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

[pemerton]

That's completely subjective, and probably your personal opinion. What isn't subjective is that he has been involved in highly controversial discussions. So using his definition doesn't carry as much weight as you would like it to be.

<snip>

This distinction isn't my opinion, or your opinion, because opinions don't matter.

Assertions don't matter either! (In the sense that asserting something doesn't make it true.)

And so what if Vincent Baker has been involved in controversial discussions? So has Gygax. So has Mearls (eg his review of Keep on the Borderlands!). So has Robin Laws. Any influential figure in a field will have been involved in controversial discussions - that's almost a necessary condition of having influence!

But if you don't accept that Baker is an extremely influential RPG designer, then I think you're pretty out-of-touch. You only need to look at his credits - the groundbreaking DitV; the hugely influential Apocalypse World with all its "PbtA" spin-offs; and his participation in the OSR (eg writing for LotFP).

You might not agree with his account of RPGing. But you can't just dismiss it without engaging in some fashion; it's certainly not enough to point out that not everyone agrees with him! (I mean, not everyone agrees with you either.)

what ISN'T roleplaying in a TTRPG (playing monsters/NPCs as game pieces on a board that cannot do anything other than what's explicitly listed in the statblock)

<snip>

if you play D&D exactly like you play Wrath of A with no other elements of role-playing, then that's playing a boardgame.

But you haven't provided an example of anyone playing D&D exactly like Wrath of A, have you? For instance, in WoA no one can try and tunnel through a wall, or create cover by piling up rocks or cutting down branches (because it is a boardgame with defined moves). Have you found anyone posting in this thread who denies that those are permissible moves?

The fact that they're not that interested in or excited by your improvised moves for an ogre doesn't tell us much more than that they don't share your taste.

I'm still waiting for you to show quotes of me saying what you accused me of earlier. I suppose I should expect never to see them?

I'm not the only poster to have read you as putting forward a rather aggressive and dismissive account of what is or isn't RPGing. In particular, you seem to treat someone's desire for better ogre mechanics as a sign that they don't want to roleplay - at least, that seems implied by your response along the lines of "Here's some stuff you could improvise with an ogre; and if you don't want to do that, and instead want to talk about the ogre statblock, then you're not roleplaying."

For the majority of players (who are not the people likely to discuss this sort of stuff here), they are looking for a more "video game" or "board game" experience where they'll fight stuff, get treasure, and gain levels and abilities.

I dunno, is there much evidence for this? I mean, there are plenty of video games and board games out there.

I suspect that the majority of D&D players want to play D&D. That can mean a wide range of things, but I think most of them will take at least bits of the fiction seriously. Which is what differentiates what they're doing from board gaming or video gaming.

 

[S'mon]

I gave the Kreeg-serving mook ogres in my Runelords 5e game giant mauls (4d6 damage), barbed kreeg javelins (2d8 damage) and some armour (AC 13) and boosted CR to 3, which was a bit generous but worked well. The 8th-10th level PCs certainly respect them as a threat. It helps that Fort Rannick has dozens of the buggers... I think 5e ogres make great 'minions'. If you want an ogre BBEG then yes it could be tarted up a bit.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Assertions don't matter either! (In the sense that asserting something doesn't make it true.)

And so what if Vincent Baker has been involved in controversial discussions? So has Gygax. So has Mearls (eg his review of Keep on the Borderlands!). So has Robin Laws. Any influential figure in a field will have been involved in controversial discussions - that's almost a necessary condition of having influence!

But if you don't accept that Baker is an extremely influential RPG designer, then I think you're pretty out-of-touch. You only need to look at his credits - the groundbreaking DitV; the hugely influential Apocalypse World with all its "PbtA" spin-offs; and his participation in the OSR (eg writing for LotFP).

You might not agree with his account of RPGing. But you can't just dismiss it without engaging in some fashion; it's certainly not enough to point out that not everyone agrees with him! (I mean, not everyone agrees with you either.)

Exactly. That's my point. I'm using the industry universal definition of what a TTRPG is, and you made the argument that Vincent Baker disagrees*, so I must be wrong. My point is that I don't care WHO makes an opinion, it doesn't change how the game is defined. Trump is very influential in politics, but just because he thinks climate change is a Chinese conspiracy doesn't mean it is. I'm an award winning RPG designer myself too, so that means my opinion is more important than other peoples? Of course not. Despite my caution above, you still seem to think that opinion should be held on the same level as fact.

*Which is an odd claim to make, since you're saying he disagrees with a position that I never defined my personal opinion on to begin with. So unless you're telepathic and can read my mind, how would you know what he disagrees with me on, and on what level?

But you haven't provided an example of anyone playing D&D exactly like Wrath of A, have you? For instance, in WoA no one can try and tunnel through a wall, or create cover by piling up rocks or cutting down branches (because it is a boardgame with defined moves). Have you found anyone posting in this thread who denies that those are permissible moves?

The fact that they're not that interested in or excited by your improvised moves for an ogre doesn't tell us much more than that they don't share your taste.
.

There have been examples provided. CaptZapps' thread from the other day for example. You were part of that thread, so you must be aware of it.

Also, the replies in this thread. People didn't say they weren't "excited or interested" about the improv'd ideas, they said it (improve ideas) won't happen because it's not better than the standard DPR attack and therefore all the ogre will do is base attack. Several people have literally described their play with an ogre as nothing more than a bag of HP that doesn't do anything but base attack every round. We've even had people flat out say that the flavor text of the ogre has no impact in the combat encounter at all. The way people have described their play is no different than how one plays Wrath of A or any other D&D boardgame.

So far, you've repeatedly ignored the arguments people have made, saying you aren't aware of them happening despite you being a participant in them, and have accused me several times of making an argument that I never made and have yet to provide me a quote of me making them as I asked.

I can only assume that you have no intention of having an honest conversation since you keep doing this, so there's no point in continuing.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

D&D has always had these wargame elements - on another thread I just read a post recalling Robilar's use of an army of orcs to beat ToH.

In my 4e game, when the drow sorcerer had a platoon of drow soldiers under his command, I handled that by giving him an additional action: a minor (= bonus, in 5e) action to call in a flight of hand crossbow bolts, resolved mechanically as an area burst with the appropriate range. I'm guessing that that sort of mechanical aggregation and simplification wouldn't be your preferred approach, but it worked at the time. (The drow didn't need individual stats. Given the enemies the PCs were fighting, any of them who made it to the drow got to spend a round or two snacking.)

I'd probably handle it slightly differently, but I can imagine situations where I'd do it exactly as you did. (Especially now that I know about your approach--I see certain advantages to it.)

But since I think we're discussing various peoples' definitions of "role-playing", I'll bring it back around and point out that the way I've handled it and the way you would handle it are both not covered by my definition of roleplaying. I don't know how Robilar's DM (Gygax?) resolved Robilar's orcish army, but my perspective is that if Robilar's player was ever directly making decisions for the orcs on behalf of Robilar (as opposed to making decisions for the orcs on behalf of the orcs, based on what the orcs would be wanting and thinking), he was not at that point engaged in roleplaying.

And I think that's okay, sometimes, especially if the DM took that approach because it's smoother than Robilar saying to the DM, "I order these orcs to go there and I draw a map and give these orcs the order to do this," etc. If the DM wants the focus of the scene to be more about the tactical challenge that's undertaken and not about being a people-manager of orcs, then it's appropriate to fall back to wargaming to a degree instead of roleplaying. I think the DM has the right to call for either mode though; one of the best and most entertaining checks on 5E's Planar Binding spell/Necromancer bindings/etc. is for the DM to roleplay the various wights/Mummy Lords/hags/faerie T-Rexes/etc. instead of letting the player wargame them. "When you return to camp after visiting town, you walk into the clearing where you left Baba Yaga and you see her... filling in a hole in the dirt. When she sees you, she starts and looks uneasy, and stands over the hole as if to prevent you from seeing it. You see a child-sized finger bone, picked clean, lying in the grass a few feet away."

I assume (or maybe infer) that in these long combats, there were certain points at the table where you stopped clocking over the rounds one-by-one. Is that right?

Yes and no. I never track things strictly round by round. As discussed in the other thread, I allow combatants to declare long actions; I also allow declaration a Delay action which lets you declare after seeing what the other guy did, at the cost of losing initiative, but if all remaining parties in a round Delay then the round ends. So in a Mexican standoff with a Bone Naga, where the Bone Naga has declare a Readied Lightning Bolt for the first PC to come around the corner where they are trapped--if the PCs just say, "I'm Delaying/Readying my attack to hit the Naga as soon as it comes around the corner" (I forget if it was a Ready or a Delay in this case), then as a DM I don't feel the need to ask them six hundred times, "Are you still doing that?"

So once the PCs declare an action which is going to take a while to resolve, then as long as the situation doesn't change and the monster doesn't change its action, I just skip ahead to whenever the situation will change: dawn breaks, or the cavalry show up, or one of the PCs wakes up to 1 HP, or the dungeon fills another inch with water.

If that is right, in what sense to you give credit to the 5e system for handling them? (Eg is there something it does in this respect that AD&D wouldn't?)

I'm a bit confused. What credit? When I wrote, "At that point, 5E is being a little bit wargame-ish," that was a descriptive statement, not an attribution of credit. It certainly wasn't a contrast with AD&D--I would have done exactly the same thing in AD&D.

If you're referring to "One of my favorite things about the way I've been running initiative for the past couple of years," that is not the vanilla 5E initiative system. I hate the vanilla 5E initiative system. That is this system*, currently under discussion on another thread. 5E is friendly to rules tweaking, so I'll give it credit for encouraging alternate initiative systems/spell point systems/combat maneuver systems/etc., but that makes it similar to AD&D (2nd edition), not different. I was younger when I played AD&D, so my thinking wasn't as sophisticated then, but the system I use today is directly descended from AD&D initiative. So again, not a contrast with AD&D.

-Hemlock/Max

* Which I feel like you [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and I have recently discussed somewhere, maybe in the "melee is weak" thread, so I'm surprised if you think I've been running vanilla 5E initiative all this time. But I'm getting old and may be misremembering.

 

[Manbearcat]

It's 4e logic... I know [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] favors 4e. Remember he's asking me how he would do it.

Actually that is games and RPGs generally and D&D specifically logic. More powerful abilities are limited in their use (for balance) and the narrative justification is "stuff."

Why? Seriously I didn't agree with your stance then and I doubt you reposting it will change my mind now...

Likely not but we're both clearly gluttons for punishment (though my appetite is virtually nill these days) so let us continue!

In actual play... it's granular enough for my needs (and for the point I made in the post you quoted)... I'm going to assume not so much for you. But then again I'm not sure you run 5e... do you?

I don't know what the point of this is. We've discussed this also in the past. I sub for a flakey GM probably once every 3 weeks and just improv his game based on the players description of the last few sessions. I've been doing that nearly since release. With playtests and some random dungeon crawls, that probably puts my GM time somewhere around 175 hours.

Therefore, I've GMed far more 5e in the last year and half than I have 4e. Does that make me a 5e GM?

I've GMed more hours in indie games than I have 4e. Does that make me an indie GM?

I've GMed probably GMed 5000 hours of AD&D/BECMI (16 years), which is probably a little bit more than (or equal to) all of 3.x + 4e + 5e (another 16 years) combined. Does that make me an AD&D/BECMI GM?

I don't understand the point of "do you?"

You pick one...

I assume this is rhetorical device? Obviously you pick one. But you don't do so arbitrarily (which seems to be the implication)!

Ok let's go with 4d10 since the Ogre won't be pushing over Trees on a regular basis. Plus he's a lone Ogre... how long will his hit points last with the action economy of 5 on 1? 1 possibly 2 rounds?

Who said anything about riders? We were discussing whether improvised damage was always worse than his attacks... it's not. However if it's ranged with a rider it should probably be less than his regular ranged attack in damage so 1d10 (setback) and prone under the tree Str check DC 10 (setback) to push it off... it's really not that hard, though I'd probably bump it to 2d10 since again he's alone and an underpowered monster.

Just make an attack roll with Str no prof bonus because it's an improvised weapon so +4 to hit. Easy peezy. Overthinking this is not something I'm going to do in the game... especially since it's agreed by most that the Ogre is slightly underpowered for his CR.

1) My prior post on this (with examples in C+, DW, 4e) had riders from a bee swarm as a new threat to immobilized/prone/grappled (there could be others), so I said something about riders. Its part and parcel of "dynamically changing the fiction" while facing players with new decision-points laden with some level of tactical depth (which were stipulations for healthy mechanical improv). Merely MOAR (AOE) DAMAGE doesn't live up to that (even if the fiction changes in mechanically-indifferent ways - [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's "mere color"). You may not agree with that, but I certainly do (they're my words afterall).

2) Ok, let me see if I have your adjudication correct.

a) Strength attack with no proficiency bonus so +4 to hit. Setback damage at 1d10 rather than 4d10. The latter is "hit by a falling bookcase" vs "hit by falling rubble in a collapsing tunnel". However, since he is alone, you would likely bump the damage up to 2d10 ("hit by lightning" or "fall into firepit").

b) You don't provide an AoE size. Maybe 30 foot canopy and only the middle third of the tree (as higher foliage is less robust/dense). So 30 by...30?

c) You don't provide a miss effect. Lesser control rider?

d) Your hit rider would be prone under the tree along with the requirement of a Strength check DC10 (setback) to get out from under the tree's branches/trunk. You don't stipulate a very key part of this. Is this Strength check an Action?

e) Further, you didn't respond to my question about "should the Ogre have to make a Str (Athletics) check as part of the Improvised Action to push over the tree." Does that mean that you don't or you just missed this part? If you do, then what DC would it be? My prior post indicates that 5e's SOP of grounding DCs objectively in the world would likely put this (IMO thematically appropriate) action outside of the realm of a sensible GM action declaration for the Ogre because the DC should probably be 20 or 25 (hard to very hard for your average person). If 25, then the Ogre outright cannot do it (+4 with no Athletics). Even at 20, the compound probability math of +4 vs DC 20 and +4 to hit vs whatever the PC (s) AC(s) would be is not very good.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I dunno, is there much evidence for this? I mean, there are plenty of video games and board games out there.

I suspect that the majority of D&D players want to play D&D. That can mean a wide range of things, but I think most of them will take at least bits of the fiction seriously. Which is what differentiates what they're doing from board gaming or video gaming.

It's not so much that they don't take the fiction somewhat seriously, it's that the focus has shifted over the years. I think it's a natural part to the game as well, as they've tried to make it easier to get in, especially as a DM.

While 5e has done a good job at supporting exploration and interaction, the game is still heavily dependent on killing things and getting treasure. If you start with the Basic Set and work your way into the APs, it is very easy to play it with the idea that the important part of the game is gaining levels and gaining abilities, just like video games and board games. In a sense, it's a sort of "play to win" approach.

Balance, protecting player niches, the design is very specific toward a party of 4, etc. all reinforces this in some way or another. Build Guides online, and the common complaints I see about certain things being overpowered and abused, especially in organized play, like banishment.

It's not wrong at all. And honestly, I think it's probably the best approach for the game today, as it's much easier to understand how to play than it was back when I started in the late '70s.

So I probably worded it wrong, but I think that a more casual style of play is the more common type of player, and they aren't interested in minutia of game design, game theory, etc. The ogres were easy? OK, what's next? They might not see any more ogres until the next AP. They are just another obstacle.

I love this type of discussion, although I usually come at it from a slightly different perspective. Such as Ogres are very dangerous, to the average villager. One hit and they are usually dead. Although ogres aren't very intelligent, they are smart enough (like a predatory animal) to avoid a conflict with more creatures than they can count (which is probably 2). They are easy to goad, though, and will protect what is theirs to the death. When adventurers encounter them singly, they are probably out hunting and causing general destruction (breaking trees, throwing rocks, whatever). Otherwise, there will be several of them in the vicinity if near a lair.

Goblinkin and orcs like to use them as brutes. They draw the heavy fire and break up the line while the humanoids attack the weak, those separated from their group, and so on. Again, two or three ogres are better at this. But the group as a whole probably still won't attack a larger force if they can avoid it.

Really, I'm less concerned as whether any given monster is a good challenge for the PCs as designed per se, it's more about how they fit into the world as a whole. If that means they are a pushover for four 3rd-level PCs, then OK, they'd probably be trying to avoid those types. That is, their lairs will be far enough from civilization that they won't be perceived as a threat and hunted.

I have tweaked ogres just a bit, but more of a general tweak of larger monsters. They get a +1 bonus to hit and damage for each size greater than their target. Also, creatures (with thicker skins) have resistance against slashing and bludgeoning weapons that are two or more sizes smaller. Piercing is much more effective. I have different types of arrowheads as well. Bodkin tips were good against metal armor, but not as much against a textile armor or the thick hide of an animal. A broadtip that cut through was more effective on those types of targets.

Many creatures I've increased their AC. I've considered doing that for ogres, since it's 5 points lower than 3.5e, but I haven't yet.

The general idea is that an ogre against a single individual is deadly, and against 2 or 3 is probably going to be deadly to at least one, and do some serious damage to another. Particularly with the injury rules we use. Beyond that, a trained group of adventurers should find a single ogre pretty easy to deal with. I would stay out of melee range where possible, but it's just not an intelligent enough fighter to give much of a challenge to a group of well trained individuals.

That fits in my world very well. A single ogre might come relatively close to a settlement, but avoid direct contact (first because they are nocturnal, second because they'd avoid a group. But once one is known in the area, it will be driven off, or killed by a group.

My tweaks, though, weren't to make the ogre itself more dangerous. They apply to a broad range of creatures and the injury approach addresses the fact that there aren't any long-term effects to combat in the base game. Probably not a good option for the folks that are playing a new AP every 6 months or so, as it will take away too much of their fun.

 

[Imaro]

Actually that is games and RPGs generally and D&D specifically logic. More powerful abilities are limited in their use (for balance) and the narrative justification is "stuff."

Going to disagree... depends on the game, circumstance, etc... all things being equal...there is nothing that limits the number of times I can try to hit one with a Greatsword vs. a Dagger in D&D and yet one does objectively more damage than the other.

Likely not but we're both clearly gluttons for punishment (though my appetite is virtually nill these days) so let us continue!

As long as you understand we're pretty much entrenched... why not.

I don't know what the point of this is.

You quoted three points I made to another poster when they claimed an improvised weapon used by an Ogre would be worse than using a javelin... here let me refresh your memory
1. The improvised weapon rules in the PHB specifically reference characters.
2. The DMG has rules for improvising damage... pg. 249
3. Why are we assuming a cow thrown by an Ogre does the same damage a character would do with... broken glass, table leg, a frying pan, dead goblin or wagon wheel?

Are you disputing any of this? Nowhere did I argue these rules were or were not granular enough specifically for you... and yet for some reason here we are debating a point I don't think is in question... for you they aren't.

We've discussed this also in the past. I sub for a flakey GM probably once every 3 weeks and just improv his game based on the players description of the last few sessions. I've been doing that nearly since release. With playtests and some random dungeon crawls, that probably puts my GM time somewhere around 175 hours.

And you expected me to remember that?

Therefore, I've GMed far more 5e in the last year and half than I have 4e. Does that make me a 5e GM?

Sure you've DM'd 5e... I figured it was better to ask than to assume... but apparently there was something wrong with me asking that.

I've GMed more hours in indie games than I have 4e. Does that make me an indie GM?

Who cares for the purposes of this discussion we are talking about 5e...

I've GMed probably GMed 5000 hours of AD&D/BECMI (16 years), which is probably a little bit more than (or equal to) all of 3.x + 4e + 5e (another 16 years) combined. Does that make me an AD&D/BECMI GM?

Again see my above answer

I don't understand the point of "do you?"

So in a discussion about whether improv rules are sufficient or not, you don't think whether someone actually runs the game or not is relevant? It's the difference between a actual quarterback and an armchair one... and I have no problem admitting 9 time out of 10 I'm going to respect the opinions of an actual quarterback, as they pertain to the game, more than an armchair one.

I assume this is rhetorical device? Obviously you pick one. But you don't do so arbitrarily (which seems to be the implication)!

No you don't but the entire conversation has had context (Ogre's are underpowered for their CR) which helps direct that choice... at least in this situation (let's remember this was about improvised damage originally)...

1) My prior post on this (with examples in C+, DW, 4e) had riders from a bee swarm as a new threat to immobilized/prone/grappled (there could be others), so I said something about riders. Its part and parcel of "dynamically changing the fiction" while facing players with new decision-points laden with some level of tactical depth (which were stipulations for healthy mechanical improv). Merely MOAR (AOE) DAMAGE doesn't live up to that (even if the fiction changes in mechanically-indifferent ways - [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's "mere color"). You may not agree with that, but I certainly do (they're my words afterall).

Was that what I was talking about? I was addressing a specific problem in the context of the thread and discussion... I wasn't looking for riders or effects or complicated tactics because I agree with the fiction and thus the tactics of the Ogre being brutish and simplistic. IMO...that fiction and color start to break down when he throws a tree that has riders, effects, damage, etc. that must all be resolved by me and then dealt with and/or planned around by the PC's. Suddenly a simple brutish fight has become a tactical back and forth... that's not what I want with an Ogre.

2) Ok, let me see if I have your adjudication correct.

a) Strength attack with no proficiency bonus so +4 to hit. Setback damage at 1d10 rather than 4d10.

(Only if I'm throwing a rider on there...which again I think actively detracts from the feel I want in this fight)

The latter is "hit by a falling bookcase" vs "hit by falling rubble in a collapsing tunnel". However, since he is alone, you would likely bump the damage up to 2d10 ("hit by lightning" or "fall into firepit").

Again because you desire a rider in this particular ogre fight (again this was about improvised damage, being worse than his regular attacks)... can I ask what these riders add to what, IMO, should be a brutal and savage fight as opposed to nuanced and tactical?

b) You don't provide an AoE size. Maybe 30 foot canopy and only the middle third of the tree (as higher foliage is less robust/dense). So 30 by...30?

Nope I want it as a single attack... it's a sapling or small tree...

c) You don't provide a miss effect. Lesser control rider?

How about, oh I don't know... he misses?? The effect is no damage is done to his target.

d) Your hit rider would be prone under the tree along with the requirement of a Strength check DC10 (setback) to get out from under the tree's branches/trunk. You don't stipulate a very key part of this. Is this Strength check an Action?

That would be your rider. I think a tree throwing attack of 4d6 damage and max hit points makes this a brutal fight for 1st - 3rd level characters... I don't think all of the other bells and whistles are needed here. But yes lifting/pushing the tree (interacting with an object) is an action.

e) Further, you didn't respond to my question about "should the Ogre have to make a Str (Athletics) check as part of the Improvised Action to push over the tree." Does that mean that you don't or you just missed this part? If you do, then what DC would it be? My prior post indicates that 5e's SOP of grounding DCs objectively in the world would likely put this (IMO thematically appropriate) action outside of the realm of a sensible GM action declaration for the Ogre because the DC should probably be 20 or 25 (hard to very hard for your average person). If 25, then the Ogre outright cannot do it (+4 with no Athletics). Even at 20, the compound probability math of +4 vs DC 20 and +4 to hit vs whatever the PC (s) AC(s) would be is not very good.

I did answer... it's an attack roll using Strength... there is no roll to lift the tree.

How have you decided it's impossible for the ogre to lift and throw the tree...have we defined what type of tree this is? If you're imaging an ancient Redwood and I'm thinking a Redwood sapling... well those are two different things aren't they?

 

[MostlyDm]

e) Further, you didn't respond to my question about "should the Ogre have to make a Str (Athletics) check as part of the Improvised Action to push over the tree." Does that mean that you don't or you just missed this part? If you do, then what DC would it be? My prior post indicates that 5e's SOP of grounding DCs objectively in the world would likely put this (IMO thematically appropriate) action outside of the realm of a sensible GM action declaration for the Ogre because the DC should probably be 20 or 25 (hard to very hard for your average person). If 25, then the Ogre outright cannot do it (+4 with no Athletics). Even at 20, the compound probability math of +4 vs DC 20 and +4 to hit vs whatever the PC (s) AC(s) would be is not very good.

I think you're applying the 3.5 mindset where the goal of the rules was to be a precise simulation of the fantasy world, and everything followed all the same rules all the time. So lock DCs are set, the Balance DC to walk on a cloud is like 140 or something, and there are no special rules for monsters vs. PCs.

This is very distinct from 4e, where there was no simulation at all, and all rules constantly mutate to perfectly cradle the PCs at whatever level they are at... so the iron door at level 1 takes DC 15 and the iron door at level 30 takes DC 35. Monsters and PCs are not even recognizable from each other, both using totally distinct systems and following different rules.

5e is neither of these... because it is a little bit of both. Due to bounded accuracy, DCs can and should be grounded objectively in the world. But monsters also constantly do things that PCs cannot necessarily emulate, and that's generally okay. The guiding principle is mostly just to do stuff that makes sense and fits your campaign. So an ogre can topple a tree because it seems like the ogre ought to be able to. It may not need a heavy grounding in minutia of mechanics.

Although, if you really want one, the Ogre does have double the carrying, lifting, and pushing capacity that a PC with the same strength would have. So that's a pretty clear mechanically-based justification for an action like this to be easy for an ogre and hard for a PC, if you need one.

 

[pemerton]

I'm a bit confused.

I didn't mean to cause confusion. You said (paraphrasing) that it's a good trait in a combat system that it can handle quick exchanges and lengthy standoffs/chases etc.

I was wondering if you think there is anything distinctivd about 5e that supports this. I'm inferring from your reply "not particularly" except perhaps the systematisation of the ready action.

On wargaming vs RPGing - from the theoretical point of view, I think there is room to play with the idea of the "boundaries" of a character (or the character's sphere of control). If a certain NPC (or similar) is, in the fiction, primarily an aspect or "arm" of the character, then sticking them on the PC sheet (either directly, or in some abberviated or statistically mediated from, like the platoon = area attack power) might still be seen as expressing the character in this extended sense.

From the practical point of view, I don't think that roleplaying is damaged too badly by these occasional zoomings out or shiftings of focus. Especially when it's auxiliary to or supplemental to playing the character.

I think "purism" about RPGing is not that important, and sometimes becomes a club for beating people over the head. From your "I think that's OK" comment, I'm guessing you don't wildly disagree with at least the first clause of the previous sentence.
What credit? When I wrote, "At that point, 5E is being a little bit wargame-ish," that was a descriptive statement, not an attribution of credit. It certainly wasn't a contrast with AD&D--I would have done exactly the same thing in AD&D.

If you're referring to "One of my favorite things about the way I've been running initiative for the past couple of years," that is not the vanilla 5E initiative system. I hate the vanilla 5E initiative system. That is this system*, currently under discussion on another thread. 5E is friendly to rules tweaking, so I'll give it credit for encouraging alternate initiative systems/spell point systems/combat maneuver systems/etc., but that makes it similar to AD&D (2nd edition), not different. I was younger when I played AD&D, so my thinking wasn't as sophisticated then, but the system I use today is directly descended from AD&D initiative. So again, not a contrast with AD&D.

-Hemlock/Max

* Which I feel like you [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and I have recently discussed somewhere, maybe in the "melee is weak" thread, so I'm surprised if you think I've been running vanilla 5E initiative all this time. But I'm getting old and may be misremembering.[/QUOTE]

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I didn't mean to cause confusion. You said (paraphrasing) that it's a good trait in a combat system that it can handle quick exchanges and lengthy standoffs/chases etc.

I was wondering if you think there is anything distinctivd about 5e that supports this. I'm inferring from your reply "not particularly" except perhaps the systematisation of the ready action.

On wargaming vs RPGing - from the theoretical point of view, I think there is room to play with the idea of the "boundaries" of a character (or the character's sphere of control). If a certain NPC (or similar) is, in the fiction, primarily an aspect or "arm" of the character, then sticking them on the PC sheet (either directly, or in some abberviated or statistically mediated from, like the platoon = area attack power) might still be seen as expressing the character in this extended sense.

From the practical point of view, I don't think that roleplaying is damaged too badly by these occasional zoomings out or shiftings of focus. Especially when it's auxiliary to or supplemental to playing the character.

I think "purism" about RPGing is not that important, and sometimes becomes a club for beating people over the head. From your "I think that's OK" comment, I'm guessing you don't wildly disagree with at least the first clause of the previous sentence.

I think you're reading my attitudes correctly. RPGs are not the only types of games I play; I don't always avoid shifting 5E into non-RPG mode; and I'm not beating any normative clubs over peoples' heads from a DMing angle.

Aesthetically, as a player, I do quite like pure RPGing as a dominant mode of play, and there are bits of vanilla 5E which stick in my craw as a player. (E.g. the Lucky feat.)

But I don't mind if other people don't have the same problems I do with those bits.