Read my username. If you are my players, you know who you are. Get off the DMs only forums.
Premise: It's the darkest night of the winter solstice. Holed up in a remote hunting lodge, the party must keep the Holy Flame burning while besieged by undead, aberrations, and cultists. Should the Flame be snuffed before dawn, the cultists will succeed in their ritual to call forth a sinister entity from beyond the stars.
I have a basic lineup of enemies with stats tweaked to accommodate hordes, and two minibosses so far. I've taken inspiration from games like Resident Evil, CoD zombies, and Splatterhouse, but I wanted to reach out to this awesome community for input and ideas for the following:
Gnarly enemies my players can paint the walls red with, published or homebrewed.
Bosses. So far I've got a huge gibbering mouther with faster speed, and a false hydra that spider climbs with eight hands.
Stashed loot, defenses, and player-friendly traps themed for the one shot. The lodge was owned by a mysterious order of clerics who spent decades preparing for this night.
NPC allies. The action economy will be stacked laughably high against my players even if all of them show. A weaker character who could lend a crossbow from the 2nd story window or sling a few healing words would let my players stray a bit from the Holy Flame.
Special wave events. So far I've got a cultist raid under the cover of rolling fog, zombie miner dwarves that tunnel up in the center courtyard, and a bloated ogre zombie that explodes into 10d6 swarms of parasitic worms on death.
Don't worry too much about player resources. Players can spend time between waves resting by the Holy Flame to heal up and restore several spell slots/class features, so they'll be juiced up for whatever madness-made-flesh shambles into the light of their torches next.
Thanks. I made a mistake overlooking these guys because of their higher CR and health. I'll definitely add The Lonely as a rarer enemy for the niche of pulling players away from tactical positions.
It may not be appropriate if the party is just holed up in a cavern to survive waves of enemies, but if you can motivate them to cross a stretch of terrain I like the idea of having hidden “traps” of undead that try to snag or even drag under PCs as they flee or just stay ahead of pursuing monsters. I remember this sort of experience while playing Sekiro during a creepy haunted hamlet and I loved the added complication this caused. Just trying to get from A to B suddenly became really complicated and the placement of the hazards made me look at the terrain completely differently to find alternate routes I normally wouldn’t take or methods of movement I’d have otherwise avoided.
I've already sold my players on the wave survival premise and made a digital map, but now that you mention it, I could make the final act a chase sequence where the party flees from a massive Lovecraftian horror after it tears the roof off the hunting lodge. Perhaps make them run through some infested woodlands rife with difficult terrain and rising undead with only the crimson break of dawn to light their way.
Wave Survival becomes significantly more of a challenge if you add a more focussed premise to it!
rather than "you're in the cottage in the woods, there is a horde of zombies trying to get in!" consider:
a larger building - like a tavern, with multiple floors, multiple entrances, and a cellar.
NPCs who need defending, such as tavern patrons.
a focal point for the horde - an archaeologist rushes in and says "bar the doors, they're coming!", turns out they have an artefact which will awaken a lich-king if the horde gets their hands on it. Now the horde is trying to get in to grab the artefact and get out, making it much more of a dynamic fight! Where do they put the artefact? What do they do if a zombie grabs it?
Have more entrances than there are players. If you have 5 players, have a front door, side door, back door, second floor stairs door, basement door, and windows. Make them split up and try to communicate!
Consider creepy horror - when they leave a room, change the room behind them. If they leave the basement, when they go back it's a labyrinth. They leave a cupboard and then zombies come out later, now it's a doorway to the roof.
your False Hydra is a creepy monster, but not for a wave-based fight. Their main thing is slowly changing a place as people forget each other. Their horror is a slow, drawn-out and tense thing, not a "you fight it, it's creepy" sort of thing. If you want creepy to fight monsters, pick out Shadows and the like, to make players realise that they could actually die here.
For super creepy stuff, a few things I've considered are:
letting monsters disappear. If you lose sight of a monster, mark its last known position and note down how far it can move from there each turn. When they go back to the monster, it disappears and has moved somewhere else (more for games in reality rather than online)
use more special attacks - pushing the PCs over, grappling them, these are the things that spoil their plans and make them think laterally. Just having 6 zombies swing at the guy stood in the doorway to take the hits is going to play into their plans - players should feel like they're on the defensive here, reacting to situations rather than orchestrating them.
I've already gotten most of your points down. The hunting lodge is very spacious for the expected party of 3-4; there are two floors, entrances on all four sides, and the building surrounds a 60x60 foot central courtyard where enemies can burrow up from. I should have done a better job describing the environment in my post, but at least I know I got something right.
Like I said in my post, the players must defend a Holy Flame which monsters will attack if it's left unguarded. But now that you mentioned the idea of an artifact, it'd be more fun if it burned on a movable torch that zombies and cultists try to steal.
I've been having second thoughts about my false hydra variant, but your points about creepiness and special attacks have got me thinking: It's supposed to be a smaller, smarter variant with limbs summoned by the cultists, so I'll give it the aim of sabotaging the defenders whilst hidden by blindsong (open windows, disable traps, lock players as they walk into rooms, etc). Perhaps it will be revealed during the supposed safety of downtime when players investigate too closely what at first seems like a classic poltergeist. I'll think of some magic item they could obtain to counteract its blindsong.
Overall, this is the kind of community input I was hoping for. Thank you.
You should probably add an inspired event from resident evil 8, have a few NPCs be stationed inside with them and one could turn into some entity affecting the others one by one to the point you have to break out or fight each one. Maybe like a normal zombie, or a revenant. Something interesting could also be a werewolf.
*make a uss(umbrella security service) like enemy team that is roughly equil like the party's pc's. they meet on multiple occasions before taking them out completly.
*let one, more or all members infected with a virus and the anti-virus is somewhere in the house.
*this one is a dark one! let one of the PC's get infected, die mutate and become a bbeg(mabe talk to the player before hand)
than after they kill the bbeg the mutation breaks from the body and the pc is back in normal health.( mabe give it an boon or ability bonus for its efford)
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Read my username. If you are my players, you know who you are. Get off the DMs only forums.
Premise: It's the darkest night of the winter solstice. Holed up in a remote hunting lodge, the party must keep the Holy Flame burning while besieged by undead, aberrations, and cultists. Should the Flame be snuffed before dawn, the cultists will succeed in their ritual to call forth a sinister entity from beyond the stars.
I have a basic lineup of enemies with stats tweaked to accommodate hordes, and two minibosses so far. I've taken inspiration from games like Resident Evil, CoD zombies, and Splatterhouse, but I wanted to reach out to this awesome community for input and ideas for the following:
Don't worry too much about player resources. Players can spend time between waves resting by the Holy Flame to heal up and restore several spell slots/class features, so they'll be juiced up for whatever madness-made-flesh shambles into the light of their torches next.
I'd look up all of the Sorrowsworn enemies. They have very different and fun thematic statblocks, and all are delightfully creepy.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Thanks. I made a mistake overlooking these guys because of their higher CR and health. I'll definitely add The Lonely as a rarer enemy for the niche of pulling players away from tactical positions.
It may not be appropriate if the party is just holed up in a cavern to survive waves of enemies, but if you can motivate them to cross a stretch of terrain I like the idea of having hidden “traps” of undead that try to snag or even drag under PCs as they flee or just stay ahead of pursuing monsters. I remember this sort of experience while playing Sekiro during a creepy haunted hamlet and I loved the added complication this caused. Just trying to get from A to B suddenly became really complicated and the placement of the hazards made me look at the terrain completely differently to find alternate routes I normally wouldn’t take or methods of movement I’d have otherwise avoided.
Take the basic zombie and reduce their hp to 1. This emulates the "minion" mechanic from 4e.
I've already sold my players on the wave survival premise and made a digital map, but now that you mention it, I could make the final act a chase sequence where the party flees from a massive Lovecraftian horror after it tears the roof off the hunting lodge. Perhaps make them run through some infested woodlands rife with difficult terrain and rising undead with only the crimson break of dawn to light their way.
Wave Survival becomes significantly more of a challenge if you add a more focussed premise to it!
rather than "you're in the cottage in the woods, there is a horde of zombies trying to get in!" consider:
For super creepy stuff, a few things I've considered are:
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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I've already gotten most of your points down. The hunting lodge is very spacious for the expected party of 3-4; there are two floors, entrances on all four sides, and the building surrounds a 60x60 foot central courtyard where enemies can burrow up from. I should have done a better job describing the environment in my post, but at least I know I got something right.
Like I said in my post, the players must defend a Holy Flame which monsters will attack if it's left unguarded. But now that you mentioned the idea of an artifact, it'd be more fun if it burned on a movable torch that zombies and cultists try to steal.
I've been having second thoughts about my false hydra variant, but your points about creepiness and special attacks have got me thinking: It's supposed to be a smaller, smarter variant with limbs summoned by the cultists, so I'll give it the aim of sabotaging the defenders whilst hidden by blindsong (open windows, disable traps, lock players as they walk into rooms, etc). Perhaps it will be revealed during the supposed safety of downtime when players investigate too closely what at first seems like a classic poltergeist. I'll think of some magic item they could obtain to counteract its blindsong.
Overall, this is the kind of community input I was hoping for. Thank you.
You should probably add an inspired event from resident evil 8, have a few NPCs be stationed inside with them and one could turn into some entity affecting the others one by one to the point you have to break out or fight each one. Maybe like a normal zombie, or a revenant. Something interesting could also be a werewolf.
so i cosplay resident evil and i love the idea.
so some Quick suggestions:
*make a uss(umbrella security service) like enemy team that is roughly equil like the party's pc's.
they meet on multiple occasions before taking them out completly.
*let one, more or all members infected with a virus and the anti-virus is somewhere in the house.
*this one is a dark one! let one of the PC's get infected, die mutate and become a bbeg(mabe talk to the player before hand)
than after they kill the bbeg the mutation breaks from the body and the pc is back in normal health.( mabe give it an boon or ability bonus for its efford)