Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven Content Poll

I'd pick low stealth. Making each member's stats actually matter is just fun as an avid RPG-enjoyer. You have more reasons to care about actually training people who are low on certain stats and it matters who you pick for what role (beyond something like going on scavenging runs). Would be nice to have some foreshadowing in advance of course (e.g. Reilly talking about people lack of surviving skills, Parker talking about being ill-suited for certain jobs cause of his condition, etc.)

You could add in an option that determines how badly they get ambushed. If it’s completely, a staggered approach makes sense since the attackers had time to pick their targets. If it’s more limited, closest with least stealth makes most sense.

I for one think it's highly unlikely for MC group to be caught off guard if you trained them properly specially stealth and observation skill if they get caught red handed what's the point of all our efforts then? So i think it makes sense for MC and others to notice something is off like a third sense or gut feeling. Or at least have a affect on how successful the ambush are. Especially we still yet to see the effects of training our group members as a group and as individual as of yet IIRC.

Common events during the shooting is that the one who is the closest should get shot first. But since we can train our members skills you can probably mix "lowest stealth","closest members" and "staggered approach" option into one.

The lowest stealth *amongst the closest group members*.

If you go with random and were feeling malicious you could maybe not have a checkpoint close to the fight. Less likely to restart an outcome if the time inconvenience is big enough

Would this be a situation where it’s 2 new groups meeting or is this a group we have had history with? If so I would assume they would take out the people they knew to be a threat first if it’s 2 new groups I would say it should be based on the ones who look most threatening while considering if they have high stealth they either A would seem less threatening or B would not be seen at all. Also just a thought but I would have an option to have someone as a scout when you are traveling so careful groups may catch things like this before even if they have lower perception.

if it's an ambush where enemies are organized with good trigger discipline, it would make sense for them to set up a firing line and the closest to the enemies or the ones get shot in the first volley fire. if it's a surprise attack from an unorganized one, the ones with lowest stealth would make sense since they are the ones first spotted and the enemies attack as soon as they are spotted.

If it's not random then people will place people they care the least about in the line of fire so there's no true loss in that fail state. If it is random like how hunting generates then people can refresh their screen until it lands on the person(s) they care least about. That we have checkpoints also factors into being able to reroll who gets hit. So it's a question of whether that first instance reading the scene is more important and accepting that people can reroll if they want or making it deterministic and accepting that people will place people accordingly.

With the Staggered Approach, if you have someone big or tough in the front with some body armor. You can kind of plan for setting them up like a Tank in the future and when they take some hits they can fire back almost immediately if they have a gun (especially if they have something like a Riot Shield). The Lowest Stealth approach does makes sense for the situation since it's mostly depended on who discovers who first in a forest where stealth is vital. I would go with the Staggered Approach in case you decided to or wanted to bring a specific party member with you for skills related to Techs, Nature, Animals, History or anything else but you don't want them to get hurt yet or at all if you want them to function properly later on depending on where your destination is.

Logically it'll probably be the character with the lowest stealth. But from a story telling perspective having the character you the player put at the front get shot makes the most sense to me, since the player is choosing to put that character in the most amount of danger.

Yeah I was between stealth or random. Even how much I do like random but I think something like this, I will have to go with the stealth.

I like the idea of incorporating stealth into the mix but if the group is traveling together wouldn't they see everyone or a large grouping at once?