D&D General Tiered Enemies

[Minigiant]

I personally don't like low tier "bosses" becoming mid-tier "lieutenants" and high tier "mooks". It breaks the fiction for me.

Better to give me completely different monsters on those roles at those tiers.

I agree for the most part.

Most monsters have a natural ecology. So they don't expand to more than 2 tiers. Some don't go past 1 tier naturally.

A young white dragon is a tier 2 level boss. Dragons don't tend to be lieutenants or mooks of anyone. At best you get a dragon and a dragon rider as a pair for a mid level threat. But that's just replacing some of the dragon's mooks with the rider. Still a tier 2 threat. A dragon is nobody's mook. They will flee to set up shop somewhere else before submission.

A frost giant is a tier 2 threat alone and a tier 3 threat as a warband or raiding party.

A troll or ogre, on the other hand, might be a secret weapon for some tier 1 goblins or a mook for tier 3 hag or wizard.

But sending goblins at a level 13 party only makes sense if the setting is fundamentally low power. No one sends goblins at the champions of the realm and expects results.

 

[Reynard]

I explained why this makes sense here:

Perhaps you didn't see it or felt it wasn't adequate? Or maybe you just disagree with it?

Using your own example, the ogre doesn't shift posititions because the PCs leveled up, the ogre shifts positions because the PCs are now encountering the cloud giant... who is the real "boss" running the show. All the lower bosses (ogres et al.) report to the cloud giant and the ogres happen to be there at that time. If the PCs encounter the cloud giant and the ogre is bossing the giant around, that wouldn't fit most fictions at all.

Now, if the PCs had encountered the cloud giant at level 3, they would have seen the ogres in service to the cloud giant then; and would likely have to flee or be killed by such an obviously superior force. Of course, there might have been a bunch of goblins in that force as well, all listening to the giant and the ogres commanding them.

The fiction is at lower levels when the PCs happen upon the ogre he is the boss of the goblins in the area. The cloud giant just isn't around.

The fiction actually supports this concept of a low-level "boss" becoming a lackey for a high-level "boss" -- it is pretty much how things work IRL. A captain leads a unit in the field (or sergeant or whatever), but back at the command station the captain is getting the general his coffee.

Yeah, I get it, but this implies a kind of pre-structured story of a campaign I do not tend to run. I don't have a 12 or 20 level plot the PCs are following that makes this as natural as you are describing. it makes sense in that context, but not in "what's on the random encounter table for CR 6."

 

[ezo]

A young white dragon is a tier 2 level boss. Dragons don't tend to be lieutenants or mooks of anyone. At best you get a dragon and a dragon rider as a pair for a mid level threat. But that's just replacing some of the dragon's mooks with the rider. Still a tier 2 threat. A dragon is nobody's mook. They will flee to set up shop somewhere else before submission.

I disagree a bit because we often see young dragons (white or red) in service as pets to frost or fire giants.

In general I agree, but there are certainly cases where dragons are servants and even mooks (for tier 4 and epic games).

Yeah, I get it, but this implies a kind of pre-structured story of a campaign I do not tend to run. I don't have a 12 or 20 level plot the PCs are following that makes this as natural as you are describing. it makes sense in that context, but not in "what's on the random encounter table for CR 6."

So, you don't have ogres as servants to giants? Because that is all the structure is. To be clear, if you don't that's fine of course, just not something I've seen much of.

It isn't about a plot the PCs are following, just the structure of how your game world works. In my world, ogres will serve giants if forced to or enticed into it with promise of carnage and loot. One of my favorite adventure series is Against the Gaints, for example. There, ogres serve giants, and orcs serve as well (but out of fear moreso than respect and will betray the giants if offered their freedom).

I don't know what "random encounter table for CR 6" you mean. For myself, if I roll up a rare encounter, such as hill giants in some areas, I can mix things up by substituting a couple ogres for a hill giant and keep the same rare encounter and to adjust the random difficulty level.

For example, my current party is 8th level. If I roll a random rare encounter and got hill giants, the encounter is designed based on the random difficulty.

Easy: 1 hill giant (1800 xp, maximum for easy)
Moderate: 1 hill giant, 1 ogre (3375 adj. xp)
Hard: 2 hill giants OR 1 hill giant, 2 ogres (5400 adj. xp)
Deadly: 2 hill giants, 1 ogre (8100 adj. xp)
Deadly+: 3 hill giants

A single hill giant is fine for easy, 2 for hard, but if I want moderate or deadly I have to add soemthing, and an ogre lackey or servant fills that role nicely. I might describe the "ogre(s)" as "young hill giants" if I decide, based on the story/world considerations, that ogres would not likely be with giants in the location.

 

[Reynard]

So, you don't have ogres as servants to giants? Because that is all the structure is. To be clear, if you don't that's fine of course, just not something I've seen much of.

It isn't about a plot the PCs are following, just the structure of how your game world works. In my world, ogres will serve giants if forced to or enticed into it with promise of carnage and loot. One of my favorite adventure series is Against the Gaints, for example. There, ogres serve giants, and orcs serve as well (but out of fear moreso than respect and will betray the giants if offered their freedom).

That's a structured campaign story.

 

[ezo]

That's a structured campaign story.

It is an example of one (AtG that is), sure.

So, I repeat my question:

So, you don't have ogres as servants to giants?

But the concept of ogres serving giants is a world-building question. In my game worlds, they do.

If they don't in your world, then no you would not encounter an ogre "mook" when facing a giant boss.

To which I ask my follow-up question: what is with your giant boss?

 

[Chaltab]

I guess I am not being clear.

At 3rd level, the ogre is presented as a boss -- a feared villain commanding goblins or whatever.

At 9th level, the ogre is just a grunt for a cloud giant villain or something.

The ogre as a piece of the fiction shifts its position in the world because the PCs leveled up, not because of anything that actually happened in play.

I would rather use different monsters for those different positions in the fiction.

I mean, that's entirely fair. In my case the space ogres are part of a larger orc army that the party have had periodic clashes with over the course of the campaign.

I wouldn't use them as grunts for an unrelated faction, so I agree with you on that point.