Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[islan]

I'm planning on running a game this weekend for a game that is suppose to have zombies in it. Specifically, it needs to be the kind of zombies that seem almost impossible to kill, where you cut off a limb or two but it just keeps on coming. Even the cut-off limbs crawl after you. These are the kinds of zombies that need to be completely dismembered in order to stop being a threat. A good example of this might be the skeleton Conan fights in that cave, where he was faced with the conundrum "how do you kill that which is already dead?" and was only able to defeat it by setting it on fire.

I'm not entirely sure if the zombies found in SWEE really fit this or not. I was thinking about giving them Wounds, and for each Wound they lose a body part, but I'm not sure if that's a good way to go about it. How would you go about this?

[Houndin]

Not being a very experienced SW GM, the advice I can offer you is general in nature. I did something similar in another game system. Trying to create the 'unstoppable horde' and ended up having to very quickly change things or else have a TPK. The result was a very awkward combat that just felt wrong.

This type of a monster can end up being extremely dangerous to your players. Don't make the 'killing blow' too obscure or else your players might miss it. GM Caveat can go a long way to adapting the combat to how your players are doing.

As far as SW mechanics. If you want something trackable, maybe allow for extra wound levels (to -4) for the main zombie, but have an arm only have one. Include a short-circuit, decapitation or fire damage that skips the extra levels and goes straight to Incapacitated/dead. Personally, I don't track wounds or similar on zombies. I only track the killing blow.

[Erifnogard]

Couldn't you just say that they can only be shaken by most damage unless the damage is of whatever type you designate as their weakness whether that be requiring a called shot to the head or immolation?

I'm relearning Savage Worlds rules after long hiatus and don't have my book handy, so if the above made no sense that's why.
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[Sadric]

It depends really on teh effect you like to get.
For example, the undeads in necropolis take half damage from piercing weapons and bullets. This means they are really tough against modern soldiers (except greandes), but a group of soldier shooting full auto in a large group could kill one or two/round.

If a character take a chainsaw or soomething he could still slaughter the undead.

If you search soemthing that is more like in the mentioned Conan movie (didnt remember the scene-ah, or is it in the new movie), then it is simply not possible to kill it except with his weakness. Deadlands and similar Horror games use this approach often.

You could shake it, but cant kill it. The players need to know the weakness, fire in your example.

Once I have a undead that was powered by a everburning strange-colored fire in the antechamber.
The undead could only destroyed by douse this fire. Every time they "wounded" it, the fire blaze hissing up. This was the give-away for this weakness.

Another one I had in an adventure once could onyl be killed by shoving it in sunlight. The give-away was that he attacks only in the night and as they advance into his lair he dance around a shaft of sunlight that shine trough some holes.
The characters manage to shake it with some spears. So, while the undead was shaken the characters make a dex-trick and we describe it as impaling him, and next round a strenght roll to hurl the undead into the sunbeam.

[ValhallaGH]

[The Dread Polack]

I would say that the Extras are hardy. Decide how much damage you think it should take to take them out, and subtract 4. That should be their toughness. Describe bits being chopped off of them when shaken, but don't track it. The point of Extras is that you don't keep track of that sort of thing.

Now, if you want some or all of your zombies to be Wild Cards, then I'd also make them Hardy. You're the GM, and nobody can stop you from saying that they simply cannot be killed unless they are completely destroyed. Maybe they have to make called head shots to kill them. If so, then I think called shots to the arms & legs should also greatly impair them. A zombie with no arms can only headbutt or bite, doing less damage with a -2 hit. A Zombie without legs can only wiggle 1" in a turn and bite at your ankles. This might only be good for providing a small distraction penalty, or maybe they can grapple or do tricks. Disembodied arms might grab onto your legs and hinder your movement.

Attacks that aren't called shots should probably accomplish *something* at least. Maybe un-called shots should only do half damage. I feel like a good hit to the chest could still shatter a zombie enough to effectively kill it.

I'd be really careful about how many of these I sent after my players. It can be easy to have them slowly trickle in until you think there's enough for a good challenge.

[tigerguy786]

If you can get a hold of it, the Horror companion has what you're looking for I think. Or at least something you can tweak to exactly what you want.

It has a dismembered corpse that falls apart when damaged and each part still attacks.
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[Jordan Peacock]

I've done this before in my Pirates campaign. First off, I made the skeletons very non-impressive in terms of attributes: d6 Agi, d4 Sma, d4 Spi, d6 Str, d4 Vig -- Undead, but "Small" (fragile, -1 Toughness), so ending up with Toughness 5. Fighting only d4, but no sense of self-preservation, so they'd always Wild Attack, and they'd suffer the penalty to Parry as if having Wild Attacked even when they hadn't. (This made book-keeping easier, justified by that they just weren't bothering to parry. They also didn't bother leaping for safety from area-effect attacks.)

The skeletons couldn't suffer more than Shaken result from most attacks; I'd describe it as pieces being knocked everywhere, and then scrambling to pull itself back together -- even the head. I dropped the +2 to recover from being Shaken, so "killing" a skeleton would at least buy some time.

Defeating the skeletons required dealing "massive damage" (explosions), using magic, burning them, or finding some way to render the skeleton as a non-threat. Seeing as we were on a ship deck, someone came up with the idea of "trip it and knock it overboard." I formalized this as a Trick vs. the skeleton; mere success would only drop its Parry, but a raise would knock it overboard if it was within 1" of the edge. Pushes would work as well, but since the crew had Dirty Fighting, and I allowed Gang-Up bonuses to apply to this particular tactic, it worked rather well. Players then busied themselves with finding ways to take on several skeletons at once (rolling barrels, dropping nets, swinging on a sweeping yard-arm and telling everyone else to duck, etc.). And best of all ... skeletons don't float!

At first, the battle seemed hopeless, but once the heroes started trying to come up with ideas outside the box of "I roll to hit it, I roll damage," they made the best of it.
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[amerigoV]

These are not unkillable, but I did add some extras along the lines you are thinking:

http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/savage-ravenloft/characters/78111


(note: someone else made the basic variants - I added the random effect when you hit them)
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[VonDan]

In one of my story settings you can dismember a troll and it keeps going unless burn the pieces. A pile of parts can reassemble and regenerate sometimes in amusing ways like when the hero dumps the pieces of four trolls in a garbage bin


Do that with Zombies and Skelitons if two fall "dead" in pieces next to each other
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[Snate56]

I could see hacking away at these things until you're standing in a swarm template.





SteveN
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[DGMiller]