Hello! I am working on a new campaign for my buddies and I; however, I am a little stuck. I want to run this campaign is a classic, high-fantasy, vanilla D&D 5e homebrew world. My only issue is working out the kinks to allow for a post-apocalyptic world. Lore wise, an old necrotic wizard from a long time ago has mysteriously risen and seeks to make the world pay for banishing him. Hence, he spread an infection to destroy all life.
Here are some things I need help with: -Figuring out how my players won't easily blast through the infected with things such as Eldritch Smite/blast and such. -How to implement scavenging through exploration -Balancing for a fun yet challenging experience
The best way I can describe this is The Last of Us meets Dungeons and Dragons. Anyone able to help?
I had some scavenging rules i used for my Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaign where the players had no starting equipment and had to find their own weapons. It mostly pertained to low levels, but normal quality weapons were hard to come by, and most of the weapons dropped by enemies had the Rusty property. When you pick up a Rusty weapon, essentially, you roll a d4, and the result is how many times you can roll a critical failure with the weapon until it breaks.
As for keeping your players from blasting through enemies easily, I think in the zombie apocalypse scenario it's all about numbers. If the zombies have taken over, you're not facing CR level appropriate challenges, you're facing an overwhelming hoard of sheer numbers of individually weak enemies. The challenge should lie in avoiding combat where you can, judging where it's necessary, and flat out surviving.
-Figuring out how my players won't easily blast through the infected with things such as Eldritch Smite/blast and such.
I mean, to start with, i don't see how this is particularly a problem. In a zombie survival game, the group must train itself to be able to move through areas that might be densely populated without causing a lot of ruckus. A few good prohibitive spells might get them through that, a surge of eldritch blast that misses it's target or blasts through it might plow into a wall or shoot off into the sky like goku firing a kamehameha, and thus everyone now has to deal with triple the zombies. OR, the wizard bbeg that you are putting into place notices that zombies are being thinned out in the location and sees a lot of force blasts, and adapts his zombies to be resistant to such an energy source? I think there are a few ways to go about it
-How to implement scavenging through exploration
Zombies won't be proper loot-pinata's anyways, so the group will have to get resourceful. If it's a recent apocalypse, then there are probably lockboxes, safes, vaults at random stores, etc.. where there haven't been break-ins yet. If it's an older event at this point where the landscape that the party is living in has existed for a few months or years, then they'll know to go off the beaten path to find the best of the supplies left as major cities have been looted for most of the better supplies.
-Balancing for a fun yet challenging experience
Best served waiting for your group to decide on classes. you want some minions that each class can blast through, and some minions that they struggle with. I think you have to home brew your enemies to some degree when it comes to scaling your enemies to properly meet the party's demands. You'll also just have to adapt to how they want to progress through the scenario. If they want to travel and look for things rather than fight, then you accommodate them with more searchable locations. If they are trying to make the zombies extinct, then you provide places that have recently gone 'dark' that used to be shelters. And you make some of the zombies smart enough to go in various directions and infect things, presenting a high danger target that they might sometimes run into. for example, a regular zombie has it's normal appearance and 22 hp. If the group has a lot of melee damage output, maybe an influx of grey zombies come into play that have an AC of 14 or 15 as their constitution has been enhanced by the wizard. or maybe a bloated zombie that is large and explodes on death causing damage. you present interesting variations on the zombies and you create a world where scouting is just as important as the loadout that the players have equipment wise or spell wise.
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Hello! I am working on a new campaign for my buddies and I; however, I am a little stuck. I want to run this campaign is a classic, high-fantasy, vanilla D&D 5e homebrew world. My only issue is working out the kinks to allow for a post-apocalyptic world. Lore wise, an old necrotic wizard from a long time ago has mysteriously risen and seeks to make the world pay for banishing him. Hence, he spread an infection to destroy all life.
Here are some things I need help with:
-Figuring out how my players won't easily blast through the infected with things such as Eldritch Smite/blast and such.
-How to implement scavenging through exploration
-Balancing for a fun yet challenging experience
The best way I can describe this is The Last of Us meets Dungeons and Dragons. Anyone able to help?
I had some scavenging rules i used for my Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaign where the players had no starting equipment and had to find their own weapons. It mostly pertained to low levels, but normal quality weapons were hard to come by, and most of the weapons dropped by enemies had the Rusty property. When you pick up a Rusty weapon, essentially, you roll a d4, and the result is how many times you can roll a critical failure with the weapon until it breaks.
As for keeping your players from blasting through enemies easily, I think in the zombie apocalypse scenario it's all about numbers. If the zombies have taken over, you're not facing CR level appropriate challenges, you're facing an overwhelming hoard of sheer numbers of individually weak enemies. The challenge should lie in avoiding combat where you can, judging where it's necessary, and flat out surviving.
What level range are you interested in? Survival-type games work best for level 1-5.
-Figuring out how my players won't easily blast through the infected with things such as Eldritch Smite/blast and such.
I mean, to start with, i don't see how this is particularly a problem. In a zombie survival game, the group must train itself to be able to move through areas that might be densely populated without causing a lot of ruckus. A few good prohibitive spells might get them through that, a surge of eldritch blast that misses it's target or blasts through it might plow into a wall or shoot off into the sky like goku firing a kamehameha, and thus everyone now has to deal with triple the zombies. OR, the wizard bbeg that you are putting into place notices that zombies are being thinned out in the location and sees a lot of force blasts, and adapts his zombies to be resistant to such an energy source? I think there are a few ways to go about it
-How to implement scavenging through exploration
Zombies won't be proper loot-pinata's anyways, so the group will have to get resourceful. If it's a recent apocalypse, then there are probably lockboxes, safes, vaults at random stores, etc.. where there haven't been break-ins yet. If it's an older event at this point where the landscape that the party is living in has existed for a few months or years, then they'll know to go off the beaten path to find the best of the supplies left as major cities have been looted for most of the better supplies.
-Balancing for a fun yet challenging experience
Best served waiting for your group to decide on classes. you want some minions that each class can blast through, and some minions that they struggle with. I think you have to home brew your enemies to some degree when it comes to scaling your enemies to properly meet the party's demands. You'll also just have to adapt to how they want to progress through the scenario. If they want to travel and look for things rather than fight, then you accommodate them with more searchable locations. If they are trying to make the zombies extinct, then you provide places that have recently gone 'dark' that used to be shelters. And you make some of the zombies smart enough to go in various directions and infect things, presenting a high danger target that they might sometimes run into. for example, a regular zombie has it's normal appearance and 22 hp. If the group has a lot of melee damage output, maybe an influx of grey zombies come into play that have an AC of 14 or 15 as their constitution has been enhanced by the wizard. or maybe a bloated zombie that is large and explodes on death causing damage. you present interesting variations on the zombies and you create a world where scouting is just as important as the loadout that the players have equipment wise or spell wise.