# Mearls redesigns the Ogre Mage



## cthulhu_duck (Jul 21, 2006)

In Monster Makeover - The Ogre Mage, Mike Mearls gives the Designer Eye for the Monster Guy makeover to the Ogre Mage:



> ...In many ways, the ogre mage has the opposite problem of the rust monster (which we discussed last time). The rust monster has one very clear, easily identifiable ability.
> ...
> In comparison, the ogre mage suffers from something of an identity crisis.
> http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060721a&dcmp=ILC-RSSDND


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## Akrasia (Jul 21, 2006)

Well, at least it isn't the _complete disaster_ that Mearls' "mustn't-hurt-the-players'-feelings" Rust-ish monster was.
 :\ 

Personally, I would have preferred a return to the origins of the monster in Japanese folklore.  But this version doesn't look too bad.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 21, 2006)

Hard to argue with the basic premise: If it's going to remain in the non-OA D&D, it needs focus.

I like the revised critter, but would shed no tears if it was excised in 4E in favor of being a signature monster for OA.


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## Drowbane (Jul 21, 2006)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> ...Personally, I would have preferred a return to the origins of the monster in Japanese folklore.  But this version doesn't look too bad.




How would you design the Oni?

As I think the MM Ogremage is PoS, and I don't get to run or play in OA all that much... I replace Ogremages with... Ogre Sorcerers!  Ogre (CR 3) + Sorc 5 = CR 8, right?

In an edition where we have the spontaneous caster, we don't need to fall back on oldskool versions of monsters that were handed random spell-like abilities to make them interesting.  And if you want to do it OA, use the Wu Jen.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Jul 21, 2006)

The biggest issue with the Ogre Mage is that the Cone of Cold has always been way out of line with its other stats.  For a party to survive a Cone of Cold, they have to be strong enough that none of the other abilities are of much consequence.  THat said, I'd prefer a cold-substituted lightning bolt in order to keep with the original concept a little more.  Other wise, not too bad.


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## GQuail (Jul 21, 2006)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Hard to argue with the basic premise: If it's going to remain in the non-OA D&D, it needs focus.
> 
> I like the revised critter, but would shed no tears if it was excised in 4E in favor of being a signature monster for OA.




I absolutely agree with this.  Especially now we have the ability to bump a monsters with HD/classes/templates, I think a core rules Ogre Mage is somewhat redundant: as it stands, it's just a pile of abilities that can be awkward to run and annoying to fight. Sticking it in OA is probably a better bet.

Even if I don't always agree with their end decisions, I've really been enjoying the Design & Development articles.  I've always been a sucker for reading those kind of "making of" articles, and reading designers talk about what a monster is for and how to change it into something else can make me think a lot more about the mosnter apart from "CR 8" and "not enough hit points to melee"  ;-)


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## d20Dwarf (Jul 21, 2006)

I'm really enjoying these articles, and the subversive nature of their content.  Mike's ogre mage is actually usable, unlike the one in the MM, which is a Frankenstein's Monster of various sacred cows and edition scramble.


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## Rystil Arden (Jul 21, 2006)

Drowbane said:
			
		

> How would you design the Oni?
> 
> As I think the MM Ogremage is PoS, and I don't get to run or play in OA all that much... I replace Ogremages with... Ogre Sorcerers!  Ogre (CR 3) + Sorc 5 = CR 8, right?
> 
> In an edition where we have the spontaneous caster, we don't need to fall back on oldskool versions of monsters that were handed random spell-like abilities to make them interesting.  And if you want to do it OA, use the Wu Jen.



 Ogre/Sorcerer7 would be CR8 (due to unassociated class level rules).


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## Gold Roger (Jul 21, 2006)

I always liked the Ogre Mage for it's diversity, so I'm glad Mearls didn't really get rid of that (charm and sleep where useless anyway).

The reduced CR is a great thing. Sneak attack has great synergy with the rest of the Ogre Mages abilities. That gets my big stamp of aproval. The Cone of Cold was way out of line, lighting bolt is a ok substitute.

My only problem is the limited use of invisibility. Yes a crafty DM can frustrate his players with that. However, there's endless ways a crafty DM can frustrate his players and enough ways to break the invisible Ogre Mage problem. Also, while the Ogre Mage has to be balanced for encounters, D&D Monsters should also be build for campaign gameplay and storyline impact. Unlimited Invisibility has a big impact on those.


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## Drowbane (Jul 21, 2006)

Rystil Arden said:
			
		

> Ogre/Sorcerer7 would be CR8 (due to unassociated class level rules).




Sweet! Even better!

I always forget about "unassociated class levels"...


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## Fishbone (Jul 21, 2006)

I don't think the limited usage of Invisibilty is necessary, though if I were to limit its use of invisibility I'd give it the ability to use Displacement or Blur.
Hey, throw 3 racial HD and 8 levels of sorcerer and we've got a very frightening CR 10 on our hands. Its more than you can say for the current Ogre Mage.


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## Plane Sailing (Jul 21, 2006)

In 1e I ran an excellent series of adventures with an Ogre Mage as the key enemy, and it was an excellent foe at that time. The only time I've used it in 3e was in "The Speaker in Dreams" and he got killed quite quickly; he didn't have the fearsome staying power that the 1e version did comparitively.


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## Graf (Jul 21, 2006)

God I love this kind of stuff....
(does that make me weird?)


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## Drowbane (Jul 21, 2006)

Ogre Warlock 7?


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## Sammael (Jul 21, 2006)

His basic premise is good (and the O-M was not a balanced CR 8 creature by any stretch of imagination), but I hate the execution (much as with the rust monster). Somehow, Mike manages to strip all the really cool flavor and replace it with boring (but mechanically sound) stuff.


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## Sammael (Jul 21, 2006)

Drowbane said:
			
		

> Ogre Warlock 7?



That makes even more sense, as it is less reliant on Cha (and requires less digging through books to run). Give it Hellrime Blast to replace the _cone of cold_ and Walk Unseen (though that requires making him Warlock 8), and you're pretty much there.


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## Fishbone (Jul 21, 2006)

Eh, I'd rather have a sorcerer. At CR 10 it could have all the little "nanner nanner boo boo" things that make the class cool and I think it would be stronger. With just one more set of racial HD I love the monster. With a set of racial dice the thing has 9d8+9d4, fast healing, flying, casts at 9th level, and a good AC and set of abilities. That is a total friggin' beating, man. I'd love to use Ogre Mage/Sorcerer 6 or racial diced Sorcerer 9 and catch a party with its pants down completely. For once an Ogre Mage isn't flying XP, its a throwdown.


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## Thomas Percy (Jul 21, 2006)

I'm very happy with this lifting. 
I always had problems with this monster, I cried on EnWorld about it circa 1 year ago. 
Now I'm happy 

ps. I like redesigning of rust monster too. 
I think now is the time to do something with "save or die" spells and abilities, which make high level game more deadly and less heroic than low level game.


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## frankthedm (Jul 21, 2006)

Akrasia said:
			
		

> I would have preferred a return to the origins of the monster in Japanese folklore.  But this version doesn't look too bad.



Anime and manga tend to have the best looking oni  . Being an *Urusei*Yatsura* fan, I am quite amused mearls chose lightning bolt, now i don't have to change it to that myself.


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## Thomas Percy (Jul 21, 2006)

By the way, does anybody have a link to BIGGER picture below:


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## philreed (Jul 21, 2006)

Mike's Article said:
			
		

> If you already have 300 monsters, then the next 100 we want to sell to you have to be better, more interesting, and cooler than the ones that came before.




I think this is one of the biggest problems a designer can face. The question that must constantly be answered is: 

_How do I introduce "better, more interesting, and cooler " monsters* without introducing power creep?_

* And feats, spells, classes, magic items, and so on.


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## Fishbone (Jul 21, 2006)

There is a monster glut. I don't think MM4 was well received, I'll pick it up if it goes bargain bin like the Incarnum book but it isn't really needed. I've got srd.plush.org, crystalkeep.com for templates, Magical Society Beast Builder, Fiend Folio, and Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary. I'm pretty much set as far as monsters are concerned. One last thought: Ogre Mage Bard. Could you imagine the look on the players faces when they get dominated by an invisible Ogre Mage casting Invisibility and Haste on himself and his ogre shock troops and Inspiring Courage on 5 or 6 monsters at +4 to attack and damage with his masterwork horn? Would be classic.


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## shilsen (Jul 21, 2006)

I'm really enjoying these articles, and I liked the mechanical changes Mearls made. I always thought the original ogre mage was badly designed. I might try out the new version sometime, to see how it works in play.


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## el-remmen (Jul 21, 2006)

While I am really enjoying these articles as thought exercises, so far I don't like either of the results.

Maybe it is just me, but the way I have run ogre magi I have used their charm ability and invisibility to great effect as long-term villians - I never saw them as something that should stand toe-to-toe with a group of four 8th level characters - but rather present a _challenge_ based on its abilities to said group.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Jul 21, 2006)

The thing that dismays me the most is this concept that every single monster has to be stacked against the archetypical party, and that it's fundamentally flawed if somehow thats not the case.  

For the MM1, that was for the best.  New system, new rules, little third-party support as yet, you needed to make the first source of opponents as broadly applicable as possible.

Six years down the line, though, and that's not the case.  Many people want to play games that twiddle with the fundamental assumptions -- lower magic, less reliance on items, gestalt, whatever.  And with the proliferation of base classes, you're starting to see more parties outside the ftr/rog/wiz/clr paradigm.  An original ogre-mage might not be able to go toe-to-toe with a ftr-bar duo, but what if your group consists of a beguiler, druid, cleric, and duskblade?

Another thing that irks me is the assertion that once you have a critter that fills a particular niche, that creating something else that overlaps is pointless.  I don't know about you, but most players have killed legions of orcs, ogres, skeletons and zombies.  Something that is mechanically similar (not identical) but very different in flavor is something that a lot of people welcome.  It keeps the experienced players a little on their toes, and gives more options for DMs that want to run something other than the Realms or Eberon.


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## el-remmen (Jul 21, 2006)

Thinking it over, I think I would have dropped _sleep_, made _charm person_ into _charm monster_, and increased Dex and perhaps natural armor.  

The change from _cone of cold _ to _lightning bolt _ is not a bad one


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## sjmiller (Jul 21, 2006)

As with the re-design of the rust monster, I am not sure I like this revised Ogre Mage concept.  To me, at least, it has taken the creatively quirky spark of the original concept and made it a duller, more generic creature.

While I am thinking of it, does anyone know where you might find writeups of the AD&D 1e versions of the rust monster and ogre magi online?  I would like to see those and adapt them myself.


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## Cam Banks (Jul 21, 2006)

Oh sure, I finish writing an enormous adventure featuring literally dozens of ogre mages with class levels and templates and he writes something inspired like this. 

Thanks for nothing, Mearls! You fiend...

Cheers,
Cam


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## Kid Charlemagne (Jul 21, 2006)

philreed said:
			
		

> I think this is one of the biggest problems a designer can face. The question that must constantly be answered is:
> 
> _How do I introduce "better, more interesting, and cooler " monsters* without introducing power creep?_
> 
> * And feats, spells, classes, magic items, and so on.




There are a lot of things like this that can be addressed via the class system.  Ogre Mages becoming Ogre...  _Mages_ is one example - give an Ogre some charisma and make him a sorceror, or make him a warlock, as has been suggested.

Another one that immediately leaps to mind is the Flind.  A Flind is a more powerful gnoll, that uses flindbars - which are essentially nunchakus.  So, rather than make him a seperate monster, why not make him a gnoll-monk?  That's what I did when I needed one, back in the 3.0 days.


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## Klaus (Jul 21, 2006)

Best. Redesign. Ever.



Okay, maybe not best ever, but really up there. This is actually a monster I want to use (the ogre magi in Speaker in Dreams -- the only one I ever used -- was very annoying).


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## Zaukrie (Jul 21, 2006)

Great series. I like both new monsters a lot. I especially like the rust monster changes.

I like the new role for the ogre mage, but I realize it is not the "old" ogre mage in terms of its role.

As for the whole "add a class" discussion - I disagree with some of you. I like monsters that have abilities added onto them, and don't want to always have to add templates or classes to get something different.


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## BluSponge (Jul 21, 2006)

This redesign doesn't offend my sensibilities nearly as much as the rsut monster one.  I suppose I could take the nostalgia track that _ogre magi are not "ogre generals, but a whole different species of beastie (with their own chiefs, according to the 1st ed MM)._  But the 3e MM fails to make note of their heirarchy, so that point is moot ultimately.

Dropping sleep and charm person make a certain amount of sense, in that these were probably more effective when parties dealing with ogre magi had 5-6 hired man-at-arms at their disposal.  I also find it satisfying that the creature was dropped to a CR 5 (the original was a 5+2 HD monster, so that shift seems to be in line with where the creature has been in the past).

What does make me uncomfortable (it's not a deal breaker, but...) is the shift from the creature's use of guile and subterfuge to a greatsword slugger.  It seems you could have gone one way or the other, and Mike's chosen the brute with a twist path.  This is, of course, a matter of personal taste.  But then, from reading the playtest notes, it seems very clear that many of these changes DO stem from a desire for DnD to fit a particular style.  And Lord knows by now we can argue about style changes all day here and the only result is a closed thread.  

Oh, and what's with the polymorph hate?!

So, like I said, I'm not raving mad at this one, but I can't say that I'm jumping out of my chair yelling, "BRILLIANT," either.  It seems that in the process of giving the monster focus, R&D yet again decides to jettison a good chunk of what makes the monster a different encounter.  

Tom


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## Scribble (Jul 21, 2006)

First off I like the monster. It'll go into my box o monsters for later use.

But I question, what makes it an Ogre Mage (aside from that being it's name...)

I mean if you boil it down, a D&D monster is just a collection of numbers... So if you change all those numbers is it still the same thing?

Unlike the Rust Monster, who's basic premise stayed the same (relatively) the new Ogre Mage is changed completely... So is it still an Ogre Mage? Or a new creature completely?

(Or is it just how the current designer theory would make an OM, if the previous OM never existed?)


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## Squire James (Jul 21, 2006)

Well, the redesign would invalidate the ogre mage's trick in White Plume Mountain (i.e. polymorph to halfling).  I suppose he could still dupe a dwarf or human with similar effect, but he'd need to be beefed up to meet the CR 9 or 10 that a Plume boss should have.  Most classes are now "associated", because the revised Ogre Mage has elements of Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard.


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## Kunimatyu (Jul 21, 2006)

I like this guy, though I must admit I liked the _charm person_ throwaway ability, just as a means to mess with fighters and the ogre mage's ogres out of combat.


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## Scribble (Jul 21, 2006)

And what about Sleep... While it might not be usefull against the PCs... what about the PC's hirelings and animals n stuff?

Granted not THAT usefull... but...


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## Delta (Jul 21, 2006)

One thing that jumps out at me is he compared the physical stats to that of a Stone Giant, basically the strongest monster in the game for its CR and size level. All of the Giants dramatically break the curve if you compare them to similar size and CR (AD&D2 doubled hit dice, then 3E added another big increment for Con). If that's the R&D metric, then every monster in existence will need to be beefed up to match the Giants' precedent.


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## Glyfair (Jul 21, 2006)

Sammael said:
			
		

> Somehow, Mike manages to strip all the really cool flavor and replace it with boring (but mechanically sound) stuff.



I don't agree with this.  There has been flavor with the Ogre Mage, but it wasn't in it's abilities, to me.

Since my 1E days, the Ogre Mage always felt like a DM messing with the party.  Viola, it's an Ogre with an oriental theme.  Ah-ha, you didn't expect that Cone of Cold, did you?  Ah-ha, now it turns to gas and runs away.  Yeah, it turned invisible and sneaked back to backstab you.

There certainly are worse examples of a mish-mash of non-themed abilities (beyond, let's suprise the players).  The Ogre Mage was always one that stretched my feel of a living breathing creature, though.


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## hong (Jul 21, 2006)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> The thing that dismays me the most is this concept that every single monster has to be stacked against the archetypical party, and that it's fundamentally flawed if somehow thats not the case.
> 
> For the MM1, that was for the best.  New system, new rules, little third-party support as yet, you needed to make the first source of opponents as broadly applicable as possible.




Well, yes. You'll notice that these are MM1 creatures he's hacking.


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## MarkB (Jul 21, 2006)

sjmiller said:
			
		

> As with the re-design of the rust monster, I am not sure I like this revised Ogre Mage concept.  To me, at least, it has taken the creatively quirky spark of the original concept and made it a duller, more generic creature.



The thing is, though, when I look at the standard MM1 Ogre Mage, I can't seem to find any "creative, quirky spark" there at all. Frankly, it's just a mess.

Really, where exactly in the original is this essential unique charm that the 3.5 designers are supposedly stripping out in favour of game balance? In the case of the rust monster, I could see a little of that - but in this case, the normal v3.5 ogre mage doesn't seem to have any such mystique that's worth preserving in the first place.

The redesigned one, on the other hand, feels real and solid - it's a creature that makes sense within a fantasy world. I wouldn't hesitate to add a sprinkling of these ogre mages to the ogres-with-class-levels I'd customarily use as the more senior members of a standard ogre tribe.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Jul 21, 2006)

hong said:
			
		

> Well, yes. You'll notice that these are MM1 creatures he's hacking.




True enough.  But its not the critter selection I'm quibbling with, its the underlying philosophy.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 21, 2006)

I don't agree with a philosophy that suggests all creatures should be designed with (or stripped back to) only a simple set of component features.  It seems to assume if a creature can't use all of it's features in a small number of rounds, head-to-head with PC opponents, then those unused features are probably unnecessary to the design of the creature.


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## Greg K (Jul 21, 2006)

I always viewed the MM1 Ogre Mage as a different species.  In the case of the redesign, I agree with those stating a preference for just adding a spellcasting class to the ogre. Since ogre is just a race as is dwarf, elf, human, etc.  I see no reason to have a different rule apply to spellcasting ogres.


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## Scribble (Jul 21, 2006)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> I don't agree with a philosophy that suggests all creatures should be designed with (or stripped back to) only a simple set of component features.  It seems to assume if a creature can't use all of it's features in a small number of rounds, head-to-head with PC opponents, then those unused features are probably unnecessary to the design of the creature.




If we want to assume the monster is "real" in the context of the game, then you have to assume it knows how to use its abilities in the best way possible.

Many DMs (even "seasoned" ones) won't always know this, especially in the heat of battle. 

So if you crowd the monster with a bunch of abilities that won't really have much of an effect, then you're opening the chance for the DM to use these and in essence waste a round of action...

So the players gain XP, but without any real challenge...


(at least, that's what I assume...)


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## ken-ichi (Jul 21, 2006)

I agree with Scribble. Plus if I really need a creature to have the ability to do something minor, like a charm person a day, bam, this one has the ability to do so. If the ability is useful in battle, then bump the Cr of just a +% of XP.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 21, 2006)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> Another one that immediately leaps to mind is the Flind.  A Flind is a more powerful gnoll, that uses flindbars - which are essentially nunchakus.  So, rather than make him a seperate monster, why not make him a gnoll-monk?  That's what I did when I needed one, back in the 3.0 days.



I always thought Flind should be a gnoll-only prestige class, myself.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 21, 2006)

Yeah, if I want an ogre mage 2.0 to have Charm Person, I'll give him a level of sorcerer or enchanter.


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## BryonD (Jul 21, 2006)

sjmiller said:
			
		

> While I am thinking of it, does anyone know where you might find writeups of the AD&D 1e versions of the rust monster and ogre magi online?  I would like to see those and adapt them myself.




Not AD&D but from the 1976 D&D Sup I Greyhawk:

OGRE MAGI: These are properly Japanese Ogres, far more powerful than their Western cousins!  An Ogre Mage has the following special abilities in addition to those of a normal ogre" 1) become invisible; 2) fly, as a Flying spell allows; 3) cause darkness in a 1" radius; 4) polymorph into a human form; 5) Regenerate at 1 point/melee round; 6) employ a single Charm Person and a single Sleep spell once per day; and 7) use a Cold spell fo 8 dice value once per day.  These abominations typically lure or raid for human victims to pillage, devour or enslave.


So, if you want a 3X version, I think the MM has you covered.  Except you'd need to change type to abomination.    



As to this effort.  It is a terrible Ogre Mage.  It is not even really an Ogre Mage at all.
but, as a mystical ogre leader it may be a better monster than the 3X Ogre Mage.


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## Jedi_Solo (Jul 21, 2006)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> I don't agree with a philosophy that suggests all creatures should be designed with (or stripped back to) only a simple set of component features.  It seems to assume if a creature can't use all of it's features in a small number of rounds, head-to-head with PC opponents, then those unused features are probably unnecessary to the design of the creature.




I remember reading an article somewhere (don't remember where) where they compaired the 3.0 and the 3.5 version of a couple of monsters.  I don't even remember what monster it was (Merilith or Succubus I think - I can tell this post isn't going to help much already).

The idea was to try and quicken combat a bit by streamlining the abilities listed in the stat block.  They cut the number of abilities in almost half (from 9 abilities to 5 or something like that) so the DM wouldn't have to spend so much time deciding what to do and have fewer things to try and keep track of.  If a merilith is supposed to be tornado of death from her swords, why have a half-dozen abilities that don't assist her being a whirling blade of death?  (Just so it's said, one or two would be fine, but the stat block from the article stripped four or five that didn't fit the concept of... whatever it was).  Does having a sleep abilty really add much flavor to the critter if it is never used?  If the PCs don't know it has the ability does it add to the flavor?


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## Imp (Jul 21, 2006)

Streamlining's a pretty good thing, I suppose, but it removes some opportunities for creative monster-running... I sometimes wonder if that sort of thing could be cordoned off into an optional secondary abilities section for some magical monsters - ogre magi, genies, dragons & such.  Like, at DM's option, choose from two of these five low-level spell-like abilities, or something.

I don't really have any problems with the new ogre mage, but I _would_ give them shape-changing abilities, squeamishness about mechanics nonwithstanding.


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## Imp (Jul 21, 2006)

- whoops!  double-posted this one. -


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## Archade (Jul 21, 2006)

I really like the new Ogre Mage, and I plan on replacing my Shackled City villain with one of these.

I also like the suggestion that a level of sorcerer gives back sleep and charm person (and a couple of other minor spells, too!)

So the next question, Mike (if you're lurking about) -- what would be the EL adjustment for the newer, slicker, ogre mage?


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## blargney the second (Jul 21, 2006)

I'm in the "this one is awesome" camp.  The previous one was just a weird, fragile, hodge-podge of stuff.  For mearls' revision I'd probably add the special ability to cast spells as a first-level sorcerer, frequently taking charm person and sleep.

-blarg


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## Ripzerai (Jul 21, 2006)

It's not so much that the ogre mage's abilities were random - they suited a purpose. The purpose, essentially, was to make them _vampires_ in the Bram Stoker sense. 

_Charm _wasn't necessarily for using in attacking PCs (though that was a valid tactic in the days before CR). The ogre mage turns into mist and seeps into the bedchamber of an influential noble, _charms_ him or her strategically, and uses _sleep_ to bypass the guards if necessary. In this way the ogre mage slithers into the hearts of the area's power centers to bring power to itself, smoothing the way for its introduction in humanoid form. Everyone feels friendly toward the handsome new noble, even if they don't remember why.


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## Glyfair (Jul 21, 2006)

Ripzerai said:
			
		

> It's not so much that the ogre mage's abilities were random - they suited a purpose. The purpose, essentially, was to make them _vampires_ in the Bram Stoker sense.
> .



I don't remember vampires shooting blasts of frost (well, maybe in a handful of over-the-top Chinese martial arts/vampire movies).


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## Cam Banks (Jul 21, 2006)

Ripzerai said:
			
		

> It's not so much that the ogre mage's abilities were random - they suited a purpose. The purpose, essentially, was to make them _vampires_ in the Bram Stoker sense.




Pure genius. Great observation!

Cheers,
Cam


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## painandgreed (Jul 21, 2006)

Sammael said:
			
		

> Somehow, Mike manages to strip all the really cool flavor and replace it with boring (but mechanically sound) stuff.




Yep, that pretty much sums up everything I've seen him do.

I'm much more in favor of an Ogre with class levels if one wished to change it.


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## BryonD (Jul 21, 2006)

painandgreed said:
			
		

> I'm much more in favor of an Ogre with class levels if one wished to change it.



That is a good point.
If it isn't really unique anymore then why keep it at all?


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## JDJarvis (Jul 21, 2006)

Don't like it.  It used to be a useful boss monster to use against lowish level parties and a weakish monster that was still a threat on occasion to higher level parties. Yes the cone of cold was fearsome but only useable once a day, providing some fearsom oppunch but not continuos overwhelming force.  Charm Person and  Sleep have uses that certainyl work better against lower level foes, but that is good. Since when do monsters  exsist in a world where they never have to deal with lower level opponents and only ever fight PCs?  That charm spell can be used to have a little muscle or distration in the person of soemone other then the PCs that can be charmed. The sleep spell can be used to menace travelelrs or other persons the PCs must escort.


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## Rothe (Jul 21, 2006)

Ripzerai said:
			
		

> It's not so much that the ogre mage's abilities were random - they suited a purpose. The purpose, essentially, was to make them _vampires_ in the Bram Stoker sense.
> 
> _Charm _wasn't necessarily for using in attacking PCs (though that was a valid tactic in the days before CR). The ogre mage turns into mist and seeps into the bedchamber of an influential noble, _charms_ him or her strategically, and uses _sleep_ to bypass the guards if necessary. In this way the ogre mage slithers into the hearts of the area's power centers to bring power to itself, smoothing the way for its introduction in humanoid form. Everyone feels friendly toward the handsome new noble, even if they don't remember why.




I think this states it nicely and also applies to one my objections as to the rational that the rust monster needed a redesign.  First let me say I like very much how Mike set forth his goals and then went about making the monsters better fit those goals.  A nice example of design process.  I also don't mind his design goals or philosophy, they are after all to each his own.

What I object to in the rust monster and ogre magi is the assumpation that the only way you interact with these creatures is by combat/fighting them and all abilities are judged in this light.  Ripzerai gave a very nice description IMO of why the ogre magi can be more dangerous than a simple combat oriented view would suggest.

On the flip side, the rust monster is not so fearsome if you realize there are otherways to deal with them besides fighting, such as throwing them food.  In the case of a rust monster you have non-perisable food in abundance, metal.  I realize it is a bit of a DM judgement call, but what if the rust monsters loves the more precious metals (I guess their version of candy or steak). One tactic then is don't fight the thing up front, throw it some gold to eat and get out of the way.  A simple "redesign" that placed this behavioral trait in a description on how to run them can quickly remove the "ruin your whole day" fear, at least for those who don't kill first and ask questions later.  Maybe I'm alone in thinking there should be some monsters that are better overcome with brains rather than brawn.  

I do like what Mike did with the slower armor reduction, which makes a lot of sense to me when going from the 2 min 1e AD&D round to the  6 second 3.x round.  In actuallity, the armor might disappear faster in 3.x, as I always took the word "instantaneous" in the 1e description to mean within the combat round, which for game purposes is "instant", i.e., happening before you can do anything about it.

In the end what gets me is not the end designs, but the implicit assumption that the only use of a monster that matters from a design standpoint is how it works in toe-to-toe battle and assuming that this is the only way a party will ever deal with a monster (or how the monster will deal with them).


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## Scribble (Jul 21, 2006)

painandgreed said:
			
		

> Yep, that pretty much sums up everything I've seen him do.
> 
> I'm much more in favor of an Ogre with class levels if one wished to change it.




Yeah, but you can do that still if you want... Ogre Mage is kind of like an ogre with special inborn powers... for some reason.

It's not saying this is the revision fo the Ogre Mage you have to use... It's just (in my opinion) saying this is what the OM would be if they designed it today...


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## Mark CMG (Jul 21, 2006)

Scribble said:
			
		

> (. . .) you have to assume it knows how to use its abilities in the best way possible.
> 
> Many DMs (even "seasoned" ones) won't always know this, especially in the heat of battle.





To my mind that is not a reason to strip down the features, it's a reason to bulk up the skills of DMs.  D&D is complex but not really complicated.  Some creatures require more detailed presentation to help show DMs how to use them to full advantage.  I like that.  I also like that players cannot bullet point the features of a creature as soon as they discover it.


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## demiurge1138 (Jul 21, 2006)

I like it quite a bit, actually - it's better than the extremely fragile 3.5 version (which I never liked anyway). I'd definately consider giving them back _charm monster_ once per day, for the out-of-combat usefulness described above.

Demiurge out.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 21, 2006)

Jedi_Solo said:
			
		

> I remember reading an article somewhere (don't remember where) where they compaired the 3.0 and the 3.5 version of a couple of monsters.
> 
> (. . .)
> 
> The idea was to try and quicken combat a bit by streamlining the abilities listed in the stat block.





I remember it as well.  This, too, seems to me a reason to help DMs sharpen their skills rather than strip down the features.  There are, admittedly, some exceptions and the Maralith might fall into that group.


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## Scribble (Jul 21, 2006)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> To my mind that is not a reason to strip down the features, it's a reason to bulk up the skills of DMs.  D&D is complex but not really complicated.  Some creatures require more detailed presentation to help show DMs how to use them to full advantage.  I like that.  I also like that players cannot bullet point the features of a creature as soon as they discover it.





Yeah, but if those features again, aren't going to be used, the players can still bullet point the features... Just as "the ones that can hurt us..."

And true, it's not terribly complicated, but it does require a good bit of memorization.
It's easy at times, to forget that something won't really work and use it anyway... Why make more effort for the DM?

This way, more people can just run the game, and those DMs that are "bulked up" and understand what they're doing, can start doing things like adding special abilities to monsters that don't have them.


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## mhensley (Jul 21, 2006)

hong said:
			
		

> Well, yes. You'll notice that these are MM1 creatures he's hacking.




Yep, he's showing us the process he is going through to create the MM1 for 4th edition.


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## painandgreed (Jul 21, 2006)

Scribble said:
			
		

> Yeah, but you can do that still if you want... Ogre Mage is kind of like an ogre with special inborn powers... for some reason.
> 
> It's not saying this is the revision fo the Ogre Mage you have to use... It's just (in my opinion) saying this is what the OM would be if they designed it today...




Right, and I don't like their design process, philosophies, or results. (Much for the same reasons that JDJarvis mentions above) My fear is that this is a preview of 4E and it's going to be a flavorless much that I will not adopt, much like what happened to WW in the late 90's and with WoD 2.0. I like 3E. I has some good changes as well as some poor ones. I feel that the next system may be past the point of diminishing returns.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 21, 2006)

painandgreed said:
			
		

> Right, and I don't like their design process, philosophies, or results. (Much for the same reasons that JDJarvis mentions above) My fear is that this is a preview of 4E and it's going to be a flavorless much that I will not adopt, much like what happened to WW in the late 90's and with WoD 2.0. I like 3E. I has some good changes as well as some poor ones. I feel that the next system may be past the point of diminishing returns.



The next system will be post-OGL, so if you don't like it, I can guarantee you at least one publisher will come out with 3E-compatible versions of D&D, called something else, with all the old school stuff you can possibly want. (How they'll get the XP table in, I'm not sure, but I'm sure they'll think of something.)


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## Stalker0 (Jul 21, 2006)

I do enjoy the articles, as its neat to fool with mechanics and get issues everyone has an opinion on. I like the changes to the ogre mage, but now I feel the CR is too LOW!!

Here's my thinking:

A 5th level party has just gotten access to magics such as fly (hopefully, assuming there's a wizard in the party). But that hardly means they have it prepared or that they have it multiple times).

A creature that can fly at will cannot be followed by a 5th level party. Perhaps one guy can fly...maybe. And that means everyone else will be relying on ranged weapons. With fast healing and a better AC, the ogre mage can take a bit of punishment from ranged weapons.

In addition, with the SA, the orge mage can now do 5d6 +7 damage. That can easily take down a wizard in one shot. And again, 5th level is not so high that you would necessiarly expect a party to have see invisiblity ready to go. So ogre mage can come in invisible, strike down your mage, instantly become invisible again (swift invis) and be ready for more pain. And if the party manages to do some damage, he can fly out of range, heal up, and be ready to go again.

While CR 8 might be too high, I'm thinking CR 7 is a better number. Until you can reliably handle flying and invisible creatures, the ogre mage can be a true terror.


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## ehren37 (Jul 21, 2006)

I like it. The old one was good for exactly one thing: running in with a cone of cold, then running away. It had no staying power, or real offense after that. Its the cheese equivalent of jumping the party with a bunch of 1st level kobold sorcerer each armed with a fireball scroll. 

Any complaints about the loss of its useless sleep spell can be fixed with a single (nonassociated) level of sorcerer, wizard or bard. Same with its charm. It might be a bit tough for a CR 5, but its better than its predecessor.


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## Scribble (Jul 21, 2006)

Stalker0 said:
			
		

> I do enjoy the articles, as its neat to fool with mechanics and get issues everyone has an opinion on. I like the changes to the ogre mage, but now I feel the CR is too LOW!!
> 
> Here's my thinking:
> 
> ...




Yeah... but what's he going to do up there while he's flying? He could use his lightning, but only once...

His bow... but it's not that devastating an attack. A smart party won't let something like flying be too much of a problem...


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## Scribble (Jul 21, 2006)

Speaking of said longbow... It's listed as a composite, but the damage listed is only 2d6... I'm assuming typo?


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## Glyfair (Jul 21, 2006)

Scribble said:
			
		

> Yeah... but what's he going to do up there while he's flying?



Turn invisible, sneak behind the wizard and sneak attack him perhaps (using his superior maneuverability)?


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## Scribble (Jul 21, 2006)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> Turn invisible, sneak behind the wizard and sneak attack him perhaps (using his superior maneuverability)?





True that... I forgot about his sneak attack.


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## Cam Banks (Jul 21, 2006)

Scribble said:
			
		

> Speaking of said longbow... It's listed as a composite, but the damage listed is only 2d6... I'm assuming typo?




I think adding a Str bonus capacity is extra for composites, no?

Cheers,
Cam


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## BluSponge (Jul 21, 2006)

Scribble said:
			
		

> Unlike the Rust Monster, who's basic premise stayed the same (relatively) the new Ogre Mage is changed completely... So is it still an Ogre Mage? Or a new creature completely?




No, it's not.  You could change the name to Ogre General and not miss a beat.

Tom


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## buzz (Jul 21, 2006)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> Six years down the line, though, and that's not the case.  Many people want to play games that twiddle with the fundamental assumptions -- lower magic, less reliance on items, gestalt, whatever.  And with the proliferation of base classes, you're starting to see more parties outside the ftr/rog/wiz/clr paradigm.  An original ogre-mage might not be able to go toe-to-toe with a ftr-bar duo, but what if your group consists of a beguiler, druid, cleric, and duskblade?



Like any sort of experimentation, you typically need a "control." Assuming the same default party composition that the core CR system assumes is a developer's control. Start deviating from that and you introduce a whole cascade of issues that need to be dealt with.

On top of that, you then need to inform the end user that the creature was balanced with that alt.party composition in mind, which then means that some DM has to compensate (in reverse, sorta) to adapt it for use with his Ftr/Rog/Wiz/Clr party.

IMO, fiddling with the encounter to adapt to a "non-standard" party is your local DM's job, not the developers'.


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## Scribble (Jul 21, 2006)

Cam Banks said:
			
		

> I think adding a Str bonus capacity is extra for composites, no?
> 
> Cheers,
> Cam




Well, yeah but I assumed the reason he made it composite was to take advantage of the strength? (I could be way off...)

They're the same damage as a normal bow without the STR pluses...

Maybe he did it for the extra 10 feet of range? 

Dunno... It's not a huge deal, just seems strange to me if it wasn't a typo...


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## BluSponge (Jul 21, 2006)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> Since my 1E days, the Ogre Mage always felt like a DM messing with the party.  Viola, it's an Ogre with an oriental theme.  Ah-ha, you didn't expect that Cone of Cold, did you?  Ah-ha, now it turns to gas and runs away.  Yeah, it turned invisible and sneaked back to backstab you.




Well Ogre Magi looked different and really didn't associate with ogres in 1st ed.  It was a completely different monster.  And they didn't have thief abilities, so they couldn't _technically_ backstab you.



> There certainly are worse examples of a mish-mash of non-themed abilities (beyond, let's suprise the players).  The Ogre Mage was always one that stretched my feel of a living breathing creature, though.




Please say you have the same problem with beholders, remorhazi, lurker aboves, trappers, mimics, piercers...I could go on.  Do we really need to argue the ecology of dragons here?  Ogre magi are kind of on the same level as Rakshasas, IMHO.

Tom


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## Ridley's Cohort (Jul 21, 2006)

I have a fondness for the Ogre-Mage because a couple of these with some weaker minions make for an interesting challenge to low-mid level PCs.  But it is a really oddball "oriental fey giant" that does not fit easily in a campaign.

The correct "CR" was problematic in all editions.  The O-M is likely to get the drop on the party, thus our heroes needs to be tough enough to survive an encounter where the entire party gets engulfed in a Cone of Cold and still eventually prevail.  But such a strong party is likely to vaporize the poor monster in less than half a round if they can ever meet in a fair fight.

I like the O-M as an interesting CR5 critter.  If you want a taste more like the old edition give it 2, 4, or 6 levels or Sorceror and sub Cold for Fire/Lightning.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 21, 2006)

Taking out the complications but not the complexity would be good.  I just hope they don't go so overboard with their new philosophy that DnD stands for _Dumb`n Down_.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Jul 21, 2006)

buzz said:
			
		

> Like any sort of experimentation, you typically need a "control." Assuming the same default party composition that the core CR system assumes is a developer's control. Start deviating from that and you introduce a whole cascade of issues that need to be dealt with.
> 
> On top of that, you then need to inform the end user that the creature was balanced with that alt.party composition in mind, which then means that some DM has to compensate (in reverse, sorta) to adapt it for use with his Ftr/Rog/Wiz/Clr party.
> 
> IMO, fiddling with the encounter to adapt to a "non-standard" party is your local DM's job, not the developers'.




I don't dispute the need to shoot for a median group.  But it shows a remarkable inflexibility to insist that every creature be suited only to that median group, especially when on the other hand you keep introducing core classes that increase the chance that your core group assumptions are no longer valid.

It also makes adapting the game to a DMs individual style more difficult.  That in turn pushes people to alternative rule sets (True 20, Grim Tales) or campaign settings (Midnight, Oathbound) that you (meaning WotC) don't make.

The overriding philosophy of 3.x was supposed to be 'options', yet somehow that seems to translate to 'player options'.  The DM should have that freedom, too, and WotC should make some effort to accomdate that.


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## WampusCat43 (Jul 21, 2006)

Where was this just three days ago?  I just put my players through a battle with one of these and her barbarian ogre 'lover'.  After the Cone of Cold, this thing was almost useless - just flew around regenerating and sneaking in invisible to try again.  Fight took two hours!


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## buzz (Jul 21, 2006)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> I don't dispute the need to shoot for a median group.



Well, I believe the CR system assumes that basic party composition. For the assigned CR rating to have any meaning, some defaults need to exist. I think it's far more sensible to keep products oriented towards a baselnie, and then provide guidance on how to deviate. E.g., the examples of alternate party compositions in PHB2 are essentially showing you how to drop core class roless and still keep pace with ELs.



			
				Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> It also makes adapting the game to a DMs individual style more difficult.  That in turn pushes people to alternative rule sets (True 20, Grim Tales) or campaign settings (Midnight, Oathbound) that you (meaning WotC) don't make.



I don't think that this necessarily follows. Your first sentence is making an assumption, upon which you're basing an even bigger assumption in the next sentence. I think it would be far more difficult, for instance, to "adapt" the game if every product--or even every mechanical tidbit--was making different assumptions about how the game is being run. 

The design and dev team is dealing with a core audience that numbers (depending on whom you talk to) in the hundreds of thousands to the millions. It's _impossible_ for them to cater to multiple styles in a profitable way, much less in an efficient one. They will please far more people by maintaining focus.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 21, 2006)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> It also makes adapting the game to a DMs individual style more difficult.  That in turn pushes people to alternative rule sets (True 20, Grim Tales) or campaign settings (Midnight, Oathbound) that you (meaning WotC) don't make.



That doesn't follow logically at all. If you know what to expect from the baseline, you can go off in your own directions more easily. Having weirdo outlyer monster types means the process takes longer and is harder.

Third edition has given us (imperfect) baselines, where previously we had to fly blind for the most part. Since the baselines have also come with more customization systems than we had previously, it's a lot easier to tweak a monster now for a weirdo group and know what the results are likely to be than in the old days.

Taking a 1E ogre mage and applying player character levels to it gave wildly unpredictable results. I know, I had to go through that in my first major campaign in the 1980s.

Today, we have a good idea of what an NPC can do at a certain CR and can have a reasonable guess how even non-standard classes will do against it. It's simply not something that was nearly as easy to do previously.

If you want to switch to an alternate system, do it. But this isn't something that would push you in that direction.


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## Glyfair (Jul 21, 2006)

BluSponge said:
			
		

> And they didn't have thief abilities, so they couldn't _technically_ backstab you.



I meant that in the non-techical sense.



> Please say you have the same problem with beholders, remorhazi, lurker aboves, trappers, mimics, piercers...I could go on.



Beholders are just plane weird.  None of the others seem like random collections of abilities.  Demons, Devils, etc. on the other hand...


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## Mercule (Jul 21, 2006)

I rather like the redesign.  _Cone of cold_ to _lightning bolt_ was good.

Something about the way Mike was musing about the spell-like abilities did remind me of a major frustration that I have with some of the design thought in 3E.  I've read where the developers decided to pare down the number of special abilities some monsters (specifically demons and devils) have.  The reasoning was that they don't have time to use them all in a combat, anyway.

That's just a bad decision, IMO.  Sure, a single cannon fodder monster won't get to use them all, but using that mentality hamstrings the gamers who are doing more than a string of combats.  Recurring villains, or even multiple occurances of the same lieutenant fodder, get a chance to display a broader range of abilities and to differentiate themselves from others of like kind.

I guess you can just add "more special abilities" to my wishlist for 4E.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Jul 21, 2006)

Me said:
			
		

> It also makes adapting the game to a DMs individual style more difficult. That in turn pushes people to alternative rule sets (True 20, Grim Tales) or campaign settings (Midnight, Oathbound) that you (meaning WotC) don't make.




You're right, that didn't come across well.  Let me try again   

If the underlying assumptions are that any party capable of facing a CR 'X' opponent has access to magic weapons, then adding DR5/magic to many/most critters at that CR isn't a big deal.  The party can deal with it, right?  However, someone running a low magic or low magic item campaign will have to tweak those monsters, adjust its CR, maybe beef it up in other ways, to accomodate the fact that his players won't be able to bypass it's DR.

There's nothing wrong with this.  But the more of those assumptions there are and the more you tighten the variation of any given CR (eg, somethings are easy CR8s, some are hard CR2s, etc), the more tweaking needs to be done.  The more the published material zeros in on that ideal target (for those base assumptions), the less appealing the product is to those who prefer to vary from those assumptions.

I see a lot of the 'psionics is magic vs psionics is different' debate in this.


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## Ridley's Cohort (Jul 21, 2006)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> Beholders are just plane weird.  None of the others seem like random collections of abilities.  Demons, Devils, etc. on the other hand...




Nothing says random collection of abilities thrown together in a stupid hodgepodge like _rolling for the type of attack on a chart_.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Jul 21, 2006)

Mercule said:
			
		

> The reasoning was that they don't have time to use them all in a combat, anyway.
> 
> That's just a bad decision, IMO.




I concur.  It also hamstrings DMs who want to mix things up a little with their party.  The fewer special abilities a critters has, the more likely they are to become one-trick ponies that either the party has the proper counter for and walks over, or don't have the needed spell/magic item/class ability and get whacked.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 21, 2006)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> somethings are easy CR8s, some are hard CR2s



Why do you want to have monsters give inappropriate XP for their difficulty? Proper CRs don't prevent you from throwing a weaker monster or a harder one at your party, it just means they get rewarded appropriately.


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## Ridley's Cohort (Jul 21, 2006)

Mercule said:
			
		

> That's just a bad decision, IMO.  Sure, a single cannon fodder monster won't get to use them all, but using that mentality hamstrings the gamers who are doing more than a string of combats.  Recurring villains, or even multiple occurances of the same lieutenant fodder, get a chance to display a broader range of abilities and to differentiate themselves from others of like kind.
> 
> I guess you can just add "more special abilities" to my wishlist for 4E.




There are technologies in 3e for dealing with this.  The simplest for magical creatures is to add Sorceror levels and pick thematically appropriate spells from the arcane/divine spell lists.  Musclebound monsters are even easier to customize, just add BAB, Str, HPs, and an odd feat or two (which might enhance existing spell-like abilities).

IMHO the general approach of simplifying monsters in the Core MM as a means to make the CRs more solid and reliable is sound.  It is not completely without cost, however.


----------



## MarkB (Jul 21, 2006)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> You're right, that didn't come across well.  Let me try again
> 
> If the underlying assumptions are that any party capable of facing a CR 'X' opponent has access to magic weapons, then adding DR5/magic to many/most critters at that CR isn't a big deal.  The party can deal with it, right?  However, someone running a low magic or low magic item campaign will have to tweak those monsters, adjust its CR, maybe beef it up in other ways, to accomodate the fact that his players won't be able to bypass it's DR.
> 
> There's nothing wrong with this.  But the more of those assumptions there are and the more you tighten the variation of any given CR (eg, somethings are easy CR8s, some are hard CR2s, etc), the more tweaking needs to be done.  The more the published material zeros in on that ideal target (for those base assumptions), the less appealing the product is to those who prefer to vary from those assumptions.



I think the reverse is true. If challenge rating is based upon a known baseline, then a DM who wants to use a different baseline quickly gets to know the things he needs to look out for and adjust for his game. Things like DR/magic, for a low-magic campaign, as you mentioned.

If there are a variety of critters designed armound challenging a whole range of different parties, then you've got one of two things - either _no_ baseline to refer to, so that a particular creature might be much tougher or easier for your particular campaign style with no obvious clues to let you know that, or else a whole slew of vanilla monsters which have had all traces of individuality and special abilities weeded out because such abilities might unbalance them for one playing style or another.

Basically, if there's a baseline then you have somewhere to start from. If there isn't, then CR (or any alternative balancing measure) isn't worth a damn.


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## Mercule (Jul 21, 2006)

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> There are technologies in 3e for dealing with this.  The simplest for magical creatures is to add Sorceror levels and pick thematically appropriate spells from the arcane/divine spell lists.




And that gets them more innate, spell-like abilities, how?


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## MarkB (Jul 21, 2006)

Mercule said:
			
		

> And that gets them more innate, spell-like abilities, how?



Spells are very spell-like indeed.


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## Ridley's Cohort (Jul 21, 2006)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> I concur.  It also hamstrings DMs who want to mix things up a little with their party.  The fewer special abilities a critters has, the more likely they are to become one-trick ponies that either the party has the proper counter for and walks over, or don't have the needed spell/magic item/class ability and get whacked.




Either the abilities are significant ones (e.g. Fly or Invisibility for the O-M), or they are minor abilities that are more a distraction than useful (e.g. Charm Person).  Now I concede there is a flavor cost in stripping off minor abilities but on the balance lots of weird kruft makes it more likely the monster will be played poorly by a DM who lacks the time to carefully study the MM entry.  There are a dozen simple ways of giving a monster access to minor magicks.


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## Ridley's Cohort (Jul 21, 2006)

Mercule said:
			
		

> And that gets them more innate, spell-like abilities, how?




No disrespect intended, but you are overthinking the issue.

As a matter of balance it hardly matters whether that monster is casting a spell or using a spell-like ability.  If those "Sorceror" levels give spell-like abilities instead of "real" spells they may be slightly more potent, but it also means the O-M is not going to be pulling out scrolls and wands either.

Six of one, half-dozen of the other.


----------



## Bobitron (Jul 21, 2006)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> The only time I've used it in 3e was in "The Speaker in Dreams" and he got killed quite quickly; he didn't have the fearsome staying power that the 1e version did comparitively.




I remember that as a player! Our entire group gasped when he was revealed and the DM grinned that nasty grin of his. We wiped the floor with it in no time flat, though.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Jul 21, 2006)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Why do you want to have monsters give inappropriate XP for their difficulty? Proper CRs don't prevent you from throwing a weaker monster or a harder one at your party, it just means they get rewarded appropriately.




Who cares whether it's the "right" amount of XP.  That's an arbitrary decision anyway, since so much of an encounters difficulty is situational.  Should a critter at a given CR award less XP for an experienced group of players because they find it easier?


----------



## Rodrigo Istalindir (Jul 21, 2006)

Ridley's Cohort said:
			
		

> There are technologies in 3e for dealing with this.  The simplest for magical creatures is to add Sorceror levels and pick thematically appropriate spells from the arcane/divine spell lists.  Musclebound monsters are even easier to customize, just add BAB, Str, HPs, and an odd feat or two (which might enhance existing spell-like abilities).
> 
> IMHO the general approach of simplifying monsters in the Core MM as a means to make the CRs more solid and reliable is sound.  It is not completely without cost, however.




Adding a couple sorceror levels is easier than adding a couple hand-picked abilities?


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 21, 2006)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> Who cares whether it's the "right" amount of XP.  That's an arbitrary decision anyway, since so much of an encounters difficulty is situational.  Should a critter at a given CR award less XP for an experienced group of players because they find it easier?



Um, yes?

No one is saying that DMs can't or shouldn't tweak things on their own, just that the baseline needs to be clear and consistent to make those sorts of variations more predictable for the DMs. Especially in previous editions, everyone has had the experience of tweaking things and finding the players just walking through alleged challenges with ease or having a TPK from something that was supposed to be a walk in the park. The standardization of 3E means that tweaking things is less likely to have unpredictable results.


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## occam (Jul 21, 2006)

Rothe said:
			
		

> In the end what gets me is not the end designs, but the implicit assumption that the only use of a monster that matters from a design standpoint is how it works in toe-to-toe battle and assuming that this is the only way a party will ever deal with a monster (or how the monster will deal with them).




Hear, hear! There are a lot of interesting things ogre magi can do with those low-level abilities that don't involve using them directly against CR-appropriate PC parties. Take a good look at the ogre mage writeup in the _MM_; this is not a creature sitting in a cave waiting for some adventurers to blunder in and clobber it. An ogre mage is actively involved in society, using abilities like _charm_, _sleep_, and _polymorph_ (or _change shape_ in the errata) to further his nefarious ends among the masses of weak and stupid humanoids surrounding him. Sure, they aren't much use against a party of 8th-level characters; that's what the _cone of cold_ and the escape abilities are for, as well as a coterie of ogre allies and other combat brutes.

Ogre magi can be interesting to run as written, if they're used in an appropriate way, one that takes advantage of their strengths and doesn't put them in a weak position with infeasible goals. Ogre magi are _supposed_ to flee direct combat after a round or two; that doesn't make them poorly designed monsters. They're just not meant to be hack-n-slash fodder.

That said, I do kinda like the Mearls take on the monster, and would probably use it as a variant. You can't have too many oni!


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## Razz (Jul 21, 2006)

I never had a problem with the original Ogre Mage, I always use all of its abilities. The sleep is good if it's dealing not with low-level parties, but NPCs. The charming was good for it to have a suitable meat shield if it needed one against the PCs.

And Cone of Cold is not bad for a CR 8 creature. Neither are its hit points since the darn thing has regeneration 5.

and what are Associated Classes? I noticed that in the MM4 and can't find what they say they are anywhere.


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## Ridley's Cohort (Jul 22, 2006)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> Adding a couple sorceror levels is easier than adding a couple hand-picked abilities?




Hand-picked by whom?


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## mearls (Jul 22, 2006)

I don't have time to post much today (going to the ballgame tonight), but I wanted to make one observation.

Try adding 6 levels of beguiler (PH II) to an ogre mage (+3 CR for 6 non-associated class levels, IIRC) and compare that to the old CR 8 ogre mage. I think it makes for a satisfying trickster/manipulator type.

A few people have said the flavor is gone. I'm curious about that. If you replaced the stat block in the MM with the revised stat block, but kept everything else the same, what flavor is lost?


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## Sammael (Jul 22, 2006)

Rip summed it nicely, so I don't feel the need to repeat it. Basically, you turned the O-M into another brute melee monster (with SLAs) instead of the "master manipulator" it used to be. We shouldn't have to add class levels (from a non-core book to boot) to make the creature work in its original role.


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## Endur (Jul 22, 2006)

All the recent redesigns seem to be focusing on the idea of fewer abilities to make it easier for miniatures.  Monsters that once had ten or twenty abilities are now being cut down to four or five.  ie. Ogre Mage, Demons, etc.

Makes it easier to play, but reduces options somewhat.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 22, 2006)

Endur said:
			
		

> All the recent redesigns seem to be focusing on the idea of fewer abilities to make it easier for miniatures.



According to people who aren't the designers themselves.


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## Sammael (Jul 22, 2006)

I don't think the redesigns have much to do with miniatures, but they do have a lot to do with perceived difficulties in using certain creatures. I don't necessarily think all the perceived difficulties really exist, but it's true that there are a lot of monsters out there that aren't exactly examples of stellar design. On the other hand, the Andy Collins/Mike Mearls school of thought calls for a huge oversimplification of everything (as seen in the authors' blogs), to the point which Mark CMG refers to as "dumbing down the game." 

This is further complicated by the notions that combat is the most important part of the game and, at the same time, that the PCs' aren't supposed to be truly challenged in combat, because things like loss of equipment and (heavens forbid) character death make them cry (and possibly not play the game anymore, hence reducing WotC's income). 

At this point, I am truly dreading any further revisions of the game because of the design philosophies of people who are currently employed by WotC.


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## Mad Mac (Jul 22, 2006)

Hold on now...how does the ability to cast piddly 1st level spells like charm person and sleep make something a "master manipulator"? If that was true, 2nd level Sorcerers would rule everything. 

  The old Ogre Mage doesn't really do anything. He flys around while invisible and regenerates hps and plays peekaboo with darkness spells and chuckling evilly before vanishing in a puff of gas and....uh, that's it. Goes on to further terrorize the populace with 2 1st level spells again, I guess. He sure as heck can't pull anything on a party anywhere near it's CR. Even the Cone of Cold is only annoying, and after blowing his wad, the Ogre Mage has no other recourse but to run away somewhere and come back tomorrow. 

 I mean, if I was a PC, there could be no better news than that the evil Mastermind was an overgrown doofus who's astoundingly deep arsenal of tactics was to cast charm person a lot and run away if confronted by anything stronger than a flumph.


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## Liquidsabre (Jul 22, 2006)

I really like the redesign for the OM, definately would enjoy seeing a couple of these added to  the head of a group of ogres, hillgiants, or even a larger band of orcs. As infilitrators they even work a little better, not like the core OM had diplomacy skills or the like. At least the new OM has the intimidation skill to make good use of while in disguise. A villanous behind-the-scenes manipulator won't need charm person to be effective (though addign it back in with invisibility at 3/day wouldn't hurt for those wanting to). Looking forward to using these in my own game, though at a CR 6. I really don't think CR 5 is nearly high enough for the dmg and powers this OM wields.


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## Nifft (Jul 22, 2006)

I'm not a fan of the original, or of the re-make. How the heck does _disguise self_ hide the fact that the critter is farkin' Large? Why not use the Alternate Form mechanics?



			
				SRD said:
			
		

> *Alternate Form* (Su): A young or older bronze dragon can assume any animal or humanoid form of Medium size or smaller as a standard action three times per day. The dragon can remain in its animal or humanoid form until it chooses to assume a new one or return to its natural form.




 -- N


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## buzz (Jul 22, 2006)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> However, someone running a low magic or low magic item campaign will have to tweak those monsters, adjust its CR, maybe beef it up in other ways, to accomodate the fact that his players won't be able to bypass it's DR.



But that person is making a fundamental change to D&D as-written. It's not the developers job to accomodate those poeple. It's their job to support _the published game_. And, as others have said, the more consistent they are, the _easier_ it is to deviate in your own game.

If what you want is support for your customized, low-magic campiagn, look to the many d20/OGL publishers who are doing so.


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## Taraxia (Jul 22, 2006)

The ogre-mage wasn't a great master manipulator. Any monster with sorcerer levels, as people point out, could do as well or better. He has _charm person_, not _dominate person_ -- his lousy DC 14 charm spell is good for *single interactions* with people to bluff his way around in civilization, but you're not going to be able to create a whole history for your fake identity and make a claim to the throne of the kingdom on that and the ability to vanish in a puff of smoke. The ogre-mage would be a vampire if, like a vampire, there were something he could *do* once he snuck his way into your castle, like bite you and slowly turn you into another one of himself (while keeping you just as young and beautiful as you'd ever been). Instead, he can creep up on you in bed and... blast you into a frozen corpse. How evocative.

The Japanese oni isn't meant to be a Bram-Stoker-like vampire figure, certainly. Oni roam the bounds of civilization unpredictably wreaking havoc and destruction wherever they go. (And where are you getting that this was the *flavor* of the original ogre-mage? As Mearls pointed out, you open up the MM and you see a picture of a big dude flying around with a greatsword, and you encounter these guys out in the wilderness with a bunch of regular ogres around them.)

The ogre-mage was originally written to be a smarter, cleverer ogre. That's how it's pictured in illustrations, that's the reason it wanders with parties of ogres in random encounters, that's how people picture them. Have any fantasy novels actually had the new handsome prince turn out to be an ogre-mage? Is this a common trope within fantasy?


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## Herobizkit (Jul 22, 2006)

I've found that adding the Half-Fiend template to an Ogre Mage to be very satisfying.  Adding the Half-Celestial template is even more so. 

Your players will hate you.


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## Klaus (Jul 22, 2006)

Nifft said:
			
		

> I'm not a fan of the original, or of the re-make. How the heck does _disguise self_ hide the fact that the critter is farkin' Large? Why not use the Alternate Form mechanics?
> 
> 
> 
> -- N



 The devil (or, in this case, the ogre-mage) is in the details.

From the new stat block:
"Deceptive Veil (Su): As per the spell disguise self, save that the ogre mage can appear to be up to one size smaller."

So the OM v.2.0 can pass off as a human, elf, dwarf, etc.


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## occam (Jul 22, 2006)

Mad Mac said:
			
		

> I mean, if I was a PC, there could be no better news than that the evil Mastermind was an overgrown doofus who's astoundingly deep arsenal of tactics was to cast charm person a lot and run away if confronted by anything stronger than a flumph.




A 3rd-level aristocrat can be an effective evil mastermind if played the right way. Heck, in earlier editions there were plenty of 0-level NPC masterminds. It wasn't always about being able to stand up in straight-out fight. In fact, if it comes to that, I'd say your mastermind isn't doing a very good job of masterminding.

Just think about the uses to which you could put the abilities of changing form, becoming invisible, and making all kinds of friends. Played smartly over time, those are keys to the kingdom.


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## occam (Jul 22, 2006)

Klaus said:
			
		

> The devil (or, in this case, the ogre-mage) is in the details.
> 
> From the new stat block:
> "Deceptive Veil (Su): As per the spell disguise self, save that the ogre mage can appear to be up to one size smaller."
> ...




Yeah, I didn't really see the point of that change. Maybe Mike forgot about the polymorph errata, but the ogre mage already has the ability to _change shape_ into any Small, Medium, or Large humanoid or giant.


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## Pants (Jul 22, 2006)

occam said:
			
		

> Hear, hear! There are a lot of interesting things ogre magi can do with those low-level abilities that don't involve using them directly against CR-appropriate PC parties. Take a good look at the ogre mage writeup in the _MM_; this is not a creature sitting in a cave waiting for some adventurers to blunder in and clobber it. An ogre mage is actively involved in society, using abilities like _charm_, _sleep_, and _polymorph_ (or _change shape_ in the errata) to further his nefarious ends among the masses of weak and stupid humanoids surrounding him. Sure, they aren't much use against a party of 8th-level characters; that's what the _cone of cold_ and the escape abilities are for, as well as a coterie of ogre allies and other combat brutes.



The problem with the MM Ogre Mage, as I see it, is that it's just not built well.

Many people bring up good points about monster abilities being pared down because they 'aren't useful in combat.' That's a foolish idea. A well designed monster has abilities that can strengthen its flavor and its use in combat.

The Ogre Mage, for example, has the _sleep_ spell-like ability. Now, for a devious creature that relies far more on subtlety, manipulation, and guile this is perfect. Same for _charm person_. The problem with these is, that those chosen abilities are _completely useless_ in combat. Sure, they may work on mooks during combats that the PC's will never see, but against a CR 8 (or a CR 6 party?) they're useless. _Sleep_ won't affect anyone in a level 6 party and _charm person_ only works on humanoids, which is fine if Ogre Mages are only manipulating humanoids, but I've always seen them as manipulating _anything_. 

These abilities just don't work and add in the Ogre Mage's horrible staying power and it's general one-cone-of-cold-poniness and it ends up being a horribly designed creature. 

Swap out _sleep_ for _deep slumber_ or add an addendum in the SLA for removing the HD limit and swap out _charm monster_ for the piddly _charm person_. Change the rest of the monster to the redesigned version (maybe up the CR by 1) and voila, a better version that doesn't dump on the flavor of the critter, like the current redesigned version and the old versions did.


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 22, 2006)

It's kinda funny, isn't it...that "useless" 1st level _Charm_ spell used to hold a person of average intelligence for at least 3 weeks if they didn't manage their saving throw the first time, and longer if subsequent saves were failed. With 3E and its "back to the dungeon" design, the duration was reduced to 1 hour/level, which means less than 5 days for a 20th level caster. So from being able to hold sway over the "normal" part of the population for weeks and months with a measly 1st level spell, or ingratiating itself into any court, building a web of friends and allies, an Ogre Mage has been reduced to trying to sway a PC or an NPC over to his side for 9 hours.

The "useless" 1st level _Sleep_ spell used to be a holy terror for NPCs who, except for the few important ones, simply had no "NPC class levels", or HD higher than 1/2 or 1, which meant 4 to 8 commoners simply fell to sleep (for 5 minutes per level, by the way, not the 1 minute/level pseudo-combat spell it is in 3E). With one swoop, an Ogre Mage was able to send the whole militia of a village to sleep and butcher them where they stood, while the villagers had to watch, while today he can only blow off his _Cone of Cold_ before running from the veteran warriors or the high-level commoners with pitchforks.  

So yeah, of course, if you power down the abilities of a monster due to the new rules, and then you don't recompense said monster for the loss of power, it will look stupid. Maybe it would be a recommendable exercise to look at _why_ the monsters in the 3E MM are weaker, compared to their former selves, before going ahead and complaining that they are totally useless and that it's unfathomable what reasons there were for their creation as they stand. In many cases, the MM1 monsters were taken from their earlier-edition counterparts modified only slightly, while the rules for the powers were changed drastically to focus more on rounds-long combat and on de-escalation of long-term nasty sideeffects.

That "new" Ogre Mage would make a great new monster, as a magically endowed Ogre leader, but the "old" Ogre mage was a completely different beast. If you want to give the Ogre Mage a semblance of his old power back, grant it something like _Greater Sleep_ from _The Book of Eldritch Might_, that puts 4d6 HD to sleep and is capped at 10 HD creatures, and grant it _Charm Monster_ for the longer spell duration. That way, it definitely is worth its CR of 8 and can go back being a manipulative and scary opponent for the PCs as well as a terror of the countryside.

Edit: and my apologies to Pants for not reading his post, where he brings up a few of my points and offers a similar solution. That's what happens when you click the "New Answer" button too fast.


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## James Heard (Jul 22, 2006)

My main complaint with Mearl's rewrite is that the old flying ability seems out of place on the new monster I think. I'm not even certain I like the Sneak Attack ability on it. The spell-like ability changes make a lot of sense, but I think I'd just go for allowing Rogue levels for Sneak Attack, Sorcerer levels for getting a Cone of Cold, etc. 

I think that to reflect the old version's charm/darkness abilities I'd just give the sucker an aura that caused him to be harder to hit and the PCs to have trouble using their abilities of some sort. Then he'd still have the "plop down in the middle of combat" fright coming out of invisibility, but he'd also gain an advantage that would add to his allies as well and promote his new role as "head of the ogre ninja nation" or what not. 

Of course, for the reasoning of ditching the flying I'd also kill the longbow action entirely too. I'm also not entirely sure what sort of aura I'd give the thing that would seem proper. 

*shrug* I like the articles, because the commentary is very nice.


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## Roman (Jul 22, 2006)

I did not know that ogres are from Japanese mythology. Instead, I associated them with Hungarians in some manner and recall reading something to that effect.


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 22, 2006)

The archetypical ogre that inspired the D&D monster most likely has its roots in the french respectively english expressions for a "man-eating brutish giant".

The "ogre magus" most likely was an attempt to emulate the oriental magical (and also man-eating, hence "ogre") oni with the tools AD&D offered at that point.


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## philreed (Jul 22, 2006)

Something to keep in mind while reading these revised monsters is this quote from *30 Years of Adventure:*



			
				30 Years of Adventure said:
			
		

> Zeb's "Game Wizards" column in Dragon number 118, for example, the infamous "Who Dies?" essay, was purposefully inflammatory. No one had any intention of doing away with the core classes. His remarks had their intended effect, however, in that everyone started talking about the proposed revisions . . .


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## Soel (Jul 22, 2006)

mearls said:
			
		

> Try adding 6 levels of beguiler (PH II) to an ogre mage (+3 CR for 6 non-associated class levels, IIRC) and compare that to the old CR 8 ogre mage. I think it makes for a satisfying trickster/manipulator type.
> 
> A few people have said the flavor is gone. I'm curious about that. If you replaced the stat block in the MM with the revised stat block, but kept everything else the same, what flavor is lost?




Nice idea about the beguiler levels. 

I, too am curious about the "flavor" that supposedly existed with the ogre mage. Everything it had seemed random. Cone of Cold is flavor?

I think some folks just believe you're out to kill sacred cows. I also think that perhaps, this reimagining wasn't radical enough. Still leaves me feeling a little cold. The trickster/beguiler bits are at least big steps in the right direction.

Btw, I thoroughly enjoy the design articles ya'll have been doing lately. Really generates some good discussion and insight.


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 22, 2006)

One thing that strikes me as a bit counterproductive, at least if you want an easy game that can be "run out of the box", is the argument that a monster should/can be statted up with class levels to generate an intended effect/flavour. Of course, given the modular attitude of D&D, it's easy to do so...if you really know the system. If you're a beginner, digging through a few core books, trying to grasp the concept of adding levels to a monster for different effects, and individualizing monsters that way is not so easily digested as simply grabbing the MM, opening it and using a monster as it is presented. That's why it is an advantage if the monsters  come complete with their own special effects instead of just the basic frame with the advice to tack on class levels as needed.

I mean, with the right combination of templates, classes and prestige classes, you could probably turn an awakened lizard into a dragon by now.


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## Ripzerai (Jul 22, 2006)

I'm not necessarily taking sides here - I just observed that the abilities Gygax et al gave the ogre mage were similar to the grab-bag of abilities the vampire got - charm, turn into mist, fly, the ability to pass among humans (which isn't supernatural for a vampire). This seems to be the pattern behind the ogre mage's abilities, if there is one at all. 

I'm reluctant to take the argument further than that, as an ogre mage is certainly still capable of being a "master manipulator" without using _charm_ (which, it's true, isn't that great an ability anyway, but it's great for subtle action against low-level NPCs). I would have compensated for its loss by substantially raising its base charisma, however.


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## Pants (Jul 22, 2006)

Soel said:
			
		

> I, too am curious about the "flavor" that supposedly existed with the ogre mage. Everything it had seemed random. Cone of Cold is flavor?



Meh, the only reason I like the Cone of Cold thing is because I've hosed so many players over the years with just that spell... right before the remaining PC's demolish the ogre mage.


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## Henrix (Jul 22, 2006)

It feels like I'm quoting someone, or a lot of people, earlier in this thread, when I'll say that the MM version surely needs rethinking, but that the new MM Mike Mearls version lacks all flavour and subtility.

I'd rather see an Ogre Mage that was more magical than a sneaky warrior. An intelligent spellcasting ogre, more or less. 
Say that they are born with sorcerer-like spellcasting abilities, and give them a standard array of spells. But make them so that they can have different spells, if the DM wants, in order to surprise the players.


Besides, Disguise Self is a real bad option for the Ogre Mages shapechanging. One of the main ideas seem to be that it should be able to disguise itself as a human (or even halfling).
Now take your average Ogre Mage, cast an _illusion_ on him so that he appears to be smaller, and try to get him into an ordinary house. Or sit on a chair.


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## Endur (Jul 22, 2006)

*CR8 Ogre Warlock*

Ogre CR 3 +4 hit dice (giant advancement) CR 4
8 nonassociated Warlock levels CR 8

Hit Dice: 8d8 + 8d6 + con bonus x8
Warlock Invocations (3 least, 2 lesser):
Least: Hideous Blow, Frightful Blast, Darkness
Lesser: Fell Flight, Walk Unseen

If you were willing to have a more powerful Ogre Mage, with 11 Warlock levels you could have a cone of cold (Eldritch Cone, Hellrime Blast) every round.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 22, 2006)

philreed said:
			
		

> Something to keep in mind while reading these revised monsters is this quote from *30 Years of Adventure:*



I hadn't thought that it took special effort to get people to talk about 4E.


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## Mark CMG (Jul 22, 2006)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> I hadn't thought that it took special effort to get people to talk about 4E.





The trick being to get them to talk about 4E without mentioning 4E.


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## Isbo (Jul 22, 2006)

I wonder if the flavor thing has anything to do with the difference between 3.0 and other editions of D&D.  3.0 and 3.5 are modular in a profound way--you can start out with one creature and tweak it in a number of ways without leaving the rules.  You can give it class levels, templates, more HD, alter its feat selection, and so on.  This has also been what made possible the 'smooth' introduction of monsters as PC's.  It's why you can say "oh, you want that color?  Just add a few levels of beguiler or sorcerer or..."  You make the color in 3.0.

In older versions of the game, this modularity did not exist.  To get a monster that was an ogre plus magical powers, you had to create new monsters or carefully revise an old one.  The monster's color was wired directly into its description.  Altering a 2.0 monster was, in fact, a big deal.  It was no longer the same monster.  Altering a 3.x monster is, well, just part of playing the game.

I honestly feel like 3.x has too many monsters when it could really effectively work with a few dozen core types modified with templates and class levels.  I loved the monsters that came advanced, templated, and class leveled in the MM.  We don't need a new monsters, we need better advice of how to exploit that modularity.  

Heck, I would really love it if monsters were even more modular, if monster creation were more modular, if it were a few core types with power lists, feat sugestions, and so on.  If you could create a monster like you could create a character--just add description and go.  Settings, of course, would have iconic monsters, but those would just be particularly well-designed exemplars...but I'm a bigtime homebrewer at heart


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## Nifft (Jul 22, 2006)

I really like the idea of "casts as a level X caster" so that it's easy to beef up a monster by adding associated class levels. For example, if an Ogre-Mage had 10 Giant HD and cast as a 6th level something (Sorcerer, Beguiler, Binder, Warlock, whatever) then it would be a nice CR 8 encounter, and would have obvious potential for custimization / enhancement.

 -- N


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## frankthedm (Jul 22, 2006)

Razz said:
			
		

> and what are Associated Classes? I noticed that in the MM4 and can't find what they say they are anywhere.



Associated classes are classes that work really well with a monster that inceases it's CR 1 for one. Non Associated classes are classes that don't help a monster enough and add only 1/2 a CR per class level.

A minotaur barbarian 4 is a CR 8 because ever level of barbarian is adding on plenty of potential for each of the rounds the minotaur will live in combat with PCs.
A minotaur Sorcerer 4 is a CR 6 because each level of sorcerer adds much less potential for each of the rounds the minotaur will live in combat with PCs.

ADDING CLASS LEVELS
If you are advancing a monster by adding player character class levels, decide if the class levels directly improve the monster’s existing capabilities.

When adding class levels to a creature, you should give it typical ability scores appropriate for that class. Most creatures are built using the standard array of ability scores: 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10, adjusted by racial modifiers. If you give a creature a PC class use the elite array of ability scores before racial adjustments: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. Creatures with NPC classes use the nonelite array of 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8.  

Associated Class Levels
Class levels that increase a monster’s existing strengths are known as associated class levels. *Each associated class level a monster has increases its CR by 1.*

Barbarian, fighter, paladin, and ranger are associated classes for a creature that relies on its fighting ability.

Rogue and ranger are associated classes for a creature that relies on stealth to surprise its foes, or on skill use to give itself an advantage. 

A spellcasting class is an associated class for a creature that already has the ability to cast spells as a character of the class in question, since the monster’s levels in the spellcasting class stack with its innate spellcasting ability.

Nonassociated Class Levels
If you add a class level that doesn’t directly play to a creature’s strength the class level is considered nonassociated, and things get a little more complicated. *Adding a nonassociated class level to a monster increases its CR by 1/2 per level until one of its nonassociated class levels equals its original Hit Dice. * At that point, each additional level of the same class or a similar one is considered associated and increases the monster’s CR by 1.

Levels in NPC classes are always treated as nonassociated.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 22, 2006)

Mark CMG said:
			
		

> The trick being to get them to talk about 4E without mentioning 4E.



Yeah, like there's any threads around here that people don't mention 4E in anyway ...


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## Nifft (Jul 23, 2006)

James Heard said:
			
		

> My main complaint with Mearl's rewrite is that the old flying ability seems out of place on the new monster I think.




From what I've seen of Asian mythos, superior jumping would do the trick. Also, it's cool.



			
				James Heard said:
			
		

> he'd still have the "plop down in the middle of combat" fright coming out of invisibility




Hmm... jumping could do this, too. Particularly if he could un-transform from an alternate (humanoid) form back to his regular giant form as a swift action.

Hmm... a variant is forming.

 -- N


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## occam (Jul 23, 2006)

Geron Raveneye said:
			
		

> It's kinda funny, isn't it...that "useless" 1st level _Charm_ spell used to hold a person of average intelligence for at least 3 weeks if they didn't manage their saving throw the first time, and longer if subsequent saves were failed. With 3E and its "back to the dungeon" design, the duration was reduced to 1 hour/level, which means less than 5 days for a 20th level caster. So from being able to hold sway over the "normal" part of the population for weeks and months with a measly 1st level spell, or ingratiating itself into any court, building a web of friends and allies, an Ogre Mage has been reduced to trying to sway a PC or an NPC over to his side for 9 hours.
> 
> The "useless" 1st level _Sleep_ spell used to be a holy terror for NPCs who, except for the few important ones, simply had no "NPC class levels", or HD higher than 1/2 or 1, which meant 4 to 8 commoners simply fell to sleep (for 5 minutes per level, by the way, not the 1 minute/level pseudo-combat spell it is in 3E). With one swoop, an Ogre Mage was able to send the whole militia of a village to sleep and butcher them where they stood, while the villagers had to watch, while today he can only blow off his _Cone of Cold_ before running from the veteran warriors or the high-level commoners with pitchforks.
> 
> So yeah, of course, if you power down the abilities of a monster due to the new rules, and then you don't recompense said monster for the loss of power, it will look stupid.




*Excellent* points.


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## occam (Jul 23, 2006)

philreed said:
			
		

> Something to keep in mind while reading these revised monsters is this quote from *30 Years of Adventure:*




Hee hee. Interesting observation.


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## mearls (Jul 23, 2006)

Sammael said:
			
		

> Rip summed it nicely, so I don't feel the need to repeat it. Basically, you turned the O-M into another brute melee monster (with SLAs) instead of the "master manipulator" it used to be. We shouldn't have to add class levels (from a non-core book to boot) to make the creature work in its original role.




Cool. Thanks for the answer.

Along those lines, what do people think of a power like this added to a monster like the ogre mage to get the manipulator feel:

Mesmeric Whispers (Su): If an ogre mage talks with a creature for at least 5 minutes, the creature must make a Will save (DC 10 + half OM's HD + the OM's Charisma modifier) or be affected as if by charm person for one month. The ogre mage's attempt to control a target requires a DC 35 Spellcraft check to notice. A target that succeeds at its save may make a Spellcraft check. Otherwise, it fails to notice the attempt. An ogre mage may attempt to use this ability against a specific creature once per day, and can target only one creature at a time.
A creature swayed by this ability responds in a friendly manner to whatever form the ogre mage adopted when the target failed its save.
As a rule of thumb, an ogre mage controls inhabitants of any settlement within a day's journey of its lair equal to 1d4 + its Charisma modifier. These folk are typically merchants, guardsmen (particularly officers), and politicians. The ogre mage uses these allies to establish safe houses, buy and sell goods, and so forth.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 23, 2006)

Nice power!


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## Sammael (Jul 23, 2006)

That is a very cool power, and very fitting for the O-M I envision.


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 23, 2006)

It's definitely a step up from the _Charm Person_ it is confined to at the moment..I'd actually love to see it being added to the current version, not just the remade one.

I think I finally cornered what bothered me about the angle the ogre mage was tackled from for redesign...it was remade under the premises of how it will fare/behave in direct combat, and was compared  to it's fellow CR 8 monsters  in that light as well. In a nutshell, it was treated purely as a dungeon combat encounter. And I can't help it but think that this angle is not really the best one from where to look, at least not where D&D is concerned.

The fact is that lots of the monsters that are in the game from day 1 were not meant as simple "dungeon fodder", even if they have been treated like that very often, but were/are supposed to be bigger challenges in the greater picture of a campaign, using their strengths in other fields than direct combat because that is where they lack, while they excel in manipulation, stealth and trickery.

Looking at the ogre mage, that is one creature that is not just cut out for a certain cultural background (asian, as it was drawn from there), but also for a lot of careful investigation and intrigue. I see it infiltrating a rural court, charming its way into the heart of the nobles, or subjugating a few outlying villages. Nobody notices until a few adventurers either come along on their way elsewhere, or are sent because the tithes are dropping. Nothing seems amiss, and they have to a) find out who the culprit is and b) get through a heap of charmed nobles and villagers to get to their final confrontation with the Ogre Mage, who will do his outmost to thwart them, because if it comes to a direct combat, he will fare badly and will have to run. 

I understand that the R&D team of WotC has to look at some primary focus for the game to run towards, but I'd say it's a bit thoughtless of campaign worlds like Forgotten Realms and Eberron, both teeming with rich details and plenty of non-combat interactions, to go and judge a monster 90% by it's combat ability and behaviour. Some monsters are simply no dungeon fodder, and should be treated as greater background challenges instead. Vampires, dopplegangers, mind flayers, and yes, the ogre mage, are much more efficient when NOT facing a group of adventurers in direct combat only, but meet them on their own terms. Same reason why the CR rating is only of vague value...it also deals with direct combat, mostly. And I dare say getting at an ogre mage who has entrenched himself in a rural court and the adjacent village is a much bigger challenge than simply meeting one in a dungeon and hack it to pieces.

In essence, please widen the focus of how you look at monsters a little...if the R&D policy of WotC allows it, of course. Reducing all to the dungeon is not a healthy direction for D&D, a game that has become known for colorful and rich campaign settings and adventures that also challenge a player's wit and guile, and not just his strategic talent, even if its roots were in tactical wargaming.


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## Klaus (Jul 23, 2006)

mearls said:
			
		

> Cool. Thanks for the answer.
> 
> Along those lines, what do people think of a power like this added to a monster like the ogre mage to get the manipulator feel:
> 
> ...



 That's a neat power, Mike. But instead of tying it to charm person, I'd simply state that a humanoid that fails its saving throw has a Helpful attitude towards the ogre mage (or its current guise) for 1 month, and that a break enchantment or remove curse spell removes this effect.

By tying it to charm person, you tie to to any future changes of charm person. But by giving it its own effect description, it stands on its own, rules-wise.


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 23, 2006)

Not to be nitpicky or anything, and you're certainly right that tieing it to _Charm Person_ makes it vulnerable to future changes to that spell (which already powered the Ogre Mage down from earlier editions after all), but tieing it to an in-game definition of an attitude most likely offers a similar vulnerability. Simply stating that the power makes the victing regard the Ogre Mage as a trusted friend and ally might be more helpful in that regard.


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## Cheiromancer (Jul 23, 2006)

mearls said:
			
		

> Along those lines, what do people think of a power like this added to a monster like the ogre mage to get the manipulator feel:
> 
> Mesmeric Whispers (Su): If an ogre mage talks with a creature for at least 5 minutes, the creature must make a Will save (DC 10 + half OM's HD + the OM's Charisma modifier) or be affected as if by charm person for one month. The ogre mage's attempt to control a target requires a DC 35 Spellcraft check to notice. A target that succeeds at its save may make a Spellcraft check. Otherwise, it fails to notice the attempt. An ogre mage may attempt to use this ability against a specific creature once per day, and can target only one creature at a time.
> A creature swayed by this ability responds in a friendly manner to whatever form the ogre mage adopted when the target failed its save.
> As a rule of thumb, an ogre mage controls inhabitants of any settlement within a day's journey of its lair equal to 1d4 + its Charisma modifier. These folk are typically merchants, guardsmen (particularly officers), and politicians. The ogre mage uses these allies to establish safe houses, buy and sell goods, and so forth.




DC 35!?  That's pretty high, doncha think?  And what happens if someone makes the check?  Do you tell them that an ogre mage is trying to charm them, or do you just say there is some kind of magical influence at work?  (Which may be a ring of human influence, or a philtre of glibness- heck, even a cloak of charisma).

What is "equal to 1d4 + its Charisma modifier"?  The number of inhabitants in any settlement?  Which is a trifle odd- a few hours in a tavern, barbershop should dramatically increase the number.  Or is it the number of settlements where the OM has substantial influence?

The skill used for making friends is normally Diplomacy, I think. Giving the OM a substantial bonus to non-combat diplomacy and bluff checks should be enough to make friendly with most nearby neighbors.


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## 6pakofdwarves (Jul 23, 2006)

> The skill used for making friends is normally Diplomacy, I think. Giving the OM a substantial bonus to non-combat diplomacy and bluff checks should be enough to make friendly with most nearby neighbors.




My thoughts are the same on this. I would just give it a +10 racial bonus to Diplomacy, Sense Motive and Bluff. I think that in and of itself would make it a good "Mastermind" villain. No need to ensorcel the population when you can win friends and influence people naturally. 

Now on the redesign, I really like it. A very tricksy ogre indeed!


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## Kid Charlemagne (Jul 23, 2006)

Cheiromancer said:
			
		

> What is "equal to 1d4 + its Charisma modifier"?  The number of inhabitants in any settlement?




No, the number of people the Ogre Mage _controls_ in any given settlement.  And the DC 35 to notice a subtle magical effect seems fair to me.  It doesn't affect saving throws, just the chance to notice something is up.

I like the ability, myself.  Quite a bit.


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## Henrix (Jul 23, 2006)

Endur said:
			
		

> Ogre CR 3 +4 hit dice (giant advancement) CR 4
> 8 nonassociated Warlock levels CR 8




You haven't made anything but a specialised magical fighter, there. Far from the interesting creature an Ogre Mage is.
With Int 6, Wis 10 and Cha 7 an ordinary Ogre makes a rather poor spellcaster and mastermind.


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## bowbe (Jul 23, 2006)

Most people have mentioned the "useless" sleep spell ability and the "useless" sleep spell in general.

The traditional sleep spell became useless with 3.0 and even more useless with 3.5. 

Instead of dropping it from a monster why not concentrate on making some of the iconic spells not suck. 

P.S. for haters who think its all about throwbacks to "sacred cows," remember that a lot of where D&D draws its flavor is from the use of those same icons in a game to give players a similar yet unique set of experiences across many generations of D&D gamers. 3.0 developers knew this, which is why they used "iconic characters" to describe character classes and kept that theme throughout the core rulebooks. 

3.5 ed and this quasi 4th ed developmental stuff seems to ignore those iconic elements, exchanging them for a more mechanical approach. 

Didn't care for the 3.x version of the Ogre Mage because as a lot of people pointed out it was a meat-sack with a bammy spell and nothing else really going for it. Don't care much for the "developmental redesign" either. 

Iconically speaking, the classic ogre mage made a great villian or boss. Instead of straightjacketing it to the CR 8 for obscure reasons, or wimping it down based on art that will undoubtably not survive a rules revision... why not make it tougher instead?

Ogre Mages should be distinct from regular ogres in the way that Barghests are/were distinct from goblins. Barghests grew stronger and gained more powers as they gained hit dice from eating souls. Ogre Mages could have been designed on a similar thesis: 

That ogre mages are a different and unique creature, that they have innate magical powers based on their # of hit dice, and that they develop more powerful magical and sorcerous effects as they "grow up". 

A precedent already exists for  this with elementals so it isn't a stretch to use existing rules sets to effect a variety of ogre mage powers (hell even add some new ones as it gains powers). Thus a low 2 hd ogre mage has the sleep spell power (or one written to work) and a higher hit dice ogre mage (like 7 hd) gains the cone of cold. Maybe at higher HD it would gain Charm Monster or Dominate to create a greater challenge for higher level characters and offer a re-usability factor. Flavor text could be altered slightly to reflect its magical nature, its other worldliness (I would think of considering it a native outsider) and offer a cultural naunce to the brute to round it out. 


Case

P.S. 
Wizbang made a good point in the rust monster development. On a different board I applied the rules for damaging items and item hardness/hit points to a rust effect. Thanks for the idea Wiz because it works pretty well and uses the existing rules! Go you!


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## Nifft (Jul 23, 2006)

bowbe said:
			
		

> That ogre mages are a different and unique creature, that they have innate magical powers based on their # of hit dice, and that they develop more powerful magical and sorcerous effects as they "grow up".




To me, this sounds like "casts as a class", and then you add some class levels on. 

Yay 3e monsters with levels!

 -- N


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 23, 2006)

To me, this rather more sounds like the 10-level approach to the Ogre Mage that _Savage Species_ tried.


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## Shazman (Jul 23, 2006)

Drowbane said:
			
		

> How would you design the Oni?
> 
> As I think the MM Ogremage is PoS, and I don't get to run or play in OA all that much... I replace Ogremages with... Ogre Sorcerers!  Ogre (CR 3) + Sorc 5 = CR 8, right?
> 
> In an edition where we have the spontaneous caster, we don't need to fall back on oldskool versions of monsters that were handed random spell-like abilities to make them interesting.  And if you want to do it OA, use the Wu Jen.




Actually, it's more like a CR5 since sorcerer is definitely a non-associated class for ogres.


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## Knight Otu (Jul 23, 2006)

Shazman said:
			
		

> Actually, it's more like a CR5 since sorcerer is definitely a non-associated class for ogres.



Until you go and increase the CR for the Charisma increase you need to add in to make it an efficient ogre sorcerer. 

Mike, if you're reading this, is there a chance to add sidebars to the end of the articles that show what changed? No need to go super detailed on it, just stuff like "Added +1d6 sneak attack," "dropped Spell Resistance" or "Re-allocated skill points to Hide and Move Silently" or "Changed rust ability (see text for details)." I think that would help as an overview.


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## bowbe (Jul 23, 2006)

> To me, this sounds like "casts as a class", and then you add some class levels on.
> 
> Yay 3e monsters with levels!





Agreed, however sometimes it's nice for a monster to just be a monster and have monster stats. I get all the goodies of monster levels and so on... just saying that I think thats the approach that best suits an Ogre Mage... A basic "ogre mage" with a few variants for things it gains as it "levels up" template wise I guess. 

Point being there are tons of alternatives that already exist for humanoid critters, giants, and so on. Likewise there are genies that have examples given of "noble" classed stats amongst them. To me a Ogre Mage is more of a genie outsider type race than an ogre type race. Thus the talk about the extra class levels and so on makes sense. 

I just felt that a simple baseline (perhaps low) CR low HD version of the Ogre mage would be the way to go so that you could easily tack on whatever character classes make it your "style" of Ogre mage. I'm really getting more and more inclined to feel that way with several sorts of humanoid monsters and outsiders as I continue to play into my 6th year of 3.x

Racial benefits that grow as the monster levels up or increases based on its natural size and hit dice (i.e. monster classes) work nicely into the existing framework. If your going to re-work the monsters, I guess I feel that Re-working the monsters to fit a simplified baseline starting "monster package" works better for everyone and would in my mind be the development design mode to take.

It helps a GM create the monster they want from a simple setup, and gives players who get off on playing monsters an easier time of it than waiting around for everyone else to catch up before they get to level one time. Helps play balance because you don't have a monster PC thats 4 times stronger than everyone else to start with, but then becomes a burden at higher levels because they dont have all the class features everyone else has.

I guess what I am getting at is perhaps every humanoid/humanoid outsider, giant and so on should be a template or "race" as described in various books rather than a "monster" as statted in the monster manual. Anyhow, gonna fiddle a bit with some of this stuff and see what happens.

Case


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 23, 2006)

Geron Raveneye said:
			
		

> I think I finally cornered what bothered me about the angle the ogre mage was tackled from for redesign...it was remade under the premises of how it will fare/behave in direct combat, and was compared  to it's fellow CR 8 monsters  in that light as well. In a nutshell, it was treated purely as a dungeon combat encounter. And I can't help it but think that this angle is not really the best one from where to look, at least not where D&D is concerned.



Since the CR system determines how much XP characters get from defeating an NPC, typically in combat, making sure a creature works at its stated CR is a pretty core concern. Adding non-combat abilities is cool, but the basic CR should let a DM know whether, in a head to head fight, a monster is going to wipe the floor with his party, be a good challenge, or be too easy.

Including additional non-combat abilities (which Mearls is doing in this thread) is great, but that's not what the CR system is for.


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## Obergnom (Jul 23, 2006)

Well,

one small thing I migh contribute to this threat. I used two of the redesigned Ogre Mages in an Encounter tonight (6 Ogres, a Hill Giant and 2 Ogre Mages), being part of an army of giants led by an Eldritch Giants (All very Against the Giants like)

The Ogre Mages work great in an encounter, both of them were able to flee afterwards, so they will be reoccuring, they did pretty good damage using Sneak attack, all the flying around was rather nice, the Lightning Bolts were  not that usefull though. (The Party was spread between 7th and 9th Level)

I have used Ogre Mages in 3.x before, an the new ones are much more usable, without giving out XP for free, if you do not have that much time to prepare for an encounter, which was true tonight. If I want one of those as a Boss Monster I would give it Class Levels (I nearly allways do so) and if it was a "true" MM entry I would expect there was a version closer to the original, by adding appropiate levels (Beguiler seems to be the way to go)

... so, yea, I really like this redesign, but I liked the Rust Monster to, and I even like the new Monster Format in MM4... maybe thats what happens when you play AE for to long


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## FireLance (Jul 24, 2006)

I've always liked the Warcraft take on ogre magi that they are originally normal ogres who subsequently gained magical powers. In Warcraft II, the spirits of dead orcish warlocks were infused into normal ogres at the Altars of Storms. In D&D, perhaps ogres could become ogre magi by going through some vile ritual like consuming the still-beating hearts of thirteen humanoids with strong ties to magic, such as elves or gnomes.

Of course, since the idea of one creature "evolving" into another, stronger version is found in Pokemon, this runs the risk that people who don't like this will call them "pokemagi".


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 24, 2006)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Since the CR system determines how much XP characters get from defeating an NPC, typically in combat, making sure a creature works at its stated CR is a pretty core concern. Adding non-combat abilities is cool, but the basic CR should let a DM know whether, in a head to head fight, a monster is going to wipe the floor with his party, be a good challenge, or be too easy.
> 
> Including additional non-combat abilities (which Mearls is doing in this thread) is great, but that's not what the CR system is for.




"Typically in combat" is the operative term, isn't it? I think I did state that, if you play an Ogre Mage to its strengths instead of to its weaknesses, it can be a CR 8 "encounter". It simply is no dungeon fodder. It is this untypical kind of challenge that you can't hack at with your sword right away. It has allies, some of them in high places, it looks like a perfectly normal person, it can, with a bit of luck, even charm your group fighter at the tavern while you're asking around for rumors about it. It's hard to track, hard to corner, and hard to finish off eventually.

Or course, if CR is determined exclusively as a measure of how a monster stacks up in direct combat when met in a 10'x10' room deeply underground, a few monsters in the MM need to be redesigned. But I doubt that this kind of too narrow focus would do a service to D&D. Having some kind of baseline is one thing...hammering every deviation down to it is another.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 24, 2006)

Geron Raveneye said:
			
		

> Or course, if CR is determined exclusively as a measure of how a monster stacks up in direct combat when met in a 10'x10' room deeply underground, a few monsters in the MM need to be redesigned.



Which brings us back to the original post in this thread, since that's exactly what Mearls is doing, for exactly that reason, among others.

The baseline has to be solid, and then DMs are _more_ empowered to play around with NPCs, because they know the information they're given is more reliable than it is currently.


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## AdmundfortGeographer (Jul 24, 2006)

Must not forget to mention that this _mesmeric whispers_ should be a *language-dependent, mind-affecting, charm* effect.




			
				mearls said:
			
		

> As a rule of thumb, an ogre mage controls inhabitants of any settlement *within a day's journey of its lair equal to 1d4 + its Charisma modifier*.





			
				Cheiromancer said:
			
		

> What is "equal to 1d4 + its Charisma modifier"?



Possibly... the number of day's journey out from its lair?


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## Mad Mac (Jul 24, 2006)

Eh. So the old Ogre Mage is a worthy CR 8 if you stack the deck in it's favor? That's not CR, that's a circumstancial modifier to XP. Like when CR 1/4 Kobolds kill a bunch of 5th level characters with their super-duper traps of doom. Doesn't mean Kobolds are suddenly CR 8 critters. 

 I mean seriously, an Ogre Mage can cast charm person and disguise himself. That's not much better than a 1st level Sorcerer. And I'm sure a determined enough DM can turn that 1st level Sorcerer into a horrifying mastermind with enough mind-bending plot manipulation. I guess Sorc's are just massively under CR'd, or something. Apparently I've just been going about this CR thing all wrong. On reflection, a mid-level Sorc has access to powers a mere Ogre Mage could only dream of! He'd be unstoppable!

 Or not. 

Ogre Mage: Wa Ha Ha Ha Ha! You fools! I've been following you all this time, tying your shoelaces together, spitting in your food, and even telling every barmaids within 20 miles about your little fungus problem! My dire villiany know's no limits! Bow before me in fear! Grovel beneath my...

*Party Fighter bops him over the head with a large wooden mallet*

Ogre Mage: You brute! How could you! I'm going home! *turns invisible and fly's home crying like a girlie girl*

Fighter: Can we trade him in for a new archvillian? If he keeps hanging around like this, our street cred is going to be shot. People will think we're friends with that twerp. 

Thief: It's not that bad.

Fighter: No?

Theif: Nah, I totally gave him an atomic wedgie when he wasn't looking.

Mage: And I put an arcane mark on his forehead that means "Loser!"

Fighter: Heh. Next time lets give him swirlies in the girls bathroom. 

Thief: Won't he just turn to gas and fly away?

Fighter: Even better. I can stick him in my fart jar.

Thief: Your what? 

Fighter: Don't ask.


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## Taraxia (Jul 24, 2006)

Geron Raveneye said:
			
		

> "Typically in combat" is the operative term, isn't it? I think I did state that, if you play an Ogre Mage to its strengths instead of to its weaknesses, it can be a CR 8 "encounter". It simply is no dungeon fodder. It is this untypical kind of challenge that you can't hack at with your sword right away. It has allies, some of them in high places, it looks like a perfectly normal person, it can, with a bit of luck, even charm your group fighter at the tavern while you're asking around for rumors about it. It's hard to track, hard to corner, and hard to finish off eventually.
> 
> Or course, if CR is determined exclusively as a measure of how a monster stacks up in direct combat when met in a 10'x10' room deeply underground, a few monsters in the MM need to be redesigned. But I doubt that this kind of too narrow focus would do a service to D&D. Having some kind of baseline is one thing...hammering every deviation down to it is another.




This is *horrible* logic. Defining "social" CR is almost impossible, since it depends on tons and tons of plot factors (whom the PCs know, what their reputation is, etc.) By this reasoning the average monarch, who has, say, around 8 aristocrat levels, should have a CR of, like, 22, since *assassinating* the average monarch requires a fairly large number of high-level characters. You'd have to base the monarch's CR on the patriotism of the average citizen, the army of the nation, the palace defenses, the politics of the royal court, etc., etc.

This would make CR almost impossible to calculate and extremely difficult to convert from situation to situation. The whole point of CR is to determine how easy someone is to kill someone in a fair fight -- which, face it, is what the average party of D&D adventurers spend most of their time doing -- not how easy it is to outmaneuver someone politically and whatnot. Doing the latter would be almost impossible to run in a fair way.

CR is a tool for gauging things for standard D&D *encounters*, not a general identifier for "how good" a monster is. There is no stat to determine "how good" a monster is once you factor in plot-based, RP factors, and it's not really possible to have one -- that's something you have to determine ad hoc based on what's actually going on in your campaign. In certain campaign worlds the Ogre Mage could be a very powerful manipulator (low-magic, lots of small, isolated villages); in others he'd have a much harder time (high- or wide-magic, a strongly civilized society that places a lot of emphasis on documentation and identification).


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## coyote6 (Jul 24, 2006)

Klaus said:
			
		

> The devil (or, in this case, the ogre-mage) is in the details.
> 
> From the new stat block:
> "Deceptive Veil (Su): As per the spell disguise self, save that the ogre mage can appear to be up to one size smaller."
> ...




Until he has to squeeze his Large self through a Medium door, and people see the allegedly 5 ft tall elf ducking and twisting to get through the 7 ft. tall door. Then watch the hijinks that come when he has to sit down in a chair . . .


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 24, 2006)

Mad Mac said:
			
		

> Eh. So the old Ogre Mage is a worthy CR 8 if you stack the deck in it's favor? That's not CR, that's a circumstancial modifier to XP. Like when CR 1/4 Kobolds kill a bunch of 5th level characters with their super-duper traps of doom. Doesn't mean Kobolds are suddenly CR 8 critters.




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?




			
				Taraxia said:
			
		

> This is *horrible* logic. Defining "social" CR is almost impossible, since it depends on tons and tons of plot factors (whom the PCs know, what their reputation is, etc.) By this reasoning the average monarch, who has, say, around 8 aristocrat levels, should have a CR of, like, 22, since *assassinating* the average monarch requires a fairly large number of high-level characters. You'd have to base the monarch's CR on the patriotism of the average citizen, the army of the nation, the palace defenses, the politics of the royal court, etc., etc.
> 
> This would make CR almost impossible to calculate and extremely difficult to convert from situation to situation. The whole point of CR is to determine how easy someone is to kill someone in a fair fight -- which, face it, is what the average party of D&D adventurers spend most of their time doing -- not how easy it is to outmaneuver someone politically and whatnot. Doing the latter would be almost impossible to run in a fair way.
> 
> CR is a tool for gauging things for standard D&D *encounters*, not a general identifier for "how good" a monster is. There is no stat to determine "how good" a monster is once you factor in plot-based, RP factors, and it's not really possible to have one -- that's something you have to determine ad hoc based on what's actually going on in your campaign. In certain campaign worlds the Ogre Mage could be a very powerful manipulator (low-magic, lots of small, isolated villages); in others he'd have a much harder time (high- or wide-magic, a strongly civilized society that places a lot of emphasis on documentation and identification).




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 kill

Even 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.


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 24, 2006)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Which brings us back to the original post in this thread, since that's exactly what Mearls is doing, for exactly that reason, among others.
> 
> The baseline has to be solid, and then DMs are _more_ empowered to play around with NPCs, because they know the information they're given is more reliable than it is currently.




The question is if it's a good idea to reduce the whole system to dungeon encounter scenarios while trying to sell off the CR system as a good way to gauge the XP from roleplaying challenges, traps, and other decidedly non-combat situations, and using it in nearly every D&D supplement, no matter if it's a pure "dungeon" effect or something else.

Personally, I believe there is no way to really standardize everything in D&D down to a baseline of "standard combat encounter" without losing a lot of the flavour of the game. Instead, it would be more helpful if there were better explanations of how to use a given monster to its individual strengths, instead of trying to tailor every monster to a standard situation.


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## James Heard (Jul 24, 2006)

Whether or not you _can _actually do it, trying to reduce everything down to a "single standard dungeon encounter" to use as a baseline is pretty admirable and good design. It doesn't even matter if it's arbitrary and no one plays that way: The idea is to establish a baseline so you can see where an encounter might deviate from the baseline and why. 

And, as far as it goes, I think reducing monsters' complexity a little to where you don't _have_ to explain how to use a monster to its given strengths might be a good idea sometimes too. If the monster's strengths are readily apparent then you can play to them or run against them at will, but if you have to _explain_ those strengths and weaknesses all the time you risk devoting an awful lot of ink on stuff that isn't always a great value to everyone. It's often easier to add complexity to an encounter than remove it, most especially when that complexity might be accounted for in the reflection toward the baselines.


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## Jedi_Solo (Jul 24, 2006)

I, personally, think that CR should be based on the combat/mechanical aspects of the monster as opposed to the social aspects.

A CR3 critter with heavy social abilities will always be a CR3 critter, the same with a CR5 or a CR8 or a CR325.  As a player, it will much more fulfilling to have a decent fight after we expose the OM for what it is and pound it into a pulp in a decent fight as opposed to looking at it crosseyed and it dying from a heart attack due to fright from us being 5 levels higher that its combat stats would put it.  I want a decent fight to end the storylines with, not be a schoolyard bully.

That said, there is no reason that a DM couldn't start messing with the PCs using the monsters social abilities a few levels before the PCs are ready to fight the monster.  If a first level party runs into the town mayor (who is "charmed" by the OM) in the first session of the campaign, that's great.  But to me, having the PCs figure out that the city officials are under control of the unassuming city clerk doesn't give the monster its CR.  That is the story that takes the fight with the "City Clerk" from being a monster-of-the-week footnote to being a really cool encounter that is talked of for years afterwards.

CR should be based around a creatures staying power in a fight.  When I have guest-DMed and I wanted a monster idea for the session I looked at the CRs to get ideas for the single session I was going to do.  If I want a CR8 fight for the climactic fight I would want to know that a CR8 will (likely - barring the occational really odd roles) hold its own for a couple of rounds and not really be the same fight-wise as a CR5.

Some monsters would benefit greatly from a short sidebar pointing out odd stuff in the statblock, like that the Ogre Mage (old, or new with Mike's new  charm-style power) is meant to play up the manipulative Oni and be more than a great-sword wielding blue skinned bully and would most likely be best used for a long term villian.  But that won't put more fight into the creature when the party finally fights it.


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 24, 2006)

Jedi_Solo said:
			
		

> I, personally, think that CR should be based on the combat/mechanical aspects of the monster as opposed to the social aspects.
> 
> A CR3 critter with heavy social abilities will always be a CR3 critter, the same with a CR5 or a CR8 or a CR325.  As a player, it will much more fulfilling to have a decent fight after we expose the OM for what it is and pound it into a pulp in a decent fight as opposed to looking at it crosseyed and it dying from a heart attack due to fright from us being 5 levels higher that its combat stats would put it.  I want a decent fight to end the storylines with, not be a schoolyard bully.
> 
> ...




Well, just two points here. The entry for the Ogre Mage under _Combat_ reads:
_Ogre mages rely on their spell-like abilities, resorting to physical combat only when necessary. When faced with obviously superior forces, they prefer to retreat in gaseous form rather than fight a losing battle. Ogre mages hold deep, abiding grudges, however, and the unwise person who crosses one would do well to keep looking over his shoulder._

So basically, the Ogre mage is not that prone to face characters in direct battle anyway, if he's not definitely superior, but rather prone to vanish if the heroes prove too big for it to handle. Not that hard either, with _Darkness_ and _Invisibility_ on his side, as well as the shapeshifting abilities.

And second, a CR8 only means that a standard group of 4 8th level characters should expend roughly 25% of their resources while bringing down the monster, not that it is a climatic battle for them. For a good, climatic end fight, make them a mix of 5th and 6th level characters. Should still give them the chance to bring the monster down, might cost one of them a life, and will definitely be the kind of encounter that's talked about for some time after.

Also fits nicely with a storyline where the group comes into a village around 2nd level, starts having a few adventures around it, notice that something is not right with a few of the officials, strange things happening, people vanishing etc. They get sent on a red herring quest by the mayor to eradicate a tribe of humanoids who he claims are kidnapping citizens, that kind of stuff. After a few more adventures, the plot thickens, the first official is freed of his _charm_ for example, the evidence points to a lowly clerk, the confrontatioin looms, the PCs have become 5th level by now, or 6th, and during the fight that might down one of their numbers from a _Cone of Cold_, the Ogre Mage reveals himself and causes plenty of havoc, being overcome only just so at the end.

Maybe a bit cliché, but the monster in question is 25 years old by now, too.


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## Hussar (Jul 24, 2006)

> And second, a CR8 only means that a standard group of 4 8th level characters should expend roughly 25% of their resources while bringing down the monster, not that it is a climatic battle for them. For a good, climatic end fight, make them a mix of 5th and 6th level characters. Should still give them the chance to bring the monster down, might cost one of them a life, and will definitely be the kind of encounter that's talked about for some time after.




However, if the CR of the creature has been dramatically overestimated, as in the CR is trying to reflect some sort of social CR, rather than a CHALLENGE rating, then the party of 6th level characters expend 25% of their resources as they waltz over the Ogre Mage AND they get extra xp to boot.

Wouldn't it make more sense for a CR 8 creature to be an equal combat challenge, regardless of what that creature is?


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## Mad Mac (Jul 24, 2006)

Agreed. Physically, the Ogre Mage isn't much stronger than a regular CR 3 Ogre. They'd be CR 4 at best, if it wasn't for the fact that giving a low CR critter a 9d6 cone of cold would be completely insane. 

  As for the "Master Manipulator" bit that refuses to go away, they can cast Charm Person and Polymorph once a day each. _That's it._ That isn't remotely enough to give the Ogre Mage some sort of massive "Social CR" bonus, unless every petty Sorc or Wiz is some sort of social god. (And don't get me started on the Bard. They'd have to be CR=levelx2 or something)

  So no, I don't think the ability to try and sneak up on the party to cast a single,  so-so 1st level spell that even the party fighter has around a 50/50 chance of saving against is enough to double it's CR. Nor is the ability to run away and live to  suck another day. Ogre Mages are awesome at running away, that I'll admit. They make way better cowards than manipulators. It's just sort of pointless.


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 24, 2006)

Hussar said:
			
		

> However, if the CR of the creature has been dramatically overestimated, as in the CR is trying to reflect some sort of social CR, rather than a CHALLENGE rating, then the party of 6th level characters expend 25% of their resources as they waltz over the Ogre Mage AND they get extra xp to boot.
> 
> Wouldn't it make more sense for a CR 8 creature to be an equal combat challenge, regardless of what that creature is?




The question is, at least from my point of view, if the CR *only* reflects the monster in a direct combat confrontation, or if the CR reflects the monster when it makes the most out of its given abilities. The follow-up question is simply if a result of the monster using its abilities is a challenge only if it uses those abilities against the characters facing it, or if they factor into the challenge also when the abilities are not directly aimed against the characters.

And why should a CR 8 creature be an equal combat challenge if the entry points out that the creature in question prefers to avoid direct physical combat? Should we lower the CR because the monster will rarely be bested in direct combat, or is the CR correct because it is harder to overcome the creature in the first place (and by overcome, I don't mean "slaughter" in that context).

As far as I see it, the CR is more than a simple "combat efficiency index". It's a measure of how hard a creature is to overcome, true, but not in the context of direct combat only. Overcoming a monster can, as is mentioned in the DMG, be accomplished in a lot of different ways, depending on the situation and the ingenuity of the players. Should I award "full-CR" XP only when the PCs face every monster in direct combat? Then we'd be back to the "slaughter for experience" mentality that was actually attempted to overcome in the core rules back when 3E came out.

And by the way....how about it? If an Ogre Mage gets to _charm_ the group barbarian, and manages to make him oppose his own group, is that a separate challenge to overcome the barbarian, and will it grant separate XP to the group, or is that part of the challenge the Ogre Mage poses from the start?


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## Mad Mac (Jul 24, 2006)

If a 1st level Sorc manages to charm the party Barbarian and turn him against the party, does the group get extra XP for defeating him?


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## Hussar (Jul 24, 2006)

I don't have the book in front of me, so I'm not sure about charm.  I know that the xp is factored in for summoning.  Looks similar.

Challenge rating is simply a guide for how strong a given creature is in combat.  Period.  It does not measure any sort of intangible advantage that creature may or may not have in a given campaign.  If it did, then every king, regardless of level, would be a CR 20 challenge, as was mentioned earlier.

If the creature always runs away from a direct confrontation, then it should bloody well be worth less xp than one that stands up and fights.  Makes no sense otherwise.  You're handing out free xp by having a weak creature that buggers off whenever the big boys come out to play.  Reducing the CR simply reflects that.


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## Sarellion (Jul 24, 2006)

Charm Person is a nice spell but still limited. I wonder why it is hyped so much as the mastermind´s control spell.

The above example of the OM charming a barbarian and turning against the group wouldn´t work. The charmed person will not do obviously harmful things and the OM has to win an opposed charisma check in the first place to give orders. Otherwise he will be regarded as friend and ally but that doesn´t mean that the charmed person will do everything the Mage wants.

Also I don´t know how the OM would keep up his guise in the court of a noble mentioned somewhere in this thread. He is still an ogre and doesn´t know how to behave in human society (in the standard settings at least). How many people do you think the OM will charm? The whole court? Without modifying charm person totally impossible as the duration is too short and even modified, one charm per day is not enough to do such a stunt.

The Ogre Mage can establish dominance in ogre or similar society where his powers will gain him a position as leader or shaman.


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## Mad Mac (Jul 24, 2006)

Yup. Charm Person lasts 9 hours for an Ogre Mage, and he casts it 1/day. So he can make one "friend" a day, at best. If they don't make their save, or realize that he's trying to charm them. And as mentioned, you don't use Charm Person to get combat thralls. The Ogre Mages +3 charisma bonus isn't going to reliably win opposed charisma checks from his one potential "friend of the day" either.

  Also, the stock Ogre Mage is entirely untrained in social skills, choosing instead to focus on concentration, spellcraft, Listen, and Spot. And with one use polymorph, he can't switch disguises during the day. Oh, and it last 9 minutes per day, to boot. His mastermind potential is non-existant.


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## Mad Mac (Jul 24, 2006)

duplicate post


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## Mark CMG (Jul 24, 2006)

I'll start a new thread for my concerns . . .

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=169471


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## kigmatzomat (Jul 24, 2006)

I don't have a problem with the Mearls OM except that....it isn't an oni and as a long-time player, I want the OM to be oni.  

Oni are a hard thing to quantify but it's pretty common that they fly, are able to sneak into sealed rooms, can appear to be other people, and have some ability to control others.  Many sources state that oni's purpose is to corrupt mortals so that they become oni in the next life.  They are strong, relative to normal people, but primarily sneaky.  The direct translation of 1e/2e materials without looking at the specific mechanics has screwed with the effective flavor of the race.  Older versions of Charm were much longer lasting than 3.x Charm Person and the original flavor could be replicated with Charm Monster. 

So convert Charm Person to Charm Monster but make it 2/day in exchange for dropping  Cone of Cold.  Leave Sleep 1/day as a way to take out groups of weak creatures and as a semi-offensive SLA turn at-will darkness to 3/day Web.  Replace troublesome polymorph to "shapshifter:alternate form-any medium or large humanoid-form and gain +10 to disguise to impersonate individual",   add one HD (+1 BAB, +7hp, +1Ref/Will, +4 skill points, +1 feat) and toss in some social & stealth skills.  

Now you've got an opponent that has a hard to resist Charm power, enough hp & SR to survive an encounter with an 8th level party, a decent ability to blood the party, and the sneaky to make trouble.


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## Ripzerai (Jul 24, 2006)

Mad Mac said:
			
		

> As for the "Master Manipulator" bit that refuses to go away, they can cast Charm Person and Polymorph once a day each. _That's it._ That isn't remotely enough to give the Ogre Mage some sort of massive "Social CR" bonus, unless every petty Sorc or Wiz is some sort of social god. (And don't get me started on the Bard. They'd have to be CR=levelx2 or something).





Not for a base ogre mage, not in D&D 3.5. But sorcerers and wizards are rare and exceptional among humans; there are surely as many classed ogre magi, proportionately, as there are classed humans (though I suppose that's arguable). 

Ordinary humans have no power to transform or charm. Ordinary magi, then, start with an advantage in that department - not enough to make them gods, but an advantage. And that advantage only gets greater as they level up.

At least, that's what a lot of people in this thread are advocating.


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 24, 2006)

I'll concede one point..something is wrong with the CR of the Ogre Mage if a "simple" Ogre Vampire has a CR of 5 while having a much more powerful _Domination_ effect, gaseous form, alternate form, and a whole host of other goodies that a vampire gets handed, like d12 HD and a 1d8 slam attack that drains 2 levels.  

Now I really wonder about the validity of Challenge Ratings. A CR 5 ogre vampire would eat a standard 5th level group for lunch if they didn't come specifically loaded for duck.


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## Delta (Jul 24, 2006)

Sarellion said:
			
		

> Charm Person is a nice spell but still limited. I wonder why it is hyped so much as the mastermind´s control spell.




Because in all previous editions, it lasted indefinitely long. Every few days or weeks the victim could try another saving throw.


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## ruleslawyer (Jul 24, 2006)

Geron Raveneye said:
			
		

> I'll concede one point..something is wrong with the CR of the Ogre Mage if a "simple" Ogre Vampire has a CR of 5 while having a much more powerful _Domination_ effect, gaseous form, alternate form, and a whole host of other goodies that a vampire gets handed, like d12 HD and a 1d8 slam attack that drains 2 levels.
> 
> Now I really wonder about the validity of Challenge Ratings. A CR 5 ogre vampire would eat a standard 5th level group for lunch if they didn't come specifically loaded for duck.



Of course, by the RAW, there is no such thing as a vanilla ogre vampire, since ogres are giants (an ineligible type for the template).


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## Scribble (Jul 24, 2006)

kigmatzomat said:
			
		

> I don't have a problem with the Mearls OM except that....it isn't an oni and as a long-time player, I want the OM to be oni.




Aren't there rules for Oni in the Oriental Adventures book already?


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 24, 2006)

ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> Of course, by the RAW, there is no such thing as a vanilla ogre vampire, since ogres are giants (an ineligible type for the template).




True...then make it a minotaur vampire. Is a CR 6 beastie, and even a tad nastier than an ogre vampire. Somehow I doubt a standard 6th level group would really like facing it either.


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## Scribble (Jul 24, 2006)

Geron Raveneye said:
			
		

> True...then make it a minotaur vampire. Is a CR 6 beastie, and even a tad nastier than an ogre vampire. Somehow I doubt a standard 6th level group would really like facing it either.




You know... I don't think I could use that monster... Ever...

There are just entirely too many jokes to be made about piffed off blood sucking cows...


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## Taraxia (Jul 24, 2006)

Not familiar with OA, but an Ogre Mage that was actually faithful to the Japanese oni would be quite a bit more powerful than either the original Ogre Mage (which was, face it, a really crappy and hamhanded way of trying to simulate an oni, which they had the nerve to call "the Japanese ogre", which *already* showed their problem with the concept) or this new, spiffy Ogre Mage.

Oni are, after all, spirits who are essentially tied to elemental forces, immensely powerful and feared, control the weather, combat other forms of evil spirits on a regular basis, and so on. Not a CR 8 Giant with wacky SLAs. I would imagine, or hope, that OA's oni are more diverse, flavorful, intelligent and flexible than the original Ogre Mage.

Mearls' Ogre Mage is *just as good* for what it does as the original Ogre Mage -- make an ogre-based spellcaster/fighter-type character (I don't know about you, but the *flavor* of Ogre Magi always screamed "gish" to me, not "vampire-like master manipulator") who is vaguely Japanese oni-*inspired* in what he does. The flying and invisibility still works for that, and contrary to what some people seem to think, _lightning bolt_ is a *better* fit for an oni than _cone of cold_ as an ability, since oni are traditionally linked to thunderstorms more often than they're linked to ice or snow. And, in fact, oni's cleverness are usually linked to their brutality and strength -- the Ogre Mage was inspired by oni in the first place because in Japanese culture the oni is used as a representation of raw, untamed forces of nature -- so the Sneak Attack damage and such makes more sense for depicting an oni than any ability that involves oni taking over people's minds and seducing them and crap. That's far more a tengu-style thing than an oni-style thing -- oni don't use magic to manipulate and seduce you, they use it to beat the crap out of you. They're spirits of war and strength, not trickster spirits. Like all spirits they have a weird, tricksy side to them -- they appear, they vanish, they cause trouble beyond what their mere physical actions would indicate -- but they are, indeed, closer to the European folklore about the Ogre and the Giant than the Faerie.


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## sjmiller (Jul 24, 2006)

I am dragging this reply from another thread, so as not to stomp all over it.



			
				Taraxia said:
			
		

> Mearls' criticism -- echoed by other designers in other columns -- is that if you look at the original Ogre Mage he's a hodgepodge of essentially random SLAs that were *originally* chosen by cherrypicking various random magical powers various oni have been said to have in Japanese folklore.



 Can you provide quote from other designers, or links to their columns?  I would be quite interested in hearing what other designers have to say on the subject of ogre mages.



			
				Taraxia said:
			
		

> As Mearls' pointed out, the mechanical use of the Ogre Mage (fly in, blast with cone of cold, turn gaseous and run away) doesn't even match the actual flavor text and illustration, where he's shown being a muscular badass with a greatsword and being a cunning leader of other ogres.



 While it is true that the picture shows a hulking brute with a greatsword (inappropriately, IMHO), the SRD at least does not mention anything about leading other ogres.  It says:


			
				SRD said:
			
		

> The ogre mage is a more intelligent and dangerous variety of its mundane cousin.
> 
> An ogre mage stands about 10 feet tall and weighs up to 700 pounds. Its skin varies in color from light green to light blue, and its hair is black or very dark brown.  Ogre mages favor loose, comfortable clothing and lightweight armor.



 Nowhere does it mention being a cunning leader of other ogres.  I am not sure where this portrayal comes from.



			
				 Taraxia said:
			
		

> (Don't the typical encounter stats say he hangs out with other ogres? Isn't his environment in the wilderness? Doesn't the illustration show him all tattooed and whacking things with his sword?)



The typical encounter for an ogre mage, according to the SRD is solitary, pair, or troupe (1-2 plus 2-4 ogres), so they are not always found with their mundane cousins.  Their environment is listed as cold hills.  The illustration does show him with a big sword, but he’s not whacking anything nor is he tattooed.  The illustration is, IMHO, inaccurate.  A creature that is 10 feet tall and weighing up to 700 pounds would not look like the muscle-bound, hulking creature in the illustration.  They would have to be leaner, thinner, but still well muscled.  Think of your typical Siberian Tiger on two legs.



			
				Taraxia said:
			
		

> Nothing has been sacrificed of the OM's *actual* flavor -- he's just been altered to *fit* the flavor he actually has in the text.



 That’s not technically true.  The ogre mage has been altered to fit an image that is not present in the text, but is at least partially inferred by an inaccurate picture.  The text says he is intelligent and dangerous, and infers (from the height, weight, and clothing preferences) a creature rather unlike the one shown in the picture or presented in Mr. Mearls’s “revision.”


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 24, 2006)

These threads haven't been nearly dramatic enough so far. I'm hoping Mearls redesigns elves or halflings next, personally.


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## Knight Otu (Jul 24, 2006)

sjmiller said:
			
		

> Can you provide quote from other designers, or links to their columns?  I would be quite interested in hearing what other designers have to say on the subject of ogre mages.



The Monster Makeover article links to the Proud Nails article by David Noonan.



> While it is true that the picture shows a hulking brute with a greatsword (inappropriately, IMHO), the SRD at least does not mention anything about leading other ogres.  It says:
> Nowhere does it mention being a cunning leader of other ogres.  I am not sure where this portrayal comes from.
> 
> The typical encounter for an ogre mage, according to the SRD is solitary, pair, or troupe (1-2 plus 2-4 ogres), so they are not always found with their mundane cousins.



But when they are found with their mundane cousins, who'll be the cunning leader of those other ogres?


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## Pants (Jul 24, 2006)

sjmiller said:
			
		

> Nowhere does it mention being a cunning leader of other ogres.  I am not sure where this portrayal comes from.



I just checked my 2e Monstrous Manual and there is no real mention of Ogre Mages leading other Ogres or manipulating humanoids with their SLA's. In fact, they usually live in caves with other Ogre Mages, keep humanoids as slaves, and tattoo their tribe's symbols on their foreheads or their backs.


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## vermicious knid (Jul 24, 2006)

Nifft said:
			
		

> I really like the idea of "casts as a level X caster" so that it's easy to beef up a monster by adding associated class levels. For example, if an Ogre-Mage had 10 Giant HD and cast as a 6th level something (Sorcerer, Beguiler, Binder, Warlock, whatever) then it would be a nice CR 8 encounter, and would have obvious potential for custimization / enhancement.
> 
> -- N




I'd be perfectly happy with a 6 HD Ogre Mage that casts as a 6th level sorceror. Could be a manipulator or a rear rank artillery piece depending on spell choice. Scales easily with additional class levels.

I would/will drop the spell-like abilities and flight and go with that. I don't much care for one-trick ponys.


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## Geron Raveneye (Jul 25, 2006)

Heh, as if it's not tedious enough already to fully stat out an important NPC, much more so the semi-important ones. I can really go without having to stat up monsters with class levels, too, to be honest. D&D is my hobby, not my life-consuming vocation.


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## Glyfair (Jul 25, 2006)

Pants said:
			
		

> I just checked my 2e Monstrous Manual and there is no real mention of Ogre Mages leading other Ogres or manipulating humanoids with their SLA's. In fact, they usually live in caves with other Ogre Mages, keep humanoids as slaves, and tattoo their tribe's symbols on their foreheads or their backs.




Even back to OD&D it's clear they are different:







			
				Greyhawk said:
			
		

> OGRE MAGI: These are properly Japanese Ogres, far more powerful than their Western cousins! An Ogre Mage has the following abilities in addition to those of a normal ogre: 1) become invisible; 2) fly, as a Flying spell allows; 3) cause darkness in a 1" radius; 4) polymorph itself into a human form; 5) regenerate at 1 point/melee round; 6) employ a single Charm Person and a single Sleep spell once per day; and 7) use a Cold spell of 8 dice value once per day. These abominations typically lure or raid for human victims to pillage, devour, or enslave.




To me, it reads like the DM special that were common at the time, where you threw a monster at the party, let them make assumptions, and then it was something different.  The party is prepared for a monsterous melee combat and suddenly realize the monster can cast spells, is best at range, and is far more powerful than the players expect.

I'll note there is no picture or description of the Ogre Mage in _Greyhawk_.  We don't get that until AD&D.

(_BTW, for those Greyhawk fanatics, I'm curious exactly where in Greyhawk Japan is.  These are noted as being from the East, and I just don't see anything to the  East._)


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## The Shaman (Jul 25, 2006)

Mad Mac said:
			
		

> They make way better cowards than manipulators. It's just sort of pointless.



My 1e _AD&D_ ogre mage story...

Passing through a small village, the adventurers learned that a hobgoblin tribe was exacting a ruinous tribute on the humble, hardworking villagers. The village headman appealed to the adventurers for help in defending the village from the hobgoblins, and the adventurers agreed. (I blatantly ripped off _Seven Samurai_ as my set-up.)

When the hobgoblins arived to demand tribute, the adventurers and the villagers were waiting, and after an exchange of taunts, the hobgoblins attacked. Unbeknownst to the party, the leader of the hobgoblins was a _polymorphed_ ogre mage who had _charmed_ several of the villagers to waylay the adventurers once the battle began - the ogre mage turned _invisible_ when the battle began and subsequently wasted the party wizard with his _ray of cold_. The only adventurer to escape was the thief - the wizard died, and the rest of the party was captured.

The ogre mage knew all of the defenses, _flying_ around the village while _invisible_ in the days before the attack - from the _charmed_ villagers he learned the adventurers' tactics in advance as well. He put himself in position to cause the maximum harm at the least risk to himself once the battle began.

Coward? No. Devious adversary? Most definitely.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 25, 2006)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> (_BTW, for those Greyhawk fanatics, I'm curious exactly where in Greyhawk Japan is.  These are noted as being from the East, and I just don't see anything to the  East._)



Presumably the same place that the samurai player class from in The Strategic Review (or perhaps The Dragon). Having fun was more important than worldbuilding, once upon a time.


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## Glyfair (Jul 25, 2006)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Presumably the same place that the samurai player class from in The Strategic Review (or perhaps The Dragon). Having fun was more important than worldbuilding, once upon a time.




But the samurai class wasn't tied into Greyhawk.  This book was, if not exactly the campaign setting.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jul 25, 2006)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> But the samurai class wasn't tied into Greyhawk.  This book was, if not exactly the campaign setting.



Eh. I've got the little Greyhawk booklet, and it's a stretch to call it a campaign setting, IMO. It's more "EGG ran out of names, come up with something evocative for this sourcebook," IMO.


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## occam (Jul 25, 2006)

kigmatzomat said:
			
		

> Replace troublesome polymorph to "shapshifter:alternate form-any medium or large humanoid-form and gain +10 to disguise to impersonate individual"




This has already effectively been done in the errata:

Remove _polymorph_ from spell-like abilities. 
Change Shape (Su): An ogre mage can assume the form of any Small, Medium, or Large humanoid or giant.


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## Simm (Jul 25, 2006)

I'm fine with the old version, which I never used, and I'm fine with the updated version, which I will probably never use, but one ability worries me.

A CR 5 monster is carrying more than 16 000 gp worth of equipment, I mean how many large chain shirts +4 are out there anyway. They can't make them themselves. If a party defeats one and happens to have a large member the balance of the game shifted with one battle.


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## Gentlegamer (Jul 25, 2006)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> Eh. I've got the little Greyhawk booklet, and it's a stretch to call it a campaign setting, IMO. It's more "EGG ran out of names, come up with something evocative for this sourcebook," IMO.



The Greyhawk supplement was extra material culled from Gary's and RJK's experience running the Greyhawk campaign in Lake Geneva, hence the name. Similarly, the Blackmoor supplement grew out of Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign.

The "East" on Oerth is actually to the west of the Flanaess on the continent of Oerik. Since the planet is the globe, going east or west will get you there. Even falling through a long shaft can land one in Cathay (China), as it did once to Robilar.


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## Hussar (Jul 25, 2006)

Simm said:
			
		

> I'm fine with the old version, which I never used, and I'm fine with the updated version, which I will probably never use, but one ability worries me.
> 
> A CR 5 monster is carrying more than 16 000 gp worth of equipment, I mean how many large chain shirts +4 are out there anyway. They can't make them themselves. If a party defeats one and happens to have a large member the balance of the game shifted with one battle.




Umm, Simm, reread your DMG.  CR 5 Encouter=*1600* gp.  You added a zero there.


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## Sarellion (Jul 25, 2006)

Delta said:
			
		

> Because in all previous editions, it lasted indefinitely long. Every few days or weeks the victim could try another saving throw.




I know, I still think it´s probably not enough if the OM stays in constant contact with non charmed people in his disguise.


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## Arkhandus (Jul 25, 2006)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> These threads haven't been nearly dramatic enough so far. I'm hoping Mearls redesigns elves or halflings next, personally.




Hear hear!


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## Plane Sailing (Jul 25, 2006)

Simm said:
			
		

> I'm fine with the old version, which I never used, and I'm fine with the updated version, which I will probably never use, but one ability worries me.
> 
> A CR 5 monster is carrying more than 16 000 gp worth of equipment, I mean how many large chain shirts +4 are out there anyway. They can't make them themselves. If a party defeats one and happens to have a large member the balance of the game shifted with one battle.




I think you are misreading it - it isn't a +4 chain shirt!

It is a plain chain shirt which gives a +4 armour bonus (a magic +4 chain shirt would give a +8 armour bonus).

Cheers


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## Plane Sailing (Jul 25, 2006)

Hussar said:
			
		

> Umm, Simm, reread your DMG.  CR 5 Encouter=*1600* gp.  You added a zero there.




You are correcting the wrong problem


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## occam (Jul 25, 2006)

Plane Sailing said:
			
		

> I think you are misreading it - it isn't a +4 chain shirt!
> 
> It is a plain chain shirt which gives a +4 armour bonus (a magic +4 chain shirt would give a +8 armour bonus).




Right, it's an error on the Possessions line. Mike apparently wasn't paying enough attention, and transferred the "+4 chain shirt" note for the ogre mage's AC as an actual _+4 chain shirt_.

Actually, it looks as if it should be a _+2 chain shirt_. There's no note about an increased natural armor bonus, and that's the only way I see getting the AC (and difference with touch AC) of the made-over ogre mage.


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## Scribble (Jul 25, 2006)

Yeah... as someone already did with the 2e Monsterous Compendium, I checked my 1e Monster Manual... Nowhere in the description does it ever mention the OM being any sort of "master manipulator."

It basically says it's a japanese ogre that lives in uninhabited areas, such as caves and abandoned forts. It has powers, and a few slaves, and probably a few "ogre generals."

So it's not slipping into courts unnoticed and taking over the land. It's a monster in a cave waiting for the adventurers to beat it up and gank its stuff.

At least, if you go by the MM discription. Feel free to use the monster in your OWN camapign any way you want. You can still do that with the redesign. Just might have to make up a NEW story for this one.


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## wayne62682 (Jul 25, 2006)

I would just like to add that I *like* the redesign.  If I were a DM I would certainly look into having an Ogre Mage as a minor BBEG for a low to mid level campaign arc.  I'm all about the flavor of monsters and how they fit in.. which is something I don't really need mechanics for.

That being said, as I have nothing else to contribute to this thread I will lurk and read what others have to say


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## The_Gneech (Jul 25, 2006)

Simm said:
			
		

> If a party defeats one and happens to have a large member the balance of the game shifted with one battle.




*insert Beavis'n'Butthead laugh here*

-TG


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## kigmatzomat (Jul 25, 2006)

I would like to point out that Ogre Magi do not need to be leaders of ogres to be great bandits. You have a creature who can invisibly fly into a village, shapeshift into a particular person, walk in the front door, knock out everyone there, and fly away with the loot.  if someone does happen to resist, the OM can escape via SLA, gaseous form, nuking everyone with CoC or just smashing them flat.  

Back to the topic at hand:

Let's try a different approach.  What if we made OM a template on Ogre?  I would say that regen, flight, SLAs, and the stat boosts are worth a +3 CR.  Vampire is in some ways more powerful (+2 CR) but it has distinct weaknesses.  

So a CR3 ogre +3 CR template = CR6.  Hmmm, to make it CR8 we could either add more complicated stuff or just add more racial HD.  For giants +2CR is an extra 8HD.  Hey, that means we've got a 12HD ogre mage with enough hit points to survive a few rounds face-to-face with a fighter, a decent BAB to return damage, improved saves, twice as many skill points (maybe add disguise, bluff, diplomacy?), and 3 more feats.  

I think this guy is meaty enough to handle sub-optimal combat SLAs (and darkness at will is handy thing when cast on numerous pebbles dropped from high altitude) and that high-powered Cone of Cold turns into a weapon OMs can use around each other without risking instant death if it punches through SR.


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## painandgreed (Jul 26, 2006)

While I agree with Mearls basic point that the Ogre Magi could be revamped, I disagree with what he did. He essentially created a brand new monster and gave it an old grognard name like he did with the rust monster. I say leave it mostly the way it was and change out Charm Person for Charm Monster (at will) or Mass Charm Monster (once per day) and throw in a Suggestion (once per day) and call it good. Then you have a monster that can effectivly stop the party without actually harming them, unless they quickly take advantage of his glass jaw.


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## Mad Mac (Jul 26, 2006)

I disagree. I want an Oni inspired Ogre Mage to be able to kick some arse in melee. I also want it to have a decent selection of magical powers. For that reason, I mostly aprove of Mearls redesign, although I personally would have added a bit more magic. I can see why he didn't, since it's already a high CR 5 and he wanted to keep it reasonably close to Ogres, but I would have added a bit more, even so.


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## Klaus (Jul 26, 2006)

Mad Mac said:
			
		

> I disagree. I want an Oni inspired Ogre Mage to be able to kick some arse in melee. I also want it to have a decent selection of magical powers. For that reason, I mostly aprove of Mearls redesign, although I personally would have added a bit more magic. I can see why he didn't, since it's already a high CR 5 and he wanted to keep it reasonably close to Ogres, but I would have added a bit more, even so.



 Since the MM-described critters are the weakest examples of their kinds, the new Ogre Mage seems fine. It's far easier to add stuff (by applying class levels or HD to it) than to take stuff away.


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## The Shaman (Jul 26, 2006)

painandgreed said:
			
		

> While I agree with Mearls basic point that the Ogre Magi could be revamped, I disagree with what he did. He essentially created a brand new monster and gave it an old grognard name like he did with the rust monster. I say leave it mostly the way it was and change out Charm Person for Charm Monster (at will) or Mass Charm Monster (once per day) and throw in a Suggestion (once per day) and call it good. Then you have a monster that can effectivly stop the party without actually harming them, unless they quickly take advantage of his glass jaw.



I agree - that's much closer to the flavor of the original.

Here's a question: Several posters have said that if they want an "ogre mage," they could just add sorceror levels to an ogre. If you want a butt-kicking ogre mage, why not just add samurai or monk levels to an ogre mage?


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## Glyfair (Jul 26, 2006)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> painandgreed said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'm not so sure.  "more powerful than it's occidental cousin" doesn't sound like it should have a glass jaw the ogre doesn't.


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## The Shaman (Jul 26, 2006)

Glyfair said:
			
		

> I'm not so sure.  "more powerful than it's occidental cousin" doesn't sound like it should have a glass jaw the ogre doesn't.



Mo' magic, mo' power.

At least that's how I interpret it. Power doesn't necessarily mean "bigger sword."


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## Knight Otu (Jul 26, 2006)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Several posters have said that if they want an "ogre mage," they could just add sorceror levels to an ogre.



I think they'd be disappointed, with the distinct lack of Charisma the ogre has.



			
				The Shaman said:
			
		

> If you want a butt-kicking ogre mage, why not just add samurai or monk levels to an ogre mage?



Similarly, the old ogre mage was over-CR'd for its Hit Dice. That wouldn't change when adding class levels that add +1 CR for +1 HD. It would still have the 'glass jaw' unless it uses a significant amount of wealth to mitigate it.


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## Knight Otu (Jul 26, 2006)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Mo' magic, mo' power.
> 
> At least that's how I interpret it. Power doesn't necessarily mean "bigger sword."



That wasn't the question, though. Not having a bigger sword doesn't equate having a glass jaw. In fact a creature can have both a big sword, and a glass jaw. 

Ironically, that is pretty much the ogre mage's problem. It's big sword just happens to be its magic abilities.


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## Glyfair (Jul 26, 2006)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Mo' magic, mo' power.
> 
> At least that's how I interpret it. Power doesn't necessarily mean "bigger sword."



True, but I don't think it means "really sneaky and manipulative with a glass jaw" either.


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## Sejs (Jul 26, 2006)

Drowbane said:
			
		

> How would you design the Oni?



 Half-Fiendish Ogre Mage.  Nix the wings.

For more badass Oni, give 'em levels in one of the Fiend Of ... PrCs.


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