was deciding on what adventure to let my homebrew players run through, and I think you just gave me a way to make it more fun. My initial idea was to introduce my own version of the Machine of Lum The Mad as some sort of tourist attraction during a festival in a kingdom. Of course, no one knows what it does, and I think a zombie outbreak caused by someone being "unlucky with the machine" a day after the festival is a good way to spook things up. This way, I can raise the tensions via a zombie infection, and provide amazing or hilarious effects for the players who are brave enough to actually try and use the machine themselves.
I feel like the way to evoke a fantasy of zombies is highly based on the objective. If you meet a small pack of zombies, your default objective is kill them all, no big deal. But what makes zombies from the walking dead or left 4 dead feel like zombies is the fact that it's never just a small pack. Your objective isn't to kill them all because that's impossible. The objective is to get past them (maybe by killing as many as are in your way) without alerting the horde, and once you alert the horde, your objective changes to escaping as fast as possible. The board game zombicide may have the best example of this I know of. There's no way to slow down how many zombies arrive on the board every round. You just pray you'll be fast enough to get out in time. Infection is cool too, I like that a lot. Very Mörk Borg goblins.
I love this so much. Now to make them even scarier, add infected spiders that have 1 hp but are highly infectious. If an infected spider bites a defeated zombie, it becomes an infection carrier. Infection carriers have 1 hp, but explode into a cloud of infection, that lasts 2 turns, when killed.
At the end there you touch on something that I've thought about and implemented in my games of D&D for a long time. When you look at it literally the damage system in D&D makes very little sense, why should a novice wizard die from an ax to the neck while an learned one shrugs it off like no biggie? My solution was simple, but requires some further canoodling to make consistent. HP doesn't refer to the literal harm your character endures, it's more like a stamina gauge. When your AC doesn't take care of an attack, or you fail your save, you have to expend exceptional effort to avoid serious injury, doing this reduces your HP. As your HP gets lower, the chance that a significant blow will cause lasting harm increases. This way, a novice wizard dies to the ax because they don't know how to dodge it right, while an experienced wizard is able to leap out of the way at the very last second. You don't really have to change the mechanics of D&D to do this, it just changes how you describe what's going on.
Worst thing I ever did was mod some zombies. Basically, far off in a swamp, a cult was raising a long lost God of Undeath. Being the nice God he was, he turned them into zombies as thanks. The big difference was that these were basically divine zombies. They didn't try to hit or bite. They tried to grapple. And they were crazy strong. Also, the divine plague could turn literally anything into a zombie version. So, the mid level party, I think they were around 11 or 12th level at that point, is chilling in a town about hundred or so miles from that swamp. They were doing downtime, drinking and goofing around, when the first wave of the plague hit them. Being mid level, they scoffed at the zombies, and the fighter especially, who was half drunk, went diving in for a little recreational zombie slaying. The cleric, being the only sober member of the party, was the only one who noticed these zombies were really strange, and tried to stop him. As usual, he didn't listen. Nobody ever listened to the cleric. So, about two turns later, he's got about five of these things grappling him, and made most of his Con saves. He failed one, and that was all it took. I roll a d4, and let the fight continue for the next one turn, as I had rolled a one. The party is still laughing about zombies being thrown at them at their level, while the Cleric is getting seriously freaked out by how bizarre these things are. Then the fighter turned. Like, right then. He became a zombie at the start of his turn, and proceeded to start attacking his own party. I was unpopular after that. More so when the party finally paid attention to the Cleric and ran like hell, cresting a rise on the edge of town, and seeing an endless wave of zombies coming at them. Max unpopularity hit when the zombie Harpies showed up a few sessions later. By the time zombie giants were rolling across the land, they pretty well hated me. Oh, they did manage to slay the God and save the day, but there were a few new characters rolled along the way. Basically, don't tell your DM his encounters are laughably easy. He may just take that as a challenge and stop playing nice, and yes, making the encounters easy. I admit, i was going easy on them, and had told them I was. Little appreciation goes a long ways, guys. Otherwise, divine zombie plague.
as a gm i can say ive never had that problem(usually i over tune encounters by mistake(i expect the party to work together darn it)) that said i love to roll dice every once in a while for no reason, keeps them on edge
Punishing players for saying something mean about your encounters is the mark of a bad DM. Your encounter was unfair and not based at all on how the balancing of 5e works, some people like lopsided games and don’t mind stuff like this, and honestly, if you left out the part at the end I don’t think anyone would mind. But the fact that you threw a frankly bullshit encounter at your party and then are trying to brag about it like you did something cool is pretty pathetic TBH.
Mr. Wonky yeah I’d agree with you here. Players are gonna make jokes about stuff, it’s just how it works. Taking that personally and using your trusted position as a DM for revenge or whatever you call it is pretty darned petty. Wouldn’t do that in my campaign.
@@TheWonkster sounds like the party shouldn't have overestimated themselves actually. DM did nothing wrong. There's literally official monsters like the banshee that can drop you
Just wanted to say thanks! This video gave me a great idea for a horde fight. Zombies have pooled hp (each individual zombie has 1hp) and the amount of attacks the horde get depends on how surrounded you are (max of 8). Secondly hits will infect you if you fail a DC 10 con save. The infection causes a point of exhaustion. For every day you remain infected or if you fall unconscious you have to make a dc 10+lvl of exhaustion+ days infectes to prevnt it advancing (more exhaustion) they hit full exhaustion BOOM zombie
So in my games I turn zombies into a true nightmare they are fast, and they hit relatively hard with some zombies using weapons. While they can only ever take a hit or two before going down they can be a serious threat if not dealt with quickly, and whenever a zombie hits you in melee range you must roll a constitution check to resist the infection with a relatively high DC. What the infection does is deal 1d4 necrotic damage per round resurrecting them as a zombie upon death. The infection can be removed by a lesser restoration spell or other remove disease effect, or it can be removed by passing a moderately high constitution check when being healed or taking radiant damage. I have also homebrewed potions of cure disease which force the disease to roll a constitution check.
Ehhhhhhhh, I’d argue that the real terror of Zombies is that they WERE living people at some point. Infection is the overdone modern crap. I’d just have the GM describe each zombie as needed, give personality to what the person was, compared to what’s been done to their body. Necromancers don’t care, generally at least, what the body is, child, elderly or strong Barbarian, it’s all more necrotic flesh for the horde. Also the infection comes with awkward questions. Like “why isn’t everyone dead yet?” Or “why aren’t Necromancers actively hunted for bringing such a devastating plague upon the land?” Or, best of all “why don’t people burn their dead now that they know just how bad it could get?”
Fair opinions, but id answer those questions with ignorance. Most zombies are kept under the control of the necromancer that created them so most townspeople wouldn't be aware they even existed. I'd also say that zombies breakdown over time so that every day they have a 50/50 chance of losing a hitpoint. So when an outbreak occurs the town is quickly consumed into zombies that then break down and decay. Also even most villagers have a decent chance of surviving that con save,.
Actually religons in DnD should destroy or restrict the dead to discourge new necromancers since they are almost always are the mid way to final bosses in almost every story. By the way why is everyone NOT using dead labour. You don't have to go full "i will include everyBODY" type. Necromancers have more construction and general workforce than that one big evil Empire because he/she/it? adds more without lossing any manpower. Oh and " Turmoil at the front Wilhelms forces on the hunt There's a thunder in the east It's an attack of the deceased They've been facing poison gas 7, 000 charge en masse Turn the tide of the attack And force the enemy to turn back And that's when the dead men are marching again "
Uncanny valley. We are wired to look for patterns. To recognize our kind, what is not our kind, and what is pretending to be our kind. A walking corpse hits the "it looks exactly like us but something is wrong" part. It WAS a person. Now it is a thing. And worse it has a face maybe you recognize.
@@temkin9298 Regarding the workforce thing, keep in mind the Necromancer would need to keep casting Animate Dead at least once per day for each four bodies they control to keep them in line. While not a huge burden in moderation, it is an expenditure of resources and if you are likely to be hunted down for having an undead workforce, you will want some spells on the back burner to either defend yourself or escape. Also while undead workers certainly don't complain and may not tire, they might not be suitable for all sorts of work. Unskilled labor, guard duty, heavy lifting, sure. But any more delicate work may require living workers or more intelligent undead that might be harder to control.
@@josephperez2004 Well, apprentices are a must in any big projects, delicate work is a hard but doable with "forced to work" workforce. Each necromancer needs 3 undead to keep up at most. So 20 necromancers roughly equals to 60 workers. They themselves can also do delicate work. Perhaps industrial machines would be able to make complex work to pulling a lever. Plus nothing is better guardians then uncontroled horde of undead(granted you need some help to keep them and invaders from leaving).
One thing I want to do with Zombies is turning them into redeads from zelda, basically giving them a 1d6 recharge on a 6 scream that can stun one target for 1 round while they approach. send a pack of 3 to a party from a decent distance and they'll be in "Oh heck!" territory quite fast
For my zombies to be scarier I change their attack to an auto-grapple. They can’t do damage unless their target is grappled; however, they gain advantage on the attack if their target is grappled. The attack is changed to a bite with the same damage and the risk of infection. Also, the target has disadvantage on breaking the grapple if grappled by more than one zombie and can only break one grapple per action used. This encourages other players to help and makes the hoard of zombies that much more terrifying! Lastly, when used in combination with ghouls among the ranks of the dead this encounter is fantastic against even tier 3 PCs. Good gaming and DON’T GET BITTEN!!
Infection only works if these are zombies caused by disease or a virus, or some kind of Zombie Plague, but most of the Zombies in DnD are created through magic, so there is no infection.
Me: Hey, maybe we should run infecting zombies. Me: No. Me: Why not, it'd be cool. Me: I'm too scared. Me: But you'd be the D- Me: TOO. SCARED. Me: . . . Okay then. . .
we homebrewed a zombie campain where a group of 10 players had to evacuate a city where a powerfull lich managed to start a zombie plague, each zombie had fairly low hp but every few turns he adds 1d20 zombies. for each critical number he adds a more threatning undead creature baces on the area the hospitals had nekro golems... kind of a kronenbergish amalgamation of several undead wich absorbs weaker ones and adds there stats, or wendigos in the city park... no long rests, very rationed provisions. for the map we took the 17XX cityplan ouf our groups homecity and the ticking counter in the background for the next horde made it realy intense
Siege, maybe? Remote island, village or something. The group has to clear a path or survive until help arrives. Could be really tense at low levels where the group can't just, you know, fly away or the like.
You have been running in full plate for twenty minutes. You are now tired. And what's that I hear coming over the horizon? Persistence predation. Now you know how all those deer felt when your ancestors jogged them to death. If you really wan't to be cruel. Give them a big treasure drop before any zombies show up and then really hick them with the tired stick.
Make their goal to defeat the zombies. Have them think they can deal with them. Surprise them with more or more powerful undead to lock them down (Archers maybe. Faster Zombies or surround them as Lean Lover said)
I have seen it run in a similar way except when a certain number is reached they get the swarm template. Fighting with large weapons? One zombie appears. Cast a loud spell? Bard starts performing?1d4 zombies appear.
*The HP should be based on the average level 1 NPC villager, but 3/4th to 1/4th based on decomposition time or "freshness".* *Instead of letting players pick STR/DEX/CON it should just be CON if they get hit since their ability to not get hit is already covered by the AC mechanic which isn't just armor in the traditional sense, it is your ability to not take damage, whether through dodging or plating or redirecting/parrying. They definitely shouldn't be as fragile as or more fragile than a bird because they are still a reanimated human corpse* *You should increase their AC slightly(should be also based around the average low level npc villager) if they are immune to death except from brain damage, have strikes that miss their increased ac become non cranial attacks that reduce their HP but these attacks should be incapable of dropping them below 1. This way low level players could try to dismember their arms (which should reduce their chance to hit) or dismember their legs(1/2 or 1/4 movement depending on how many limbs are removed.*
I have to disagree. The DM has to keep track on everything that is on the field. When you have many enemies with a lot of HP it becomes messy for the DM. Having 1HP monsters makes it very easy however. You either kill it, or you do not. What will happen if the players cast a fireball and bring 17 zombies on them while having more then 1HP is this. The DM will be bogged down in trying to record and note which is which and how much HP everything has. The combat will grind to a halt. It will take ages for the players to play as the DM is mostly doing all work. I heard this happened in 4th edition a lot. I prefer to respect my players time enough to not make them wait 5 min for their next move.
@@Cloud_Seeker This is why it would be great to have a computer handle calculations so that DMs have even more creative freedom to have massive battles without having to use cheesy shortcuts.
@@Guts-the-Berserker Many people do not use computers. Even if you are using computers it still takes to much time to update every single enemy all the time. It moves the combat from grinding to a halt to massive delays. It also isn't cheesy to have 1HP monsters when you have a mechanic which forces the players to think about the noises they are making.
@@Cloud_Seeker It doesn't take long at all, just look at Solasta, Baldur's Gate 3, and Talespire. Companies are competing right now to bring us a fleshed out, minimally dumbed down table top D&D experience for the first time ever without awkward simplifications or RTS elements thrown in. The future looks bright when this type of competition is happening around the subject of video gaming and table top gaming. Talespire seems to be the loftiest but the other two bring a more down to earth niche for casual fans to get hooked on the table top formula. I'm interested to see if BG3 implements GM mode from their previous game of DOS2 because if they do that would breed more competition for Talespire and Solasta and any other group that tries to helm the daunting task of actualizing the TTG mechanics into the video game format. The 1 HP mechanic is an example of an awkward simplification based on the limitation of having humans handle these combat variables in a timely manner, and just imagine the EPIC campaigns that DMs can finally craft when they get there hands on the tools from these games. SURE it goes without saying that you cannot replicate the simplicity of getting together physically with your best buds BUT this opens up your D&D groups to a global audience among your friends which makes this an exciting era to be alive in my opinion. Now, I know I was pretty harsh saying the things I say about this zombie idea(which is a great idea really) but it is with the context of what could be possible with the near limitless creativity that freeing a DM from math would bring. Zee Bashew is a top tier DM for sure but this specific change to the HP is definitely made because he along with every DM worth their salt hate having to do so much math during combat to speed things along. I can't wait to see what happens with these games. Hell I could be totally wrong and they could flop but the possibilities are extremely exciting. Hope for the best, but if the worst comes to pass we still have our TTG.
@@Guts-the-Berserker Oh yeah. Lets look at all types of games that are NOT classic tabletop RPG's. Sorry dude but when you bring up PC games you kind of lose the argument. We are not talking about games with a virtual DM like Baulder's gate. We are talking about those types of games you buy books for and sit infront of a tabel with pen and paper. "The 1 HP mechanic is an example of an awkward simplification based on the limitation of having humans handle these combat variables in a timely manner" - A human IS controlling everything. You ARE subject to human limitations. We are talking about a TABLETOP RPG!!! Not a PC game. "and just imagine the EPIC campaigns that DMs can finally craft when they get there hands on the tools from these games" - The DM already have all control. It is them that play Gods and tell how everything should go. They also have to do all small things like keeping track over how many goblins are in this tent. Are again talking about Tabletop RPGs and not PC games. "Now, I know I was pretty harsh saying the things I say about this zombie idea(which is a great idea really) but it is with the context of what could be possible with the near limitless creativity that freeing a DM from math would bring." - I do not actually see it as harsh but rather more stupid. You presented the argument that are based on having a computer game without an actual DM. I was thinking you was going to use something like Roll20 but the examples you gave are just laughable. I think you have completely missed the context in the video. This change is made to not only create a setting, and to free up DM workload. You talk about creativity and how much creativity is lost, but I think you fail to understand you are destorying creativity by outright rejecting 1HP zombies as part of a setting and mechanic. If we are going only by what you said here. Having a endless horde just isn't possible on a tabletop. "I can't wait to see what happens with these games." - I have no idea what you are talking about because we are talking on a completely different type of medium. Its like talking about Smartphones when we are talking about good olf fashioned newspapers.
gotta be honest zee not a fan of this one dnd zombies have always been very diferent from zombies in traditional media.the fear of zombies isnt that they can infect you,its that they are effectively endless since the necromancer who has had to raise them can just use more bodies to make more undead.
a while back I had the idea to run a zombie apocalypse. Most of the enemies would be undead, and i really wanted to capture that Left 4 Dead, Dying Light sort of vibe. But I didn't want to slow things down by having the players make a con save every single time they got hit, and I didn't want to make one bad con save spell death, so this is what I ended up coming up with: A: I dropped their HP down to something like 6-10; I don't remember. I wanted them to drop in one or two hits. A crit'd instantly kill a zombie, no other rolls needed. B: Zombies don't *JUST* swing at you. The iconic imagery is usually them piling on, grabbing you, pulling you into the mass of zombies. So I made all my zombies grapplers; First they'd try to grapple the players, and only when they were grabbed, then the zombies would make bite attacks, and the bite attacks would cause the infection. C: When players were infected, I treated it like any other disease, so the players would get a couple of con saves to try and tough out the virus. The campaign never ended up happening so I never got around to figuring out the exact mechanics of the disease. D: I wanted the zombies to be slow and dumb during the day, but faster and more alert at night. So during the day, they could only take one action, move or attack. But at night they could do both; or grapple someone and immediately chomp them. At night, they also had the scent ability to find the party easier if they weren't careful.
I'm currently running Tomb of Annihilation, and the party is in the early stage, exploring the jungle. So far, all their encounters with zombies were resolved by simply outrunning the zombies. Damn monks and rogues.
I read the title and got excited expecting a continuation to the saga of the necromancer;SpankMAgank and is army of Zombies VS Trevor and his AMAZING side kick, Ghost pig.
I was running a 2nd ed game where the PCs were around 7-9th level and they went to enter a cave but, oh no, there are zombies coming out of it. No biggie, the zombies have 8 HP each, crappy AC, one attack each. The party is heavy on fighter types, they got this. But the zombies just kept pouring out. I had a true horde of them, 50, as the encounter. They back against a wall so they "can't get surrounded", but that just gave a smaller area to face them on. The group had no cleric to turn them; they had relied on a paladin before but that player had moved away and left the game a couple weeks before. They found their butts getting kicked because every zombie killed just put a new one in front of them! When they realized they couldn't just tank through it, the wizard, who they had been protecting (and crowding into a corner disabling his spell casting), stepped to the front and unleashed burning hands on them and saved the day. Later, when the wizard leveled up before everyone else, they all complained. So I reminded them who solved the riddle, and who saved their bacon from the zombies. Then, all the players took about 3 points of psychic damage IRL from the smugness coming from the wizard's player.
I love this! Also, I've seen the dmg's...uh...rule variation where instead of killing a zombie and that is that, the surplus damage (you hit a 10 hp zombie with 22 damage) gets "transferred" to the next zombie (as long as the zombie is standing next to it)! Gonna try it out soon in my campaign, kinda excited :D
And then the druid casts spike growth and screams at the horde. 10 minutes lather, there's grinded meat on the ground. In arrow shapes toward the druid.
My friends and I have always thought of using (mythologically accurate) Draugr in place of zombies, though it would probably only work in Wintery settings. Alternatively, we have considered using Wendigo(es?), though it would be challenging to use them at low levels, since any build we come up with that makes them either accurate (we've come to the conclusion that deviating too from the mythology for either of them leaves them kinda toothless) too powerful to be used against a low level party, unless the party is entirely made up of pyromaniacs, in which case you can't use them effectively at any level
My players never even fought my zombies. Every room in the dungeon had a few empty coffins and a bloody pentagram on the floor. They fought a ghoul and a ghost and as they got closer to the zombie horde. The closer they got, the more damage they got from the smell, until they came across the horde and fled, barricading every door on the way until they were able to sneak around and get to the necromancer, who begged them to save him after he raised one zombie, couldn't control it, and raised another to fight it. So on and so forth.
I think I would rule it that if the Zombie only poses a risk for infection if they roll a critical to hit, or if they roll a five or a six on their d6 for the damage. Then the person is bitten has to roll a CON save (no DEX or STR) DC 10. The DM makes this roll in secret, and the character doesn't know they, or someone else is infected unless they use "Detect Evil or Good" or "Identify", and "Detect Magic" can determine that they are under the effect of a curse related to the school of necromancy. I agree that on the first day of infection amputating the bitten limb will stop the infection if done on the first day, but casting "Remove Curse" will also stop the infection if done before the creature takes a long rest. After that the infection can only be stopped by casting "Greater Restoration". Each day following the infection the creature's Max HP drops by 1d4, and they take one level of exhaustion. After their Max HP drops to 0, or reaching six levels of exhaustion the creature becomes a zombie with 22 hp. If the creature dies (players still get to make their death saving throws) before either of the previous two conditions are met then they have a chance of rising as a zombie via the "Undead Fortitude" trait listed under the Zombie stat block. Personally I'd also say that Zombie that have been created through the Animate Dead spell are not capable to spreading the infection. Or at least they're aren't capable of spreading the infection while they're still under the spellcaster's control.
