Ogre Mage - CR 8?

[Jeff Wilder]

Orb of Fire says "Hi!"

To be fair: (1) The orb spells are near the top of the cheese list for official spells, and (2) It's not all that meaningful to point out that an expansion spell makes the ogre mage CR (a core creature) seem even worse. (Don't get me wrong, the ogre mage is significantly weaker than its CR indicates, IMO. But the orb spells pretty much screw over any creature with SR.)

 

[pawsplay]

Spot is a flat DC 20 to notice an invisible creature (DC 30 if he's holding very still). You can get a spot modifier of 9 ranks+5 (2,500 gp item) for a +14 spot modifier before anything else comes into play.

Listen vs Move Silently to notice the general direction of the sounds an invisible creature makes. Beat the DC by 20 and you can pinpoint it. 9 ranks gives a +9 modifier vs the Orge Mage's move silently modifier of +0.

Between the two, I think the party is likely to notice something's around.

I looked it up, and pintpoint a creature's location is +20 DC. I think I'm starting to remember why my PCs resorted to failed bull rush attempts as a way of locating the ogre mage.

 

[pawsplay]

To be fair: (1) The orb spells are near the top of the cheese list for official spells, and (2) It's not all that meaningful to point out that an expansion spell makes the ogre mage CR (a core creature) seem even worse. (Don't get me wrong, the ogre mage is significantly weaker than its CR indicates, IMO. But the orb spells pretty much screw over any creature with SR.)

It's worth noting that even Glitterdust is a low-level conjuration that directly affects the ogre mage and ignores SR, and buys the price of admission for a lower level party in this scenario.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm looking at the Pathfinder version, and they basically turned him into a native outsider and have him four extra HD while leaving much the rest exactly the same. In addition to addressing the low hp and saves, that would be in keeping with the Pathfinder approach to more consistent numbers for a given CR and bending monsters and PCs toward the stronger examplars. It uses its extra feats on Combat Reflexes and Iron Will.

If you wanted to take the same approach in d20, you could always advance the ogre mage, by the book, up to 3 HD without necessarily changing the CR. Ogre magi normally advance by character class. I feel that if you advance the ogre mage by class, its CR quickly becomes justified, but it would be reasonable to set the base CR to 7 if you were concerned about being overgenerous.

 

[coyote6]

Oh, yeah, you can make advanced ogre magi nasty. I used an ogre mage warlock in my last D&D game, and he made for a nice little fight.

By that time, though, I had read Mearls' article, redubbed the ogre mage CR 6, and started using Mearls' variant & my own.

 

[Dandu]

And the consequences of being grappled and dropped from a great height are quite dire... if the ogre mage gets you, you can get away with light falling damage if you escape the first round, but but it gets rapidly worse after that.

Drop a fighter 50 feet and deal him 5d6 damage (average 17.5 damage). Meanwhile, you've done nothing but ascend for 5 rounds and made yourself a target denied dex bonus all the time. Can you see how that would be a bad thing?

Sure... but he's got the wizard. A CR 8 monster versus a level 8 party is supposed to consume 25% of their resources, so if he simply kills the wizard, he's done his job.

He's not going to kill the wizard in the first round of grapple because you don't deal damage. He's not going to the second round either, because he won't deal enough damage. It's going to take a while, and he'll be taking fire in the meantime. This does not strike me as the path to victory.

Sure. But it makes for a harder game of battleship.

Never play battleship with a man whose intelligence is on par with that of Einstein's.

Assuming that Einstein was a human with 18 int, of course.

In an actual game, the player will likely not be as smart as his character. Still, if the rogue/ranger/etc says "I hear something in the spot I'm pointing at with my sword, please Glitterdust it", then it's not really that hard to launch a Glitterdust at said square. And not hit his buddy due to the fact that the player can see the grid and position his spell accordingly.

Wizards would have to specifically prepare an "all Glitterdust all the time" strategy in order to be extremely effective in this scenario, or carry scrolls? Sorry, that's my best guess.

1. Glitterdust is one of the strongest second level spells in the game, why not prepare it?
2. It's not like wizards don't get Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat.

 

[Runestar]

Why can't the wizard simply cast detect invis to pinpoint the location of the ogre mage before zapping him with glitterdust?

 

[FEADIN]

IMC the wizard (Mystic theurge now) took Glitterdust very early and he often uses it, at some point they'll encounter an Ogre mage with 4 fighter levels, by now they are 9th level and this poor CR12 creature seems weak for the group, with 1 or 2 more levels for the group, even with others npc I'm not sure he will see the second round.
The archer alone can destroy him (Arcane archer) in 2 rounds.

 

[Starbuck_II]

He's not going to kill the wizard in the first round of grapple because you don't deal damage. He's not going to the second round either, because he won't deal enough damage. It's going to take a while, and he'll be taking fire in the meantime. This does not strike me as the path to victory.
Never play battleship with a man whose intelligence is on par with that of Einstein's.

What if the player isn't smart and dumps Con? At 1 HP/lv, it might be possible to be killed by a grapple.

Not that they should dump Con, but not all players are smart.

 

[pawsplay]

Why can't the wizard simply cast detect invis to pinpoint the location of the ogre mage before zapping him with glitterdust?

He can. Provided he has both detect invisibility and glitterdust memorized. Meanwhile, in some other thread he wishes he had enlarge person and resist energy while he's fighting a drow warlock with chilling tentacles.