D&D 5E 5e: the demystification of monsters?

I think it's pretty clear that an ogre isn't much of a threat to a 5th-level fighter by itself.

However, that same ogre could spell big trouble if he gets close to the 5th-level wizard, who, unless he has high Con or Toughness, can still get killed in one 2d8+4 hit. Even a shot or two against a rogue or cleric would be bad news, and eat into daily healing resources (HD and/or healing magic) at the very least.

By level 10, there is very little chance that the ogre will kill a PC - he'd probably go down in only a couple rounds - but a decent hit or two would still require healing.

Remember, this ain't 4e. HD are much rarer than healing surges were, and all other healing takes up daily resources.

As a side-note, Parry and Protect are clearly a bit too much. Makes me sad.

ZombieRoboNinja said:

I think it's pretty clear that an ogre isn't much of a threat to a 5th-level fighter by itself.

However, that same ogre could spell big trouble if he gets close to the 5th-level wizard, who, unless he has high Con or Toughness, can still get killed in one 2d8+4 hit. Even a shot or two against a rogue or cleric would be bad news, and eat into daily healing resources (HD and/or healing magic) at the very least.

By level 10, there is very little chance that the ogre will kill a PC - he'd probably go down in only a couple rounds - but a decent hit or two would still require healing.

Remember, this ain't 4e. HD are much rarer than healing surges were, and all other healing takes up daily resources.

As a side-note, Parry and Protect are clearly a bit too much. Makes me sad.

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Exactly, not sure why what's-his-name glommed onto this "lone 5th level Fighter vs. an Ogre" scenario.

Patryn of Elvenshae said:

The most recent one. Or are you going to compare the first playtest ogre against the first playtest fighter, too?

In the end, it doesn't matter. Adding 2 additional points to the ogre's attack makes him slightly likely to beat the pure-idiot fighter - they're within 1 round of average-time-to-kill (the ogre still losing, on average). It still leaves the ogre with ~20 rounds to kill the ALL-PARRY-ALL-THE-TIME! fighter, so there's no actual change in the results: an ogre is not a threat to a 5th-level Fighter by himself, let alone a 5th-level party and not even approaching speedbump status for a 10th-level party.

And do you care to post some math of your own? Quoting a die code doesn't actually demonstrate that you understand anything.

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I see two problems with your example. The first one, is that a combat does not need with a PC dead to be "a threat" or "meaningful". indeed, the CR system implies that the PC *win* the battle, but they lose a few resources in the process. A game where the PC have 50% chance to win an encounter is not balanced, is a game with 2 encounters length on average.

The second problem with your example is taht you are using *one* ogre. Sayiing that one single ogre is not a threat to a lvl 5 party has the same flawed logic that saying one single goblin is not a threat for a lvl 1 party. It's not, but it's not supposed to be encountered like that. You face groups of goblins, and, at lvl 5, you face groups of ogres. A second ogre hitting the all-parry fighter pose a much bigger threat. At level 10, 3vs1 ogres can also pose a threat. And remember: posing a threat does not mean the NPC have 50% chance to win and kill the party. The purpose of encounters is not to roll new characters every second combat. If the ogres die, and drain a meaningful part of the party resources, then they are properly designed.

Steely_Dan said:

Exactly, not sure why what's-his-name glommed onto this "lone 5th level Fighter vs. an Ogre" scenario.

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1: A fifth level character is obviously less powerful than an entire 10th level party
2: A fighter is the easiest class to run simulations with.
3: Fifth level is the highest level we have in the latest playtest packet.

If an ogre isn't a serious threat to a fifth level PC, it's certainly not a threat to an entire tenth level party. Sure, a team of a dozen might be. But so might a team of a thousand kobolds. That doesn't mean that one kobold is a threat. It means that quantity has a quality all of its own.

And the playtest packet produced on 17/08 had ogres with 32hp, AC15 +4 to hit and 2d8+4 damage. +6 came from the first playtest packet.

And my "agenda" is to make sure that things said are actually true. And that we get a good game out of 5e. This doesn't mean it needs to be like 4e.
[MENTION=57948]triqui[/MENTION], the reason we're using one ogre is because Steely_Dan claimed that a single ogre would be a threat to the 10th level party in the second post in this thread. That was the statement made and the statement Steely_Dan is trying to defend throughout this thread.

triqui said:

I see two problems with your example. The first one, is that a combat does not need with a PC dead to be "a threat" or "meaningful". indeed, the CR system implies that the PC *win* the battle, but they lose a few resources in the process. A game where the PC have 50% chance to win an encounter is not balanced, is a game with 2 encounters length on average.

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Certainly, I agree with all of that. However, I'm not sure that your objection is particularly meaningful in this instance, because the odds are good that, in one-on-one combat, a single 5th-level Fighter will come out nigh-unscathed against a single ogre.

I mean, you see [MENTION=6694877]slobo777[/MENTION]'s post where he sends 3 1st-level Fighters against 3 ogres, and they win more often than not? Now, add 4 more levels (with the attendant improvement in to-hit bonuses, hit points, combat superiority dice, and gear) and make it a diversified party (so that you have things like magical slows, walls, sleep spells, blessings, etc.), and I think you'll agree that even 3 ogres at once isn't going to be particularly challenging.

And if it is not particularly challenging at 5th-level, there's no way those ogres are holding up as a meaningful threat at 10th-level. Not yet, anyway.

The second problem with your example is taht you are using *one* ogre.

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That was the example given, and the claim was that "an ogre" would be a threat to a 10th-level party.

I think that's been pretty conclusively disproven.

Would 12 ogres be a threat to a 10th-level party? In large part, I think that will be determined by how exactly bounded the accuracy system is, but given the way D&D has shaken out before (e.g., a proliferation of area effects in the hands of the spellcasters) combined with what we've seen so far (e.g., fighter superiority dice progression and rogue sneak attack progression), I'm no so sure.

A second ogre hitting the all-parry fighter pose a much bigger threat. At level 10, 3vs1 ogres can also pose a threat.

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Sure - but the chances that both ogres hitting the fighter in the same round is only ~1 in 10 or 1 in 8. Against a solo 5th-level fighter, you'd expect one of the ogres to be dead before that happens.

And remember: posing a threat does not mean the NPC have 50% chance to win and kill the party.

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Certainly not - but "50% chance to win if I play absolutely braindead" is not a meaningful threat, either.

If the ogres die, and drain a meaningful part of the party resources, then they are properly designed.

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My supposition is that, so far, it doesn't look like they'll be draining a meaningful amount of the party's resources - at 5th-level, let alone 10th.

If the fighter's by himself against an ogre (and parries all the time), he's taken about 9 points of damage, on average.

And while it's likely that there will be more ogres fighting the 5th-level party, the fighter's not going to be by himself, and he's also probably going to have better gear or attack bonuses or defenses than I've assumed in my rough-justice numbers - and, afterwards, he's got the level 5 healer to patch him up (and maximize his hit die rolls).

Do "I cost the enemy a single Hit Die" or "I cost the cleric a single healing spell" represent a "meaningful" threat? Not in my book.

gweinel said:

I know that we are still early in the development of the game and probably this issue, will change later.

In the playtest the heroes, from the 1st level are able to face a variety of foes and monsters. They can beat an ogre, drow elves, wights and many more. These monsters are made in porpuse to be beaten from the 1st level.

Don't get me wrong, i like the variety in battles and the pluralism of the enemies, the thing that i don't like is the demystification of many iconic monsters. I remember back in 2e you have to be 6 or 7 lvl to see the face of a dark elf. In 3rd or 4th edition an ogre could swipe a low level party. Only from 4th-5th level could a party beat it. If the players are able to cope from the 1st level with wights and ogres what will face at 10th level?

At 5e, this magical feeling, this terror in the eyes of the players when they hear the name of iconic monster is being lost, at least for me and my gaming group.

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I think that it is kind of a non-problem.

My first consideration is that this game is largely fantasy fulfillment. There is something to be said for gradual empowerment of characters, but as long as the characters improve noticably as they increase in level, that won't be missing from the game. One thing I never liked about MMO games is that you spend the lowest levels of the game hunting and killing giant rats like some kind of glorified exerminator.

The monsters you mention have an established reputation as being hazards. Seeing Drow at a lower level helps immersion with respect to why Drow have not simply conquered the entire world.

As for the rarity of various monsters, the players only fight what the DM puts in front of them. If you need something to be rare, you just do not use it until you think the time is right.

END COMMUNICATION

I think that once they fix the monster "to-hit" modifiers most monsters will be viable threats over a large level range. You'll be able to use ogres at 1st and 10th level. The numbers and situations may vary (a couple of ogres arguing over meat vs. a dozen of them throwing rocks down at your from a tower) but you can still use them.

I hope.

slobo777 said:

IMO default to always Parry is optimal in a lot of cases. Exception is only when you can near-guarantee a kill by adding Deadly Strike.

This will need fixing, either by increasing monster damage (unlikely) or reducing power of Parry (more likely - I expect it will drop a die type, or similar).

A quick Monte-Carlo, three Level 1 Guardian Fighter Dwarves (Survivor Specialty) versus 3 Ogres, with preference to Protect and Parry when Ogres hit:

Code:

  TPK:                  49%           {49384/100000}

  Completed adventure:  51%
       two dwarves died      0%   {160 events}
         one dwarf died      4%   
          badly injured      0%   {353 events}
      moderate injuries     22%   
         light injuries     24%   
          not a scratch      1%   {270 events}

Same again, with preference to Deadly Strike:

Code:

  TPK:                  60%       {60412/100000}

  Completed adventure:  40%
       two dwarves died      1%   {534 events}
         one dwarf died      6%   
          badly injured      0%   {371 events}
      moderate injuries     17%   
         light injuries     15%   
          not a scratch      1%   {371 events}

. . . so damage reduction by Parry and Protect seems to be pretty good versus Ogres.

Also, level 1 fighters can handle an equal number of ogres, but it's well beyond usual challenge level.

Edit: Ran 100,000 just to be sure. Although in practice 1000 gets within +-1% most of the time.

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First, let me say that everytime Slobo throws up one of these examples I want to throw XPs at him. I love that program you use, Slobo.

2nd, I think that when WoTC finally gets to work on the monsters, they should give the DM the choice to use mooks, standard, elite or solo monsters of each type. They just need to make a formula we can apply (more or less) for each upgrade or downgrade. This is important because DMs should be able to vary the difficulty/ type of encounter even using the same kind of monsters.

For example, in one encounter I might just want the PCs to face a small group of 4 orcs standard orcs. This probably would not be too difficult. In another encounter I might want to have them face 2 orcs, but if I want it to challenge them and drain their resources, I would probably make them elite orcs. In another encounter I could throw 10 orc mooks and 1 elite (maybe even one that casts spells). If I describe the monsters differently, and they act differently, and they use different weapons (and later some acquire new abiliites like spellcasting, etc.) then I can really add depth to my game...even if I reuse the same monster type in multiple encounters.

Blackbrrd said:

Against a level 10 party, you will probably see something like 2-3 hill giants and 6-12 ogres. In 5e it looks like the addition of the 6-12 ogres will change the encounter dramatically. In earlier editions (3e, 4e) they would most likely be just cannon fodder unable to hit except on maybe 19 or 20 on a d20, and hittable on a 2 on a d20.

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Well, in 4e you would do this as 2-3 hill giants and 6-12 ogre minions. And the ogres would be cannon-fodder - that's the point! If at least some of the monsters aren't cannon-fodder, the PCs won't survive meeting two or three times their own numbers in opponents!

pemerton said:

Well, in 4e you would do this as 2-3 hill giants and 6-12 ogre minions. And the ogres would be cannon-fodder - that's the point! If at least some of the monsters aren't cannon-fodder, the PCs won't survive meeting two or three times their own numbers in opponents!

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The difference in 4E mainly being the ogres would hit more, but for less damage than the at-level version. It's probably a similar damage per round and survivability to what would happen in 3E with the AC/to-hit mismatch, but smoothed out by 4E's expected hit rates.