Hi all,

I'm yet to run this game yet, though I will soon. I'm pretty comfortable with the rules, although I've got one particular query that keeps on coming up. Zombies have stress tracks and start with 1 resistance by default, but do they gain resistance as they go up in stress tiers as PCs do? I just assumed that they don't, and once they've taken 9 damage then they're done, but I'm really unsure now.

If they went up, they'd be getting to 4 resistance before the final blow, and that seems like it could make zombies annoyingly beafy, and seriously slow down the conflict. Maybe these things are different in play than they are on paper but as of right now it seems confusing.

Any help is much appreciated,

thanks

p. 36, first paragraph of second column of text RAW says "The stress suffered by your target follows all the normal rules of sustaining stress, such as being reduced by resistance...", IMO this includes accumulating Resistance, which is a normal rule of stress.

Zombies are supposed to be really hard to kill, and that's what's reflected by this mechanic, IMO.

It's been awhile since I played, and I forget if this was a house-rule of mine, or if it's only in a specific Scenario/specific zombie-type (I never ran a book Scenario, only my homebrewed "Last of Us" setting ), but when we played I feel like most zombies were killed by headshot (uncanceled, paired successes), not damage.

But also, it's a reminder how zombies are sometimes best used as environmental -type challenges. Which is to say, if your PCs think they can just gun down a hoard of zombies, they're gonna quickly find themselves becoming a part of the crowd. When there's a large group of zombies you run, period. And as GM you use this game-mechanical fact to prevent the PCs from getting too comfortable in any one spot. Putting them into other kinda of physical - but non-combat - challenges. Terrain navigation. Barricading. Driving. etc.

Also, if the PCs are ill-equipped, and struggling to kill even lone, or paired zombies, this reinforces the importance of the cooperation mechanics (taking your turn to give a bonus die to the got with the biggest gun), and of the PCs using the world and narrative and getting creative, to position themselves advantageously in the fiction to get bonus dice.

i.e. it makes them play the whole game instead of just the "shoot everything" game.

Embrace it.