Zombies

[widomknight 13]

I see that there are Fantasy zombie stats etc.  But does anyone have any good ideas for say Walking dead/Romero type zombies that players can kill masses of or at the very least kill easy with headshots?

Im curious what Left4Dead 'special infected' would like Genesys STATed.

Or even Resident Evil types and Bosses.

Edited January 3, 2018 by widomknight

[c__beck 1,088]

Those are minions. They die in droves and are super scary in large groups!

[emsquared 779]

Zombie apocalypse is one of the few things I could identify that the Genesys core can do well almost as-is off the shelf.

My main idea for zombies was it would take a crit to kill them. No taking them out via Strain or Wounds. Crit only. Would be a fairly hardcore way of approaching zombies but...

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

A rough back of the napkin attempt I would probably use:

 

The Walking Dead:

Slow Zombie (Minion)

2/1/1/2/2/1

WT 4, Soak 2, Def 0

Group Skills: Melee (or Melee-Heavy), Vigilance, Resilience

Abilities: Ponderous, may only ever make one move manoeuvre in a round even when downgrading an action to a manoeuvre.

 

 

I Am Legend:

Fast Zombie (Minion)

2/3/1/2/1/1

WT 4, Soak 2, Def 0

Group Skills: Brawl, Coordination, Cool

Abilities: Swift, ignore penalty for difficult terrain. Aversion to light, halve WT when in bright light.

[Terefang 165]

6 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

Abilities: Swift, ignore penalty for difficult terrain. Aversion to light, halve WT when in bright light.

Abilities: Swift, ignore [3 setback dice] (or downgrade twice) for difficult terrain. Aversion to light, add [3 setback dice] (or upgrade twice) when in bright light.

Edited January 3, 2018 by Terefang

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

Perhaps, although the Swift I describe is a pre existing thing so your version would need a different name. Relentless?

the thing is difficult terrain generally just doubles the manoeuvres required to cross that area, setback are uncommon.

[Terefang 165]

on Swift -- right missed that.

 

how is the "Aversion to Light" ?

i find halving WT an awkward mechanic. Are there similar mechanics in the CBR ?

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

Not really, and to be honest the zombies in I Am Legend would just die in bright light 

[Terefang 165]

ah ... never watched the movie

then ... mechanically for minions ... suffer 1 critical wound per round ... argl

 

Edited January 3, 2018 by Terefang

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

It’s actually a decent mainstream Hollywood Zombie flic, the Zombies are scary as f***

[yeti1069 345]

So, I think the thing zombies need is something to make them scary en masse. Yes, minion groups get additional skill ranks, but one thing that seems fairly iconic to zombies is they grab hold. They need some grapple mechanic, I think. Or, they need a diseased wound mechanic that can turn someone into a zombie over time, although I'm not sure that would end up being a true threat in this system with the way medicine and spells work.

There's the Grapple talent, which might do the trick, except that it doesn't really do anything on its own, except maybe eat up strain, which I guess is zombies wearing you down:

Zombies engage with character as a maneuver, downgrade an action to Grapple.

Player spends two maneuvers to disengage.

However, if you have a second zombie group, and they engage and grapple, the character may be stuck, unless the GM rules they can disengage from both as one maneuver normally. This kind of gets the zombie flavor: against a few zombies, if you're surprised, or get caught up with them, more are going to begin to swarm you, and then you're in trouble.

[yeti1069 345]

I think there needs to be an "undead traits" base template that covers a few things.

Maybe:

Immune to disease and poison. Does not need to eat, sleep, or breath.

That seems like it covers undead tropes without being too significant (players are rarely employing poisons or diseases, or defeating enemies through attrition or denial of food or air). Actually, now that I've written that, it seems almost pointless to include it for the same reasons. Unless something more significant were tacked on.

 

 

[yeti1069 345]

@emsquared's idea of zombies being unkillable except via a critical I also like. That would do a good job of simulating the first encounter characters in films have with zombies, where they hit them, shoot them, etc...but their efforts have no effect, until someone finally headshots one.

Implacable Zombie

2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1

WT 4, ST 3, Def 0|0

Group Skills: Brawl, Cool, Vigilance (I want one more skill here...Athletics maybe, since we see them climbing and breaking through stuff often, but we never see zombies jumping or swimming, and only certain flavors of zombie run; Stealth doesn't really fit, since we often hear zombies moaning, although they can be surprising often, which makes me think Stealth might be a way to go; Perception maybe? They're often depicted as being drawn to sounds, smells, or living beings; Resilience?)

Abilities:

Grapple--Spend a maneuver to force engaged enemies to have to spend two maneuvers instead of one to disengage.

Implacable--Exceeding a zombie's wound threshold has no effect: they do not become incapacitated or die, and they do not suffer a critical injury. The only way to kill a zombie is to score a critical hit.

 

These zombies are "sticky" and tough to kill: you need to land a critical, otherwise they just keep on coming.

[Grimmerling 735]

Are you all dodging the most important trait on purpose, I wonder.

Infection: May spend [Triumph] on a successful Brawl check, dealing wounds, to infect the target with Zombie Plague. 

[Terefang 165]

i would differentiate between:

• an (magically) animated corpse, which after decomposition becomes an animated skeleton (under the control of an evil magician, non-contagious).
• an (infected or poisoned) biological-not-yet-dead corpse, where decomposition stops sometime afterwards because the host becomes uninhabitable to biological agents except the original cause (remaining contagious)
• a non-contagious version of the above (eg. alchemical zombie, flesh golem).
• an (cursed, divine, demonical) undead/unliving/unmortal, sustained by supernatural force (spreading a curse?).

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2018 by Terefang

[yeti1069 345]

I was thinking about that, but I just don't know how I would want to actually handle the disease. Also, losing a PC to a random Triumph blows, and I'm not sure I would want to make curing them become its own story, particularly since you may end up with everyone getting hit with a Triumph over the course of one encounter or adventure.

I would say that Zombie Plague would make sense in a survival horror- or zombie-themed game, but not in, say, a fantasy game that happens to have zombies.

[yeti1069 345]

1 minute ago, Terefang said:

i would differentiate between:

• an (magically) animated corpse, which after decomposition becomes an animated skeleton (under the control of an evil magician).
• an (infected or poisoned) biological-not-yet-dead corpse, where decomposition stops sometime afterwards because the host becomes uninhabitable to biological agents except the original cause (remaining contagious)
• a non-contagious version of the above (eg. alchemical zombie, flesh golem).
• an (cursed, divine, demonical) undead/unliving/unmortal, sustained by supernatural force.

 

 

 

 

 

That's the key, I guess.

Resident Evil, Night of the Living Dead, etc...zombies are infected or poisoned, disease-spreading monsters.

D&D zombies are magically animated corpses, although I think necessarily linking them to then become skeletons is kind of a narrow niche.

 

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

That’s quite good, I like it. Minions get really tough if you do that but for rivals it’s great.

There sort of needs to be a modular toolkit for zombies since they vary so much:

Basic Zombie (Minion):

2 1 1 2 1 1

WT: 4, Soak: 2, Def: 1

Abilities: Immune to disease and poison. Does not need to eat, sleep, or breath.

Attack: Brawl, Damage +1, Crit 4, Ensnare 1.

Step 1: Characteristics

Increase 2 Characteristics by 1 or 1 by 2.

Step 2: Skills

The Zombies gain the following group skills; Brawl or Melee, Cool or Vigilance.

Choose one of the following to also be a group skill; Athletics, Coordination, Perception, Resilience.

Step 3: Abilities 

Choose 2 of the following abilities

Swift: don’t suffer the usual penalties for moving through difficult terrain 

Grapple: Spend a maneuver to force engaged enemies to have to spend two maneuvers instead of one to disengage.

Implacable: Exceeding a zombie's wound threshold has no effect: They do not become incapacitated or die, and they do not suffer a critical injury. The only way to kill a zombie is to score a critical hit. Damage from Fire and Magic affects the Zombies like normal.

Aversion to light: add 3 setback dice to all checks when in bright light. Choose an additional ability.

Light Bane: Suffer a Critical every round a Zombie is in bright light. Choose an additional ability.

Pack Animal: Zombies always provide two boost when providing unskilled assistance or performing the assist manoeuvre.

Infected: Any Crit caused by these Zombies can instead be used to infect the target with the Zombie virus of the setting.

Natural Weapons: Wether claws or fangs these zombies have a nasty natural weapon. Replace the standard attack with the following Brawl: Damage +3, Crit 2, Ensnare 1.

Ponderous: These Zombies may never perform more than one move manoeuvre in a single round. Choose an additional ability.

Edited January 3, 2018 by Richardbuxton

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

That took me a while, I had the Infected in there before reading your post Grim, I think either idea works well.

[yeti1069 345]

I like just adding Ensnare to their attack profile, better, I think, than Grapple. Would you make it Ensnare 1?

Light Bane seems severe, removing a single minion per round.

 

I'm considering allowing an Attack spell with the Holy/Unholy Additional Effect to kill Implacable zombies. I feel like spells without the Deadly effect added are going to have a very difficult time with zombies... Burn might make sense as well, as fire is often a way to get rid of them also...but I don't want to tack on a bunch of exceptions to the clean language of Implacable.

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

I added “Choose an additional ability” to the three negative abilities

[Grimmerling 735]

9 minutes ago, yeti1069 said:

I would say that Zombie Plague would make sense in a survival horror- or zombie-themed game, but not in, say, a fantasy game that happens to have zombies.

Pardon my quoting the OP. 

6 hours ago, widomknight said:

I see that there are Fantasy zombie stats etc.  But does anyone have any good ideas for say Walking dead/Romero type zombies that players can kill masses of or at the very least kill easy with headshots?

Im curious what Left4Dead 'special infected' would like Genesys STATed.

Or even Resident Evil types and Bosses.

 

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

Yeah, Ensnare 1 is good. Perhaps this should be the basic Zombie:

Brawl, Damage +1, Crit 4, Ensnare.

then there is an option to upgrade it to:

Brawl, Damage +3, Crit 2, Ensnare.

and get rid of the Grapple option entirely 

[yeti1069 345]

Just now, Richardbuxton said:

Yeah, Ensnare 1 is good. Perhaps this should be the basic Zombie:

Brawl, Damage +1, Crit 4, Ensnare.

then there is an option to upgrade it to:

Brawl, Damage +3, Crit 2, Ensnare.

and get rid of the Grapple option entirely 

I definitely think that's better.

[yeti1069 345]

Zombie (Minion)
Brawn 2, Agility 2, Intellect 1, Cunning 2, Willpower 1, Presence 1
Wound Threshold 4, Soak 3, Defense 0 | 0
Skills: Brawl, Vigilance, Athletics
Abilities: Implacable: Exceeding a zombie's wound threshold has no effect: they do not become incapacitated or die, and they do not suffer a critical injury. The only way to kill a zombie is to score a critical hit.
Clawing hands (Brawl; Damage 3; Critical 4; Range [Engaged]; Ensnare 1)

Raised Soak by 1, rather than add Defense, but I'm not sure which I would prefer. Obviously, soak isn't going to be super-meaningful, although there is the possibility of someone scoring a hit, with a critical, but not dealing enough damage to bypass soak (seriously doubtful). Defense would make them more resilient, but where are they getting defense from?

Edited January 3, 2018 by yeti1069