in what situations can/would zombies do a Roll With Impact?

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Axelmania
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in what situations can/would zombies do a Roll With Impact?

Unread post by Axelmania »

Page 49's +2 to roll with impact for the Thinker zombie got me thinking about this.

Presumably ANY zombie can roll with impact... but when would they actually bother?

Just due to the bonus, I think I'd have a Thinker do this every single time when hit with a blunt attack that surpasses AR. They have a sense of zombie preservation (they can stitch together dismembered zombies) and much like Arch-Vile running away from the player in Doom 2, I can see them taking steps to minimize the damage they take, recognizing their own importance.

Pg 174 says "if the parry fails and the character takes damage, he may opt to roll with impact" so it seems like the choice whether to Roll or not Roll happens only once at least 1 damage is guaranteed, meaning that natural AR was surpassed and damage divisors didn't reduce it to 0 (ie a punch of 1 to 4 damage would be 1/5 to 0, since you can't take a fraction of 1 damage).

A zombie hit with a punch doing 9 damage (1/5 is 1.8, which rounds down to 1) could Roll With Impact to reduce 1 to 0.5, which rounds down to 0.

For that same reason, I'd probably have Thinkers do Simultaneous Attack much less often. They can rely on common zombies to do that sort of thing. Thinkers ought to be using their +1 to parry or +1 to dodge (either would cost an action, since they lack a HTH skill) in lieu of attacking.

As for the other zombies who lack a bonus to roll... I think they might all still do it. Next most likely (heck, maybe MORE likely) would be Mock Zombies. But after that... who?

Flesh Eaters travel in packs, so they could probably afford to spend an action reducing damage from blunt weapons, so that their teammates can back them up. Flesh Eaters also have a lower AR than other zombies (pg 46) so minimizing damage would be more important for them. For that reason I could see them Simultaneous Attacking less too.

Thinkers also seem like they'd be more likely to engage in self-preservation (a parry and dodge bonus... they'd probably parry and dodge more often than slouchers) so I think they would opt to roll with impact against blunt attacks that surpassed their AR.

Fast Attack Zombies, since they don't actually attack their prey (unless it attacks them first) seem defensive in nature, and just like their dodge bonus makes me think they'll dodge more often (no point in parrying, EVER! parrying is pointless for Fast Attack Zombies) also makes me think they'll roll with impact against blunt attacks they fail to dodge more often too, even if they don't.

Slouchers/Crawlers/Pattern though... they probably wouldn't if it meant sacrificing an opportunity to attack. Some situations where I could see even them doing it:
    1) falls, since they're going to be out of commission for a bit anyway, and don't take reduced damage from them, far as I know, and since falls don't need to roll to strike, they presumably just bypass the natural AR

    2) explosions, even though they do 1/2 damage (pg 111) that could still be a lot, and they've lost 2 melee attacks anyway

    3) if a blunt ranged attack (thrown rock, for example) surpassed its AR.... seems more in character than zombies dodging rocks, a RWI is just them being floppy and rolling with the hit, and doesn't actually slow down their horizantal speed toward you

    4) if they get body-flipped, because like falls, there isn't anything about an impact with the ground taking any damage divisors, and similar to explosions, they're already out a melee action so they're not going to be attacking any time soon

A GM might just have zombies RWI every single possible time though... they can afford to drag things out, after all. It would be particularly effective with blunt attacks to the head or neck, since those are so difficult to make. The longer a zombie survives, the longer they can moan and attract other zombies, and once zombies outnumber humans, you can't attack them consistently enough to eat up their actions via Roll With Impact. Their AR and damage divisors reducing the frequency they even take 1 dmg from a blunt attack also would cut down on how often they would need to expend an action doing it.

Rolling might simply be something zombies just all instinctively do when it would be of benefit!

The cost-per-attack is also not as dramatic when you consider that unarmed humans will probably opt to do power punches and power kicks. This is because this reduces the chance of your attack being taken down to 0, or gives a chance to do damage at all. Your basic 1D4 punch can't hurt a zombie except on a critical strike, but a 1D4x2 punch can damage a zombie 50% of the time (6 or 8 damage rounds down to 1) on non-criticals. So if humans are doing 2-attack punches, spending 1 or 2 attacks in response isn't a major loss, you're still keeping them busy, and you won't need to do a defense at all if they don't exceed your AR, and won't need to RWI at all if they get 0 damage to begin with.

If you play zombies as simultaneous attackers, pg 188 only says "instead of defending with a parry, dodge or entangle" so it seems like for SA opters, RWI is still on the table as an option if they take damage.
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