D&D 5E Low CRs and "Boring" Monsters: Ogre

[guachi]

An ogre is a 'hard' encounter (450 XP) for 5 x 1st level PCs. Not even deadly.

With 13 damage on a hit (at +6) it drops 1 PC per round, and likely one shot auto-kills any spellcaster it manages to clobber.

A 1st level party (5 PCs) has an average adventuring day XP budget of 1500 XP (300 each). Meaning even after taking on the Ogre, they still have another 1050XP worth of encounters to go before long resting.

If that isnt a terrifying encounter for a low level party, then Im not sure what is.

A CR2 Bandit Captain will wipe the floor with 5 1st level PCs and then plow through an Ogre right after the fight and barely break a sweat.

A Bandit Captain is even a threat for a 2nd level party, but an Ogre isn't much of one. Indeed, I ran an adventure where a Bandit Captain, his 5 fellow bandits (boosted a touch to CR 1/4), and a low level mage mauled a party of 6 2nd level characters and they only won because the 2nd level druid could shapeshift into her own bag of HP and soak up some damage.

Then, while still second level, the same party encountered an ogre and his goblin and hobgoblin buddies. I think it was the same CR creature for creature. The ogre was easy to kill. The goblins and hobgoblin, while low on hp, proved far more of a hassle than the ogre who, because of his low AC, was an easy kill.

It's stronger than a CR1 creature but, IMO, a little weak for a CR2 creature. If CR1.5 existed, I'd put the ogre there.

 

[Quartz]

Something alluded to earlier is that there's a big difference between a monster as a mook and a monster as the boss - even an ogre. An ogre mook can be played as per the Monster Manual, but an ogre boss should be memorable. Several useful extra powers have already been suggested. Lair actions and legendary actions are both appropriate. Even just giving it an ogre-sized suit of plate or chain armour.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Something alluded to earlier is that there's a big difference between a monster as a mook and a monster as the boss - even an ogre. An ogre mook can be played as per the Monster Manual, but an ogre boss should be memorable. Several useful extra powers have already been suggested. Lair actions and legendary actions are both appropriate. Even just giving it an ogre-sized suit of plate or chain armour.

that's sound advice for any monster meant to be a leader, rather than one of the mob, so to speak. It has precedence going back to day 1 as well. In AD&D for example, if you wanted to make a leader variant, you gave it better armor and up'd it's hit dice by one or two. Same thing can be done in 5e. Better armor and more HP and attack and damage are the simplest, and if you want a true leader, follow the leader/lair guidelines and give it legendary actions or even lair actions, depending on what you want. 5e gives a great structure of how to handle these things by examples of other creatures. for example, I like to make some of my older dragons spellcasters like in AD&D. if I ask myself how do I do that, 5e already provides a template with something like the mind flayer arcanist. "Oh, by giving it spellcasting ability like this, it's just a +1 CR. Easy."

 

[guachi]

I came here to add to my comment above but Quartz basically said what I wanted

An ogre is pretty "boring" but it makes a fine mook in a way some other creatures don't. Even giving it an extra attack and better armor for a CR3 or whatever and it's still an easy to run mook.

 

[MostlyDm]

that's sound advice for any monster meant to be a leader, rather than one of the mob, so to speak. It has precedence going back to day 1 as well. In AD&D for example, if you wanted to make a leader variant, you gave it better armor and up'd it's hit dice by one or two. Same thing can be done in 5e. Better armor and more HP and attack and damage are the simplest, and if you want a true leader, follow the leader/lair guidelines and give it legendary actions or even lair actions, depending on what you want. 5e gives a great structure of how to handle these things by examples of other creatures. for example, I like to make some of my older dragons spellcasters like in AD&D. if I ask myself how do I do that, 5e already provides a template with something like the mind flayer arcanist. "Oh, by giving it spellcasting ability like this, it's just a +1 CR. Easy."

Yeah, I think your approach is exactly right. It's consistent with the "old school" sensibility 5e strives for, and it's extremely easy. And I agree wholeheartedly that 5e gives us a ton of tools to quickly and easily advance/beef up monsters as needed. I think this thread is largely discussing a solution in search of a problem.

Just one minor point...

I'm fairly sure that the reason the Mind Flayer Arcanist has specifically +1 CR is not a rule in the sense that "spellcasting=+1CR" per se, but rather the ways in which the specific spells on its list can slightly nudge up it's offensive/defensive capabilities. I'll admit, I'm away from book right now, and Mind Flayers aren't in the SRD, so maybe I'm wrong... but this is what I found when I looked at other spellcasters. The NPC "Mage" for example, has a perfectly accurate CR when you compare his terrible defensive CR with the offensive CR of casting a cone of cold and 2 fireballs.

In general, CR is not really a representative of how difficult a monster is going to be to fight. I think it's mostly just an expression of whether or not the monster is able to do so much damage that a single lucky turn or two could start killing people (or has so much AC and HP that low level parties will struggle to bring him down in 5 rounds). That's why, right there in the DMG, they basically write off tons of things that add huge amounts of versatility to a monster as being irrelevant to CR... like speed, stealth, teleportation, ranged attacks, etc.

Adding spellcasting is always going to dramatically increase a monster's versatility, when the monster has the time and the DM has the strategic insight to maximize that versatility. But that doesn't, necessarily, change CR at all. For example, if you give a dragon spellcasting, but it has little in the way of powerful, directly offensive/defensive spells prepared... I think it's CR would not actually change. The dragon already dishes out a lot of damage, has a lot of HP, etc. Chances are good the spells are adding versatility, but not pure damage-per-round.

Actually... okay this isn't such a minor point anymore. But the rest of this is also not a direct reply to you, Sacrosanct. Just more thoughts I have about this subject...

I think that this philosophy of 5e's is a big part of what people are complaining about. But I disagree for a simple reason: Not all parties are created equal.

A party of 5th level characters that think strategically and use every trick at their disposal will be orders of magnitude more effective than a party that rushes into every problem headlong. Even if, in all likelihood, these parties have comparable hit points, attack bonuses, and damage. In fact, in many cases, the aggregate party damage might even be lower on the more strategic group, since they will have more people spending turns engaging in battlefield control. Grappling, shoving, and hypnotic pattern all deal zero damage.

So, it absolutely stands to reason that there are going to be similar discrepancies between monsters. Some monsters have HP and deal damage. Some monsters have some more versatility in what they can do. An NPC Priest is CR 2, same as a Bandit Captain, and he can do things like maintain Sanctuary, Spirit Guardians, and Spiritual Weapon up simultaneously, and then throw out Guiding Bolts or Dispel Magic. Put him in charge of 8 bandits and see how he measures up to a Bandit Captain...

Some monsters are more threatening when you utilize intelligent tactics... some monsters have fewer ways to be easily buffed in that way. A Bandit Captain that divides his attacks evenly between the three melee attackers engaging him is actually less threatening than a bog-standard Ogre. Much less able to drop or kill a level 1 or 2 PC in a single round.

There is really no way to account for all of this stuff in a reasonable way, as a game designer. The game will be played by hardcore wargaming tactical nerds, and ten year olds, and parents who just want to relax on Friday night with a beer and their friends. Sometimes, all three at the same table. To say nothing of role-playing reasons to make bad combat choices, of which there are many.

So CR does the best thing it can do. It mostly ignores all the versatility stuff, and just looks at the pure damage the monster can deal and take. By that metric, the ogre is just fine.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

[MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION] you are technically correct (the best kind of correct) with your examples, but only because...guess what, the stat block supports those distinctions. Goblins are shifty and can use hit and run tactics because they get to use disengage/dodge as bonus actions, and bugbears are encouraged to be use as ambushers because they receive a mechanical bonus for doing so.

Plus, I suggest you and others take a step back with me, as the ogre is just the initial point made by Xeviat to start the thread off. Things get much worse when you compare creatures like frost and fire giants, which have identical attack patterns (both of which are basic melee/ranged, no spells or abilities) and simply mirrored immunities. They are 1 point of intelligence apart from one another. I used 4e frost giants quite a bit and they had a bevvy of cold themed powers, from damage to terrain manipulation, and it's disheartening that none of that made it through here. You can add spells and effects yourself, typically through templates or class levels, but at CR 8 and 9 respectively that effectively shunts them into late game options at best. Kobold Press' Tome of Beasts is an example of better diversity, with Thursir giants having augmented basic attacks, Flab Giants with a powerful pin, and Jotun with a combination of alternate attacks through legendary actions along with spellcasting.

This is wrong, yo. These two types of giants are quite distinct and have distinct tactical styles. Differences between Fire and Frost Giants:

(1) Obviously, Fire Giants hit harder and have better AC (18 vs. 15) and HP (162 vs. 138). That's just your basic "higher CR" stuff.

(2) Fire Giants have strong Dex saves and weak-ish Wisdom saves; Frost Giants have weak Dex saves and slightly better Wisdom saves than Fire Giants; other saves are all slightly weaker than Fire Giants.

(3) Frost Giants are significantly more mobile than Fire Giants (40' vs. 30' move), enough to make them better at melee-kiting PCs. (Bash the PC with your giant axe and then back off 40', eating an opportunity attack if necessary, in order to avoid a full attack sequence. Taking one attack instead of three is a win; and it's sometimes possible for the Frost Giant to use its 10' reach and 40' move to attack a PC while taking zero attacks in return, especially against stumpy dwarves and other 25' movers. Use rocks to force PCs to Dash towards you and then when they get close start melee-kiting them.)

(4) Fire Giants are somewhat better at Athletics than Frost Giants (+11 vs. +9), enough so that combined with their lower mobility, their go-to tactic against tough melee foes can be "grapple/prone the enemy at +11 to Athletics and then beat him to death with your giant longsword." Yeah, I know, by default they have a greatsword and no longsword, but extrapolating longsword stats is straightforward. Even the greatsword-only variant can still do things like punt PCs off cliffs and into pits.

Putting #3 and #4 together, you also see that Fire Giants benefit from being in largish (militaristic-style) groups (one guy holds the target still like Lucy with Charlie Brown's football while everyone else beats on it with their greataxes until it's dead, then they all move on to the next target), while Frost Giants operate relatively well even as lone wolves (fewer friendlies to coordinate with when kiting).

 

[dco]

You said flavor adds nothing to combat. That is objectively not true, as I demonstrated. And the only reason an ogre would do the same base attack over and over is if there is no other reasonable option to the DM. In my example above, I just showed you an example of the ogre not doing its base attack because in the actual game world, there are often other options that an ogre would do. You know, if you paid attention to the flavor and didn't treat monsters as nothing more than stat blocks that don't take environmental factors into consideration...

And I have demonstrated it doesn't add anything, it's flavor.
At a combat you use the stats of the monster and narrate the action, to narrate a combat I don't need to know where a creature lives, what he likes, what are their relationships, etc, that information has other uses. For a combat we need the stats, what can the monster do in combat, we all can be very imaginative narrating combat but then we have to apply the mechanics, if they are not there you have to invent them.

 

[MostlyDm]

This is wrong, yo. These two types of giants are quite distinct and have distinct tactical styles. Differences between Fire and Frost Giants:

(1) Obviously, Fire Giants hit harder and have better AC (18 vs. 15) and HP (162 vs. 138). That's just your basic "higher CR" stuff.

(2) Fire Giants have strong Dex saves and weak-ish Wisdom saves; Frost Giants have weak Dex saves and slightly better Wisdom saves than Fire Giants; other saves are all slightly weaker than Fire Giants.

(3) Frost Giants are significantly more mobile than Fire Giants (40' vs. 30' move), enough to make them better at melee-kiting PCs. (Bash the PC with your giant axe and then back off 40', eating an opportunity attack if necessary, in order to avoid a full attack sequence. Taking one attack instead of three is a win; and it's sometimes possible for the Frost Giant to use its 10' reach and 40' move to attack a PC while taking zero attacks in return, especially against stumpy dwarves and other 25' movers. Use rocks to force PCs to Dash towards you and then when they get close start melee-kiting them.)

(4) Fire Giants are somewhat better at Athletics than Frost Giants (+11 vs. +9), enough so that combined with their lower mobility, their go-to tactic against tough melee foes can be "grapple/prone the enemy at +11 to Athletics and then beat him to death with your giant longsword." Yeah, I know, by default they have a greatsword and no longsword, but extrapolating longsword stats is straightforward. Even the greatsword-only variant can still do things like punt PCs off cliffs and into pits.

Putting #3 and #4 together, you also see that Fire Giants benefit from being in largish (militaristic-style) groups (one guy holds the target still like Lucy with Charlie Brown's football while everyone else beats on it with their greataxes until it's dead, then they all move on to the next target), while Frost Giants operate relatively well even as lone wolves (fewer friendlies to coordinate with when kiting).

Just want to say that I always love reading your tactical analyses, Hemlock. Excellent, as always.

And, I think, a great illustration of the sort of thing I was talking about in the post just above yours. CR cares about your #1, and that's it. And I think that's for the best, overall.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

A CR2 Bandit Captain will wipe the floor with 5 1st level PCs and then plow through an Ogre right after the fight and barely break a sweat.

Just for fun... here's a fresh Bandit Captain vs. an Ogre in melee. Link. It's melee-only, which favors the Bandit Captain since the Ogre is better at range. Hit Run to see 100 combats.

Typical output:

*snip* a bunch of combat logs
Grizzabella the Bandit Captain wins 69 out of 100 matches against Grrrronk the Ogre, with 17.79 HP remaining (27% of total)

The Bandit Captain is clearly better than the Ogre in melee, but I'd hardly characterize "27% HP remaining" as "barely break[ing] a sweat", and we haven't even made her fight 5 1st level PCs first.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Just want to say that I always love reading your tactical analyses, Hemlock. Excellent, as always.

And, I think, a great illustration of the sort of thing I was talking about in the post just above yours. CR cares about your #1, and that's it. And I think that's for the best, overall.

I've been thinking a lot about recently about doing a different kind of monster progression: instead of fighting tougher and tougher monsters as you go deeper in the dungeon/adventure/whatever, fight smarter and more disciplined monsters. I've done this before in an ad hoc, pedgagogical fashion (tell the players up front that each wave of pirates is going to be using new and different tricks), but it might be fun to integrate it into the story somehow. "Eric the Red, the Frost Giant Warchief, is forging his band into a new kind of weapon to take back the land that is 'rightfully' theirs. There are rogue Frost Giants who reject his leadership and continue their old ways as 'warriors' instead of 'soldiers', and they've been raiding your community in haphazard fashion as they do every few decades, but still somewhere up in the highlands lurk Eric and his New Model Frost Giants, and a reckoning looms."

(Yes, to those who were wondering, that scenario description is in fact heavily influenced by David Drake's Northworld trilogy.)

All the Frost Giants would pretty much use regular frost giant stats, although I might go with tradition and give Eric himself some unusual abilities (Everlasting One?) or a shaman with spells like Hypnotic Pattern--but for the most part, the difference you'd see as you faced Eric's front-liners is that they'd be more and more focused and coordinated; they'd be less prone to defeat themselves in detail by dividing into tiny groups; they'd make better use of mobility and cover and difficult terrain; they'd be more willing to rotate in and out of combat to spread damage around even if it means not getting in a full round of attacks on some rounds; they're make better use of equipment like traps and caltrops and bear traps and spiked pits; they'd make better use of auxiliaries like winter wolves; they'd be better at estimating the PCs' actual capabilities based on scout reports; etc., etc. I don't normally play creatures near their full tactical capability on the grounds that six seconds in the middle of a chaotic fight isn't a lot of time to develop a new tactical doctrine (PCs are are different--they are allowed to think in bullet time because they are attached to players who think in table time; and many PCs are also professional troublemakers who spend a lot of time thinking about how to kill things more efficiently) but for trained soldiers I can and will raise the bar a bit.

There would still be plenty of opportunity for the PCs to fight back with illusions, ruses, flanking movements, and other forms of counterplay; but the players will (hopefully) feel a distinct ramp-up in difficulty that requires them to apply/develop more skill at 5E, instead of just more power.