Cinco: Encounters & Monsters

-

Let me share an example of four level-1 encounters, from easy (2 ♥) to deadly (8 ♥). Remember that characters deal a hit on a roll of 20 and up, choose to dodge or exchange hits from 10 to 19, or take a hit without dealing one on 9 or less.

Easy Encounter

Round 1: Monster strength 2 of 2.
    Alice dodges an incoming blow (8+3).
    Bob dodges an incoming blow (15+3).
    Claire dodges an incoming blow (10+2).
    David defends themself and lands 1 hit (17+4).
Round 2: Monster strength 1 of 2.
    Alice lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (11+3); 2 hearts left.

Medium Encounter

Round 1: Monster strength 4 of 4.
    Alice lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (9+3); 2 hearts left.
    Bob dodges an incoming blow (9+3).
    Claire dodges an incoming blow (17+2).
    David dodges an incoming blow (13+4).
Round 2: Monster strength 3 of 4.
    Alice dodges an incoming blow (16+3).
    Bob lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (8+3); 2 hearts left.
    Claire defends themself and lands 1 hit (18+2).
    David dodges an incoming blow (14+4).
Round 3: Monster strength 1 of 4.
    Alice is hit (5+3).
    Bob lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (12+3); 1 hearts left.

Hard Encounter

Round 1: Monster strength 6 of 6.
    Alice dodges an incoming blow (15+3).
    Bob is hit (6+3).
    Claire dodges an incoming blow (16+2).
    David dodges an incoming blow (12+4).
Round 2: Monster strength 6 of 6.
    Alice lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (8+3); 2 hearts left.
    Bob dodges an incoming blow (10+3).
    Claire is hit (5+2).
    David defends themself and lands 1 hit (17+4).
Round 3: Monster strength 4 of 6.
    Alice lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (12+3); 1 hearts left.
    Bob is hit (4+3).
    Claire lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (17+2); 1 hearts left.
    David lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (11+4); 2 hearts left.
Round 4: Monster strength 1 of 6.
    Alice defends themself and lands 1 hit (19+3).

Deadly Encounter

Round 1: Monster strength 8 of 8.
    Alice dodges an incoming blow (8+3).
    Bob is hit (5+3).
    Claire lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (13+2); 2 hearts left.
    David dodges an incoming blow (7+4).
Round 2: Monster strength 7 of 8.
    Alice lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (14+3); 2 hearts left.
    Bob defends themself and lands 1 hit (18+3).
    Claire lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (15+2); 1 hearts left.
    David dodges an incoming blow (10+4).
Round 3: Monster strength 4 of 8.
    Alice lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (7+3); 1 hearts left.
    Bob lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (9+3); 1 hearts left.
    Claire is hit (2+2).
    Claire is down.
    David lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (10+4); 2 hearts left.
Round 4: Monster strength 1 of 8.
    Alice is hit (1+3).
    Alice is down.
    Bob is hit (2+3).
    Bob is down.
    David lands 1 hit but takes 1 in turn (8+4); 1 hearts left.

Building Encounters

So, this is all an abstract simulation of what combat looks like. How do you actually populate an encounter with monsters? Just add up monsters and their hearts! Typical basic bitch values:

  • Dragon (4–16 ♥ by age)
  • Ghoul (3 ♥)
  • Giant (8–12 ♥ by type) 
  • Hydra (1 or 2 ♥ per head, depending on vibes)
  • Hoblin (1 ♥)
  • Mummy (5 ♥)
  • Ogre (4 ♥)
  • Porc (2 ♥)
  • Skeleton (1 ♥)
  • Specter (6 ♥)
  • Troll (6 ♥)
  • Vampire (8 ♥)
  • Wraith (4 ♥)
  • Zombie (2 ♥)

You see how lazy I could be? Since armor class tends to increase with hit dice, we could get pretty abstract if we were to combine the two. Helps to act as a guideline rather than as a strict rule. In general, using abstract templates:

  • Minion (1 ♥)
  • Grunt (2 ♥)
  • Elite (4 ♥)
  • Boss (8 ♥)
  • Megaboss (16 ♥)

That's all there is to it! Combat is done. Closed book. Don't worry about it.

Comments

  1. dave dowFebruary 29, 2024 at 11:12 PM

    This looks really cool, I love how boiled down to the crucial decisions it is - one question though, what is the modifier mentioned on each of the PC rolls, level? Apologies if that should be obvious from another post - I had a quick look and couldn't spot - thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Marcia B.March 1, 2024 at 5:10 AM

      thank you so much! the bonus is each character's relevant aspect bonus, which is sort of like a player-defined ability based on their character's fiction: https://traversefantasy.blogspot.com/2024/01/cinco-cut-your-gordian-knots.html

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plagiarism in Unconquered (2022)

-
Image
Ultimately [UVG2E], like UVG1E, are books [sic] that long to be cut to pieces, chopped & screwed and re-arranged and re-organized and repurposed into the collected loose-leaf notes of a GM binder, to be pulled out and smoothly interjected into a Something Else. Noora Rose, “ UVG, UVG2E, and Me ” (2023-06-30) I was originally going to put this post (at least, the commentary parts) through an AI Gary Gygax translator and publish it on a friend's burner blog. However, this is too serious to be treated like a joke, so here it is instead. Staking my name on it, lol. A Something Else Unconquered (2022) is an OSR-style science-fantasy adventure game and setting by Noora Rose of Monkey's Paw Games. Originally intended to have been based on Knave , according to the 2020 Kickstarter campaign , Rose refactored it to be based on Into the Odd instead—although with significant influence from Jared Sinclair's The Vanilla Game . I previously threw Unconquered into my big OSR
Read more

OSR Rules Families

-
Image
So, here’s the thing: originally I wrote this like a fucking research article with a hypothesis, a methodology, and all that stuff. I’m not even a scientific research person. That’s my partner’s job. Not mine. So, instead of walking you through every single step I took, I’m going to take the journalistic approach and start with the big picture before I zoom into it and tell you about the little details. I read, reviewed, and statistically organized 38 different rulebooks considered to be OSR or OSR-adjacent. These include four rulebooks from TSR-era Dungeons & Dragons , as well as ten rulebooks from the 2000s and 2010s. The remaining 24 rulebooks postdate the closure of G+ in early 2019. Please refer to the bibliography at the bottom of this post for more information. After having collected and organized a dataset with ~90 variables, I found the statistical similarity between each pair of rulebooks based on that data. Finally, I ran an algorithm to determine clusters of these bo
Read more

Bite-Sized Dungeons

-
Image
Workbook Now Available On Itch! Bite-Sized Dungeons by Traverse Fantasy Edit: This whole time, I said that a first level dungeon hoard had 100 times d6 gold pieces when it actually has just 10 times d6. This means the average hoard has an XP value of 70 without gems, or ~110 with gems. By extension, the eighteen-room dungeon only has 350 XP without gems, or ~550 XP with gems. That is downright dismal and I don’t think works out with modern play sessions and party counts, so let’s pretend it said 100 times d6 anyway. I just read an article by Yora of Spriggan’s Den about extrapolating a scheme for an eighteen-room dungeon from the procedural generation rules in B/X (1981) [1]. As Yora points out, eighteen rooms is a great size for a mid-to-large dungeon or for a floor of a multi-level dungeon, and the checklist of rooms makes it easy to make sure that the final product has a variety of interesting play interactions. But, being as large as it is, it can still be a tall order on the
Read more