Dwarf vs Zombies: A Series of Contrived Fights (Now with orcs!)

Well, I have no problem with Zombie's being easy to hit, but I would think something like damage reduction would work better for them.

Yeah, they need some resistances. Maybe against piercing (stabbing a zombie?!) and bludgeoning. You need to hack them apart to kill them effectively. Unfortunately that doesn't change the results of the experiment, since the dwarf is doing slashing damage already.

They could maybe even be immune to piercing damage, except maybe on a crit. (Headshot! :)

To my taste, pretty much all undead need more hit points. Those buggers should be scary and hard to put down.
 

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This is some really smart playtesting, as you are basically maxing out the potential of a Fighter as it stands right now in the rules to see what it is capable of. The game needs good data on what happens on maxed out and min-ed out characters will do in average fights, so that WotC can really see just how "bounded" their accuracy needs to be. It also helps them get a better idea of what the XP levels for their various monsters should be. Because looking at the numbers... the Zombie does not appear to be worth a Level 2 monster, or worth 200 XP.

I'd be curious to see you run these tests again with a monster that is of an equivalent XP value to see what happens. Looking at the bestiary, I suspect however that the zombie's XP value is incorrect, because at 200 XP for a Level 2 threat... it equals a 200 XP Level 5 threat in the Dark Adept. Which seems off. Maybe try the dwarf versus a Dire Rat too (at 210 XP).

Last word on the Zombie... the Ponderous trait and the fairly bad to hit and damage die are not offset by the so-called advantages gained by the two immunities (to charm and fear) and the 2nd hit die. If those immunities are worth a certain number of XP in the background math for determining value... WotC needs to recalculate. Because immunities to "energy types" (for lack of a better designation) are some of the easiest for parties to get around. They really only affect the Wizard (as none of the other classes will usually have attacks that deal in charm or fear or cold etc. etc.) and thus it just means the Wizard switches over to Magic Missile spam for the duration of the fight. And immunities that never come into play are not actual advantages for a monster (and thus worth more XP).

At least the Skeleton gains resistance to two of the three weapon damage types... which to me seems like an actual advantage worth more XP because those will actually pop up during most fights against all types of parties. The Zombie seems woefully underpowered in comparison (although I haven't tested them with the new packet, only the old one).

I do think that Zombie is perhaps one of the monsters worth adding into that more easily adjudicated new type of "large group" or "swarming" rules they had talked about potentially coming up with for certain monsters (when the regular rat pile monsters were discussed from CoC). That might make the Zombie a more worthwhile creature.
 

The possibility of losing initiative only occurs 5% of the time as the dwarf must roll a 1. Then divide those odds by 6 for the 1 in 6 chance a 6 (-2 = 4) is rolled by the zombies.
  • The Dwarf loses 0.8333% of the time on initiative.
Against AC:8 with a +6 attack bonus. He needs to roll a 1 again.
  • The Dwarf misses 5% of the time
The average Zombie Hit Points are 9. The Dwarf does 3d6+3 damage. Subtracting 3 a 6 or higher is needed on 3d6 to destroy an average zombie.
  • The Dwarf's damage 4.63% of the time does NOT destroy a zombie.
For the zombie to attack it must reach the Dwarf with its 20' speed compared to the dwarf's 25'. If the zombie reaches the dwarf, it needs a 14 or better to hit.
If the zombie hits, it only does 1d4+2 bludgeoning to the Dwarf with 18 Hit Points.

Conclusion:
3 zombies have a 1.5625% chance of killing this dwarf asleep in the buff and only if they all hit. In all other cases: the god of zombies hates his followers.
 

the god of zombies hates his followers.
I think the God of zombies told his followers: Go ye unto the promised land, where ye shall have road cones, and metal buckets, and vaulting poles, and newspapers, and screen doors, and football helmets, and snorkels, and mining picks, and floating spheres, and pogo sticks, and springy cords, and all manner of wondrous mounts and fantastic machines.

I'm guessing these are the poor schmucks who didn't listen.
 

At 3rd level, the dwarf gets a big hit point boost due to another Toughness feat:
Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10.
AC 16, HP 41, Hit Dice 3d12 + 2d8
Greataxe: +6 vs. AC, Damage 2d6+1d8+3 or 2d6+3 and Cleave

At 3rd level, the dwarf also gets the Cleave maneuver. For simplicity, I will assume that at the start of the fight, the zombies are standing away from each other, so if the dwarf hits a zombie before he is attacked, he uses his expertise dice to add to damage with Deadly Strike. Once the zombies have attacked the dwarf, he will use his expertise dice to Cleave if he hits and kills a zombie, or to Parry otherwise.

This time round, the dwarf faced three fights of three zombies each. As in the previous fights, luck again favored the zombies, but the dwarf managed to win out in the end.

In the first fight, the dwarf won initiative and killed the first zombie. The two remaining zombies then attacked and both hit him for a total of 10 points of damage. In the next round, however, the dwarf hit and killed the second zombie and used Cleave to attack the last zombie, also killing it.

The dwarf then took a short rest, spending his d8 Hit Dice to regain 6 hit points.

The second fight was pretty much the same as the first, except that only one zombie hit the dwarf, dealing 6 points of damage. The dwarf won initiative and killed one zombie in the first round, then killed the remaining two in the next round with Cleave.

The dwarf then took a second short rest, spending his second d8 Hit Dice and regaining 9 hit points.

In the third fight, the dwarf won initiative but only dealt 8 points of damage, not enough to kill the first zombie. All three zombies attacked the dwarf and two hit, dealing a total of 10 points of damage. However, the dwarf killed two zombies in the next round with Cleave and the remaining zombie in the following round without taking any more damage.

As mentioned, the zombies were again quite lucky, hitting five times out of eight attacks. On the other hand, the dwarf was also quite lucky as he managed to kill two zombies with each of this three Cleave attempts. Apart from the zombie at 1 hp when it was hit, he needed to roll 6+ on 2d6 for the remaining 5.

The dwarf lost a total of 26 hit points over the three fights, which would not have been enough to kill him even if he had not spent any Hit Dice. Again, an "average" difficulty fight with zombies does not seem very difficult.

With 3,800 XP, the dwarf is now 4th level. To make 5th level, he now needs to defeat 21 zombies. I'm going to split this up into four fights of four zombies and one fight of five zombies. Although three zombies is still considered an "average" fight (budget of 555 XP) for a 4th-level character, he's been having a rather easy time so far. The fight with 5 zombies will be close to a "tough" fight (budget of 1115 XP), though.
 

Great test, but it's worth noting that you're testing zombies just as much as you're testing dwarf fighters. It's important to have zombies in the game, but I'm not sure that they are a "typical" monster. I would be interested to see how the experiment changes against goblins or orcs.

-KS
 

Let's remember that Eric's Grandmother can read these comments, so certain discussions shouldn't be brought up

-Stalker0
 
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Complete aside, but how should "nain cerveau entrant dans sa propre barbe" be translated? Google translates that to "dwarf brain entering his own beard" ...

Thx!

TOmB

It intended to be something like "dwark brain hors d'oeuvre with his own beard", but look slike google translator failed me.
 

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