The 88 Hit Point Ogre in the Room

[RangerWickett]

Yeah, when the 3rd level dwarf fighter might have 36 HP, if he picks up a kobold sidekick, the little bugger will only have 2 HP too. Is that suspension of disbelief breaking? Not for me.

I'm fine with a party of low-level heroes fighting, effectively, a 5th or 6th level kobold bad-ass.

 

[stevelabny]

It's the equivalent of class levels. That HP jump isn't being bigger or tougher, it's the exact same kind of HP jump that your Fighter gets as he levels up; experience, grit, luck and willpower. You don't get to be leader of a savage tribe of goblins or kobolds by being a pushover.

Eh, If the 11 hp are just hd + con bonus (since theyre obviously not including their full con) that implies a d10 +1. Even if the leaders is a d10+3 he's at least 5 levels and probably 7 or 8 levels higher than they are. That's a HUGE leap. Which is why I brought up the point about lieutenants. If you had 11 hp hobgobs, and then some 30 hp lieutenants, and maybe even a 50 hp second-in-command...the leader being 75 would make more sense, and the players would be better mentally prepared. To jump straight from 11hp to 75hp is just being mean.

 

[DogBackward]

Eh, If the 11 hp are just hd + con bonus (since theyre obviously not including their full con) that implies a d10 +1. Even if the leaders is a d10+3 he's at least 5 levels and probably 7 or 8 levels higher than they are. That's a HUGE leap. Which is why I brought up the point about lieutenants. If you had 11 hp hobgobs, and then some 30 hp lieutenants, and maybe even a 50 hp second-in-command...the leader being 75 would make more sense, and the players would be better mentally prepared. To jump straight from 11hp to 75hp is just being mean.

Keep in mind that this is a quick-and-dirty conversion of an old, old module. I'm sure that, if they had done this from the ground up, they may have put more time into mini-bosses and lieutenants.

As it is, though, it's not a big deal. Yeah, there's a big jump... but as soon as somebody hits the big guy and he doesn't die, people are going to realize "Oh, boss. Get ready for a long(er) fight, guys." It's not being mean, it just means that a boss monster is more likely to get a turn or two before being mobbed to death.

 

[frankthedm]

Do you think all ogres have 88 HP, or just ogres fighting as solo monsters?

Trolls have 132hp and 10 point regen. It is looking like monster HP scales very fast.

 

[eamon]

If trolls & ogre's really need this many HP to compare to goblins, perhaps everything needs to be scaled way down: goblins of 1 to 2 hitpoints, attacks that deal 3 damage (fixed) and magic missiles that deal 1 etc.

Honestly, if an ogre has 88, and a minotaur has many more, then I shudder to think of a dragon.

Huge numbers of hitpoints don't add anything to the game except slowness of play.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don´t like monster hp scaling this fast.

It would make PC classes as monsters hard to do...

On th other hand, if the ogre is level 9 effectively and has bonus hp because of buk ...maybe small cretures like kobolds get only a fracture of con to hp, big creatures get hp doubled... And lower AC or something

So an ogre will have 44 hp for beeing a higher level monster and this amount is doubled...

 

[Walking Dad]

Originally Posted by stevelabny
Eh, If the 11 hp are just hd + con bonus (since theyre obviously not including their full con) that implies a d10 +1. Even if the leaders is a d10+3 he's at least 5 levels and probably 7 or 8 levels higher than they are. That's a HUGE leap. Which is why I brought up the point about lieutenants. If you had 11 hp hobgobs, and then some 30 hp lieutenants, and maybe even a 50 hp second-in-command...the leader being 75 would make more sense, and the players would be better mentally prepared. To jump straight from 11hp to 75hp is just being mean.


I think more the math could be Con score +1/2HD.

 

[Ringlerun]

Just ran the module last night with my group. The ogre was a cake walk. The owlbear on the other hand killed the mage in one round. And the stirges later on raped the party hard. I know see were having the small rest is important.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

I haven't gotten the playtest stuff, but from reading this thread I think WotC is going in the "wrong direction" in their quest to attain "exciting combats".

They seem to be thinking backwards; they're thinking that a longer combat is 'more exciting'...it's not. Raising HP's and/or AC is only going to do one thing...lead to 'grind'; where everyone at the table knows the likely outcome, but are powerless to do anthing to speed it up.

IMHO, they should reduce the ogres HP by a bit (say, down to about 50hp), but increase his damage output. Players should be thinking An ogre?! Damn...lets try and avoid that thing! It'll kill us all or at least one or two of us... and not be thinking An ogre?! Cool! Those things can't hit anything, do surprisingly little damage for their size and power, and all it takes is a couple extra rounds to wear down their hp. With our clerical heals, we can take him easy. Sweet!

Tough/exciting fights aren't about giving obscene hp's to monsters...that appearantly failed in 4e, so 5e shouldn't repeat that mistake.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Walking Dad]

One-hit-dead fight become boring as well. And if only attacking fast with any weapon counts, the heavy armored big weapon archetype suffers.

This isn't what D&D is about. And I'm not talking about 4e. I remember 2e fighters don't bothering climbing down mountains and just jumped, because their HP was so high the falling damage was negligible.
Maybe not a good thing, but the traditional.

Oh, and the 4e rules didn't fail. The HP damage ratio was fixed and the rules itself their functional. IMHO it failed because of the marketing. And seeing the current reaction on their playtest regulations I fear for 5e as well.