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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Geron Raveneye" data-source="post: 2966740" data-attributes="member: 2268">And since when is using a monster's powers to its biggest advantage "stacking the deck in its favor"? That's what the CR is about in the first place. The Ogre Mage's strengths are its ability to charm people, appear as a normal person, and be pretty damn hard to catch at it. So suddenly it's "stacking the deck" when I actually make the monster use its powers as they are meant to be, instead of dumbing it down to just another dungeon encounter waiting happily for a group of adventurers to slay it in single combat?CR is not just there to calculate the encounter-worthiness of a monster either, even if it's generally used to do that. CR is used to gauge how many XPs a challenge is worth. And conversely, it means the encounter should be presented as the challenge it can be, not as a standardized encounter situation. The CR of a monster is based on how big of a challenge it poses to a group of adventurers if it uses its abilities to the fullest to defeat them. The Ogre Mage's abilities, used to their fullest, mean the monster has a handful of charmed allies around it, lives in a place of comfort where it can appear as a normal human while indulging its vices, and is generally hard to killEven in the dungeon, the Ogre Mage is a worthy challenge if the DM takes a little care to not run it like a standard random encounter that the PCs run into while rounding a corner. Charm the figher, thief or barbarian from a distance (70 feet), join the group in a humanoid shape, and at some point take over the group, neutralize the casters and enjoy a good meal. And here's the question from that...if it charms the group barbarian to help it against the adventurers, is the barbarian suddenly a separate challenge, with its own CR, and do the characters get XP for overcoming him, or is the charmed barbarian part of the Ogre mage's CR 8, and the group will get the XP for that when overcoming both? And if it's the second, why should that be different with other allies an Ogre Mage gets through its powers?If the CR of every monster is based on the sole premise of "4 adventurers open a door, happen upon monster X and battle ensues", it's far too simplistic and actually pretty useless to gauge the XPs that a monster or a challenge are worth. And yeah, a challenge like "killing the king" should be plenty more worth in XP (and conversely in CR) than the measly CR 4 an 8th level NPC class would be. But, in contrast to the Ogre Mage, the power of a noble does not stem directly from the personal magical powers of the person (or not that often, at least). The allies an Ogre Mage has are a direct result of it using its powers to its advantage, so they are to be seen as part of the CR. They are similar to the buffing abilities other monsters get through spellcasting, in that they provide a tangible advantage against the characters, with the difference that a buff or protection spell only keep a sword from hitting, while the right allies will keep the sword from being drawn already.</blockquote>

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