So I posted this in the 5eg but i wanted to ask here as well. How would you make a "zombie apocalypse" in D&D 5e? I've run 3.5 before but I have played a bit of 5e and a friend owns the books. I want to spring these zombies as a surprise on the players. I was thinking of having them be slow-moving and if you get bit by one, you are doomed, and will eventually become one. The only way to stop these zombies from animating over and over is to burn their corpses. That said having a single hit be lethal would nerf melee characters so I am looking for a good middle ground; something that would make players want to stay the fuck out of melee but also be able to fight them in melee if necessary. Any ideas? Maybe grappling for a round before they bite? I want the disease to be very hard to stop and if a PC gets it they have like a 1 in 4 chance of surviving so getting bitten is a huge uh oh moment. Also I really want to ambush them with this, I want it to be a standard "lol goblins" adventure that leads to them discovering "oh shit this could be really bad" when they start finding out why the goblins are leaving their caves to raid.
>>48207138
>disease
Zombie bite means con save or disease, DC 13 or so. If you get zombie disease, you have 24 hours to lesser restoration it or you become a zombie. If you want to be a huge dick, make it a curse. If they brought a cleric, they deserve to live.
>Let's play a game about heroic fantasy violence!
>Make a melee PC, put effort into backstory and roleplaying
>Surprise! I modded a common enemy type to be invincible and totally fuck you over on a single melee hit!
No.
>>48207138
You should probably warn your players that in your game undead are extremely dangerous, otherwise they will be really mad when you fuck them over with your super-zombies. People come into a game with certain assumptions based on their experience; you should not totally flip those assumptions without discussing it with them first.
D&D is a heroic fantasy game where zombies are pretty weak. If you want a grim, lethal zombie apocalypze game, discuss it with your players beforehand.
>>48207138
Demonstrate what happens when you get bit on an NPC.
>>48207138
Have Zombie bites be a disease that can sometimes be overcome if you make one of a few Con saves.
Aside from that, this is a pretty poor idea, due to how reliable hitting can be in 5e. Even a character with 18 AC at first level will be hit a lot by zombies.
You're going to encourage a scenario where everyone ends up playing clerics, druids, and paladins so they can cure the disease, create food and water, and generally smite things.
Why not use a system actually designed for this sort of Zombie Apocalypse? Why do zombies need to be infectious anyway? Would it change much if instead it was merely anyone killed by a zombie became a zombie?
>>48207946
>Why not use a system actually designed for this sort of Zombie Apocalypse?
He just came off of 3.5 and probably still believes that dnd is the only game worth mentioning.
>>48207138
Wights. They can create zombies at will and have up to 7 under their control.
>>48207303
What if I warn them not to make characters that are too melee focused? Will that be okay? Also I intend for them to go down in 1 or 2 hits and not be the only enemy (so plenty of melee combat, just not with them)
>>48207534
>If you want a grim, lethal zombie apocalypze game, discuss it with your players beforehand
I want to surprise them and watch them struggle to adapt. Also if they really hate it I do have a back up plan for a different campaign.
How can I warn them without giving away the surprise ?
>>48207946
I've played savage worlds and GURPS quite a bit. I feel like zombies are kinda overdone and I figured doing them in DnD would be interesting. I don't want it to be lethal, I just want the zombie encounters, when they happen, to completely change the players tactics.
>>48209051
Don't warn them, no need really. Other than discussing the general type of game you are going to run and what kind of characters you want or don't want to see.
I'm not seeing the general problem with Zombies here. The idea is that you can only kill them with blows to the head, right? Will, in general doing that would kill anyone.
In effect, that restriction would function as either extra hit points or better AC. With AC being along the lines of you describing normal hits that should do damage, as not. Sort of like a breast plate stopping damage that 'normally' would have been deadly.
Hit points of course working the same way. Since HP are often thought of as plot armor with only the last few hits doing actual damage, you describe it that way. The characters striking and doing no damage until they finally hit the head.
No reason to think that Melee fighters would be any more disadvantaged than anyone else. Same rules apply to other forms of attack (such as magic).
Basically, D&D doesn't have a 'I just hit his head and auto kill him' mechanic. Otherwise that is all anyone would use. So just use the normal combat system and buff your zombie HP.
>>48207138
Make it an "undead" apocalypse where all undead are types of zombies and free game.
Use the horde rules from the "Running the Game" section of the DMG, it makes large volumes of enemies both easier to track and much more dangerous.
Be careful in the classes you allow. This style of game obviously gives massive advantages to certain classes. You may want to pare down classes to no 9th level casters or no classes that start with spells; possibly even no magic players except for feats/learned magic as story bonuses.
>>48210396
What advantage would a caster have in 5e to require those sorts of restrictions?
>>48210452
Ranged attack spells
>>48211027
And this is more of an advantage than normal how? I'm not seeing the advantage change from typical play here.
Considering that archers (which is any fighter if he wants) can put down unending fire I'm not seeing a magic based advantage.
Is there another reason? I thought maybe some sort of utility spell advantage that I missed that would change everything...
I had my dm do that to me. We all made characters and then suddenly zombie apocalypse. I had made a ranger with rapid fire with a longbow. Only problem was that the zombies had DR6 so i barely did any damage. I ended up being almost useless other than setting up traps. The cleric and barbarian did tonnes of damage while the wizard saved our bacon more than once. It was hella fun but just be aware it isnt fun if your player plays a halfling rogue for example, no backstab
>>48211664
>Considering that archers (which is any fighter if he wants) can put down unending fire I'm not seeing a magic based advantage.
Cantrips don't run out or need ammunition. Firebolt and produce flame in particular would be great for burning bodies as OP said would be necessary to keep them down.
Spells like mold earth and wall of stone would be very helpful in making fortifications, for example. Get those spells and a few days and you can basically set up a little fort with a moat.
If OP wants to make resource looting a thing, then Goodberry, create/destroy water, and other food-producing spells might make that a little easier than he wants it to be.
If the zombie infection a disease or curse, then all it takes is a 3rd or 5th level cleric to remove it before it sets in. That may be desirable, or it may not be.
A spell like spirit guardians could make zombie killing relatively easy.
A spell like wind walk or teleport might make safe travel too easy too.
And there are probably more that I'm not thinking off.
>>48212462
>if your player plays a halfling rogue for example, no backstab
It's 5th edition, they fixed most of the restrictions on sneak attack. Rogues can sneak attack whatever they damn want now. Undead, constructs, elementals anything. I think there are like one or two creatures that are explicitly immune, but no longer whole creature types.
>>48212732
I understand what you are saying, but none of those things strike me as being more of a problem than in normal play. And I have honestly not seen any 'caster supremacy' in actual play yet in 5e.
The possible exception to that being the cure disease issue. But if OP wants the disease to be a bigger problem than a spell can cure the solution there is 'nope, spell does not work, go quest for a cure' not 'no spell casters'.
The exception to this would be if the DM allowed infinite kiting. Then I could see cantrips as you suggest being a problem. But that seems like something that can be handled through several methods.
I used a combination of 'no place to run, you are surrounded' with a helping of 'there is more than one type of zombie', that and I didn't use slow zombies to begin with.
>>48214037
I think the other solution there is to simply increase variety in zombies. Its a fantasy world, so you could easily have more bizzare types of zombies to counteract the basic survival strategies. The more you throw in zombie hounds, zombie birds, zombie dragons, or whatever though, the more having a single bite infect people becomes a danger.
>>48214102
Oh I fully agree. I have a nice collection of zombie orcs and wolves/etc for that very reason.
>>48214127
Well, if you have Zombie wolves, that makes kiting infinitely with cantrips impossible. They won't be able to outpace the dogs.
The main concern you should have for casters is that their spells can make survival and resource management more trivial. Basic Firebolts remove the need to scrounge arrows, Goodberry can replace food, etc.
If you want to avoid that, you can be somewhat more stringent with material components. Even having firebolt require a woodchip to cast would help with that, for example. Of course, arcane focuses can also get around that.
Even aside from that, you may want to outright ban specific spells that would trivialize the game. Make it clear upfront and your players shouldn't have a problem
>>48210452
Classes that start with spells:
>Bard
Bards are only banned for being lighthearted and also a full caster, but really are he hardest to justify.
>Cleric
Can turn or destroy undead.
>Druid
Trivializes resource gathering
>Sorceror
Suped up AoEs
>Warlock
I got nothing, honestly a warlock is a really good fit as a powerful wizard in this kind of game
>Wizard
Necromancy, generally trivializing utility
Zombie stories are about desperation and difficult choices, the most utility driven classes in the game are an obvious choice to ban.
>>48207138
You might wanna use the rules that make it so short rests are 8 hours and long rests are a week of rest, it'll bring casters down the working man's level, well except for warlocks who will just turret forever
>>48214037
I'm not talking about caster supremacy (I don't even believe it's a thing in 5e), but about how various casters' powers could detract from the sort of desperate survival horror situation intended in a zombie game.
