Campaign advancement rules?

[flightmek25]

I have heard about people running LNoE campaigns and recently started thinking about doing one myself. Instead of just tying missions and characters together, I thought an advancement system would be more appropriate in showing how bad-ass of a survivor the hero has become. I am picturing this system to work a lot like other tabletop miniature games that involve campaigns and "leveling up" like Mordheim & Necromunda. I looked here and did not find this concept explored so decided to share my thoughts with you and see what you think. Perhaps together we can build a system that works well.

This is purely at the brain-storming level and hasn't had any play-testing at all.

Gaining Experience

- Any hero that survives a mission gets an experience point.

- If the hero was directly involved with the winning condition of a scenario (like being on the truck at the end of the "Escape in the Truck" mission or destroying the pits in the "Burn 'em Out" scenario.) If it is a scenario like "Defend the Manor House," all surviving heroes get an additional xp point.

Note: These rules are written under the assumption that the normal rules of the game apply. Therefore, if a player loses their last hero, they get a new one as explained on pg. 19 of the LNoE rulebook. If abiding by these rules, only original heroes (i.e. those who started the scenario) get experience points. Life during a zombie apocalypse is tough and only the well-versed will survive!


Using Experience

- Any hero may burn an experience point at any time in a game to either a.) re-roll any roll (keeping the final roll) or b.) instantly heal one wound (even if it is their last wound and they are about to die!)

- A hero may burn 3 experience points between scenarios to "Level up." Leveling up is a random roll and players must consult the chart below. A hero can not gain the same level up twice! If a hero rolls an ability he already has, he may choose any ability he wants.
1. Experienced: Hero begins each game with a hero card drawn at random from the hero deck.
2. Escape Artist: Hero immune to game effects that hinder movement. (Weather cards, locked doors, & twisted ankles)
3. Prepared: The hero may carry an additional item.
4. Fortunate: Each turn (zombie and hero), the hero may re-roll a single roll.
5. Tough: Hero gains an additional wound.
6. Brawler: Hero gains an additional fight die.

Other Special Campaign rules:
- A hero always keeps the items he finished a scenario with, but he returns all unused hero cards to the hero card deck before each game. Sometimes you have to seize the moment!
- All wounds are automatically healed between scenarios. It is assumed that the heroes rest up before returning to do battle with the undead.


In Closing
Okay, so there you have it! Of course, a Zombie player (or GM) can properly tweak what needs to be in order to fit into his/her own design. For instance, you may want to eliminate the healing between each game rule to create a more continuous - and deadly - story. I purposefully made leveling up difficult (minimum of two scenarios to do so) because of unwanted over-powerness that may creep into the game. Also, players with a hero about to level up won't be willing to risk their life so easily. This will undoubtedly help some in making that stupid mistake so apparent in horror films that gets everyone killed! Unless your players are very lucky or very good, they shouldn't have too many level ups.

Things to consider
- What happens to a leveled up zombie hero? Does he retain his experienced abilities?
- What happens to zombie heroes between games? Do they disappear or are they automatically included in the next scenario as a "free zombie?"
- What about special house rules? Do they work with this rule set?
- How long should the campaign be? Do we keep it running until we get bored or do we have a clear overall goal in mind for the heroes?


Anyway....just some ideas I have had recently and thought I would share with you guys. C&C is welcome and I greatly encourage throwing in your own ideas - especially for the "level up" rules.