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

[pemerton]

Then maybe what is needed are more and better generic rules.

<snip>

The default 5E tactical repertoire is a tad limited, but there's no reason it has to stay that way.

<snip>

IMO it's more fun and aesthetic to add maneuver options that anyone can use, without a character trait gatekeeper, than to add special snowflake options for only certain monsters/PCs.

I've had a lot of experience with one system (RM) that mostly goes this way - even its spells are far more uniform/template-y than D&D spells, and so using spells for monster abilities is much closer to using a generic mechanic.

But 4e has made me a big fan of the alternative approach - I've found it produces a lot of little stories or vignettes that stay in my memory as particular to a certain creature or situation that came up in the game. For instance, when I think of the Deathlock Wight's fear mechanic -

Horrific Visage (fear, psychic) * Recharge 4,5,6
Attack: Close blast 5 (creatures in the blast); +7 vs Will
Hit: 1d6 + 6 psychic damage, and the wight pushes the target up to 3 squares.​

- I remember how the PCs had roped themselves together before they encountered it (because it was in a room at the bottom of a sloping passage, and the players suspected that there might be shenanigans involving exploitation of verticality), so that when it rose from its sarcophagous and one of the PCs, recoiling in horror, nearly fell into a pit the others were able to hold onto the rope and stop the fall.

(Some things I liked about this ability from the first time I read it in the 4e MM: it uses the blast mechanic to emulate facing; it uses the forced movement mechanic to emulate involuntary recoil; it's an attack against Will that isn't magical in any strict sense, but rather is about PC resilience/morale in the face of an undead horror.)

But I'm not sure I'd want every undead to use that particular fear mechanic; from the point of view of pacing, story development etc I don't know if I need mutiple stories about heroes recoiling in horror (which also means that I probably don't need the recharge dice for this ability - not every monster design is perfect).

A further consequence of the sort of approach I'm describing - many of these 4e monsters don't really lend thesmelves to being replayed. They're one-off events in the game. That's fine for me, though as I've been able to get 30 levels of play out of them and haven't exhausted my monster books yet.

 

[guachi]

Just for fun... here's a fresh Bandit Captain vs. an Ogre in melee. Link. It's melee-only, which favors the Bandit Captain since the Ogre is better at range. Hit Run to see 100 combats.

Typical output:

*snip* a bunch of combat logs
Grizzabella the Bandit Captain wins 69 out of 100 matches against Grrrronk the Ogre, with 17.79 HP remaining (27% of total)

The Bandit Captain is clearly better than the Ogre in melee, but I'd hardly characterize "27% HP remaining" as "barely break[ing] a sweat", and we haven't even made her fight 5 1st level PCs first.

I'm not certain how you coded your simulations but I did 30 trials myself. The Bandit Captain won 30/30 times. He had an average of 36.7 HP left and it took an average of 4.7 rounds. His HP ranged from 1 to 65 remaining.

The Bandit averages over 2x more damage per round than the Ogre does and he starts with more HP, too. And the Bandit wins initiative 70% of the time. The Ogre only hits 50% of the time and even if he hits all the time, the Bandit only needs to do average damage to win (easier to do consistently with 3 attacks at 75% hit rate). Which probably explains why he never lost in my simulation.

Bandit:
113% more damage/round
10% more hit points
70% chance to win initiative

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The code for the simulations is at the link. Checking, I see I had the wrong AC and HP for the Ogre due to a copy-paste error from the bandit captain: I had AC=15 and 65 HP, but should be AC=11 and HP=59.

let ogre() = Combatant(ogreName(), (15, 16, 14, 14, 11, 14, [COLOR=#0000ff]65[/COLOR]), [COLOR=#0000FF]AC=15[/COLOR], Traits = [DefensiveDuelist], Prof = +2,
                            Actions = [Action.Create("Club attack",
                                            Attack [
                                                Attack.Create "smashes" 6 [DieRoll.Create(2, 8, 4)]
                                                ])
                            ])

Fixing the AC gives me results like this one:

Ruprecht the Bandit Captain wins 96 out of 100 matches against Gronk the Ogre, with 30.26 HP remaining (46% of total)

Which seems to roughly agree with your result, although if you get 100% win rates for the bandit captain every time then there is still a discrepancy somewhere.

Thanks for the correction. (And that is also why I post the actual code, for full transparency's sake and in case I make mistakes.)

Edit: urgh. You can see above that I gave the Ogre Defensive Duelist too. Removing it makes for:

John the Bandit Captain wins 97 out of 100 matches against Gronk the Ogre, with 35.87 HP remaining (55% of total)

Edit2: duh, stats were wrong too. The only one that affects anything is Dex, which was making the Ogre better than it should be at winning initiative. Corrected version:

let ogre() = Combatant(ogreName(), (19, 8, 16, 5, 7, 7, 59), AC=11, Traits = [], Prof = +2,                            Actions = [Action.Create("Club attack",
                                            Attack [
                                                Attack.Create "smashes" 6 [DieRoll.Create(2, 8, 4)]
                                                ])
                            ])

Results:

Platt the Bandit Captain wins 100 out of 100 matches against Grrrronk the Ogre, with 39.03 HP remaining (60% of total)

Conclusion: an Ogre vs. Bandit Leader fight where the Ogre is actually using Bandit Leader stats for everything except attacks and damage rolls yields invalid results. GIGO. Sorry about that, folks.

 

[Sacrosanct]

You showed nothing with your example. First off, you neglected to mention the additional foes in your “roll-playing” example, and then failed to show how the ogre was going to do anything different other than his basic attack in the second.

Yes I did. In fact, after the quote break you did, you even mention it yourself. As in:

So close to understanding... but a miss. In your example, at best the ogre wastes his turn with yelling for his buddies and a worthless improvised ranged weapon attack.

I don't know what sort of point you're trying to make, but it's probably lost if you contradict yourself immediately. You say I failed to show the ogre doing anything other than a basic attack, and immediately follow that up by acknowledging the first attack the ogre makes is not a basic attack. so, um....congrats on disproving yourself? Unless you can show me where an ogre throwing a half eaten cow carcass is in it's stat block somewhere. And how is that worthless? Sure seems to me like it would have an effect. Ironic that you'd make a personal dig at my intelligence of understanding and then completely contradict yourself in the same post.

What do you think happens afterwards? You even say it yourself; “... if there is no other reasonable option to the DM.” That's it. That's our complaint. There ISN'T a reasonable option for them to do stuff at the base level. There's either a convenient environmental threat that any and all enemies with a decent strength can make use of, or there isn't and it's back to the auto attack. In your example, what is difference between having an ogre be there, and a hill giant (excluding the CR difference)? Because as far as I can tell, there isn't one.

Just because you don't see an alternative doesn't mean there isn't one. That's my point. i just literally gave you an example of something other than a base attack. Just yesterday, pemerton said he didn't recall anyone making an argument that a monster is only limited to abilities in a statblock, and here he is giving you xp for making that same argument. Maybe the PCs aren't in melee, and the ogre's next attack is to hurl the pile of burning logs it was using to cook the cow at the party, not only causing damage, but forcing every other player who tries to cross the burning logs to take fire damage. I don't know, the point is that how a monster typically behaves and the environment are critically important factors to combat, and not something to be completely ignored. No wonder you guys think monsters are boring, because you're playing them as nothing but boring bags of stats when you have your solution literally right there in front of you but you either can't, or won't bother to think outside of a statblock. TTRPGs are not like a computer game. You CAN interact with literally everything around you. There are countless scenarios in which monsters can be encounters, with infinite environmental, personality, or motivational influences to said encounters.

I love that some people believe that anyone complaining about rules mechanics doesn't know how to role play.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Give me one quote of someone arguing that? Otherwise I have to assume you're being disingenuous in your argument, and attacking a strawman

That does seem to be [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION]'s favourite line, in multiple current threads.

The thing I don't get, though, is how Sacrosanct reconciles his dismissal of everyone else's interest in mechanical details with his own preference for giving dragons spells. I haven't seen any explanation why the use of spels is an exception to the general principle that good roleplayers only need flavour text.

Same for you. One quote of me saying that. I suppose it's easy to build up a weak strawman so you can attack it. If you're talking about that other thread, I had repeatedly stated that if someone is not including the elements that define what role playing is, then they are not playing a role playing game. That's objectively true for obvious reasons. Nowhere does it say, infer, or imply that people don't know how to role play or that I'm dismissing anyone's interest in mechanical details. However, only using mechanical details and treating monsters the exact same as game pieces on a battleboard that can do nothing else but what is in a statblock is NOT role-playing. That's ROLL playing and is what we describe boardgames as. That isn't me being an arbritrator or anything else you've accuse me of. That's me using the actual definition of what role playing is. Don't believe me, go look up what games like Wrath of A. are classified as.

I've also never dismissed anyone who has an interest in the mechanical details. I've stated repeatedly how that's a perfectly viable way to play a game if that's what you want. I also never said that good role players only need flavor text.

So unless you can actually provide quotes of me doing so (which I'm sure is easy for you since you like to quote and cite sources), you need to kindly stop with these weak strawman and address what I actually said. Because at this point, with the several strawmen in a row, I can only assume you're being intellectually dishonest here.

 

[Xeviat]

Give me one quote of someone arguing that? Otherwise I have to assume you're being disingenuous in your argument, and attacking a strawman.

Could you not derail the thread? The initial topic was "some monsters are boring (like the ogre)" and "the ogre is weak for a CR 2". Which of those points are you arguing against? Because you're clearly arguing against something.

 

[pemerton]

Just yesterday, pemerton said he didn't recall anyone making an argument that a monster is only limited to abilities in a statblock, and here he is giving you xp for making that same argument.

[MENTION=6855537]Dualazi[/MENTION] didn't say that an ogre is limited to what's in its stablock. He made the point (and I also thought of it) that the ogre is probably better off throwing a javelin than a carcass.

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] also made a similar point upthread, about possible troubles with improvised actions in a mechanically complex system like D&D.

the ogre's next attack is to hurl the pile of burning logs it was using to cook the cow at the party, not only causing damage, but forcing every other player who tries to cross the burning logs to take fire damage.

Won't the ogre take fire damage too? Or are you envisaging the logs sitting in some sort of grate, and the ogre has gloves on?

I've got nothing against improvised AoE attacks - 4e had quite a bit of advice on how to use them and how to make them mechanically balanced (which deals with [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]'s concerns). I think the ogre statblock would be improved by including an example of how it might be done, along the lines of:

*Brute strength: the ogre hurls something it is holding or that it can get its hands on up to 20', doing 9 damage (of an appropriate type) to all creatures in a 5' R (DC 14 DEX save for half damage).​

only using mechanical details and treating monsters the exact same as game pieces on a battleboard that can do nothing else but what is in a statblock is NOT role-playing.

Does that mean that treating an ogre as being unable to cast spells unless you put some spells into its statblock is not roleplaying? What's the DC in your game for an ogre to pray to Erythnul for divine intervention and be blessed with (say) a Death Spell to get rid of those pesky adventurers.

 

[Dualazi]

I don't know what sort of point you're trying to make, but it's probably lost if you contradict yourself immediately. You say I failed to show the ogre doing anything other than a basic attack, and immediately follow that up by acknowledging the first attack the ogre makes is not a basic attack. so, um....congrats on disproving yourself? Unless you can show me where an ogre throwing a half eaten cow carcass is in it's stat block somewhere. And how is that worthless? Sure seems to me like it would have an effect. Ironic that you'd make a personal dig at my intelligence of understanding and then completely contradict yourself in the same post.

There was no contradiction, as I've never argued that the ogre (or other generic monster) can't do such things, just that it's a massive waste of time and routinely subpar to going with the auto-attack option, which is the case here. You can fling cows all you want, but when you make that pitiful ranged 20/60 attack dealing 1d4 damage (as per the improvised weapon rules) then the party fighter is just going to be pleased he didn't have to deal with the javelin that could have been thrown.

Just because you don't see an alternative doesn't mean there isn't one. That's my point. i just literally gave you an example of something other than a base attack. Just yesterday, pemerton said he didn't recall anyone making an argument that a monster is only limited to abilities in a statblock, and here he is giving you xp for making that same argument. Maybe the PCs aren't in melee, and the ogre's next attack is to hurl the pile of burning logs it was using to cook the cow at the party, not only causing damage, but forcing every other player who tries to cross the burning logs to take fire damage. I don't know, the point is that how a monster typically behaves and the environment are critically important factors to combat, and not something to be completely ignored. No wonder you guys think monsters are boring, because you're playing them as nothing but boring bags of stats when you have your solution literally right there in front of you but you either can't, or won't bother to think outside of a statblock. TTRPGs are not like a computer game. You CAN interact with literally everything around you. There are countless scenarios in which monsters can be encounters, with infinite environmental, personality, or motivational influences to said encounters.

Better hope there is in fact a bridge to be lit on fire, or the PCs will enjoy the terrible damage/range of the improvised attack, as above. The real point that you consistently seem to not acknowledge is that that there's no functional difference between an ogre and a hill giant. Neither of them is unique in any way, and you can swap one for the other in either of your examples and nothing at all changes. That's the point, that there is little to make monsters mechanically distinct from one another, and a lot of them are reinforced by the system itself to rely on basic attacks and little else.

I've also never dismissed anyone who has an interest in the mechanical details. I've stated repeatedly how that's a perfectly viable way to play a game if that's what you want. I also never said that good role players only need flavor text.

You've been doing that all thread. We've been saying that we find the ogre and its ilk to be mechanically boring, and your response has been to just repeat the mantra of "roleplay better".

 

[dco]

The very fact that you are doubling down on the idea that a monster's motivations, how it thinks, how it acts, how it interacts with environment has no bearing on the combat encounter just proves to me that no wonder you think they are boring. And I say again, not only are you wrong (you choosing to ignore those things doesn't prove they have no impact, it only proves you don't use them*), but you're encountering a problem that already has a solution right there in front of you but you refuse to use it.

*In order to disprove a negative, I only need to show how a positive is possible. Which I did. With one of the "most boring" monsters in the book.

You have only proved there are infinite ways to narrate an attack as we all knew in a thread about the mechanisms of one creature (the ogre) in a fight.

Appart from your discovery of the moon you find the flavor helps you to narrate things because without it your ogres could not pick a carcass or shout like idiots, and for you the act of narrating the same things in different ways is what makes combat fun and the solution for all the problems people are pointing. In any case that's only your opinion, others don't find it funny and don't need flavor when they are in combat and use a different background for the creature taken from other sources as their imagination.

 

[machineelf]

(And that is also why I post the actual code, for full transparency's sake and in case I make mistakes.)

From one coder to another, it is cool to see your code and this project. Nice work.

 

[guachi]

Results:

Platt the Bandit Captain wins 100 out of 100 matches against Grrrronk the Ogre, with 39.03 HP remaining (60% of total)

Conclusion: an Ogre vs. Bandit Leader fight where the Ogre is actually using Bandit Leader stats for everything except attacks and damage rolls yields invalid results. GIGO. Sorry about that, folks.

I looked at the code initially and it looked like you had the Ogre at AC 15 with Defensive Duelist but I couldn't be certain so I'm glad you re-looked at it.

I suppose it was a bit of hyperbole on my part that a CR2 Bandit Captain could take on 5 1st level characters and then a CR2 Ogre. If you do the reverse (using your simulations) and face the Ogre first the Bandit Captain is in good enough shape, I think, to defeat 4 1st level PCs most of the time.