How I Wiped Out 2000+ Zombies With A Single Attack
Hi everyone.
All Things DnD is back with another story.
Sometimes those epic moments that define a game strike you out of nowhere...like a lightning
bolt.
Listen to this brilliant move pulled by this player and tell us about your creative monster
murdering antics after listening to this:
My character was a level 6 wizard named Elonus, the rest of the party consisted of a monk,
cleric, and barbarian of the same level.
We had been doing odd jobs, fighting the big bad's minions, when we got a message from
the Mayor of a town we visit often.
"Yindril has sent an army our way, we need as much help as you can muster.
They are only a week away!"
We dropped everything and headed straight there for 6 days straight.
We passed towns and grabbed volunteers, friends, mercenaries, whatever we could get our hands
on.
We amassed roughly 40 people, some just commonfolk, some less powerful adventurers, some guards
from towns we have helped, etc.
The town was fortified to a comical extent.
Trenches, barricades, towers, the works.
We had only a day to prepare.
We met with the city council and discussed a plan.
All we knew was that the army coming was sent by Yindril (the big bad), likely composed
of undead, led by Wrath (one of Yindril's demonic commanders), and was roughly equal
in size to the town's military force of 3,000.
We decided that since we have the walls and defenses we would be fine, so we just had
to defend.
How little we knew…
As we waited out the night, our DM gave us plenty of hints and chances to leave, or avoid
the conflict.
In hindsight, he probably didn't expect us to actually stand our ground, and knew this
amount of combat would likely kill all of our characters.
But we didn't realize it until it was too late.
We watched the forest from the walls of the town.
Trees began to shake and creak as an army of zombies marched out in organized groups.
They were being controlled by a massive fiery demon, Wrath.
We fought alongside the town trying to hold them back, but wave after wave crashed against
the defenses like tidal waves of bone and armor.
We realized our estimates were wrong.
There were at least 12,000 zombies out there.
They overran the army outside in minutes, now only 1,000 of us were left inside the
town as we desperately tried to keep them outside the walls.
Our DM seemed to be trying to get us to leave, he knew we could not survive it.
But we were an inventive group, we decided to stay and figure out a way to either win
the battle, or get everyone out of the town safely.
The DM prepared a solemn tone, saying "The clouds get darker as you hear thunder in the
distance, the trees begin blowing side to side in the wind as it begins to rain".
He kept talking, but something he said gave me an idea, thunder… trees…
THAT'S IT!
I had two 3rd level spell slots left and I knew exactly how to use them.
It came to my turn, "I cast fly, andI get as close to the forest as I can".
I'm able to get there, and now it sinks in that what I am about to do might get me killed,
I have 1 spell slot left…
If I got attacked and lost concentration on flight, that's it.
I patiently waited, hoping to not get attacked.
Thankfully, I did not.
The DM, now realizing I had some sort of plan, asked cautiously what I would like to do.
I ask if I could align myself so that I have a straight line going through as many trees
as possible, as close as possible to the center of the zombie army.
"Roll investigation" he said.
I roll, 17.
"You are able to find an angle where there are 132 trees going in a line through the
center of the army."
he says.
I smile, saying to the party and the DM, "You guys ever see lightning hit a tree?"
The DM gives me that "no way" look as he realizes what I am about to do.
"I cast lightning bolt straight through the trees".
The DM realizes that trees don't have a dex stat, so they can't roll a save.
Instead he has me roll against their AC.
Nat 20.
After the table erupts in excitement the DM takes a second to determine what the damage
would be for an exploding tree.
He decides it does 8d6 piercing in a 20 foot radius (basically fireball with piercing damage).
I roll, 42 damage.
Multiply that by 132 trees, double it since it was a crit, and we were left with 11,088
damage against the army.
The zombies in the army were designed to be weak alone, but strong as a group, so they
only had 5 health each.
He describes what happens: "As you all look down from the wall, you see Elonus floating
there, as lightning blasts from his hands you instantly see a flash of bright light
and the sound of explosions and shrapnel.
When you are able to get a clear sight of the battlefield, you see a large section of
the forest blown to smithereens, and the bodies of over 2,000 zombies lying impaled with wooden
splinters."
He looks at me.
"As you expend your last bit of energy, you see Wrath turn toward you quickly, almost
with a look of disbelief".
As we sat around the table our monk mentioned.
"Wait, 2,000 zombies, shouldn't he level up?" the DM thought for a moment, and said "I suppose
so, I'll say that you all level up from just watching that!"
We all laugh and continue playing, and it gets to my turn again.
Since I leveled up, I got all my spell slots back, so I began flying back to the wall,
that's when I remember.
9 sessions ago I copied down the banishment spell into my book, but I never had a 4th
level spell slot to use it with.
But now I have 1, and we all know just who to use it on.
We don't quite have the range on Wrath from the wall to use it, so we devise a plan over
the next few turns.
Our barbarian leads the remaining soldiers to the gate, the cleric gathers all the healers
he can find, and the monk stands near me in the center of the formation of soldiers.
The barbarian pushes the gate open and the entire army begins spearheading towards Wrath
through the army of zombies.
Soldiers and our Barbarian on the outside are constantly healed and supported by our
Cleric and the healers.
As our army pushed through.
We made sure to have the soldiers protect and secure a path back to the town for our
escape.
We got within range, I cast Banishment.
The DM rolls the save behind the screen and describes what happened.
"As you bend a wave of arcane runes and lob it at this giant demon, you see material bend
like a black hole around him, as he gets sucked back to his home plane."
It's almost over, all I need to do is not get damaged.
We followed the path back into town that the army kept clear, got inside, and shut the
gate.
The monk and rest of the party grouped up around me and kept them away as we retreated
as far towards the center of town as we could.
There were some close calls, but after a minute the party did everything they could to stop
zombies from hitting me and canceling my concentration, the DM speaks.
"As you make your last stand against this dark army, zombies breaking through the walls
and heading towards you from each direction, they collapse to the ground.
The magical essence leaves their bodies as Wrath's connection to this realm is officially
severed.
Cheers ring out throughout the town, for the first time in years, a ray of hope has fallen
upon the city."
And we ended the session there.
I was usually more of a roleplay guy than a combat guy up to that point, just because
I treated it like just damage enemy, get damaged, wait for one of you to die.
But that day was how I learned that combat can be just as interesting as roleplay if
you think outside the box (and have an awesome DM that is willing to follow the rule of cool
to allow such moments to happen).
Do you think 8d6 per exploding tree is too much damage?
I would think maybe 1d4 per tree.
Max 1d6.
I’ll give it to the player that it’s an awesome move and I wouldn’t have thought
of it.
But I think I’m going to give the DM a little bit more credit on this one for giving the
player that much damage to work with.
Either way, great stuff!
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