Big, Blue, and Crappy (3.5)

[Schylerwalker]

Are ogre mages REALLY CR 8? I mean, come on, let's take a good look at these so called bad boys, working our way down from the top. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogreMage.htm

It's a Large Giant with 5 HD. That already sets off alarms. Its CR is THREE higher than its HD. Something I come to expect from certain outsiders, maybe a few other weird things, but a giant? Whaaat?

Natural flight. That's pretty cool. One point for Mr. Ogre Mage.

Spell-like abilities huh? Okay, that must explain it; they must have a ferocious array of spell-like abilities.

"Spell-Like Abilities

At will—darkness, invisibility; 1/day— charm person (DC 14), cone of cold (DC 18), gaseous form, sleep (DC 14). Caster level 9th. The save DCs are Charisma-based."

...That's it? So they fly in, invisibly, and either smack the party with a cone of cold, or charm one of them. Woop de do! And the thing that really confuses me is a line in their combat section: "Ogre mages rely on their spell-like abilities, resorting to physical combat only when necessary." So, these guys must be really patient, because they only have three truly offensive spells, and that level, one of them is useless, and one of them is hardly likely to succeed! It's baffling!

They have regeneration and spell resistance. Another two points in their favor, but again, at that level, not really terrible. The spell resistance could be annoying depending on what level the party's spellcasters are, but with their low hitpoints, the regeneration isn't much of a problem.

All in all, these strike me as spies and diplomats rather than deadly arcane warrior chieftans of the ogres...so why the eight challenge rating? How's about we use VT's CR Calculator...see what that fellow has to say about it.

(Five minutes later)

Well, I guess it depends. Would you consider the spell-like abilities they have as a "decent amount of spells"? And would consider darkvision and low-light vision encounter-altering special qualities. If yes to both, CR 6. If yes to one, CR 5. If no to both, CR 4.

~Scratches head~

Well, what are your thoughts on the matter?

[arguskos]

The Ogre Mage is basically the posterchild for WotC not understanding how to do stuff in the early days of 3.5. It's among the worst possible CR'd monsters ever printed. Pass, dear god, pass. :smallsigh:

[RagnaroksChosen]

its a hold over from 2nd ed they didn't update them properly.


Keeping with the original as much as possible the cr should come down.

sleep should be changed to deeper sleep.
darkness eaither deaper darkness or keep it the same.

invis is fine.

charm and cone of cold is fine
gasous form is questionable...

Don't they have polymorph at will?
that's a huge boost in there favor.



but ya i would drop them a cr or two.

[unre9istered]

A smart one would fly in and use darkness, then cone of cold. Then charm anyone who completely avoided damage or seems relatively unhurt (probably low will save classes) and fly away. Later it would sneak in and convince the charmed victim to give you "gifts". Specifically the melee character's weapons and the spellcaster's component pouches as well as anything that can break it's regeneration, like alchemist fire or acid (hopefully you got a rogue with charm person and no one will notice him taking these gifts). Now you can wipe out a neutered party with your normal ogre minions. It'd be a jerk DM who ran it this way though.

[Starbuck_II]

Are ogre mages REALLY CR 8? I mean, come on, let's take a good look at these so called bad boys, working our way down from the top. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogreMage.htm

It's a Large Giant with 5 HD. That already sets off alarms. Its CR is THREE higher than its HD. Something I come to expect from certain outsiders, maybe a few other weird things, but a giant? Whaaat?

Natural flight. That's pretty cool. One point for Mr. Ogre Mage.

Spell-like abilities huh? Okay, that must explain it; they must have a ferocious array of spell-like abilities.

"Spell-Like Abilities

At will—darkness, invisibility; 1/day— charm person (DC 14), cone of cold (DC 18), gaseous form, sleep (DC 14). Caster level 9th. The save DCs are Charisma-based."

...That's it? So they fly in, invisibly, and either smack the party with a cone of cold, or charm one of them. Woop de do! And the thing that really confuses me is a line in their combat section: "Ogre mages rely on their spell-like abilities, resorting to physical combat only when necessary." So, these guys must be really patient, because they only have three truly offensive spells, and that level, one of them is useless, and one of them is hardly likely to succeed! It's baffling!

They have regeneration and spell resistance. Another two points in their favor, but again, at that level, not really terrible. The spell resistance could be annoying depending on what level the party's spellcasters are, but with their low hitpoints, the regeneration isn't much of a problem.

All in all, these strike me as spies and diplomats rather than deadly arcane warrior chieftans of the ogres...so why the eight challenge rating? How's about we use VT's CR Calculator...see what that fellow has to say about it.

(Five minutes later)

Well, I guess it depends. Would you consider the spell-like abilities they have as a "decent amount of spells"? And would consider darkvision and low-light vision encounter-altering special qualities. If yes to both, CR 6. If yes to one, CR 5. If no to both, CR 4.

~Scratches head~

Well, what are your thoughts on the matter?

You could give them Scorching Ray (but Cold instead of Fire) at will instead of Cone of Cone 1/day. I'd make Caster level 11 also so they get 3 blasts instead of 2.
Trade Sleep for Deep Slumber.
See, now they can rely on their spell-likes. They can shoot 3 cold rays, Charm 1 person, and Deep Slumber a group.

Still CR 6-7 at highest.

[AslanCross]

Thankfully WOTC does admit that the Ogre Mage was badly designed.
Here. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060721a)

I've used this to good effect. It seems to be the precursor to the 4E Oni Lurker.

[Stubbed Tongue]

It'd be a jerk DM who ran it this way though.
So, I'm a jerk am I? Actually...come to think of it... I am a jerk.

[PersonMan]

A smart one would fly in and use darkness, then cone of cold. Then charm anyone who completely avoided damage or seems relatively unhurt (probably low will save classes) and fly away. Later it would sneak in and convince the charmed victim to give you "gifts". Specifically the melee character's weapons and the spellcaster's component pouches as well as anything that can break it's regeneration, like alchemist fire or acid (hopefully you got a rogue with charm person and no one will notice him taking these gifts). Now you can wipe out a neutered party with your normal ogre minions. It'd be a jerk DM who ran it this way though.

There are several problems with this.

The first is that, at 8th level, unless the fighter has a Wisdom penalty they'll make the save on a 12 or higher, so that isn't very reliable.

Secondly, the whole "convince charmed to do X" is often a DM's call, and depends on the character. Would you, if you were part of a group that regularly fought for their lives, give up vital weapons and supplies to a good friend? Probably not.

[Thurbane]

The particular issue of the Ogre Mage and it's CR have been discussed many, many times since the release of 3.X. It was held up as one of the examples of poor monster design when WotC were pimping 4E.

It suffers from being a "legacy monster" in that they tried to make it's abilities similar to what they were in 1E/2E, but those abilities scale much more poorly with characters than they used to back then.

I've seen many homebrew fixes, and even semi-official ones. Simplest option? Don't use it, if it's problematic. Use the elemental themed Oni-like monsters in MM4 (5?), or something like a 1/2 fiendish Ogre.

[Evard]

A DM of mine actually buffed up this monster by letting it drain 1/2 the dmg it inflicted upon enemies to restore it's health :smallbiggrin: we originally fought about 5 of them and then went on to the next camp where there was 5 of them that had this new ability, we were a bit surprised about how hard they were to beat (normal regeneration + this 1/2 dmg drain).

[elonin]

Charm person is useless at that level swap that for dominate person or something.

[BenTheJester]

The Ogre Mage is basically the posterchild for WotC not understanding how to do stuff in the early days of 3.5. It's among the worst possible CR'd monsters ever printed. Pass, dear god, pass. :smallsigh:

My friend the Allip (http://dmreference.com/SRD/Monsters/Monsters/A/Allip.htm) begs to differ

[Rainbownaga]

It'd be a jerk DM who ran it this way though.

I wish I'd played mine like that; then the players would have earned their xp; instead I played it like a 'tough guy' and they trounced it brutally (twice, they were new players) after I convinced them to run and it had them cornered. At CR 6

After the fight one of the players remarked about how much I talked him up :smallfrown:


My friend the Allip (http://dmreference.com/SRD/Monsters/Monsters/A/Allip.htm) begs to differ

If you're going that way there's also the "damned crab" but it's probably better to have a weaker than expected monster and make the pcs look like heros than have a stronger one and make them look like corpses.

Addit: Wow, dc 16 will save at CR3! Glad I never used that thing.