Help Me Make a 5E Zombie One Shot

[Reynard]

I am introducing a friend to Fantasy Grounds and have decided a zombie outbreak game would be a good way to do so. I toyed with using Savage Worlds but decided for various reasons that I want to use 5E (one of those reasons is that the 5E automation on FG is top notch). I picked up the absolutely wonderful Big Book of Zombies from the DMs Guild, so I have plent of opposition to use, but now I am trying to figure out the structure it will take.

We are playing for 4 or 5 hours max, and that will include explaining FG and dealing with inevitable technical issues, so the adventure should not be terribly long. I want it to feel more like say Left for Dead than say The Walking Dead -- higher octane and desperate running battles rather than jump scares and existential crises. I will probably end up having four players at the "table" with most of them being from familiar to expert with 5E.

What level would you set such a game at? What would you use as a premise? Would you nerf clerics by making the zombies "infected" or let clerics shine however briefly before they run out of juice? Would you make it an escape, a dungeon crawl, a quest or something else?

Thanks!

 

[aco175]

You can try a rescue mission from a prison or town taken over. You can allude to a larger problem in the region, but time constraints you a team mission to rescue the princess or apprentice mage who holds to notebook on how to cure the problem. The PCs need to try and sneak into the area to find the person and bring them back out. You can have environmental obstacles as well as direct fights. Perhaps there is a bridge the PCs can destroy after they cross or a building they can shoot a rope over to the next balcony.

 

[Stalker0]

Definitely would go with 1st level if you want that true "survivalist" feeling. The players have some good tricks under their belt but they are still pretty vulnerable to zombies.

A key question is, if a zombie successfully attacks you, are you allowing for a save....or is it....sorry my man your toast.

 

[Reynard]

Definitely would go with 1st level if you want that true "survivalist" feeling. The players have some good tricks under their belt but they are still pretty vulnerable to zombies.

A key question is, if a zombie successfully attacks you, are you allowing for a save....or is it....sorry my man your toast.

I haven't even decided if it is contagious. I was leaning toward a sudden event (someone set off the necrobomb, whatever) from which the PCs were protected (maybe they were in mid dungeon when it happened in town and were out of range).

 

[DQDesign]

What about running Chapter 2 of good ol' "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft" module? It is a real classic in 'horror village zombie incursion'!

https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/54340

 

[Quickleaf]

What level would you set such a game at? What would you use as a premise? Would you nerf clerics by making the zombies "infected" or let clerics shine however briefly before they run out of juice? Would you make it an escape, a dungeon crawl, a quest or something else?

Good question. I've been running Tomb of Annihilation, and there have been plenty of zombie encounters. What I realized very quickly is that the real excitement in facing zombies is not in the mechanics of the combat, but in the overall scenario in which they're encountered. In other words, I started thinking of zombies as hazards/puzzles to be overcome, more than just monsters to defeat.

Here are a couple examples from my game...

Yellow Musk Zombies & Cannibals with Pit Traps. Already familiar with zombies, PCs encountered a ruined elven treehouse village with zombies milling around below. These zombies were different, however, with roots growing over them and yellow flowers blossoming from their heads. Zombie-eating cannibals lurked in the treehouse above, and they preferentially ate yellow musk zombies for their intoxicating effect; thus the cannibals lived in a sort of "truce" with the yellow musk creeper which they treated kinda like Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors. The cannibals set up pit traps around the area to make zombie harvesting easy. The PCs were nearly overwhelmed, but upon discovering the pit traps were able to turn those against the stupid zombies which shambled right into the pits. Also led to some interesting role-play with the cannibals.

Zombie Mirror of Horror. PCs were at a mirror puzzle-door at a temple at the top of a waterfall. Once the PCs assembled the mirror shards, zombie versions of all creatures reflected in the mirror began pouring forth. Only way to open the puzzle-door was to leap through the mirror which acted as a portal to the Border Ethereal plane, so half group held zombies at bay (I had fun describing zombies appearing like certain PCs/NPCs) while other half slipped through the mirror. The ones on the Ethereal encountered a distance-distorted misty hall full of shambling zombies (with some zombies looking like their ancestors or deceased loved ones), and at the far end of the hall was a black-and-white glowing handprint where the puzzle-door would be on the Material Plane. Getting past the zombies and touching the handprint opened the puzzle-door & stopped the zombie incursion into the Material Plane. It made for a creepy fun little puzzle.

Past Adventurers in a Magic Pit. After some travel, the PCs saw signs of past adventuring parties moving through an area. They were invited to a stork-man (eblis) village. While enjoying a "trade feast" hosted by eccentric eblis, some of the PCs got curious/greedy about the treasure the eblis chieftain kept hinting at. Half the party was escorted to examine the treasure in an ancient dying hollow "tub tub tree" which creaked like groaning zombies in the wind. The floor was enchanted to dissolve upon a certain command word being spoken, which the eblis chieftain tricked the PCs into saying. They fell 40-feet into a pit full of zombies of past foolish adventurers, with their fingers worn to the bone from trying to crawl out. One PC even fell on a zombie! Half the zombies had their eyes pecked out by eblis – which would make them immune to the eblis' innate hypnotic pattern spell. It would have been brutal, but thanks to a fast-thinking player casting darkness at the entrance where the eblis were, they were able to escape with their lives (and some loot).

To answer some of your specific questions...

What level would you set such a game at? What would you use as a premise? Would you nerf clerics by making the zombies "infected" or let clerics shine however briefly before they run out of juice? Would you make it an escape, a dungeon crawl, a quest or something else?

If it's a one-shot? 3rd-level is usually what I do for one-shots with mostly experienced players.

For premise, I'd suggest something simple for a one-shot (e.g. find/stop the necromancer), and then introduce a single twist (e.g. the necromancer is sympathetic and has simply lost control of his magic).

No, I wouldn't nerf clerics. Let them enjoy Turn Undead. Design a scenario which accounts for this by presenting an opportunity cost (e.g. another plot-specific use for Channel Divinity) or multiple encounters before having the option to short rest (e.g. a time-sensitive quest).

It can be any of the above, but I'd tightly define the party's quest, and start them right in the action. No meeting in a tavern, buying supplies in town, questioning the quest-giver. Start them right in the action. A tense search through a market breaking out into a chase or a fight is a good bet.

 

[Reynard]

After some ruminating on the subject, i decided this is going to be my basic structure:

2nd level PCs. I want to go through character generation and one level up with the players new to Fantasy Grounds. I am actually going to do XP and treasure parcels from the adventure they went on (see below) so they can see that process too.

The plot is this: the PCs were first level adventurers that found the dungeon, went down there, fought some monsters and came back with some treasure. they proceeded to sell their gains and party the night away as PCs are wont to do. Some of them will be in the Inn and a couple of them will be in the drunk tank in the guard station. As an aside, I am using the basic aesthetic and late medieval/Renaissance feel of Darkest Dungeon.

It turns out one of the items they brought back from the dungeon was cursed and over night it transformed most of the townsfolk into the walking dead! I am going the "Left For Dead" route where most of them are low power zombies (even weaker than the standard ones) with a few rare and special more powerful undead. The PCs have to either escape, or preferably retrieve the cursed item and return it to the dungeon in order to end the zombie plague.

I am on the fence about starting at 3rd level for toughness and capability, but restricting rests. Thoughts?

 

[Bupp]

Check out this article.
http://dungeonsmaster.com/2011/10/7-tips-zombie-campaign/

I've run Dead by Dawn, an adventure for 4e that I converted for 5e. A flying shipborne campaign I set it in a monastery on a remote floating island that the characters needed something from. It's a classic defend the building from the zombie horde and survive until morning scenario. Dungeon Magazine issue #176. It's on DMs Guild, but they are down for maintenance, so I can't get a link right now.

I started the Town of Bridgepuddle with a friend playing by email. You can find it here on EnWorld.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1060
It's been sputtering, so we haven't gotten to the fun bits yet. Bridgepuddle is an edge of the wilderness town that a zombie outbreak happens in sometime after the characters arrive and have had a chance to explore and get to know the town. Very much a sandbox.

 

[Quickleaf]

<snip>

It turns out one of the items they brought back from the dungeon was cursed and over night it transformed most of the townsfolk into the walking dead! I am going the "Left For Dead" route where most of them are low power zombies (even weaker than the standard ones) with a few rare and special more powerful undead. The PCs have to either escape, or preferably retrieve the cursed item and return it to the dungeon in order to end the zombie plague.

I am on the fence about starting at 3rd level for toughness and capability, but restricting rests. Thoughts?

If you're looking for lower power zombies, this might interest you...

During our game, my players recovered a McGuffin and performed a ritual weakening all zombies in the world. Essentially, it stripped the zombies of their hit points, reduced their Constitution to 10, and modified their Undead Fortitude trait...

Undead Fortitude. The zombie is destroyed if it takes radiant damage or suffers a critical hit.* Otherwise, it makes a Constitution saving throw with a DC equal to the damage taken; if it fails, it is destroyed, if it succeeds, it is unharmed.

This probably reduces them to CR 1/8 creatures, but it's hard to say with any degree of precision, since according to the DMG monster maths, the MM zombie should be CR 1/2 not CR 1/4. Anyway you slice it, this version is less powerful. As a bonus, it requires less bookkeeping in case you want to run a zombie horde and not worry about tracking hit points.

*EDIT: Forgot to mention that when I was coming up with this, I'd considered adding an additional destruction condition – if the zombie takes 22 damage or more from a single hit or effect. Ultimately, I opted not to incorporate that, but I definitely considered it.

 

[Leatherhead]

So, here is my generic advice about zombie filled low level encounters:

If your party doesn't have Radiant Damage, Undead Fortitude is going to wreck their day. For the most extreme example, I can remember my group's first Zombie encounter in 5e. We had handily "won" the encounter, because the zombies were all trapped at the bottom of a well. But we couldn't just leave them there. As a consequence of this, we spent entirely all too long just shooting them like fish in a barrel until they died. It was a horrible slog.

Consider changing it to something like this:

Regeneration:
The Zombie regains 1 hit point every round. If the Zombie takes acid, fire, or radiant damage, or is hit by a critical hit, this trait doesn’t function at the start of the Zombie’s next turn. The Zombie is destroyed only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn’t regenerate. A Zombie that has been reduced to 0 hit points, but isn't yet destroyed, is paralyzed until they regain one hit point.

You can (and should) edit the damage types as necessary, depending on what kind of casters you have in the party. Though I have to say a party furiously defending and managing their torches as the only way to be safe from an undead horde really plays up the horror aspect.
What I like most about this mechanic is that it makes zombies more consistent, and it plays up on the old "Double-Tap to make sure they are dead" trope.

My less generic bit of advice: If you are looking for a "Super-Zombie" to lead the horde, consider a Spawn of Kyuss (from Volo's Guide to Monsters). It's a zombie, that makes more zombies. Though you would have to nerf it's Burrowing Worm to make normal zombies.