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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 2983381" data-attributes="member: 22779">Sorry SJMiller, I just got tired of reading the same old nag being whacked yet again with a stick.  My bad.  With that in mind, if you don't object, I'd like to go point by point through your letter.Well, big and beefy is a bit difficult to pin down.  As I mentioned earlier, a brown bear gets up to about 10 feet and 800ish pounds.  That, to me, suggests that an O-M is pretty beefy.  Tiger's aren't exactly featherweights either too.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  Sure, he's not some gross mass, but, he's certainly not svelte either.Agreed.  Although, if you look at the 2e MM pic, it's just a stock ogre with armor which could lend very well to the idea that an O-M is just another ogre, only a bit brighter.  But, I do agree 100% that using artists interpretations is a bad idea.  That's a separate issue though.  We should start telling artists to actually draw the creature.  However, if you assume that it's an ogre, not a completely different beast, which is not an unfair assumption considering they're listed as the same type of creature, then they should be a bit more capable of standing toe to toe.  This I agree with.However, whacking up the dex has all sorts of other effects.  Upped AC, better Ref saves, higher initiative.  You'd have to give him a massive dex bonus to make any difference.  At CR8, the party is running around with 25 AC's.  While he might rely on magical attacks, his attack bonuses should be high enough that he at least has the option.It's debatable whether Lightning is an Oni or a kami.  It is usually not treated as an oni, but, I admit that the question is up in the air.  I queried my students about this, and got several answers.  There is certainly a children's story of lightning stealing your belly button, but, the creature in question isn't really an oni in Japanese myth.Glaive would certainly look like a naginata and would serve quite well.  However, with it's piss poor strength score, it doesn't really matter what weapon you give it.  It can't hit with it anyway.  Agreed.There is a turnaround question to this as well.  Why remain fixed in canon of the past which has no bearing on the game in the present.  Many 3e players will be entirely unaware of the previous incarnations of the ogre mage, thus will have no particular loyalty towards retaining flavour.  Mearl's attempt at reinvisioning the O-M is taken, I think anyway, from the point of view that the O-M never existed and how would he create one now.Now this is something I really disagree with.  We should not be making exceptions for abilities for monsters.  This runs counter to 3e mechanics.  Breaking rules so that a particular creature can retain its former glory is not a good design idea IMO.  The spells that were changed were done so because they were very overpowered in earlier editions.  Charm person was an extremely powerful spell and far more powerful than a 1st level spell should have been.  OTOH, this again is something ofa separate issue.  If you think that older versions of the spells were not unbalanced, then you are not going to think that a creature affected by those changes is a good thing.This I again disagree with 100%.  The "soul" that you speak of is simply a matter of taste.  I don't personally believe that unbalanced rules makes for a better game, nor is it part of an enjoyable essence.  DnD has always been a glorified combat game.  When more than three quarters of the rules - the classes, spells, pretty much everything - is geared directly into resolving combat, any arguement that DnD isn't a glorified combat game is disingenious.</blockquote>

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