D&D 4E 4E vs 5E: Monsters and bounded accuracy

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

So... an orc? An orc will die in one hit to a rogue's sneak attack, or someone with a greatsword, if you're using feats and they have power attack. Otherwise, the average 15hp on a typical orc will usually protect it from the 2d8+5 damage on the paladin's improved smite longsword. A striker-type character, at high levels, can almost always one shot an orc.

And if you want to drop a dozen ogres with a spell, then that spell had better be Meteor Swarm, because anything less than that (say, a Fireball cast in a level 8 slot) will still average less than 59 damage.

A high-level character can usually one-shot a CR 1/2 orc without spending any resources. A high-level spellcaster can almost one-shot any number of CR 2 ogres by expending a valuable resource.

The problem With using hordes of low Level monsters against high Level characters is that they die too easily to area effects. One Fireball and almost all the orcs are gone, no more horde to fight. Sure the wizard gets to feel really cool but if you want a horde to Challenge the entire party you pretty much have to use bag-of-hp monsters like ogres. After the ogres have been softened up by a Fireball they can be taken out by one or two melee hits.

4E minions may have had only one HP but they also had good defences and immunity to damage on a miss so you could expect to have a decent number left after the horde is hit by a Fireball. In 5E you would need to use ridiculous numbers of orcs to have an interesting figth at high Levels.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You can still oneshot a generic 29 hp creature in this edition (you can deal 33 points of damage with a 3E-style flaming greatweapon). It's just not an Ogre.

If I've been one-shotting ogres for the past two editions, then it feels kind of lame if I can't do that anymore.

Of course the reverse could also be said of 4E, where you couldn't one-shot an orc unless it was a specially-prepared orc that was designed to die in one hit so you'd feel awesome, and orcs had been common fodder ever since the original game. That doesn't feel so great either, when you know they're set up for you to knock down so easily.

The problem With using hordes of low Level monsters against high Level characters is that they die too easily to area effects. One Fireball and almost all the orcs are gone, no more horde to fight

The ones within the area of effect are dead, but that's only a twenty-foot radius. If you throw a ten-by-ten block of orcs at the party, a Fireball will only stop like a third of them. And who decided that a bunch of orcs should be a challenge to a party of demi-gods, anyway?

I mean, I guess the designers decided that, but it's still a weird direction to take the game. PCs in 5E are way​ down the power curve from anywhere they've been in the past.

 

[S'mon]

The problem With using hordes of low Level monsters against high Level characters is that they die too easily to area effects. One Fireball and almost all the orcs are gone, no more horde to fight. Sure the wizard gets to feel really cool but if you want a horde to Challenge the entire party you pretty much have to use bag-of-hp monsters like ogres. After the ogres have been softened up by a Fireball they can be taken out by one or two melee hits.

4E minions may have had only one HP but they also had good defences and immunity to damage on a miss so you could expect to have a decent number left after the horde is hit by a Fireball. In 5E you would need to use ridiculous numbers of orcs to have an interesting figth at high Levels.

Had a great fight Sunday where the Wizard-7 was slinging fireballs into the attacking horde of Lamashtu cult fanatics (12 of them weakish CR 2, lead by Nualia, a strong CR 6 antipaladin type). As I recall they had 32 hp each, which was perfect - failed save meant badly wounded, passed save meant singed, but they didn't all drop dead like 9 hp mooks would have.

In 4e with minions I really hated having to roll attacks vs every minion with AoE spells. Took forever. I switched to a Damage Threshold system where even half damage might kill weak minions. Result was that when wizard fireballed I could just remove all the weak minions in the area, old school style.
Sometimes I want that - certainly if I'm running high level 5e and I use 11 hp mooks it's because I want them going down to one blow or spell. If I want them to have some durability then 30 hp mooks work well, and can still be very low CR according to the DMG rules (horde of CR 0.5 Orc Thugs?)

 

[Jester David]

We're not talking about one-shotting PCs, or at least I wasn't. I was talking about one-shotting ogres, or other generic enemies that you would expect powerful characters to mow through like they were nothing.

In 3.5, an ogre had 29hp, and a flaming greatsword wielded by a level 8 barbarian with power attack could easily exceed that. In 4E, you would eventually get to the point where you could represent the ogre as a minion, so anyone could one-shot it. In 5E, you never get to a point where you can easily one-shot an ogre, because it just has way too many hit points; it always takes something special, like a critical hit or a high-level spell slot.

If I've been one-shotting ogres for the past two editions, then it feels kind of lame if I can't do that anymore.

Of course the reverse could also be said of 4E, where you couldn't one-shot an orc unless it was a specially-prepared orc that was designed to die in one hit so you'd feel awesome, and orcs had been common fodder ever since the original game. That doesn't feel so great either, when you know they're set up for you to knock down so easily.

The ones within the area of effect are dead, but that's only a twenty-foot radius. If you throw a ten-by-ten block of orcs at the party, a Fireball will only stop like a third of them. And who decided that a bunch of orcs should be a challenge to a party of demi-gods, anyway?

I mean, I guess the designers decided that, but it's still a weird direction to take the game. PCs in 5E are way​ down the power curve from anywhere they've been in the past.

There's a lot of monsters that work great to have my player's one-shot. Goblins, orcs, kobolds, gnolls... the list goes on. When I drop down an *ogre* I'd like it to have more staying power. Ogres seem like the type of monster that sticks around longer than one casual hit, even from a level 10 character. Something that big feels like it should take a couple hits to soften up.
(Although, with great weapon mastery, a flaming sword, and a couple attacks, a fighter should be able to do an eff-ton of damage to an ogre in one round.)

Although, really, how often would a DM *really* put a CR 3 ogre against a level 8 party in 3rd Edition? With a +8 to hit, it'd need a 16 or 17 to deal any damage to said fighter. Especially when the Monster Manual has a CR 7 ogre variant in the book. When a level 8 character fights a CR 3 monster, it's not *really* a combat encounter, it's a narrative encounter where you happen to be rolling dice. If there's never any risk of danger or resource depletion, just describe the PC's victory. "You encounter a couple ogres on the road, but dispatch them effortlessly."
(I'd rather not even get into 4e at all with ogres, since they went from regular monsters at level 8 to minions at level 11, which feels like a super fast transition from standard foe to mook.)

 

[Ilbranteloth]

If I've been one-shotting ogres for the past two editions, then it feels kind of lame if I can't do that anymore.

Of course the reverse could also be said of 4E, where you couldn't one-shot an orc unless it was a specially-prepared orc that was designed to die in one hit so you'd feel awesome, and orcs had been common fodder ever since the original game. That doesn't feel so great either, when you know they're set up for you to knock down so easily.

The ones within the area of effect are dead, but that's only a twenty-foot radius. If you throw a ten-by-ten block of orcs at the party, a Fireball will only stop like a third of them. And who decided that a bunch of orcs should be a challenge to a party of demi-gods, anyway?

I mean, I guess the designers decided that, but it's still a weird direction to take the game. PCs in 5E are way​ down the power curve from anywhere they've been in the past.

Agreed, most of the tweaks and house rules I add to 5e are to bring it in line with what my world looks like. I want ogres to be difficult, no matter what level you are. But I also want goblins and orcs to be. On the other hand, if your world you're used to ogres being easier to kill, especially as you get to a higher level, I can see the disconnect.

But like I said, simply adding the system shock rules effectively halves the amount of damage needed in a single shot to have a 30% chance of one-shotting the ogre. In fact, it puts the hit points right back to the 3e total.

The 4e minion idea was an interesting and sometimes very useful approach to try to keep low level creatures useful against super-hero level characters. I think the 5e approach is better. And the opportunity to use fireball against a group of goblins, for example, it rarely happens in my campaigns. They are cowards and don't run around in a bunch like that unless there is no choice. Just last session there was a large group of goblins ready behind a door that the PCs kicked in. They were spread across the room, and while the fireball took out a chunk of them, it certainly wasn't half. And the rest scattered, looking for cover. The fact that a single spell, combined with the bear (the druid had shape-changed), and the ranger crippling one of theirs by shooting it in the leg so they could take it prisoner was enough for the rest of that group of goblins to decide that they were too dangerous to take on.

What I think people forget is that creatures like goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, etc. are not only intelligent, but they live in societies where fighting and combat are practically daily things. They may not be high level when it comes to hit points and special combat abilities, but they know how to survive after millennia of being targeted by adventurers and armies. You don't need to beef up their hit points to make them deadly.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Although, really, how often would a DM *really* put a CR 3 ogre against a level 8 party in 3rd Edition? With a +8 to hit, it'd need a 16 or 17 to deal any damage to said fighter. Especially when the Monster Manual has a CR 7 ogre variant in the book. When a level 8 character fights a CR 3 monster, it's not *really* a combat encounter, it's a narrative encounter where you happen to be rolling dice. If there's never any risk of danger or resource depletion, just describe the PC's victory. "You encounter a couple ogres on the road, but dispatch them effortlessly."
(I'd rather not even get into 4e at all with ogres, since they went from regular monsters at level 8 to minions at level 11, which feels like a super fast transition from standard foe to mook.)

All the time. My monster "placement" doesn't have anything to do with the party. At all. The party is level 8 right now, and they are having a hard time with the goblins, and haven't even met the tougher creatures.

 

[S'mon]

There's a lot of monsters that work great to have my player's one-shot. Goblins, orcs, kobolds, gnolls... the list goes on. When I drop down an *ogre* I'd like it to have more staying power. Ogres seem like the type of monster that sticks around longer than one casual hit, even from a level 10 character. Something that big feels like it should take a couple hits to soften up.

That's how I feel - an ogre is so big compared to a human, I'm ok with a 1-round kill by a high level PC, but killing several ogres per round seems a bit much. So I like the 5e stats.

I definitely haven't found high level 5e PCs seeming underpowered vs baseline mooks; they can kill dozens even in melee. It takes around 400 damage to put down the Barb-16 IMC with orcs hitting 1 in 4 chance, about 160 attacks to put him down assuming no healing. If he was completely surrounded by orcs taking 8 attacks/round he'd last 20 rounds and kill around 19x3=57 of them if berserking. In reality he almost certainly wouldn't be letting more than 3 attack him in a round so would kill 8/3 as many if he had all his Rages available. He might drop dead from Exhaustion though.

 

[green_destiny]

Simpler yet fun is better, so 5e.

I appreciate that D&D evolves to be leaner as I grow 'old'.

If I was younger, sure I can crunch numbers, tweak stats all day but now not so much due to increasing responsibilities or tasks that demand my time. If I can have everything from the book, without tweaking too much, then I'd go with that.

 

[CapnZapp]

If I've been one-shotting ogres for the past two editions, then it feels kind of lame if I can't do that anymore.

Sorry but that will have to be a different discussion. Especially since nothing prevents you from having Ogres with 29 hp...

Point is, a bog-standard swordy character doesn't do appreciably less damage in 5E than in 3E.

 

[CapnZapp]

PCs in 5E are way​ down the power curve from anywhere they've been in the past.

Are you still comparing the PCs to Ogres?