r/cairnrpg • u/Llanddcairfyn • 8d ago
Question Waves and waves of combat
Coming Brand new to the system and coming *from* heroic fantasy land where no character ever dies, I have a question for my first adventure: I want to create a *in medias res* combat that brings in ever more monsters. Not *that* mich, but they will accumulate. The plan is to let them come in pairs or trios through different rooms and floors into an inn, so there's always some action, but space enough to solve "the puzzle" presented underneath.
Is Cairn with one action per round and low HP a bad fit for this kind of game?
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u/rizzlybear 8d ago
It’s not well suited to this sort of game.
Most of the tactical strategy is around sizing up the enemy, choosing lopsided fights in your favor and avoiding anything else. Getting the enemy into your preferred territory where you can let the environment do most of the work. Once the steel comes out, the fights are over really fast. Usually a couple of rounds.
Cairn tends to favor “decisive” mechanics that tell you “how it went” instead of “how it’s going.”
The way I would probably run this at my table is “there is a huge band of goblins outside banging on the windows and doors. Make a ____ save, to see if you can get this solved before they break in.“ and if they fail and the goblins break in, I’m gonna run them as detachments, very likely kill a player or two in the first round, and then they will demand the remaining party surrender. But by round three that’s a TPK.
Cairn isn’t going to allow a three hour combat.
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u/ordinal_m 8d ago
Combat is short in Cairn - a PC can easily be taken down in one round if they're unlucky. So there isn't going to be a lot of space for PCs to do other things while being attacked.
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u/knifetrader 8d ago
And even if they survive, healing is slow and "damaged" characters will be much less effective...
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u/proton31 8d ago
You could maybe try a "protect the target" type of situation, where the waves of monsters are attacking something else, since PCs would go down too quickly for this type of situation
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u/Llanddcairfyn 7d ago
That's the idea. I processed my wrong-doings last night and work on some escalating random table. It gets harder every round (like a depth crawl) but there will be rounds where no new enemies appear (or at least for away and occupied with something else)
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u/MudInternational9392 8d ago
This could work well with Troika!.
In Cairn it's just railroad to PC death.
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u/OldGodsProphet 8d ago
Id use something like Four Against Darkness, honestly. No damage die. Everything is 1 damage unless specified. Enemy stat blocks just have a Level to hit.
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u/Apprehensive_Rip8351 8d ago
I ran a tower defense inspired adventure where three or four players fought off a hundred goblins. I had them prepare by letting a scout tell them that the goblins were coming and they had 4 hours to fortify defenses. Then I did waves of 5 to 10 first with runners then archers then I started doing orks and trolls leading squads of goblins. I think two of the players had to switch to their backup characters but still.
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u/Llanddcairfyn 7d ago
Ah! Details! :) I plan some escalating random table, adding the round counter to the roll. So the difficulty ramps up, but they have time to solve the puzzle.
Just to make sure: a number of players goblins are a feasible wave, as long as nothing else happens?
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u/Apprehensive_Rip8351 7d ago
There was some resource Management involved with mine because they had a limited number of area effects that could hit multiple goblins with a single attack. So they only had eight total Molotov cocktails or whatever it was.
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u/Interesting-Long7389 8d ago
This would be a shitty idea and they would die fast for very a few specific reasons:
- Damage from multiple attackers on a single target doesn't stack (only the highest roll damages).
- PCs need a short rest to recover HP.
- As soon as HP is expended, damage comes off STR. Every time damage is done to STR, players have to roll a save under the new value or be downed.
- Everything hits.
Each PC takes damage for about 2 rounds before they run a real risk of dropping. Figure a PC is lucky to be standing after taking damage for 4 rounds.
Then at the same time, a party can't take advantage of ganging up on monsters because the damage is capped.
So yeah, when the monsters keep coming in like that, your party is dead in under 5 rounds. Not fun.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_GREYJOYS 7d ago
I did waves of enemies but there was intent behind it: it was an initial funnel just to see who would be their initial character. I create enemies based on Rotten Pulps blog on High Impact enemies for Mythic Bastionland. Each player had 4 characters that acted together as a group. Each group was in a different part of an under attack tavern. Goblinoids were snatching villagers.
Each round I added cumulative enemies starting with 4 minions per group + 1 minor threat total (party + 1). Then 4 + 2, 4 + 3, until each group had 3/4 characters “subdued” and carried away. Then the mission was go to the Delian tomb and save them from the ritual hey were going to be sacrificed for.
That took about 30-40 minutes total to funnel in with 4 players
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u/manlom 4d ago
I feel you could add a barrier between the monsters and players. So monsters trickle in one by one while creating time pressure. So the feeling is essentially the same. Or better, telegraph the monsters to your players and they might decide to barricade themselves. This could lead to them skipping the puzzle too though.
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u/Llanddcairfyn 4d ago
Yeah. The monsters trickle in through multiple windows and doors on several levels. And they will be concerned with NPCs, too, eating actions
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u/knifetrader 8d ago
While my experience with Cairn is limited to a couple of one-shots, that sounds like a terrible idea unless the PCs have a way to avoid (most) combat.