I tried the 4 player standard, what a mess...

[twofalls]

I'm blessed to have large numbers of game playing friends... I've run games for three decades, you meet a few people in that time. My games have always had a minimum of 6 players in them, and I've run games for so long that I've always designed encounters myself by estimating the power level the party can handle and eyeballing the monsters. I've not ever run a 4 player D&D session using the rules system for balancing encounters, until last night that is. I started a new game with two couples who are friends of mine, specifically so that I could experience the game rules for 3.0 played out as they were written... for 4 players with one character of each type (wiz, fighter, cleric, thief).

I ran them in the Dungeon Classics Module #2 The Lost Vault of Tzathzar Rho. The first encounter in that module, which is specifically written for 1st level characters, is with an Orgre... CR 2 creature. According to the DMG 3.0 this is supposed to be a scaled encounter that 4 1st level players will have a hard time with, but can overcome. The party consisted of a Thief, a Ranger, a Diviner, and a Druid. They were annihilated. We ran the same encounter 3 times and they varied thier tactics but the end result was always the same, the gory death of the entire party and a modestly wounded Ogre.

I then suggested that since I run a roleplay heavy game, and that is what the players came prepared for, I would allow them to restructure the characters and toughen them up... surely that is the problem we were facing, underpowered PCs. So we ran it one last time with a Thief, Evoker, Cleric, and a buffed up dual weapon weilding combat Ranger. They did do a little more damage but in the end thier broken lifeless bodies littererd the same battleground.

Granted ,the dice rolls of the players were uniformly unspectacular that entire evening, which is hard on any level character, but particuarly for 1st levelers. But after 4 attempts we all found the play to be frustrating. One player was very disgusted that the scenario called for a CR2 creature to fight a level 1 party... but according to the rules this is supposed to be playable.

Any observations?

 

[Thanee]

Ogres are tough buggers, which can put out some real hurt.
1st-level characters are whimps with few hit points.

Small wonder, really.

Just because it says CR 2 is a tough but managable challenge in theory, doesn't mean that is right. There are many factors, which can turn this up and down, and a creature that basically kills a PC with one hit, is definitely very hard.

Bye
Thanee

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm blessed to have large numbers of game playing friends... I've run games for three decades, you meet a few people in that time. My games have always had a minimum of 6 players in them, and I've run games for so long that I've always designed encounters myself by estimating the power level the party can handle and eyeballing the monsters. I've not ever run a 4 player D&D session using the rules system for balancing encounters, until last night that is. I started a new game with two couples who are friends of mine, specifically so that I could experience the game rules for 3.0 played out as they were written... for 4 players with one character of each type (wiz, fighter, cleric, thief).

I ran them in the Dungeon Classics Module #2 The Lost Vault of Tzathzar Rho. The first encounter in that module, which is specifically written for 1st level characters, is with an Orgre... CR 2 creature. According to the DMG 3.0 this is supposed to be a scaled encounter that 4 1st level players will have a hard time with, but can overcome. The party consisted of a Thief, a Ranger, a Diviner, and a Druid. They were annihilated. We ran the same encounter 3 times and they varied thier tactics but the end result was always the same, the gory death of the entire party and a modestly wounded Ogre.

I then suggested that since I run a roleplay heavy game, and that is what the players came prepared for, I would allow them to restructure the characters and toughen them up... surely that is the problem we were facing, underpowered PCs. So we ran it one last time with a Thief, Evoker, Cleric, and a buffed up dual weapon weilding combat Ranger. They did do a little more damage but in the end thier broken lifeless bodies littererd the same battleground.

Granted ,the dice rolls of the players were uniformly unspectacular that entire evening, which is hard on any level character, but particuarly for 1st levelers. But after 4 attempts we all found the play to be frustrating. One player was very disgusted that the scenario called for a CR2 creature to fight a level 1 party... but according to the rules this is supposed to be playable.

Any observations?

Yes, I have observations.

First, an ogre is a CR 3 creature. It was listed as CR 2 in 3.0 and widely seen as under-CRed. Even in 3.5 there are creatures like that, but at least they fixed the ogre's CR.

Second, at least some of the time your party wasn't the "core four" and 1st-level PCs are wimps anyway. (What is the point of a 1st-level rogue? They're nearly useless in combat until they can get Weapon Finesse, and even with sneak attack they're not yet out-damaging a heavy fighter.)

A ranger is not a front-line fighter and should not be considered part of the core four. (A 3.0 ranger had more hit points but still wore light armor and was stuck with a lame fighting style that is only lamer at 1st-level. You shouldn't be taking -2 to hit when your BAB hasn't even reached +2.) Rangers make good archers, but archery is a weaker fighting style than melee.

You didn't say what the Diviner's banned school was. Did the Diviner actually prep mostly divination spells, as that would seriously weaken them in combat.

Third, you said the players used different tactics each time, but didn't clarify on that. They could have used different bad tactics each time. Why didn't the Diviner immediately lead off with a Color Spray or Sleep spell? That would knock down the ogre at least half the time, leaving them prey to a nasty sneak attack (first) or CdG (second).

Fourth, how were stats generated?

 

[WhatGravitas]

...DMG 3.0...

Ouch. The ogre was revised in 3.5 - as CR 3, which fits much better, but in my old game with 3.0, exactly the same happened to me. The ogre is weak in hp, but his damage can kill 1st level PCs outright.

Mind you, this would've probably happened with 6 players as well, because the ogre spells with a single hit close to certain doom for any 1st or 2nd level PC.

I don't know what tactics your players tried, but the ogre is a classical "run away" critter. With its movement of 30 ft., it's not too fast, so the best (and only really good) way to deal with it, is keep running, keep shooting.

But that is also the much maligned lethality of low-level D&D - IMHO, D&D starts to become fun around 3rd+ level, because then you can withstand more than one hit (others call the region from 6th to around 10th the "sweet spot", where D&D is heroic, but has not arrived in teleport-überbuff-and-crazy-magic, that some dislike).

EDIT: Totally forgot: The important point is: CR is a good eye-balling, but in the end, you have to look at your monsters individually. Your party was a bit weak on the frontline side, so a big hitter is naturally far harder - know your party, CR is only a rough guideline.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Mind you, this would've probably happened with 6 players as well, because the ogre spells with a single hit close to certain doom for any 1st or 2nd level PC.

Probably? Almost certainly!

You need several good hits from 1st-level fighters to take down the 29 hp ogre, and chances are that he'll be able to act before you get those hits. That's when the pain starts: The ogre is likely to hit, and its 2d8+7 (avg 16) points of damage will have good chances to drop a 1st-level fighter, even if it's a tough dwarven barbarian (and the less robust types will probably just die). If you unleash an ogre on a 1st-level party, you will likely kill one or more characters.


I'm not saying that it's your fault. It's more likely the module's fault. Chucking an ogre at an untried party is not what I'd call good module writing.

 

[Sammael]

Dude. They had a druid. Entangle!

 

[Aloïsius]

An ogre is a 15 feet tall monstruosity, IIRC. Should be able to wipe a bunch of ultra-low-level dudes if they don't find an intelligent tactic.

1) That means wisely chosen spells.

For the wizard : sleep, hypnotism, color spray, cause fear are probably the best choice. Grease, ray of enfeeblement, obscuring mist may help. At first level, damage dealing spells are usualu useless.

For the cleric : cause fear, command, sanctuary, doom.

2) that means planned attack
An Ogre is a melee monster. You don't want him to close in, so, if you have to fight him, do it on the open. The party should be buffed before initiative is rolled. idealy, the rogue locate the threat without beeing seen. He then reports to the party, who should plane an ambush.
* surprise round : projectile weapons, move 30 feet away.
* first round, projectile weapons, ogre close in, spells (if acting after the ogre) move 30 feet away
* second round : spells (cause fear, sleep), move 30 feet away, use projectile weapons.


In three rounds, that's 10 arrow/bolt fired at the target, with maybe 0 opportunity for the ogre to retaliate, and, with some luck (the ogre will save is +1 only), the ogre is incapacited.

First level PC ? Think about calltrops, oil and fire, tanglefoot bags... An ogre is heavy, large and dumb, they should be able to prepare a trap. Sure, if all they try is close combat, then they will die.

 

[WayneLigon]

The party consisted of a Thief, a Ranger, a Diviner, and a Druid.

This being your main problem. The four player 'standard' is based around you having a heavy damage dealer and a healer; ie a Fighter or Barbarian and a Cleric who can spontaneously blow all his spells healing the fighter fighting the Ogre as well as getting in some licks of his own. The arcane caster pelts him with a couple of magic missles then uses ray of frost. Did your rogue attempt to flank the ogre so he could do decent damage with his sneak attack? Where was the druid's animal companion in all this?

Even with that combo you can expect at least one person to go to negative hit points. (Another reason to have the spontaneous healer around).

Most modules and adventures built around the four player standard are going to assume heavy damage dealer, good healer (not a second class healer like a druid), an arcane caster with damage spells or defense-for-others spells readied, and possibly a rogue (though a lot of times that slot gets filled out with another damage dealer). And I can't say it enough: the Cleric is essencial. You just won't get very far without one.

This is usually why I scale a module to the characters people choose. For that party, I'd have replaced the ogre with something else or made him the last toughest encounter in the whole thing.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The party should be buffed before initiative is rolled.

They're a 1st-level party. A 1st-level mage might only have three spells.

 

[twofalls]

I ought to clarify a few points, and thank you for your observations. First off, I did in fact feel the Ogre was a little too much, we even joked about it when they first found out that the adventure started off with an Ogre hunt. My goal however, was to test the CR system, and as such I approached it objectivly discarding my experience and preconceptions.

Three tactics used were 1st... to blunder into its lair and confront it in a water mineral laden cave fulll of 'mites that inhibited any large weapon used (the Orges club, the Rangers Greatsword) and all missile weapons. This resulted in specacular modern art on the already wet walls using the PC's innards as media.

Second they hid the rouge in some roots near the entrance and called it out, cast entagle its save was an 18 (all rolls were open as this was a test of the system) and fortunatly the rouge saved as well. It them charged out and dined on the PC's buffet style.

Third tactic, after the group had been remade into 1st level killing machines was to again cast entangle on it (again it saved with an 18) and then to missile it with bows why a spell buffed ranger (prot from evil and sheild) fought it up front. They had a hard time with the 16 AC (the rolls were unimpressive to say the least) and after three rounds the Ogre managed to hit the Ranger. As observed by the previous posts, the ogre one hit killed any PC in the party.

The revision to CR 3 makes a lot of sense to me, 2d6+7... that was the bad news of the day. The last combat brought the 26Hp Ogre down to 2 hp, without the Ranger ever landing one blow (with two weapons he didn't manage to hit the Ogre once, robbing the party of his 18St Damage).

The Stat system I use is on pg. 20 of the 3.0 DMG, 28 pt stat buy. I aslo started each player off with a windfall of +100 G and a special item (of masterwork or +1 in strength). As for spell selection, the initial fight was with the Diviner prepared to try to talk to the Ogre (not a happening thing). His opposing school was necromancy, so he ultimatly ended up with a pair of Magic Missile spells and buffs (FR spellcasing Prodigy feat enabling 4 level 1 spells).