D&D 5E Starter Set: Except 7

[Iosue]

All these monsters are Challenge 2 (450 xp) and all average 12-13 damage for their basic melee attack, 10-11 for ranged.

[snip]

Given how much higher the monster hit points are I think it's pretty fair to say that a Level 2 party isn't likely to be facing more than one of any of these at a time. 4 Ogres would easily live long enough to murder the entire party.

With that in mind I'm almost certain that Challenge # is basically the absolute lower limit of where the monster goes from being "almost certainly lethal" to "only mostly lethal."

We know that Challenge Rating in 5e represents a "moderate-to-challenging fight" for a party of 4 of that level. So this seems to fit pretty well. 1-on-1, yeah, a level 2 fighter is going to have a tough time. With a fighter and his friends, though, the ogre is way outnumbered, and is probably going down in relatively short order.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

When did Ogres get so many hitpoints? Seems like they're twice as powerful as in 3E.

 

[delericho]

That's a nice looking page, and a well-formatted stat block. But...

Monsters, especially obscure monsters (such as the Nothic and the Ochre Jelly) need, at the least, a good physical description, in order for DMs to use them. (A picture would be much better - a lesson WotC learned all the way back when they did the 3.5e Monster Manual.) It is somewhat ironic that the one monster that probably doesn't need an image is the one monster that gets one.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

That's a nice looking page, and a well-formatted stat block. But...

Monsters, especially obscure monsters (such as the Nothic and the Ochre Jelly) need, at the least, a good physical description, in order for DMs to use them. (A picture would be much better - a lesson WotC learned all the way back when they did the 3.5e Monster Manual.) It is somewhat ironic that the one monster that probably doesn't need an image is the one monster that gets one.

Agreed. The MM had better have good descriptions and hopefully artwork of each creature. Considering this is a starter set supposedly for people who haven't played before it's a chronic oversight not to have good descriptions of the monsters (unless they're described in the adventure of course!)

 

[Stainless]

Wait, the monsters have to have full stats recorded?! Like knowing what the charisma is for an ochre jelly is in any way relevant? What a faf, rules for rules sake. Sorry, this game is not for me and obviously the OSR talk has just been lip service.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Wait, the monsters have to have full stats recorded?! Like knowing what the charisma is for an ochre jelly is in any way relevant? What a faf, rules for rules sake. Sorry, this game is not for me and obviously the OSR talk has just been lip service.

All the skills are based off of stats, so if you EVER think a monster might need to make skill checks, you might as well include all their stats.

Plus, there are 6 saving throws against spells now. Those are the 6 stats. If PCs cast a spell that requires a Charisma saving throw, you'll need to know what the Ochre Jelly's saving throw is against it.

It kind of needs to be in there for the monster to be run in combat.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

When did Ogres get so many hitpoints? Seems like they're twice as powerful as in 3E.

You'll likely find that most monsters have quite a few more hitpoints in 5e. Monster design took a lot of cues from 4e.

In 4e, for instance, Ogres are level 8 monsters with 111 hp (at least the Brute versions are). 29 hp for the 3.5e version. 59 for the 5e version.

I think that's very likely what you'll see, that most monsters have hp somewhere between 3.5e and 4e. 4e being slightly too high (plus damage being lower in 5e than in 4e) and 3.5e being too low.

My rough estimate from the math I was doing for the other thread is that at 2nd level most PCs average about 4-5 damage each per round. So, it should take a party of 5 about 2-3 rounds to defeat an Ogre. Less if the casters use spells.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

You'll likely find that most monsters have quite a few more hitpoints in 5e. Monster design took a lot of cues from 4e.

In 4e, for instance, Ogres are level 8 monsters with 111 hp (at least the Brute versions are). 29 hp for the 3.5e version. 59 for the 5e version.

I think that's very likely what you'll see, that most monsters have hp somewhere between 3.5e and 4e. 4e being slightly too high (plus damage being lower in 5e than in 4e) and 3.5e being too low.

My rough estimate from the math I was doing for the other thread is that at 2nd level most PCs average about 4-5 damage each per round. So, it should take a party of 5 about 2-3 rounds to defeat an Ogre. Less if the casters use spells.

So what happens if you have less players? We regularly play with only 2-3 players and one of our complaints with 4E was the long combats and low damage to hit point ratio. Seems like 5E is going to give us the same issue.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

So what happens if you have less players? We regularly play with only 2-3 players and one of our complaints with 4E was the long combats and low damage to hit point ratio. Seems like 5E is going to give us the same issue.

I would guess you would use lower challenge rating creatures. CR 2 creatures are designed for a group of 5 PCs at level 2. So, I'm guessing that CR 1 or CR 1/2 creatures would make great opponents for 3 characters of level 2.

Keep in mind, the major problem with having too few players in a 4e game was that the defenses and attacks of the creatures also changed too much. Use lower level monsters and along with their hitpoints going down, so did all of their defenses to the point where they were extremely easy for PCs to hit. Also the monsters could no longer hit the PCs because their bonus to hit went down too much.

AC doesn't change much in 5e, so monsters who are CR 1 and CR 2 likely have almost identical ACs. Neither does bonus to hit. The real difference will be their hitpoints.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

I would guess you would use lower challenge rating creatures. CR 2 creatures are designed for a group of 5 PCs at level 2. So, I'm guessing that CR 1 or CR 1/2 creatures would make great opponents for 3 characters of level 2.

That's ok but we've taken to running published adventures in recent times due to lack of preparation time and this makes it more difficult as would need to change things around finding alternative creatures to those in the module.

Oh well guess there's always the option of NPC party members again