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Coidzor
2009-07-02, 11:27 PM
Any sources on the behavior of wights which could be used to extrapolate how a large population of wights (some 9000 at a ground zero of a negative energy smorgasbord) would behave after basically going through the city they were created in (Population ~100K - ~9K) which is basically like greyhawk and about a quarter of the population are or have been adventurers of varying levels.

With nothing controlling them, would the resulting city of wights go to ground to get away from the pesky sun? Would they immediately start breaking apart as they chased down the refugees who managed to make it out of the city? Once they left the city would they pretty much break apart and go after any and all sources of life, causing mass deforestation whenever there weren't any animals in range of their senses?

Would they form some kind of hierarchy at least, or would it basically be several patriarchal bands of wights following the one who spawned them that basically fragmented apart?

This particular example being drawn from the Age of Worms campaign run by Tam_OConnor which has its campaign journal here. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109209

As alternate scenarios, what if something like this happened in, say, Greyhawk on Oerth?

Sharn in Eberron?

Waterdeep or any other metropolis in Forgotten Realms?

woodenbandman
2009-07-02, 11:28 PM
Well wightocalypses never happen because somewhere, a neutral cleric of high enough level arises, scries on the head wight, and commands him to kill all his followers.

pingcode20
2009-07-02, 11:34 PM
Wouldn't work - even if you know there is a single 'progenitor wight', you don't know who said wight is, and if it's hit city-killer levels, the probability of having a useful connection is almost nil.

It's the same reason why you can't just scry on 'The Leader of This Secret Conspiracy' - you know there is a leader, but you don't know who this leader is.

Coidzor
2009-07-03, 12:27 AM
Indeed, plus in this scenario there are about 9K original wights.

I know if anyone with any real amount of power got interested they could come up with some kind of counter... Carpet bombing at the very least.

Is there a locate city bomb variant that is effective against undead? Sort of the opposite of the Fell Animate City Bomb?

Myrmex
2009-07-03, 12:50 AM
I've been toying with a World Born Dead campaign setting: Wightocalypse Earth, where we messed around with some fundamental particles and accidentally brushed up against the plane of negative energy.

Earth would be a largely dead magic zone, with puddles of negative energy in places. The dead wouldn't stay dead in a lot of places, and over time, the wights would begin to form their own bands and relearn how to use technology.

Also, there would be a McGuffin in the museum just so the party would get chased by a skeletal T-Rex and they would fire at it from their jeep with a .50 MG.

Then Vecna would learn about this strange planet that had no magic, and pay a visit, where he would dwell in France in a giant tower as he tried to figure out how to use Earth technology.

I would run two groups- one, a bunch of low level d20 modern characters trying to put humanity back together in California and the Southwest, and a group of high level planar adventurers recruited by Pelor to investigate Earth.


Umm.... Huh. I imagine wights would move outwards at a hustle in all directions, killing what they found. Probably use a model for gas molecules in a vacuum.

herrhauptmann
2009-07-03, 01:30 AM
What does the monster manual say for the groupings of wights? Are they usually solitary, or usually in groups of 4-6, 7-9, etc?

Coidzor
2009-07-03, 01:48 AM
What does the monster manual say for the groupings of wights? Are they usually solitary, or usually in groups of 4-6, 7-9, etc?

SRD says: "Solitary, pair, gang (3-5), or pack (6-11)" But there doesn't seem to be any limitations placed upon spawn.

I'm kinda hoping Libris Mortis has something to shed on the matter. :/

"Str 12, Dex 12, Con Ø, Int 11, Wis 13, Cha 15" So they're relatively intelligent... Not sure how that would translate into organizational abilities since spawn are enslaved to their spawner.

...Of additional pertinence for when they are spreading, Libris Mortis gives a variant rule that causes Wights, which have an inescapable craving for the life force of the living, to make a will save DC 25 (which, with their +5 will save, they can only make on a natural 20, so... 5% of those who go a day without feeding) or take 1d6 Wis damage (to represent their greater and greater loss of common sense up to the point where they go catatonic from the mental anguish. with their listed 13 wisdom and an average loss of 3 wisdom which they can't recover without feeding, then it takes about 5 days on average for a wight to "shut down" possibly either "freeing" its offspring until it's back up and running or causing its offspring to attempt to get it food ASAP. Once fed they'll recover all of the wisdom damage though.

Fishy
2009-07-03, 01:51 AM
Organization: (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/wight.htm) Solitary, pair, gang (3-5), or pack (6-11)

Compare to, say, Goblins, which have:


Organization: (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/goblin.htm) Gang (4-9), band (10-100 plus 100% noncombatants plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 20 adults and 1 leader of 4th-6th level), warband (10-24 with worg mounts), or tribe (40-400 plus 100% noncombatants plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 20 adults, 1 or 2 lieutenants of 4th or 5th level, 1 leader of 6th-8th level, 10-24 worgs, and 2-4 dire wolves)

Wights have the intelligence of an average human, and can cooperate with each other, but as territorial top predators (Sorta), they naturally get uneasy around groups of a certain size.

In a really, really large wight horde, presumably one wight hangs out with ten of his spawn, who share their time between hanging out with him and hanging out with ten of their spawn, and so on and so forth geometrically. That's actually not bad for a scaling command structure, if someone is smart enough to make it work.

EDIT: Ninjapocalypse!

Coidzor
2009-07-03, 03:44 AM
Compare to, say, Goblins, which have:



Wights have the intelligence of an average human, and can cooperate with each other, but as territorial top predators (Sorta), they naturally get uneasy around groups of a certain size.

In a really, really large wight horde, presumably one wight hangs out with ten of his spawn, who share their time between hanging out with him and hanging out with ten of their spawn, and so on and so forth geometrically. That's actually not bad for a scaling command structure, if someone is smart enough to make it work.

EDIT: Ninjapocalypse!

Indeed, and I can see that more or less working for things where it's one or two progenitors...

What I'm wondering is, will they just split up, taking their spawn and their spawn's spawn (ad nauseum) with them in different hunting bands/wight tribes each heading in a different direction, or could their intelligence lead to agreed cooperation/establishment of a dominant leader(or group of leaders) and thus a true force rather than a number of wandering bands, depending upon how the conflict with the living members of the city goes down.

... What effect does hitting an undead with a wight's energy drain have? No effect. I thought so. Can start to wield simple weapons though.

And what's the effect of negative levels on creatures that only have HD, such as wild animals? 1 HD = 1 level for this purpose?

Yora
2009-07-03, 03:59 AM
1 HD = 1 level for this purpose?
Yes. Class levels and racial HDs are exactly the same, except that you can pick the one, but can't chose the other.

In AD&D wights were described as strictly solitary creatures, who would also keep their own spawns near them, but never other free wights. Also, they seem to be very territorial with their lairs and stuff, but you usually don't hear about them making plans to conquer lands or hatch other evil plots. They just want their own territory and that's it.

Given that, if 9% of a cities population turn int wights, th wights would kill all humans within say 24 hours, but it would be far to crowded for their tastes and they would turn on each other so that everyone who remains can stake out his own territory. I'd say after a week or two, there will only be a couple of groups of about 6 to 10 wights be left, who have their own lairs and stay there.

Gaiyamato
2009-07-03, 08:42 AM
I would say that they would at first form a kind of tribal structure. "He with the most spawn is top dog".
But then once they have the city some would leave while others would remain and set up some sort of power structure. Probably a lot of in-fighting in the early days of this stage. Once it has finished a clear leader, probably highest level or still largest number of spawn.

As intelligent creatures they can form alliances and swear allegiances etc.

I think a Drow-like structure would work best. But eventually without some greater being working to keep them together the society would implode and destroy itself.

Unless they form a solid enough leader very quickly, massed and moved onto the next city, and the next city, and the next city.. Until the living world either finds a way to stop them or dies in the attempt.

Callos_DeTerran
2009-07-03, 08:53 AM
As alternate scenarios, what if something like this happened in, say, Greyhawk on Oerth?

Sharn in Eberron?

Waterdeep or any other metropolis in Forgotten Realms?

There's a problem with these sort of things happening in a major metropolis of a campaign setting. And that is the high level characters who usually populate such a metropolis because it's the center of civilization. In the free city of Greyhawk you have the creator of the Disjunction spell and the Magnificent Mansion spell in a fortified mage tower full of apprentices. So at the very least he's going to be picking them off piece-meal at his leisure. Unless he started it to tip the balance back towards evil, then he's going to be subtly helping the wights.

I don't know anything about Sharn to be honest, but I see no reason why the trend wouldn't continue.

Waterdeep has two high-level paladins on the surface, lots of retired adventurers, and at least one epic level wizard underneath it. Though he might ignore the problem if the wights don't bother him.

The thing is, any DECENT Wightocalypse needs to start in a smaller town or city. Then once all the survivors have fled or been turned into wights, the wights will likely break up into bands and scatter since they all want prime hunting territory. Cue them attacking villages, small towns, and big towns with their increased numbers and you have a lot more wights. Eventually a metropolis is going to be by itself or cut off from any other town. Then the wights could reasonably attempt starving the population out at their leisure.

herrhauptmann
2009-07-03, 11:23 AM
Waterdeep has two high-level paladins on the surface, lots of retired adventurers, and at least one epic level wizard underneath it. Though he might ignore the problem if the wights don't bother him.


Waterdeep also has two epic chosen of Mystra (Kelben and Laerel) residing in Blackstaff tower. Which also has a few hundred students of its own.

Perhaps you could set it up like World War Z (read it!). First round of combat outside the city, you encounter 1d6+2 wights, and on their first round of combat they let out a low moan which carries on the wind. Starting 1d4+1 rounds later, another 1d6+2 wights arrive, and continues like that for another 2d4+1 rounds. After that, 2d6 wights arrive for 2d4+2 rounds. Then 4d6 wights. etc etc.

Very quickly your players will be buried under wights unless they have some very good tactics.

Keld Denar
2009-07-03, 11:44 AM
In the free city of Greyhawk you have the creator of the Disjunction spell and the Magnificent Mansion spell in a fortified mage tower full of apprentices. So at the very least he's going to be picking them off piece-meal at his leisure. Unless he started it to tip the balance back towards evil, then he's going to be subtly helping the wights.

Do what now? Mordy would never aide a wightacolypse. Even with his rather staunch views on neutrality, aiding something like that would be similar to a modern day person saying "Hmmmmm, the CDC has a pretty good handle on Anthrax, so I'm gonna mail out a few thousand letters laced with the stuff...you know, to help the Anthrax along." Unless the wights were trying to form a society where they can peacefully coexist with other races (hardly possible with their "Always Evil" negative energy driven ferverous hunger for human flesh), Mordy would get involved. He'd most likely use the event to increase his considerable political influence, but he wouldn't sit back and literally watch the world burn just because he felt "good was getting the upper hand lately".

Besides, Mordy doesn't live in Greyhawk City. He's got his own Fortress of Solitude up in some mountains like any selfresecting all-powerful archmage...

hamishspence
2009-07-03, 12:00 PM
Given that Mordy has aided fiendish invasions because the celestials were too powerful, its not that much of a stretch.

Coidzor
2009-07-03, 12:03 PM
Question: Is there a way to imbue a locate city bomb with an energy-type that damages undead? Sort of the ultimate example of torching the city to prevent the plague from spreading. All the ways I've seen have been cold-based with optional negative energy fun tacked on(for the creation of wight-/zombie-ocalypses). And, well, that would just serve to freeze the commoners to death so they can't become wights without really doing anything to the wights. Or create more wights to exacerbate the problem.

What sort of attrition can be figure out for the wight horde as it begins to run into resistance?

And do berserk golems recognize undead as "smashable?"

Yora
2009-07-03, 12:14 PM
I think a Drow-like structure would work best.
A huge cavern city populated completely by wights! This is so unbelivably cool! :smallbiggrin:
I totaly have to use this.

chiasaur11
2009-07-03, 12:38 PM
You know, this sounds like just the sort of thing that inspires the creation of Warforged.

Legions of gleaming metal men, immune to level drain, sent in to purify cities of the dead with blessed swords and, more importantly, fire.

Lycanthromancer
2009-07-03, 12:39 PM
Don't forget the CG scimitar-TWFing wight ranger with the undead panther sidekick who turned his back on wight society because of his angst and tortured past!

Yora
2009-07-03, 12:40 PM
Given that they were often used against giant armies of undead: That's probably how it happened.

LibraryOgre
2009-07-03, 03:03 PM
It likely does not get off the ground, though the city is devastated.

You're talking an outbreak of wights in a city of about 100k, with 25% being adventurers. 25,000 adventurers, v. 9000 wights. Even if the adventurers are primarily low-level, unless the wights have some heavily leveled members of their own, there will be enough high-level adventurers (to say nothing of aristocrats, warriors, adepts, and the odd expert) that they can contain the wights.

Think about who will be in this city. There will be priests of various temples. There will be paladins and wizards and fighters. While some evil people may aid the wights, there will also be a number of evil people who say "You know, I like living, I like having my stuff in this city, and I'm not going to let wights overrun the city... especially if I can turn acts of conspicuous heroism to my advantage in the post-wightocalypse city."

Yuki Akuma
2009-07-03, 03:20 PM
Question: Is there a way to imbue a locate city bomb with an energy-type that damages undead?

...Energy Substitution (Fire)?

Or you know, the whole "bomb" part of it, Explosive Spell, which deals something insane like 1056d6 nonspecified damage per caster level with that trick...

Yora
2009-07-03, 03:38 PM
It likely does not get off the ground, though the city is devastated.

You're talking an outbreak of wights in a city of about 100k, with 25% being adventurers.
[...]
Think about who will be in this city. There will be priests of various temples. There will be paladins and wizards and fighters.
But usually, you would likely have more like 1%
And they will eventually all run out of spells, and don't forget that wights drain a level with every hit, without any save.

Keld Denar
2009-07-03, 03:57 PM
Plus, for every adventurer, there are 3 NPCs with very very very few class levels. The 9000 initial wights will quickly double in a matter of rounds, even if some of them are killed off.

And yea, the no save thing kinda sucks. If one gets though, the loss is big, and makes it easier and easier for more and more.

LibraryOgre
2009-07-03, 04:03 PM
But usually, you would likely have more like 1%
And they will eventually all run out of spells, and don't forget that wights drain a level with every hit, without any save.

Usually, yeah. However, he specified 25%. Even if 12000 of those are 1st level, wights only have 4 undead HD... which puts them about on par with a 2nd level fighter, or a 3rd level cleric. HP-wise, they're equal to about a 8th level wizard... but an 8th level wizard can well exceed them.

It will be VERY costly. A lot of people WILL die, both in the general populace and the adventuring populace. But it will be contained, or at least controlled.

MickJay
2009-07-03, 04:07 PM
...Energy Substitution (Fire)?

Or you know, the whole "bomb" part of it, Explosive Spell, which deals something insane like 1056d6 nonspecified damage per caster level with that trick...

My guess is that the question was about a sort of substitution that would damage only the wights/undead - that would be safe to use in urban conditions where there might still be survivors, for example.

Coidzor
2009-07-03, 04:21 PM
Hmm, perhaps I overstated the percentage of the population of adventurers... But it definitely seems like a setting with a large proportion of adventuring and PC-classed component of the population where the specific case arose. :smallredface: Don't the DMG guidelines for city generation have a rather low range of figures for PC-classed population though? :smallconfused: If so, something higher than that... if someone'd be willing to help throw out a fairly reasonable example...

The specific city in question seems to be about in scale with Greyhawk... major trading hub, fair number of high levels running around, conducting business, giving out quests to lower-and-mid-levels, lowbies messing around in the alleyways over small change GP stuff. Capability to have an exotic monster trade going on, and a fair-to-large number of adventurers in for R&R, shopping for magic items, or passing through at least (let's say, 8th level would be about the highest level that'd still be adventuring normally, more usually 1-6ish).

I was asking about anti-undead counters to the locate city fell animate/wightocalypse bomb... All I could remember of locate city bomb is that it, in the start at least, relies upon a cold subtype being attached to any/all spells cast, and since the cold does damage twinking it out from there. Couldn't remember if energy sub worked there or not...x.x

LibraryOgre
2009-07-03, 05:08 PM
Ok, well, first of all, some of it would come down to there being places the undead simply can't go... temples under permanent Consecration, for example, or places that managed to fortify. These are going to become bastions against the undead, no matter what the demographics are. They're also going to be crowded, nasty, and hungry places to be, unless you've got clerics capable of creating some major miracles (though Pathfinder-style cantrips and orisons would go a LONG way to fixing things... infinite water, infinite purification of food, and infinite prestidigitation cleans would help a lot).

These bastions, however, are going to be under constant siege, and may occasionally fall... wights who manage to climb the wall, or have class levels, can REALLY mess with these safe zones. Anyone in the street is likely toast, unless they can rely on a safe zone to return to... too many wights to completely avoid, so you need to make raids into the city and return, likely with casualties. This kind of stuff is best left to mid-level adventurers... the low-level adventurers can hold safe spaces (defense is always easier), high levels are maintaining the safe spaces, and the mid-levels can run recon.

On the side of the defenders is this city's status as a trading hub. That means people will be coming towards the city all the time, and word will get out pretty quickly. That will attract adventurers to attack the undead (as well as nutcases to help them).

As for counters to the locate city bomb.... I'd simply rule that bit of cheese doesn't work. It's a thought experiment in manipulating the rules, but it shouldn't actually work.

Olo Demonsbane
2009-07-03, 08:01 PM
Take Elven Spell Lore, from PHB2, and choose Snowcasting Flash Frost Locate City. Chose positive energy. Each casting of this spell will heal every living thing in the city, and will injure every wight.