The 88 Hit Point Ogre in the Room

[Cerebral Paladin]

Don't talk about it online. You just said you want to break the OTA, unless your wife and kids signed up, too.

Why wouldn't his wife and kids sign up? My wife either has, or will shortly in anticipation of playing with me (and others). I may well sign up my son later, assuming that his age won't create a problem for WotC's account creation requirements.

 

[Melkor]

A party of five adventurers should be able to take a single ogre down in about 3 rounds. What makes it a longer, more dangerous battle is that it really shouldn't be a single ogre.

I talked about battling that Ogre in another thread on our initial playtest. The fighter rolled poorly, but all of the other characters did well, and the fight took about an hour and was a lot of fun.

 

[Melkor]

You hit the Ogre and were floored? What sort of immediate interrupt did it have?

Too bad experience points are disabled right now.

 

[kitsune9]

I'm working on a probability file to see how long combats take given mean damage. At 1st level, a party of five characters will deal 28.08 (slightly more with the rogue's sneak in the 1st round) points of damage against AC 14 (the Ogre) while the Ogre will only deal 5.2 against a mean AC of 15. The combat on average should last four rounds (3.133 rounded up). I haven't worked on 2nd or 3rd level parties, but one can assume that combat will be even shorter.

When I finish the file, I'll post various results.

Overall, I noticed the hp inflation, but nothing jumps out as of yet that indicates combat grind just yet.

 

[Psikus]

Does 5e still have SoDs/SoLs easily accessible to the PCs? If so then I think this doesn't go far enough. Epic monsters need more than just lots of hit points, they need anti-SoD/SoL defences of some sort.

Hit points ARE the defense against Save or Die in 5e. All of the (admittedly few) SoD spells known depend on HP in some way. Sleep only knocks unconscious if the target has 11HP or less, Hold Person only paralyzes creatures with less than 40 HP remaining, and so on. And Charm Person isn't particularly useful in combat, now.

 

[Mercule]

The ogre isn't that bad. My group decided to start tossing lit up rocks down every hallway they could find, without waiting to see what came out (these people have decades of experience, each, they were in a weird mood). As luck would have it, they picked the entrance that resulted in them getting twelve goblins and the ogre to show up. With all dice rolled openly (I.e. no fudging), they survived. I'll grant it was a close thing, with all spells spent, the cleric of Pelor 1 hp away from dead, and only the wizard and fighter standing. Only the wizard avoided negative hps the entire fight.

Was it tough? Heck yeah. Impossibly or unreasonable? Not at all.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Love the flattening of the math, so a creature may have a 13 AC, but a hundred HP.

Or a Will''o'Wisp may have an AC of 23, but low HP, a lovely return.

 

[stevelabny]

My problem isn't so much the Ogre having 88 HP. Because hey, you don't know how may HP an Ogre might have. And it looks big and strong.


My problem is fighting a bunch of 2 HP kobolds and two 10 HP kobold shields, the leader has 44HP. Or the 11 HP hobgoblins have a 75 HP leader.

You've already "set a baseline" and sure, a leader will be bigger, tougher, stronger (or older, smarter, fireball) But the jumps between the common enemies and the leaders seem way too unexpectedly high, especially without any real lieutenant-types.

 

[jadrax]

My problem is fighting a bunch of 2 HP kobolds and two 10 HP kobold shields, the leader has 44HP. Or the 11 HP hobgoblins have a 75 HP leader.

As an aside, in the original module, the Kobolds had 2 hp and their leader 8, and the Hobgoblins had 5 hp and their leader 22. So the ratios have clearly changed.

 

[DogBackward]

My problem isn't so much the Ogre having 88 HP. Because hey, you don't know how may HP an Ogre might have. And it looks big and strong.


My problem is fighting a bunch of 2 HP kobolds and two 10 HP kobold shields, the leader has 44HP. Or the 11 HP hobgoblins have a 75 HP leader.

You've already "set a baseline" and sure, a leader will be bigger, tougher, stronger (or older, smarter, fireball) But the jumps between the common enemies and the leaders seem way too unexpectedly high, especially without any real lieutenant-types.

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.