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

[Helldritch]

Use the optional combat rules, overrun people, pick up large rocks and throw them, grapple...

Ogres can be nasty is played with tactical acumen.

This is exactly what we are doing in our(my) games. This leads to ogres and strong monster trying to move/grapple/push some characters to break PC's formation and get some advantage. I even did it with displacer beasts and the group that was the victim of the beasts still talk about that fight 8 weeks later. They had crappy rolls and the beasts did well over what I was expecting. I played them as cunning devious predators and the players were surprised to see them acting with that amount of coordination. Up to a player saying that I played them too smart. That is when I showed them a video about 2 lions doing the same thing (more or less) to an antelope... That settled the argument.

 

[Glenn Fleetwood]

This is exactly what we are doing in our(my) games. This leads to ogres and strong monster trying to move/grapple/push some characters to break PC's formation and get some advantage. I even did it with displacer beasts and the group that was the victim of the beasts still talk about that fight 8 weeks later. They had crappy rolls and the beasts did well over what I was expecting. I played them as cunning devious predators and the players were surprised to see them acting with that amount of coordination. Up to a player saying that I played them too smart. That is when I showed them a video about 2 lions doing the same thing (more or less) to an antelope... That settled the argument.

You remember the Raptors from Jurassic park and their coordinated hunting?

Add some very long grass, swap them for Trolls and watch the chaos.

Your players will either love you, or hate you...

 

[Li Shenron]

I've used Ogres in the past two game sessions, first one Ogre against a 1st-level party (but he was sleeping and easy to ambush) and then 2 Ogres against the same party after they levelled up to 2nd.

Ogres don't really have special abilities, but they weren't boring at all... they are hard-hitters, easy to hit but with lots of HP.

What made them scary is their critical hits.

The fact that they are easy to hit BUT with lots of HP guaranteed that they lasted many rounds without before dying (unlike other monsters which are hard to hit but with low HP, for which combat can be more swingy, and a lucky strike or focused attack can bring them down quickly). Because they lasted many rounds, the chance of them scoring a critical became high, and then their damage was in the mid-20s each time. Our Druid got critted twice, and if he hadn't been wildshaped into HP-bags, he would have died.