New Scenario: Release the Beast

[thanatos]

Muahaha! I got to roll out the Zombie Lord last night, and the heroes suffered their first loss to a beast. I wanted to double-check a couple of the ZL rules, and I wanted to make sure I used The ZL's Zombie Hero summoning appropriately, though. It seems like I did from reading the rules, but I got some really good rolls, so it became fairly devastating by end-game.

From my understanding of the rolls, the ZL can spawn a NEW Zombie Hero on a roll of 4 or higher every turn, randomly pulling from unused heroes and from "permanently dead" player characters, which means that, given enough good rolls and a nasty end-game, the Zombie Lord can actually spawn more Zombie Heroes than there are heroes on the board, right? The last two surviving heroes died on the same turn, but I had spawned 6 zombie heroes by that turn, including the two permanently dead heroes.

Is that right, or(we didn't play it this way) does the zombie lord's successful zombie hero spawn depend on a successful roll to spawn zombies in general, given that autospawn goes away when the ZL comes to play? Or was what I was doing right, but the number of Zombie Heroes is limited to 4 (given that there are only 4 ZH tokens)?

In spite of the stacked odds, the heroes came within one wound of taking out the zombie lord, but they got swarmed very badly. They were sticking together in teams of two to make the inevitable multi-zombie fights less lethal, but that made it much easier to stalk them with the Zombie Heroes, and I managed to defend the buttons well enough between strategic zombie placement and several locked doors that they only got in 4 presses before the beast appeared, and Living Nightmare was in play by then, which meant that all the zombie heroes rolled 4 fight dice despite losing a fight dice to a button press.

Which brings me to my other rules question. This didn't come up, since they only managed to get 4 button presses, but if the heroes manage to hit all 10 buttons, zombie heroes start with 2 wounds...does this mean that any "Youth" zombie heroes are automatically killed?

And, even though the zombies won, I have to ask just because of the chupacabra and the walking inferno's abilities - have you considered allowing the zombie lord some sort of self-heal power, whether it be from directly killing a hero, from his zombie heroes killing a hero, or from voluntarily sacrificing X zombie heroes - perhaps requiring that the sacrificed hero(es) be on the same space? I kind of wonder if it would make him TOO powerful, but if it required sacrificing zombie heroes (especially if it required sacrificing more than one), that might maintain the balance, since it's the zombie heroes that really become the zombie lord's right hand in hunting down the heroes. Maybe if it only required sacrificing one zombie hero, that hero could be removed from the game to further tamp down the zombie lord's power in exchange for prolonging his life.

We have had a blast with every one of the beasts, and my players are clamoring for a rematch with the zombie lord next time we play.

[nitro9090]

(07-21-2011 03:42 PM)thanatos Wrote:  Muahaha! I got to roll out the Zombie Lord last night, and the heroes suffered their first loss to a beast. I wanted to double-check a couple of the ZL rules, and I wanted to make sure I used The ZL's Zombie Hero summoning appropriately, though. It seems like I did from reading the rules, but I got some really good rolls, so it became fairly devastating by end-game.

From my understanding of the rolls, the ZL can spawn a NEW Zombie Hero on a roll of 4 or higher every turn, randomly pulling from unused heroes and from "permanently dead" player characters, which means that, given enough good rolls and a nasty end-game, the Zombie Lord can actually spawn more Zombie Heroes than there are heroes on the board, right? The last two surviving heroes died on the same turn, but I had spawned 6 zombie heroes by that turn, including the two permanently dead heroes.

Is that right, or(we didn't play it this way) does the zombie lord's successful zombie hero spawn depend on a successful roll to spawn zombies in general, given that autospawn goes away when the ZL comes to play? Or was what I was doing right, but the number of Zombie Heroes is limited to 4 (given that there are only 4 ZH tokens)?

In spite of the stacked odds, the heroes came within one wound of taking out the zombie lord, but they got swarmed very badly. They were sticking together in teams of two to make the inevitable multi-zombie fights less lethal, but that made it much easier to stalk them with the Zombie Heroes, and I managed to defend the buttons well enough between strategic zombie placement and several locked doors that they only got in 4 presses before the beast appeared, and Living Nightmare was in play by then, which meant that all the zombie heroes rolled 4 fight dice despite losing a fight dice to a button press.

Which brings me to my other rules question. This didn't come up, since they only managed to get 4 button presses, but if the heroes manage to hit all 10 buttons, zombie heroes start with 2 wounds...does this mean that any "Youth" zombie heroes are automatically killed?

And, even though the zombies won, I have to ask just because of the chupacabra and the walking inferno's abilities - have you considered allowing the zombie lord some sort of self-heal power, whether it be from directly killing a hero, from his zombie heroes killing a hero, or from voluntarily sacrificing X zombie heroes - perhaps requiring that the sacrificed hero(es) be on the same space? I kind of wonder if it would make him TOO powerful, but if it required sacrificing zombie heroes (especially if it required sacrificing more than one), that might maintain the balance, since it's the zombie heroes that really become the zombie lord's right hand in hunting down the heroes. Maybe if it only required sacrificing one zombie hero, that hero could be removed from the game to further tamp down the zombie lord's power in exchange for prolonging his life.

We have had a blast with every one of the beasts, and my players are clamoring for a rematch with the zombie lord next time we play.

Awesome! The zombie lord is specifically supposed to be a monster that the heroes need to dispatch quickly or they get overrun by the hero zombies. And it sounds like you played everything out as it should. You noticed that he doesn't have any defense against guns, so if they have stockpiled enough guns it can be a very quick game in the heroes' favor.

It would be very impressive if the heroes hit 10 buttons in a round, but yes that would mean that all of the youths would be dead upon arrival. You will notice most of the monsters are pretty darn weak if 10 buttons are pushed. It is a balancing mechanic, if the heroes are dedicated enough to hit a lot of buttons, good for them they get a bonus, but chances are they will be underpowered when the monster comes out.

Actually having the zombie lord heal 1 wound by sacrificing zombies is a great idea! I changed your idea a little to avoid having zombie players abuse it by using wounded zombie heroes to heal the zombie lord. I hope you like it.

Another change I added was to have the difficulty of spawning new zombie heroes directly related to how many are already on the field, so if there are 0 zombie heroes he automatically spawns a zombie hero, then if there is 1 out a 2+ will spawn another and 2 will take a 4+ and 3 or above would only be on a 6. So, there won't normally be 6 zombie heroes wandering the board, but there can easily be 3. It also has the solid basis that summoning and maintaining zombie heroes drains the zombie lords power. Also, characters who now die in the same space as the zombie lord (not just when he kills them), now become one of his minions, FFFRRRREEEESSSHHH MEEAATTTT!!!

There are other various updates across the board, for instance tentatively weakening chupacabra and a few others. Have fun!

[thanatos]

I like the devour mechanic - it definitely forces the zombie player to think hard about whether or not they want to heal, and it also means that heroes can use some strategic placement to use zombie hunger to stop him from healing himself.

I also think taking one wound away from the chupacabra is probably a good idea. We played him while all my players were starting the game with four hero cards a piece, they hit the button either 6 or 7 times, and he STILL gave them a heavy run for their money.

I just have to say again how much my players and I love this scenario. We've been working to play through all the different beasts, but now that we've gone through them, my players still want more. When I first mentioned the scenario, the players were nervous about trying it, but now they are requesting it themselves most of the time after we play through a Flying Frog scenario. We have brought out your scenario almost every night we have played since we started (we only skip it if we got a late start and one of us - usually me - has an early morning the next day).

[nitro9090]

It means a lot that you enjoy my creations. I was ready to give up on them, but based on your interest I have started thinking about new monsters. Expect some new designs next week (that is the next time I will have free time)

[abomination]

I really like the sound of this scenario. Once I get some minis for the beasts I will be trying this one out.

[nitro9090]

(08-27-2011 12:43 AM)abomination Wrote:  I really like the sound of this scenario. Once I get some minis for the beasts I will be trying this one out.

Awesome!