Hey there,

when the Holtzes burst through the door in the Inn, after being hanged and revived as Zombies, how many Holtzes do you use?

Do you confront your PCs with 12 Zombies from the ToA or less?

12 Seems a bit hefty...

Arax

I had my PC faces the two previously dead thieves, Cobblepot, two of the Holtz's and the dead guardsmen. The encounter was over in a blink of an eye. However, it was not designed to be balanced, but served as foreshadowing of things to come.

I am probably out of my depth on this, but I'd probably:

Have one zombie per party member and then break the rest into groups using the henchmen rules? No good?

*looks for GM doggie treat* or *rolled up news paper on the nose*

I had the "big" holtz clog up the door with the smaller ones trying to clamber through. It worked out (in typical gruesome zombie fashion) as the commoner (eldred backer ..from LF7), managed to skewer the big guy's gullet and turn the whole area into a stinking ropy mess of entrails.

The elf managed to go crazy and tried to burn the Thunderwater down.

In essence, we used the iconic ones..but the thing to emphasize was that Marie was still missing.

jh

on a different note...

to which action cards does the npc have acces too.

all the standard ones or just the ones printed on their page in the book.

E.g. Avergae zombie has Braaaaains as the only standard attack, he doesnt have melee attack, block etc. ?

All creatures have access to the standard cards.

jh

But why do they say so specifically for Olaus Stichelm?

Araxosch said:

I was planning to go with "which ever ones were dead." Depending on the group, that could be all of them. I didn't because my players went immediately from the hanging to the Garden of Morr, but that's another issue...

Araxosch said:

I believe creatures get access to all the basic cards plus the cards listed on their page in the book. Using the advanced rules, some creatures will have additional action cards chosen by the GM (for those creatures that have the attack/support/spell icons).

Keep in mind, and this is going from memory I don't have the books in front of me, each batch of similar NPCs share access to one set of cards. So in the fight with Mourn, for example, I'd interpret this as Mourn having all the basic actions and his specific cards, but the defending zombies would have one set to share between them. So in one round Mourn could Dodge, and one zombie could Dodge, but since the zombies' Dodge card is refreshing no other zombies could dodge. Make sense?

Sorry for bringing back a 10 day old thread, but I did have a few questions about it.....

First of all, is there a place in the rules where it actually says that monsters gain access to all basic cards? I can understand giving them access to the two basic attacks (Melee Strike & Ranged Shot), since without them some monsters would be unable to act as all there cards could have tracking tokens on them. But then as Araxosch says, why do they specifically mention that Stichelm gains access to the Parry, Block, & Guarded position abilities, if it is something that all monsters have access to anyway? Please note that I don't own any of the Guides or Vaults so if the rule is in there that is why I missed it .

And yes RARodger your example of how NPCs share action cards makes perfect sense, thank you for the clarification.

Kartigan said:

On Page 41 of the Tome of Adventure in the Core box, it reads (emphasis mine):

"Many enemies have special actions they can perform in addition to the normal range of basic actions available to the player characters ."

Not sure about Stichelm. I'll have to check out his card in the vault and page in TGS when I get home.

Thank you for the rules reference Frycook, that does clear things right up. Why it mentions that Stichelm has those actions I have no idea, although I think the ability is something like "Stichelm has access to and makes frequent use o f the Block , Guarded Position , & Parry actions" (emphasis mine). Maybe they are just trying to point out that Stichelm's goal is to protect his master for as long as possible and therefore uses those actions as much as he can, even though it really isn't an unique "ability" at all.

Which I suppose then points out that even though monsters do have access to those cards, they should probably only use them if it makes sense in the context of the story. For instance just because Zombies can use the Guarded Position action card, doesn't mean that they should, since Zombies having the coordinated tactics to watch one another's backs doesn't really make sense in the context of their mindless desire for "Braaaaaaains...."

Similarly, I suppose it is up to the GM to interpret whether or not an NPC's default equipment would include a "Melee Weapon" for the purposes of qualifying for the requirements of Parry or a Shield for Block. So, Zombie's Claws & Teeth.....probably a no, Skeletons wielding their former weapons possibly, maybe certain beastmen, etc.