D&D 5E 5e Hardcore: Monster Manual

[MostlyDm]

^^^^

"Gingko biloba".

This post contains an intentional mitsake to guard against Muphry's Law.

Didn't work, 2 mistakes.

 

[CapnZapp]

This is because there is a greater club than the greatclub: the maul.

 

[dave2008]

Quickleaf, thank you for the comments. This is exactly the type of feedback and dialog I was hoping to get with this thread.

[MENTION=83242]dave2008[/MENTION] A few points on the "Sack" ability:

1. It's actually not imposing the blinded condition, it's just preventing you from seeing outside of the sack. For example, if a creature has the natural ability to glow or is wielding a magic item emitting dim light or has any of the umpteen-million ways PCs can generate light, then they could see inside the sack. This could be relevant if there's another creature or object in the sack you want to interact with (e.g. reading a scroll, finding a potion).

2. Slashing or piercing weapons should be listed as being able to free one from the sack. Since daggers (a piercing weapon) are sort of a movie trope for doing such things. And it makes sense logically - cloth tears pretty easily once there's a hole in it.

3. How many creatures can be "sacked" at one time? My hunch is one (or possibly one Medium or two Small)? Worth mentioning.

All good points. I will have to think about the sack some more. Is there a way to describe being blind to things beyond the sack? Yep, need to add piercing weapons. I intended to say one medium or smaller creature, but most have forgotten it. I do envision them having more than one sack. I as going to leave the exact number of sacks up to the DM.

.....

As an observation – and take this with a grain of salt as you and I may have different directions when it comes to our goals in redesigning monsters – I am skeptical of the mechanistic differentiation of monsters that 4e encouraged. A lot of times I found it divorced from any meaningful narrative. IMHO the #1 thing I want monster stats to do is make the players take notice "Yeah! cool! *wince* that ogre, man, remember the time we fought that ogre? And it did that totally ogrish thing? I didn't expect that!"

I agree that is the general goal. These ogre's in particular are updated from 4e, so that could be some of it.

For example, the Ogre Savage has an attack that knocks prone or pushes. Totally with you. That's a very ogre thing to do. But a "Smash" that does more damage, can be used approximately 1/encounter, stuns and knocks prone? That's a bit unusual because it implies (a) what the big dumb brute was doing before was not 'Smashing', and (b) it's utilizing the stunned condition in a way that the Monster Manual doesn't so much.

The stun may be to much, but to me the idea is that the ogre is putting his/her full fury behind this particular attack in a way that it can't do consistently. I could have given it a trait to explain that, but it didn't feel necessary to me. It could also be elaborated on in some fluff text. Well the MM doesn't pass out conditions in quite the same way 4e did. But PCs can still do it. One thing I wanted to do was bring back more conditions. Stunned may be to much for CR 2, I'll think about it.

Similarly, the Ogre Skirmisher having the ability to throw a javelin then rush in and pulverize someone with his club makes sense. It ensures that those stone- or bone-tipped javelins will see play, and those help reinforce that these are creatures with lower-tech "savage" weapons. But adding the ability to charge? That's an ability we see on quadrupeds like the Centaur and other horned/tusked creatures like Unicorns, Minotaurs, Boars, etc. So...even if in the narrative this ogre supposed to be lumbering on all fours like an ape, well, apes don't get charge. So maybe it's wearing a spiked helmet or is a horned ogre? In that case, I'd suggest renaming it to Horned Ogre (or Horned Ogre Skirmisher if you will), which allows a DM to understand the monster - and be able to convey that meaningfully in the narrative to his/her players - in blink of an eye.

I was looking at the minataur, which I always assumed to charge on two legs. I get what you're saying though. This makes perfect sense to me, but I understand why it would seem odd if you thought of it on all fours or requiring horns. I was thinking of running up and striking with the club and using the momentum from the run to increase the force of the damage. Seems like a rather typical fantasy trope to me, but maybe it is just me. I guess what I found interesting when I was working on these ogres was that these damage adjustments don't change the CR! These are still CR 2 monsters. I was trying to make these a more challenging CR2 and I think the extra damage helps.

Personally, I found your Ogre Warhulk to be the clearest to convey narratively. It's an especially big armored ogre with a massive pike that it wields wildly like a shish-kebob. More or less. However, in directly converting from 4e you've also picked up some of the bad elements of that system's treatment of monsters – namely that they're principally combat entities. What does an Ogre Warhulk do outside of combat? For example, looking at the Ogre Collector, you can easily imagine one of those guys carrying back a peasant or a few pigs in his sack for dinner for the missus/mister and quarrelsome children. So if I were reinterpreting the Ogre Warhulk, I'd look back to the lore of AD&D where ogres were described as "often found serving as mercenaries in the ranks of orc tribes, evil clerics, or gnolls" & the Stonecrown Ogres of Birthright, who organized into mercenary companies and used arbalests to hurl rocks. My design move would be to bill the Ogre Warhulk as an Ogre Mercenary or Mercenary Captain, and maybe give it powers that make it a siege-breaker (e.g. max damage to objects), to command other ogres, etc.

There is not "outside of combat" for the Warhulk I like your ideas, but I see those a something other than the Warhulk, though I guess it could fit the mercenary bill.

They're subtle changes, but I think they go a long way to establishing that these are not just generic big, dumb brutes. The same could be said of trolls or ettins or hill giants. The key is figuring out what kind of big, dumb brutes they are, and clearly communicating that to DMs so they're empowered to express that narratively to their players.

I'm a little concerned about pigeonholing monsters. How I use them in my fiction is not the same as you use them in your fiction and I don't want to prevent that. That being said, I really appreciate all of your comments. Lots to think about.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Didn't work, 2 mistakes.

"Muphry's" was not a typo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law

 

[CapnZapp]

But if you just make monsters harder, then it still isn't advanced. It still has no ecologies to speak of, no weather except for whatever the DM pulls out of his hat on the fly, no social structure or organization, no logistics, no vehicle rules...

I am not using "advanced" to mean anything except its natural language meaning, specifically the following meanings:

Definition of advanced
: being beyond the elementary or introductory
: greatly developed beyond an initial stage

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advanced

And I want far from "just" making monsters harder. I want to give monsters the ability to react, adapt or overcome the abilities and tactics veteran players will bring to the table.

Instead of monsters being naively designed by people seemingly unfamiliar what high level characters in the hands of power gamers can accomplish, the monsters are given ways to surprise the players, to make them have to adapt.

The point is to make the same old tactics not work all the time. Mostly; monsters absolutely must be given some of the same tools PCs have in the areas of mobility and mobility-denial.

 

[MostlyDm]

"Muphry's" was not a typo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law

Curses! Caught by Muphry's Law.

 

[CapnZapp]

Good luck inflicting 42 HP of damage with a single 8d6 fireball. (Average 28 HP of damage, 14 on a save.)

Why do you insult me by assuming you would use something that doesn't work properly?

Why are you being argumentative for argument's sake?

Fireball is code for area spell that completely removes the threat of low-level mooks. Doesn't have to be a literal fireball. I certainly do not have to research my posts here by first checking up on probabilities. I expect you to argue in good faith where you don't devolve the discussion into nitpicking.

 

[MostlyDm]

All good points. I will have to think about the sack some more. Is there a way to describe being blind to things beyond the sack?

Yeah. They're in a sack, and don't have blindsight or similar. So how could they see outside it?

It's just common sense.

Stuff like that really doesn't need to be expressed via Conditions. That's not the mechanical/design/jargon style of 5e.

 

[CapnZapp]

There's nothing really "advanced" about it.

Compared to the monster design in the Monster Manual, it is definitely "advanced" when you can tell the designer has actual awareness of what a party of tricked-out characters run by veteran gamers can actually do.

Please stop underestimating the work and skill that goes into this.

 

[dave2008]

Yeah. They're in a sack, and don't have blindsight or similar. So how could they see outside it?

It's just common sense.

Stuff like that really doesn't need to be expressed via Conditions. That's not the mechanical/design/jargon style of 5e.

I can live with that, I will get it updated ASAP!