Description

Listed here are some optional rules to help you enhance your gameplay while using the Outbreak System. These should be decided on before the game starts so that all players are aware of the opportunities. These optional rules will change how the standard rules go and can enviably change how the game feels. Make sure that when you do use these options that you understand that the game may take on a different feel.

Morale

Base Morale is the mechanic that comes with maintaining your community of survivors outlook on how you run your base and what actions you undertake or decisions you make. All characters morale starts at 0 and can range from -200 to +200. The lower their morale the more likely they are to leave or become hostile. Character morale affects how Survivors in your community act, having a high morale will cause better effects while having low morale will cause fights and even the possibility of your survivors leaving. Certain Traits will increase the chances of fights, others will decrease morale directly.

Sleeping

Not having beds causes major morale penalties. While you are not sleeping in a bed you gain a -50 to morale.

Survivor Effects

Certain survivors have effects on morale, for better or worse. One that is funny will increase morale every now and then. But ones that are pessimistic decrease morale instead. Ones that invoke fights will also cause morale decrease, while ones that are pacifists avoid fights removing morale decrease.

Zombies and freaks effect on morale

Zombies are easily dealt with, but having too many of them will cause fear amongst survivors, decreasing morale severely. Killing hordes (only when too many hordes message appears), getting rid of infestations (when too many infestations appear).

Death

Having characters die affects morale extremely bad. It normally causes a 25-50 morale decrease, recovering a fallen survivors equipment will regain some morale, usually 5-15. Avoid death at all costs. Keep in mind that killed survivors need to be looted to grab their things, unless they were turned, in which case you need to kill the zombified survivor first.

Morale Effects

Use to the information below to determine the effects on your character.

Positive Morale Bonuses

Positive Morale can help brighten the day of others and make you feel better and work harder. Any positive morale can help with NPCs venturing out into the surrounding areas and bringing back items. The higher the morale the more or better items. Percent chance of finding something is based on their morale level. 

• +25: You gain a +5 to your movement speed.
• +50: You gain a +1 to all Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Perception, Willpower Rolls and -1 to Luck Rolls.
• +100: You gain a +1 to all Positive Traits
• +150: You gain +5 to your Max Stamina
• +200: You gain a +5 to your Hit Points

Negative Morale Bonuses

Negative morale can cause serious problems not only to yourself but to others around you. Having any negative morale can cause fights with other players and NPCs. 

• -25: Willpower checks get a -1.
• -50: All rolls but Luck get a -2 and your Luck is considered 2 less.
• -100: Your negative traits are doubled.
• -150: Stamina is reduced by Half rounded down.
• -200: Hit Points are reduced by Half. rounded down.

Inventory Slots

To make things easier in state of decay, you have a limited number of inventory slots in which you can carry things. While wearing no backpack, you have the following inventory slots.

Main Hand: This is used to carry your main weapon
Off Hand: This is used to carry a small one handed weapon.
Back: This is used to carry a Rucksack
Pocket: This can be used to carry small things such as snacks or pills.

*Note: You are not assumed to be holding these weapons at all times. It is assumed they are strapped or hung around you for easy access.

Wearing a backpack will increase your inventory size. Keep in mind you can only carry an amount of items based on your Inventory Slots and Carry Capacity. If you have no Inventory Slots available or your over your Carry Capacity, you must free up space before being able to pick anything else up.

Influence

Influence is the primary currency in the State of Decay universe. It is used to pay for outposts and radio calls, and for trading with traders and enclaves. Influence is earned by killing zombies and freaks, destroying hordes and plague hearts, clearing infestations, and returning rucksacks of resources to your base (or the host's base in co-op). The table below lists several actions and the amount of Influence (⍟) earned for these actions.

Action                                          ⍟
Clearing an Infestation              20
Destroying a Horde                   10
Destroying a Plague Heart       150
Fending off a Zombie Siege     50
Killing a Bloater                          5
Killing a Feral                             25
Killing a Juggernaut                  50
Killing a Screamer                     5
Depositing Any Rucksack        5

Noise

Noise plays a big role in state of decay, as it is what attracts zombies. Making too much noise will bring them to your position and can even call elite zombies. All weapons make a noise and if a zombie is in the area, it might just come check it out. 

Looting

Looting is a massive part of the game as it's what you need to do to acquire certain items. This will help you expand your base and can expand your knowledge. Zombies dont have loot on them, but you can acquire Blood Samples from blood plague zombies. See below for more information. When entering a building or garage, the GM will roll a 1d4+1 the first time each player enters. This will account for the number of places that player can search that may contain items. 
When searching, it takes 60 seconds to search the area or you can Quick Search which only takes 20 seconds. When a player makes a Quick Search, they must roll a Luck check. If they fail by rolling above their Luck, they will make Noise out to a range of 200ft.  When done searching, GM will roll a 1d6-3 to determine how many items are inside. If items are found, the GM can either choose or randomly select items that would be inside the area they searched. Ex. searching a fridge might find snacks, Bathroom might have medical supplies, Fuel station might have Jerry Cans, Tool Shed might have a Tool Kit etc. Parts can be found in any look location besides fuel locations. When Parts are found, roll a 1d4+1 for each time they show up. If they show up twice in a looted area roll 2d4+2 etc. Libraries and Offices are more likely to contain Textbooks.

Vehicles

They may be a common place in the world, but not all vehicles still work. When coming across a vehicle, make a luck check for all players who are in the group that find it. On a success, it is a working vehicle with an amount of gas. Roll two d100, one accounts for the percentage of gas it has in it and the other accounts for the percentage of hit points it has round down.  Toolkits can fix vehicles back to working condition. See Toolkit in the Item section for more detail. When starting a vehicle and while driving, it makes noise out to 100ft. If a vehicle crashes into something solid such as walls or poles, it takes damage equal to 10d6. If this reduces the vehicle to below 50% hit points and each time after that, the vehicle stalls and shuts off. If a vehicle is reduced to 0 or below hit points becomes unusable and catches fire. After two rounds the car explodes dealing 8d6 damage to everything within 20ft of it. Once it explodes it cannot be repaired with a Toolkit.

Vehicle Actions

While in the vehicle you gain special actions, that you don't have access to in other circumstances. The list below details what you can do with vehciles.

General

• Open Door: As usual will take your action.
• Change Seats: You can use all of your movement to change seats.
• Lower Window: As an action, lower your window.

Passenger

• Melee Attack: You can make melee attack. While the vehicle is in motion you get a -2 to the roll, but a +5 to the damage.
• Ranged Attack: You can make a ranged attack. While the vehicle is in motion, you get a -3 to the attack.

Driver

• Start Vehicle: This can be done as part of the open door action or separately.
• Drive: You can drive the car as part of your movement safely. The car moves up to a number a feet depending on size. Smaller vehicles can move up to 90ft while larger ones can move up to 65ft.
• Honk Horn: As your action, you can honk the horn. Noise 300ft.
• Run Down: As an action, you can manuver your vehicle to run down something in front of you. Roll a Perception Check to hit the creature following normal rules of attacking. If they are aware of you, they can make a Dexterity Check to move out of the way. If they roll higher then your Perception check, then they dodge out of the way. On a hit, you deal damage equal to the amount of feet you moved last turn + this turn. Only the amount of feet you moved in a straight line is counted. 
• Switch To Reverse: As an action, you can put the car in reverse and can only move half the distance as normal. 

Note: Running down multiple zombies in the same round or consistent rounds reduces the damage and can harm your vehicle. For each zombie beyond the second, it reduces the damage by half. Any zombies that survive the hit climb onto the vehicle. If you run over a group of six or more zombies, there is a 10% change their body parts will clog the engine and cause it to stall. Once stalled it takes a Toolkit to fix it. 

Zombie Threat

Your base has a Zombie Threat Level. You gain a +1 each time you make noise within or around your base, such as but not limited too; construction, parties, gun fire, yelling. Even when these things finish and go away, the points are added to a pool. When doing construction it adds an additional +1 after 10 days of constant noise or if it is stopped partway through and then continued. When you reach a certain amount your base comes under siege.

Zombie Siege

When the noise becomes too much, it attracts enough zombies to cause a Zombie Siege on your base. Use the chart below to determine the type of siege. When a Zombie Siege happens, empty the pool of points that had been gained. When an amount has been reached, the GM will roll a d100. There is a 50% chance that a Siege will happen and when it does, the players will get a 20min warning. If a Siege doesn't happen then the GM will move onto the next threshold. If it doesn't happen when you reach the max Pool, the GM will roll daily adding +5 zombies and +1 Elites. 

Pool          # of Zombies               # of Elites
10                    10                                  0
15                    15                                  1 
20                   15                                  2
25                   20                                 3
30+                 20+                               3+

Character Creation Changes

Normally when you make a character in Outbreak you choose Jobs and Hobbies, but in State of Decay, they rely more on traits. You can have up to 5 traits. When you make a character. Instead of choosing a Genetic Trait, you instead roll twice on the trait list and choose one of them.

Stamina

Stamina represents the total amount of energy a character has. Your Maximum Stamina is equal to your Strength, Dexterity, Constitution and WIllpower combined. When you perform an action, you use 4 points of Stamina. It takes no stamina to walk, but running takes 4 stamina each time you run. You can push yourself beyond your maximum stamina, but it will temporary reduce your max stamina but the same amount. When your max stamina is reduced, it cannot be recovered until you finish a Full Rest. If you have a point of fatigue, you lose max stamina instead of your regular stamina.

Recovering Stamina

To recover your stamina, you must take an action to walk or do nothing. When you do, it recovers by 8 points for each round you walk or stand still. You can eat food such as snacks to recover 24 points of stamina. 

Leveling Up Skills

Your skills start off at 1 star and max out at 7 stars. When you work in the field you can gain experience towards it. It takes an amount of XP to gain a star equal to 100x the star level. ex. 200xp for 2 star, 300xp for 3 star etc. You can gain 10xp per day if you work at least 8 hours on it.

Blood Plague

Blood Plague is a disease that can be contracted by being exposed to it. Zombies infected by the Blood Plague can infect players when they hit them. When a player is hit by a BPZ (Blood Plague Zombie), they gain 1 stack of Blood Plague. A player can have a number of stacks equal to their Constitution. When they gain a number of stacks equal to their Constitution, they become infected. They have a number of hours equal to 3 times their Constitution in hours before they die. It remove this, they must receive the Blood Plague Cure. When a character is infected, their Speed and Strength is reduced by half.  round down. If an infected player is hit by a BPZ while infected, their timer is reduced by 20 mins. 

Zombie Infections

Infestations appear randomly or by mission triggers. As the name describes, they are locations infested by the zombies. Every infestation consists of several zombies and one or more Screamers.

They can have the following levels:

• Level 1: 1 Screamer + 6 zombies
• Level 2: 2 Screamers + 8 zombies
• Level 3: 3 Screamers + 10 zombies
• Level 4: 3 Screamers + 11+ zombies (More on this later)

Every time an Infestation appears on the map you'll get a notification about it. Each of them will be level 1 at the beginning, however if you don't deal with them in time, they'll level up, making it more challenging to clear them out. Their difficulty multiplies as they level up especially when playing on Dread and Nightmare Zones since the more Screamers and zombies you have the more likely they'll bring in other nearby zombies.

They can also make scavenging more dangerous since they tend to spawn near other Infestations, thus overrunning certain parts of the map.

Clearing out Infestations will earn you +20 Influence on every difficulty. Killing Screamers will also earn you +5 Influence each. Additionally, If a player is in proximity to or fighting one, other zombies that wander near can 'join' said infestation. However, this isn't usually a problem as the infestation will typically only gain one or two zeds from this.

On Level 2-4, killing one of the Screamers will prompt the remaining freaks to "scream", which will invite other zombies into the infested building.

Morale Penalties

Infestations should not be ignored. The first reason is the previously mentioned 'leveling up'. The second one is that if you let them accumulate on the map, they will give a morale penalty for all of your survivors. Members of your community will often voice their concern regarding the density of insestations if they are left untouched.

Penalty levels:

• Having 1-2 infestations on the map will not have any negative effects.
• 3 infestations will give -3 Morale,
• 4-7 Infestations will give -7 Morale, and
• 8 or more Infestations will give -15 Morale for everyone.

These Morale penalties might not be a problem for well-maintained communities, however, they can play a huge part in bringing down your community members especially when you have other issues to tend to, like low resource levels or fights between community members.

Plague Hearts

Plague Hearts are a new threat introduced with State of Decay 2. There are multiple hearts on each map that the player will have to destroy in order to progress your community's story.

Attempting to destroy these Plague Hearts will cause waves of plague zombies to spawn, at which point you have a chance to be infected with blood plague if these plague zombies are allowed to hit the player character enough times. Another threat posed by plague hearts is the damaging gas they emit after they sustain enough damage, however this can be evaded by moving away from the heart as it is charging the attack. 
Plague hearts can spawn if Zombie Infestation's stick around too long.
Plague Hearts have 100 Hit Points and deal 5-10 damage to every non zombie within 30ft of it on its turn. When you destroy a Plague Heart, it deals 5 stacks of Blood Plague to everything in 50ft of it.  Also, when destroyed all Plague hearts within 100 miles gains 50% Health. If a Plague Heart is not damaged after one round it regains 10% of its health back. This doubles for each round not attacked.

Plague Heart Rewards

Each Plague Heart contains some items as a reward for destroying them. The following items are known to be dropped by them:

Plague Heart Samples: 3-5
Backpack: Large or Hiking
Melee Weapon: Any Kind
Range Weapon: Any Kind
Medical Item: Bandages, Painkillers or First Aid Kit
Stamina Restore: Stimulant, Snacks or Energy Drinks
Other: Frag Grenades, Fuel Bombs, Molotovs, Pipe Bombs, or Toolkits
Rucksack: Any Kind

Freaks, Sneaks and Elites

Their are several different kinds of zombies that inhabit state of decay. They include Regular Zombies, Armored Zombies, Screamers, Ferals, Bloaters and Juggernauts. Blood Plague versions of these ones have double the health, strength and potency. 

Regular Zombies

The standard enemy type, zombies come in both walking and crawling variants. They are typically slow making them easy to kill or avoid as needed. Their danger comes when they form into a cohesive group known as a horde. These groups can quickly drain a player of stamina trying to fight them off, and are often difficult to escape.

Armored Zombies

Members of the military or police S.W.A.T. units that have turned will often be found with bullet resistant helmets and armored gear that makes shooting them at range a challenge. A sufficient number of shots to the head will knock off their helmet, meaning a quick headshot will end them. Using a .50 caliber will negate the protective armor they wear and kill them no matter where the shot lands on them. Often, it may be simpler to eliminate them with melee attacks or a stealth execution.

Screamers

Grey-skinned, balding zombies with no arms and no lower jaw, screamers have evolved the ability to emit a high pitched scream that will attract the attention of nearby zombies while also briefly stunning humans close to it. One or more screamers are generally found in each infestation, along with several standard zombies. Though not especially dangerous on their own, screamers can complicate encounters with other zombies and freaks. 

Screamers also have the ability to set off a chain reaction. If one is killed in close proximity to another, or if one is within earshot when another screams, they will scream themselves.

Bloaters

Seen as tall, pale-green skinned zombies with bloated bellies, bloaters will explode when in close proximity to humans, releasing a lingering toxic cloud that quickly saps health. They can often be found lying in wait on the ground or walking along either within crowds of zombies or alone. If you encounter a bloater while in a vehicle, the released cloud of gas can fill up the cabin of the vehicle, forcing you to bail out in order to escape the toxic effects. Once the cloud within your vehicle dissipates, you can safely re-enter and continue on your way. Note that a shot to the belly will rupture and kill a bloater, a shot to the legs will cause it to trip and fall, releasing its gas, and a shot to the head will cause it to fall to the ground quietly and release gas slowly and harmlessly (unless a player/NPC approaches it, of where it will explode) . An incendiary (such as a molotov) is often the best way to deal with these freaks, as the flames will then burn away the toxic cloud. if in close proximity to a standing bloater, they will run at you before exploding. If you manage to outrun the Bloater, it will fall over and explode. 

Ferals

Ferals are incredibly agile, dangerous zombies being able to run on all fours. They are fast enough to run down and tackle a sprinting human and will often dodge attempts to shoot them. Their presence is typically announced by their signature guttural roar. The best ways to get rid of a feral are either a headshot or by running it down with a vehicle, but due to their agility this will require practice as they will often jump out of the way, a viable strategy when using a vehicle is to allow the Feral to latch onto one of the doors and smash them on the side of a wall or pole. 

Juggernauts

Toughest of the freaks to remove, Juggernauts take a considerable amount of firepower in order to faze them. In combat they will pick a target, roar and then charge in their direction with the intent of either trampling their prey or delivering a powerful swing. Juggernauts can also grab a survivor and (if you aren't able to stop them in time) rip him or her in half. When they are nearing death they will kneel down allowing you to initiate a ground execution. A headshot while they are in this downed state will also kill them.  plague juggernauts. Plague juggernauts will emit piles of Blood Plague residue when preforming their ground pound attack that will stun characters and infect them.