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Low CRs and "Boring" Monsters: Ogre
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<blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 6985597" data-attributes="member: 15700"><p>I fully agree. The most important factor to making a monster interesting is how the DM plays it, regardless of what's in a statblock.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Flavor text is just as important as the statblock. So while technically correct that you can ignore it, you can also ignore the statblock. But to hold one over the other, especially at such an extreme disparity, is doing the monster and yourself a disservice. No wonder people think monsters are boring if they are ignoring the parts that make it interesting and unique and only look at numbers. Like I said in an earlier thread, it's like cutting yourself off at the knees and then complaining the fence is broken because it was built too high to see over.</p><p></p><p>I also disagree that most likely those humanoids will be generic auto attackers. I'm not sure how many times this has to be brought up in threads like this, but that is a "you" problem, not a monster problem, because none of those monsters are forced to do nothing but just auto attack. Monsters, especially humanoids, can and will and should use the environment to their advantage. Goblins are excellent at hit and run tactics, bugbears are very sneaky, ALL of them may surrender and turn on their allies to save their own skin, etc, and you shouldn't need a blurb in a statblock that says, "will use terrain and objects around them if they find it to be at an advantage in battle, and feel free to equip them how you want." in order to play them that way.</p><p></p><p>There is a HUGE functional difference between an ogre and a bugbear. It's called intelligence, of which the bugbear is much higher and thus <em>functionally</em> will act different in the game. If you don't think there is a functional difference, than I'm afraid that's on you ignoring half of what's under the bugbear's entry. It simply is a false claim to make objectively.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sacrosanct, post: 6985597, member: 15700"] I fully agree. The most important factor to making a monster interesting is how the DM plays it, regardless of what's in a statblock. Flavor text is just as important as the statblock. So while technically correct that you can ignore it, you can also ignore the statblock. But to hold one over the other, especially at such an extreme disparity, is doing the monster and yourself a disservice. No wonder people think monsters are boring if they are ignoring the parts that make it interesting and unique and only look at numbers. Like I said in an earlier thread, it's like cutting yourself off at the knees and then complaining the fence is broken because it was built too high to see over. I also disagree that most likely those humanoids will be generic auto attackers. I'm not sure how many times this has to be brought up in threads like this, but that is a "you" problem, not a monster problem, because none of those monsters are forced to do nothing but just auto attack. Monsters, especially humanoids, can and will and should use the environment to their advantage. Goblins are excellent at hit and run tactics, bugbears are very sneaky, ALL of them may surrender and turn on their allies to save their own skin, etc, and you shouldn't need a blurb in a statblock that says, "will use terrain and objects around them if they find it to be at an advantage in battle, and feel free to equip them how you want." in order to play them that way. There is a HUGE functional difference between an ogre and a bugbear. It's called intelligence, of which the bugbear is much higher and thus [i]functionally[/i] will act different in the game. If you don't think there is a functional difference, than I'm afraid that's on you ignoring half of what's under the bugbear's entry. It simply is a false claim to make objectively. [/QUOTE]
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