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Low CRs and "Boring" Monsters: Ogre
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<blockquote data-quote="Dualazi" data-source="post: 6987150" data-attributes="member: 6855537"><p>I thought I did a good job getting this across earlier, or maybe I just assumed people grasped it from the opening statements of the thread, but this is a RAW discussion. In the base ogre's statblock, there is nothing unique, be it resistances, abilities, or secondary effects. There are few, if any, effective options to be found as a result of the ogre's stablock. As others have already shown, you can't even throw the cow by the rules, and if you houserule that away, you also have to houserule away the terrible damage. If you want to houserule cows and impalement and whatever, that's great. I don't doubt it makes your players have more fun. But all that is from you disregarding the rules, which is a tacit admission that the ogre isn't interesting enough with that. Basically...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>...is the complaint. That by the actual rules, not just hand-waving, they have few other options that are worthwhile.</p><p></p><p>No one is saying you can't ever have an interesting encounter with them, with the caveat that the DM has to go out of the way to do so. That's the problem here, that Wizards is ostensibly paid to design quality monsters, and the ogre isn't one of them. If I wanted to draft my own ogre with more options I certainly can, but that takes extra time and effort that really should have been conserved by a better product being offered by the professionals.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Sure. Boring creature+cool environment can be a cool fight, but it's better if it's cool creature+cool environment, which isn't the case. They're independent of each other.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So what's the difference if the PCs decide to fight one? When it clambers out of its tree, what beside the environment makes it an interesting encounter? Anything? </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Oh, you've never outright stated it, just repeatedly implied it by saying D&D without role-playing is a board game. What's interesting to me with this is you're willing to bend over backwards to try and show how you can houserule environmental effects, changing the mechanical rules, but are completely married to the fluff idea that they have a troupe of people with them. If you can change one you can change the other, and I would rather the ogre's statblock be good in as many situations as possible.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It can be freely changed from table to table, there's no guarantee that it'll be used. For instance, every sentence about Maglubiyet in the MM is a waste of space for me personally, because he's not a god in my setting. The difference between fluff and mechanics is that fluff is under no requirement to be balanced. Having ogres have a different society or organization is not as at risk to kill off players as a poorly adjudicated house-rule you needed because of barren stat blocks.</p><p></p><p>I'd like there to be a compromise, because I do enjoy a lot of fluff. I've frequently bought books that have seen 0 use mechanically because I needed inspiration, but when I roll up a random encounter, I'd like it to work out the gate without me having to comb over every foe to iron out the kinks.</p><p></p><p> [MENTION=6778479]Shadowdweller00[/MENTION]</p><p></p><p>What's funny is all those 4e examples are present in 5e, again sometimes on the same monster (when they just lazily slap spellcasting on them) and some of them, like the longbow attack, have just as many rolls as in 5e. There's a litany of monsters in the MM with poison additions to their attacks, which is one of the reasons dwarves were rated so highly initially, and moving around who is rolling the dice is of little consequence to the resolution. </p><p></p><p>What 5e has done is go back to a dichotomy of brainless no-option offerings like the ogre, and ones with a plethora of options (casters). I prefer 4e's approach, where there was a more even spread, since if you look at creatures like the archmage, what are realistically the chances you go through even half of that spell list?</p><p></p><p>The parapet complaint is completely legit though.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dualazi, post: 6987150, member: 6855537"] I thought I did a good job getting this across earlier, or maybe I just assumed people grasped it from the opening statements of the thread, but this is a RAW discussion. In the base ogre's statblock, there is nothing unique, be it resistances, abilities, or secondary effects. There are few, if any, effective options to be found as a result of the ogre's stablock. As others have already shown, you can't even throw the cow by the rules, and if you houserule that away, you also have to houserule away the terrible damage. If you want to houserule cows and impalement and whatever, that's great. I don't doubt it makes your players have more fun. But all that is from you disregarding the rules, which is a tacit admission that the ogre isn't interesting enough with that. Basically... ...is the complaint. That by the actual rules, not just hand-waving, they have few other options that are worthwhile. No one is saying you can't ever have an interesting encounter with them, with the caveat that the DM has to go out of the way to do so. That's the problem here, that Wizards is ostensibly paid to design quality monsters, and the ogre isn't one of them. If I wanted to draft my own ogre with more options I certainly can, but that takes extra time and effort that really should have been conserved by a better product being offered by the professionals. Sure. Boring creature+cool environment can be a cool fight, but it's better if it's cool creature+cool environment, which isn't the case. They're independent of each other. So what's the difference if the PCs decide to fight one? When it clambers out of its tree, what beside the environment makes it an interesting encounter? Anything? Oh, you've never outright stated it, just repeatedly implied it by saying D&D without role-playing is a board game. What's interesting to me with this is you're willing to bend over backwards to try and show how you can houserule environmental effects, changing the mechanical rules, but are completely married to the fluff idea that they have a troupe of people with them. If you can change one you can change the other, and I would rather the ogre's statblock be good in as many situations as possible. It can be freely changed from table to table, there's no guarantee that it'll be used. For instance, every sentence about Maglubiyet in the MM is a waste of space for me personally, because he's not a god in my setting. The difference between fluff and mechanics is that fluff is under no requirement to be balanced. Having ogres have a different society or organization is not as at risk to kill off players as a poorly adjudicated house-rule you needed because of barren stat blocks. I'd like there to be a compromise, because I do enjoy a lot of fluff. I've frequently bought books that have seen 0 use mechanically because I needed inspiration, but when I roll up a random encounter, I'd like it to work out the gate without me having to comb over every foe to iron out the kinks. [MENTION=6778479]Shadowdweller00[/MENTION] What's funny is all those 4e examples are present in 5e, again sometimes on the same monster (when they just lazily slap spellcasting on them) and some of them, like the longbow attack, have just as many rolls as in 5e. There's a litany of monsters in the MM with poison additions to their attacks, which is one of the reasons dwarves were rated so highly initially, and moving around who is rolling the dice is of little consequence to the resolution. What 5e has done is go back to a dichotomy of brainless no-option offerings like the ogre, and ones with a plethora of options (casters). I prefer 4e's approach, where there was a more even spread, since if you look at creatures like the archmage, what are realistically the chances you go through even half of that spell list? The parapet complaint is completely legit though. [/QUOTE]
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