House Rules

[Mobius187]

So the topic today is which house rules (if any) do you play Zombicide using? I'll share those which our group has used, and maybe others can suggest a few of their own, with the goal being introduce these rules to other players who are interested in modifying their Zombicide missions "for the better".

Combat: Ranged
Ranged attacks only hit/injure other survivors in the target zone when an attack misses. For example, Survivor A (yellow level) fires a Pistol into an adjacent zone which contains Survivor B and 2 Walker Zombies. Survivor A rolls a 6 on their attack roll and kills 1 Walker Zombie. Survivor A attacks again, but this time rolls a 2, inflicting a Wound to Survivor B. Survivor A now has a tough choice, does he use his last Action to fire a third time and try to kill the last Walker Zombie or opt not to because a second missed attack would kill Survivor B and prevent him from rising up as a Zombivor.

Combat: Ranged /w Vehicles
Survivors inside the same car cannot accidentally injure/shoot each other with missed Ranged attack Actions, as they are shooting outside the car. However, this rule does not extend to Survivors outside the car, as they can be both accidentally shot by Survivors using Ranged attacks from inside a car, or they themselves may accidentally injure Survivors inside a car, while standing outside, with a missed Ranged attack.

Vehicles: Abomination "Wall"
A car may enter the zone with an Abomination, however the Abomination stops/ends the car's Movement action. Furthermore, once in the same zone as an Abomination a car may only exit the zone the same way it entered, as the Abomination "blocks" its path. In the event an Abomination enters the same zone as a car the Survivors may only choose to move the car to a zone other than the one the Abomination just moved from (indicating its direction and the path it blocks). In the event a car is trapped/blocked-off in a dead end zone by an Abomination the only option for the Survivors is to abandon the car until such time as they can lure the Abomination away or kill it.

Equipment: Removed Cards
The Bottled Water, Canned Food, and Bags of Rice cards were removed from the Equipment deck.

Zombie Spawn: Removed Cards
All zombie spawn cards that had a Blue Threat level Abomination spawn were removed from the Zombie Spawn deck.

 

[Scorpion0x17]

So the topic today is which house rules (if any) do you play Zombicide using?

All the house rules I play with can be found in this handy PDF...

And I'll soon be using those from this one and also this one too...

 

[JokerOx]

The only one I play is that no matter what the scenario says I only play 4 survivors solo. Makes life tough but happy to have losses more often than wins as I think it reflects more how often I win in competitive games rather than co-ops. After playing a few more car scenarios I can see why some people have changed the rules but ultimately I am happy to play "as is".

 

[donnbobhardy]

I think my only house rule is that cars can be safely driven through areas with only survivors. If there are no zombies, you'd be driving safely, right? However, if the zone has both zombies and survivors, then normal rules apply.

 

[Captain Awesome]

When we play, we ignore the zombie splitting rules. I don't like the idea of zombies just appearing randomly because there are uneven groups.

 

[JokerOx]

When we play, we ignore the zombie splitting rules. I don't like the idea of zombies just appearing randomly because there are uneven groups.

What about the appearing randomly when searching or opening doors ?

 

[vargz]

Interesting how may house rules people use!
I like the "Abomination Wall" and will have to try it!
I never considered limiting to 4 survivors, but I like that as well.
I don't consider modifying the deck as unusual. We keep in the food and stuff that is not useful to make searching more interesting, but occasionally remove some weapons. For instance limiting one of any dual wielding ranged weapon. We keep the extras on the side so that an individual with the evil twin trait can "find" two.

 

[Captain Awesome]

What about the appearing randomly when searching or opening doors ?

We follow that rule. Those fit the zombie theme really well, but the idea of a zombie going through some sort of strange meiosis seems silly to me.

 

[Captain Awesome]

Interesting how may house rules people use!
I like the "Abomination Wall" and will have to try it!
I never considered limiting to 4 survivors, but I like that as well.
I don't consider modifying the deck as unusual. We keep in the food and stuff that is not useful to make searching more interesting, but occasionally remove some weapons. For instance limiting one of any dual wielding ranged weapon. We keep the extras on the side so that an individual with the evil twin trait can "find" two.

We take the supply cards out for scenarios that don't use them, since you can only search once a turn. The difficulty can really ramp up to the point that wasting an action getting some canned food can be really frustrating when it offers absolutely no benefit. That's why I like the cookies. At least they give you +1 experience.

 

[Mobius187]

Interesting how may house rules people use!
I like the "Abomination Wall" and will have to try it!

Yeah, my group noticed that as long as we had someone with Tough (i.e. Nick) the Abomination could be ignored. In fact, while we never implemented it there was a suggestion to have the Abomination's damaged ramped up to 2, rather than 1, so it ignored Tough. We haven't tried that yet though because the Abomination does still serve as a source of annoyance (or did pre-Season 2) because it could follow you around and force you to burn actions in order to move from zone to zone.

I never considered limiting to 4 survivors, but I like that as well.

I have done this before, but only when we had 4 or more players. Otherwise with 2 or 3 players we opted to split the 6 survivors 2 or 3 ways. It's a shame Zombicide doesn't come with a way to adjust for fewer survivors, like... -1 zombie spawned for every 1-2 survivors below 6. So at 4-5 survivors it would be -1 zombie spawned per threat level, and -2 zombies at 1-3 survivors. Or something along those lines.

I don't consider modifying the deck as unusual. We keep in the food and stuff that is not useful to make searching more interesting, but occasionally remove some weapons. For instance limiting one of any dual wielding ranged weapon. We keep the extras on the side so that an individual with the evil twin trait can "find" two.

As Captain Awesome mentioned, my group hates useless cards. I mean, they're fine with a Scope or Glass Bottle, at least those can be used for something (maybe), but a Bag of Rice is 100% useless unless it's a mission goal. So for us we've opted to remove them unless the mission states otherwise.

 

[vargz]

The bag of rice (& other food stuff) are not totally useless. If you take a hit and have to sacrifice an item I'd rather throw a bag of rice instead of the shotgun or chainsaw...

 

[JokerOx]

We follow that rule. Those fit the zombie theme really well, but the idea of a zombie going through some sort of strange meiosis seems silly to me.

I guess in my mind it is not so much an "actual" zombie splitting but more increased numbers being disturbed by the movement of others and heading off in the direction of the noise.

...and I definitely leave the food cards in as in my cinematic mind the need for food and water is always there whether or not it's needed to win a particular scenario.

(but i do understand the reasons why some of you do take them out as they often appear at the worst times)

 

[Mobius187]

The bag of rice (& other food stuff) are not totally useless. If you take a hit and have to sacrifice an item I'd rather throw a bag of rice instead of the shotgun or chainsaw...

For our group that's what the Frying Pan cards are for, since if you had to choose between finding a useless item, which could only be used for discarding when injured and an actually useful item, which you could then sacrifice when injured. I would personally opt for the useful item, but that's just my opinion.

 

[Captain Awesome]

For our group that's what the Frying Pan cards are for, since if you had to choose between finding a useless item, which could only be used for discarding when injured and an actually useful item, which you could then sacrifice when injured. I would personally opt for the useful item, but that's just my opinion.

That's how my group looks at it. Unless things go terribly wrong, we aren't taking wounds before we've found other weapons, and all of the starting items just become fodder for wounds.

 

[Sharkey1337]

Combat: Ranged
Ranged attacks only hit/injure other survivors in the target zone when an attack misses. For example, Survivor A (yellow level) fires a Pistol into an adjacent zone which contains Survivor B and 2 Walker Zombies. Survivor A rolls a 6 on their attack roll and kills 1 Walker Zombie. Survivor A attacks again, but this time rolls a 2, inflicting a Wound to Survivor B. Survivor A now has a tough choice, does he use his last Action to fire a third time and try to kill the last Walker Zombie or opt not to because a second missed attack would kill Survivor B and prevent him from rising up as a Zombivor.

Combat: Ranged /w Vehicles
Survivors inside the same car cannot accidentally injure/shoot each other with missed Ranged attack Actions, as they are shooting outside the car. However, this rule does not extend to Survivors outside the car, as they can be both accidentally shot by Survivors using Ranged attacks from inside a car, or they themselves may accidentally injure Survivors inside a car, while standing outside, with a missed Ranged attack.

I use the same Ranged House Rule as it just makes way more sense to me while still being thematic in making a saving shot on a fellow survivor.

The Vehicle rule I simplified to cars grant "Low Profile" for occupants. This way they won't shoot each other AND the car will act as a shield for them when survivors are shooting into the same square.

 

[JokerOx]

For our group that's what the Frying Pan cards are for, since if you had to choose between finding a useless item, which could only be used for discarding when injured and an actually useful item, which you could then sacrifice when injured. I would personally opt for the useful item, but that's just my opinion.

Of course not everyone starts with a pan :curl-lip:

 

[Lythaeum]

So the topic today is which house rules (if any) do you play Zombicide using? I'll share those which our group has used, and maybe others can suggest a few of their own, with the goal being introduce these rules to other players who are interested in modifying their Zombicide missions "for the better".

For the better? Umm, I don't know about better but I have made it far more complex.

I combined pretty much every game into one game. The overall game play is Zombicide, Zpocalypse, Last Night On Earth over D&D Adventure Game backbone.

Using house rules to bridge the gaps and conversions.

I converted all combat to D&D Adventure (D&D Miniatures)

I broke all character abilities into cards. Each character has four abilities listed on their character card. Characters can spend XP to draw randomly for abilities or choose one of the abilities listed on their character card.

I split the items into decks as per Zpocalypse -- Food, Armory (Weapons), Equipment (most items), Scrap, and Survivors. Which deck is drawn from depends on the map or Encounter cards. This way I could avoid, say, food cards if I wanted

I expanded barricades by pulling in all of these sources and some more.

I brought in Zombie types from every source I could find and grouped them under Zombicide spawn card types.

Added event cards from LNOE and Zombies!!! by Twilight Creations and Frag just for the first person shooter feel of Quad Damage and Hacking

It is ongoing and will get playtested come Christmas break.

 

[Hasmot]

We have a house rule of cars counting as a single noise token while being operated (survivor in the driver's seat). The cars revert to silent when the driver's seat is empty.

 

[Lythaeum]

An example of overly complex:

Car Alarms

Car alarms can be loud, very loud. Zombies are attracted to loud. Whether or not cars have alarms may be in the Scenario or Mission
description. Car alarms are set off if the car is touched, opened, attacked, or possibly even by Noise. If the car is opened without
the keys or an open attempt is made to see if the car is locked then roll a check for the car alarm. If the check result is that there
is no alarm then mark that car somehow to note that it does not have an alarm.

Any time a noise producing weapon is used in the same Zone as a car roll a check for the car alarm. If a Ranged weapon is fired at an
enemy in a Zone with a car, roll a check for the car alarm. If the car does not have an alarm go off after two of these attack related
checks, then mark that car as having no car alarm.

To check to see if there is a car alarm that goes off, roll 1d6. On a 1 the car is alarmed and you just set it off. Optionally Police
cars and Pimpmobiles have alarms on 1-2 and 1-3 respectively. If a car alarm is set off, immediately draw 1 Spawn Card per Survivor
player. The newly spawning Zombies will use the Spawn Points closest to the car alarm. Place 10 Noise Tokens on the car. Remove 1
Noise Token per Round. A Survivor with the Thief Ability, Hot-wire Ability or Mechanic Ability can stop the alarm with an Action if
he is in the car or adjacent to it. If the Survivor has the keys to the car, then that also will stop the alarm.

A good tactic could be to shoot at cars that are far away from your group to keep the Zombies chasing noise. The downside is the greater
number of Zombies brought in by the loud noise.

 

[Leftnut]

Wow your House Rules make the game super easy. The only "House Rule" per say we use now is whoever gets the Nightsticks at the start of the game also gets a companion dog. Since we added companion dogs and they are very OP, we added the Zombie dog spawn cards as well. Not sure if this is a House Rule, however we use all the extra Zombies I now own and we never need to do "extra" activations due to not having enough of one type of mini.