Undead recommendation

[Sammael99]

Thanks a lot !

Thanks guys ! Lotsa good ideas ! I think I'll rely on Zombie templates mainly and maybe a slightly higher level critter, or a couple of Shadows.

The group already encountered a few ghouls in some old tunnels recently, so I wanna go for variety

Again, mucho thanks !

 

[Happiest_Sadist]

Monte's ghoul template allows Ghouls with class levels. A few normal ghouls (possibly some mostrous humanoids) and sticking the template on the spellcasters could be nice.

 

[Sammael99]

Decisions, decisions

OK, I've given the matter some thought and decided on the encounter. The "shrine" is on the outskirts of a city, posing as a shrine to Mortis, LN god of Death (but very few active worshippers, which is how the subterfuge can work) but is in fact a secret temple of Evancthe, the NE god of Undeath. The characters have learned that the temple has recently purchased slaves amongst which there may be a friend of theirs that they want to rescue. That should make them suspicious of the temple even though there's little outward evidence of wrong.

The encounter is likely to happen in two steps :

a/ on the surface, if they're suspicious enough to start a fight, they will face a Cleric 5 and his "acolyte", a leprous ogre who is in fact a Zombie Ogre designed with the WotC template. Here are the stats for whoever is interested :

HD 8d12 +3 (55 hp)
Init -2 (Dex)
Speed 30 ft
AC 15 (-1 Sz, -2 Dex, +5 nat, +3 hide)
Atk Slam +10
Dmg Slam 1d8+9
SQ Partial actions only
SV Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +6
Abilities STR 23, Dex 6, Con -, Int -, Wis 10, Cha 1)
Feats Toughness

b/ once they've defeated these, or if they come back at night (in case they will face this welcome party together with the rest), they may find a secret passage to the real shrine below, protected with an Alarm spell.

Down below they will find a Wizard 5, and Conjuror 3 and a 8 human zombies.

Considering the average party level is 5 and the party has three members, and also considering this will likely be their first fight for a while, so I want it to be tough, do you guys think they can pull it off ? I'm willing to face one character death, but wouldn't want to wipe them out...

 

[Schmoe]

Re: Decisions, decisions

Down below they will find a Wizard 5, and Conjuror 3 and a 8 human zombies.

Considering the average party level is 5 and the party has three members, and also considering this will likely be their first fight for a while, so I want it to be tough, do you guys think they can pull it off ? I'm willing to face one character death, but wouldn't want to wipe them out...

Well, it will be a challenge, but it won't be that tough. Consider that, on average, the cleric in your party will destroy 6 of the zombies on the first round. That leaves your party to face the wizard 5, conjurer 3, and two zombies. You could probably add another 4-5 zombies without increasing the difficulty too much. All it would do is occupy the cleric for one more round, while the other two characters in your party are left to deal with the mages. So basically you have:

1) Cleric vs. 12 zombies
2) 5th level character vs. wizard 5
3) 5th level character vs. conjurer 3

If your other two characters can survive for the first two rounds, they should definitely win the combat.

 

[Sammael99]

Re: Re: Decisions, decisions

Well, it will be a challenge, but it won't be that tough. Consider that, on average, the cleric in your party will destroy 6 of the zombies on the first round.

Ah. I forgot to mention one thing : there is no cleric in the party : the party consists of

one wizard level 5
one druid level 5
one fighter level 4

Does that make it too tough ?

 

[Mystic Eye]

If you want to freak out your put them up against a unique zombie. Perhaps something strange occurred in its creation, but the zombie retains some of its previous memories and abilities. In other words, a zombie with class levels.

We have several really fantastic undead in both of our creature books that will throw players for a loop. In Nightmares & Dreams II we have uniques zombie template as well.

If you are in your local hobby store pick it up and take a gander. You may find what you are after.

 

[Kesh]

We have several really fantastic undead in both of our creature books that will throw players for a loop. In Nightmares & Dreams II we have uniques zombie template as well.

If you are in your local hobby store pick it up and take a gander. You may find what you are after.

Well, if I had a local game store, I would.

I'll look around at reviews and such though. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Mystic Eye]

If you visit our site you can find a list of reviews down the page on the left hand side from several different sources. That may help ya.

 

[UofMDude]

Ghouls and Ghasts both do paralysis. A bunch of them can just wipe out a whole party.

I was in a group of four fourth level characters and four ghouls wiped us out within two or three rounds.

It didn't help that the DM forgot my character had a shield spell going (otherwise I wouldn't have been hit) but basically, paralysis can be insta-kill.

Were you in a campaign other than the one I ran? Because I don't recall saying that you shouldn't have been hit. I recall saying that I forgot your shield spell was going and maybe you shouldn't have been hit (I rolled a 20 to hit that round but it may have been on the other player).

It also didn't help that the party used stupid tactics and pretty much deserved to die after rolling less than 7 for each of their Fort saves.

But the point is that any creature that gets 3 attacks a round and can do paralysis on each one (even though the DC is somewhat low) can just wipe out a party in a hurry if they get lucky (or the party gets unlucky depending on which way you want to look at it). Use with caution

UofMDude

 

[Hypersmurf]

When my party was around 3rd-4th level, I had them taking on a lot of undead (courtesy of an evil relic they were carrying around).

The cleric tended to nuke skeletons and zombies with his turning attempts, unless I severely swamped them with numbers.

Once they got into the Temple they were headed for, I suped them up somewhat by modifying the old 1E Monster Manual II "Juju Zombie", and making both Zombie and Skeleton variants.

The Zombies took half damage from piercing and bludgeoning weapons, the Skeletons from piercing and slashing. Both had something like DR 10/silver. (Because they'd fought some lycanthropes earlier, the party had a lot of silver - but most of it was piercing, so they were still doing half damage )

Because these undead were intelligent, they used tactics instead of the mindless hack-hack of the ordinary S&Zs, and the zombies didn't have the usual partial action restriction.

Oh, and more hit dice, and more damage per attack

What I found was that the party could handle them... but they had quite a few people go negative, a couple of skin-of-the-teeth escapes, and generally ended up with a healthy respect for undead... without having to contend with potentially overpowering abilities like paralysis or level drain. (I saved the wights for the final encounter )

-Hyp.