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Jarawara
2007-08-16, 04:47 PM
Warning, really long post, but the basic question is in the first part, and the rest is just my wishing to blab. I have more questions below, in that 'big ol wall of text', but it's more speculative 'what would you do' rather than the first one, an actual rules question.

Thanks in advance.

*~*~*

Yeah, yeah, this surely is the wrong time to be talking about 3rd edition, seeing that the whole boards are all aflutter over 4E.

But I am just joining the modern age, switching my campaign over to 3rd edition - no, not 3.5 - plain jane 3rd edition. I'm going to keep up with that until I understand the system enough before moving on to 4th, as I suspect it will be similar.

But anyway, I played a session this last week, and I dropped an Ogre on my PC's, but some questions came up in play. I've been trying to not just follow the rules and stats, but instead actually take the time to understand why the stats are written the way they are.

For example, the Ogre has a GreatClub that does 2D6 damage, and that's because it's an oversized weapon (checking the rules on that confirms that the damage dice upgrades to 2D6). Same thing with AC, (I actually like how they define how AC is +5 natural, +3 hides, -1 dex, -1 size, instead of just saying 'AC 16'). But what I don't get is the damage bonus.

Ogres are listed as having 21 strength. That translates to +5 damage bonus. But they are listed as doing 2D6+7 damage with their club.

My question: Where'd the other +2 damage come from? What am I missing?

Thanks in advance.

*~*~*

Now, with that out of the way, I wanted to describe the battle, and ask for people to give me pointers, mechanically, tactically, or roleplaying-ly, on how I could have run it better.

First of all, let me explain that this is a learning game, and I have an agreement with the players that we are deliberately testing out various combat situations, not necessarily balanced, and will simply ret-con our way out of any disaster that comes up. And we had the disaster come up yesterday, though I have to say the PC's performed rather well in face of adversity.

4 1st level PC's, classic party (Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard), vs. Big Bad Ogre!

Party had been exploring an old moathouse in the marshlands, came across a couple of doors that had been concealed, and bashed their way through them. Ogre heard the commotion and came to explore. Party got wind of 'something big' on it's way, and thus neither side was surprised.

The room they were in had a stairwell right down the middle of it, so you could go around behind it or either side of it (essentially going full circle around it). There was a sizable patch of Green Slime at the base of the stairway, making a bit of a 'hazard zone' for any trying to pass through there.

The Party's most viable tactic would be to run, screaming like little children, but to do so would require climbing the stairway from the side (to avoid the acidic slime), and the Dwarf would end up being the last in line, have the hardest time climbing, and therefore would likely be Squished to Goo (TM) by the Ogre.

We had finished the previous session with both sides becoming aware of each other, and I had decided to give them a preview of what they were facing by dropping the Ogre miniature on the board, so they knew exactly what kind and depth of crap they were in. This allowed them a week to plan out strategies in how to deal with the Ogre, and I must say, I was most impressed with their ideas and plans, and was really looking forward to this week's session, and seeing just how effective these ideas played out. But when the session came, the 'plans' became 'manipulation of game mechanics', and everything went to hell in a handbasket really quick. So, I'll describe the battle, and their pre-planned strategy, and let the gentle reader tell me what I should have done differently.

*~*

Some of the tactics they had come up with during the week included the following:

Darkwind told Red to hide in the storage room (Red's the Dwarf, thus moving the slowest, and he hadn't yet been seen by the Ogre... yes, that's 'Red', as in 'Red Dwarf'. :smallcool: ). Darkwind and his two sisters would then run towards the base of the stairs, but then continue on around the narrow pathway in front, avoiding the Green Slime patch, and hopefully lure the Ogre right into it. They didn't think the Ogre would fall for that... but neither would the Ogre try to walk right through it either, so it would then be a tactical barrier, and the Ogre would then have to move the full distance back around to the other side. Party then goes through the narrow path past the slime again, lather, rinse, repeat. Sounded like a good strategy, maybe even plunk away with a few arrows, and hope the Ogre didn't respond with rocks.

Likewise, once the Ogre moved back to the other side, Red could come running out of the storage room and be helped up the stairway (there was a small section they could mount the stairs from the side, without walking through the corrosive slime-patch. Once Red was to safety, the others could follow much more dexterously (3 half-elves and a dwarf, the half-elves could probably mount the stairs on the run if they tried).

They also thought of using oil (maybe some found in the little storage room Red was in?) and going by the old adage of "When in Doubt, set something on Fire". That should buy them some time.

But the most impressive of their ideas was some unique ideas coming from the Wizard, and this is what left me a bit unsure on how to rule it. The Wizard, Elspeth, has the spell Unseen Servant, plus 3 cantrips of MageHand. (I allow for spontaneous casting of cantrips; just off hand, I don't know if that's legal, or only my own houseruling. No matter.) Elspeth has this wild idea of using MageHand to pick up a handful of Green Slime and hurling it at the Ogre. We look up the spell, no, no 'hurling', but you could 'spread it' around like fingerpainting. How about a big SPLAT of Green Slime to the Ogre's face? That's got to hurt! We then look at Unseen Servant, which in many ways is an identical spell, but can carry more slime, and continue to operate beyond just 'one function'. However, it specifically states that Unseen Servant "Cannot ever make an attack roll of any kind". Well... it doesn't say that for MageHand... but realistically it seems logical that both should have the same restrictions, yes? I wasn't sure how to rule on that, and I've got an old policy of giving the players idea's a legitimate chance, so my ruling is that Magehand can try to smear slime.

Armed with these ideas, we sit down to the gaming table, and the battle is joined!

*~*

Ok, first snag. We roll initiative. Party is lined up in the following order: Elspeth, Talia, Darkwind, and Red (in the storage room). Initiative order is Darkwind, Ogre, Red, Talia, Elspeth. That means, Darkwind runs first, bumping his way past the others, to rush to freedom. Then the Ogre is upon the two girls, and gets his choice as to which he "Smashes to Goo" (TM). The whole strategy of running to the other side of the Slime-patch falls apart just like that.

First, a mechanics question: Is there something in the initiative rules that would allow for the party to act as a group? Is there something I should have been taking into account here, a rule that I missed?

Second, a tactics/roleplaying question: Should I have, as DM, had the Ogre act confused, pause, maybe roar out a challenge, and basically let the party take their actions first, reacting to them only after the three had moved. Yes, that means purposely letting the party get the better of the Ogre, but hey, it was a *freaking Ogre* vs a 1st level party!

Darkwind modifies his tactic, runs past the Ogre, tossing a flask of oil, then dropping a torch on it. Mechanically, the flask was in his backpack, though he was holding the torch at the time. Maybe he could do all that in one round, maybe not. And yes, I could have had an Attack of Opportunity, but as battle hadn't truly begun yet, I presumed the Ogre was just a bit mystified as to why there are people here, and so simply didn't react in time. Oil goes up in flames, missing the Ogre, but causing some distraction and disorientation.

Ogre then turns, and I actually told the players that the Ogre has a move of 30 feet (six spaces)... I take a dice, roll it in front of the party, it comes up a three. I then count out my first moves 1...2...3... *without actually moving the miniature! That's the delay of action, as the Ogre tried to process what was going on, before finally deciding that yes, this was combat!

Ogre then moves his remaining 3 spaces, going wide around the fire, and in one strike drops Darkwind to negative 5. Damn! 10 foot reach sucks!

Question: Was there some other mechanic in the rules to keep the Ogre "distracted" or otherwise preoccupied, to allow Darkwind to escape? Or how about, could Darkwind had pulled off that tactic while moving faster (he did one movement action, standard move, one movement action to draw oil, toss, drop torch). Is there something else I'm not seeing in the rules that pertains to the situation here?

Further Question: As DM, how would you have handled the situation differently? Should I have dumbed down the Ogre even further, to allow for the party to essentially pull a Harry Potter 'outthink and outmaneuver the big dumb Ogre'? Or should I have played the Ogre to the best of it's rule-mechanics limitations, as the party had already made the mistake of distracting themselves, not checking for intelligent adversaries, and making a bunch of noise in an unknown habitat? (Then again, we are still talking a *freaking Ogre* vs a 1st level party. Should I have given them every break in the book and then some?)

So anyway, the two sisters then go into action with the original plan. Talia fires her bow, gets a crit, scoring 11 damage, and we now have an arrow sticking out of Ogre's forehead. That'll leave a mark! Elspeth prepares her Magehand, scooping up a big ol wad of slime, moving it into position. Ogre comes forward, but the sisters stay on the other side of the slimepatch, hoping to draw it in. Ogre knows of the slime, he was there when the bandits cultivated the slime as a trap to unwary intruders. Elspeth tries to 'Slime' him, but misses. Ogre starts to move around to the other side, back around the stairwell.

Red finds no barrels of latern oil, says to heck with it, and comes out to fire arrows. Quick DMing question: Should I have let him find oil, even though the oil was in the shelf on the stairway, that they not searched for? Do I let his tactic work by DMing fiat, changing the location of the oil on the fly, or do I keep to what was prewritten, and they missed it, too bad for them?

Anyway, Red doesn't want to go toe to toe with Mr Ogre, though I wonder if that was an error. Dwarf vs Ogre, that +4 AC bonus might have been useful. They plunk away, while Elspeth prepares another handful of slime (another casting of MageHand). Talia moves into position near the slime, to hopefully avoid the Ogre whichever way he comes around from behind the stairwell.

Unfortunately, she didn't account for the 10 foot range. Now this is where I have had a complaint with D&D from the beginning of time, and so I ask if there's something in 3rd (or 3.5) edition that would allow her reaction to this...

Ogre is 40 feet away, coming either from the left or the right. Ogre could move 30 feet, then use his 10 foot reach to flatten her. So, if he comes from the right, all she has to do it take her 5 foot step to the left, and if he comes from the left, she takes her five foot step to the right. Either way, she keeps 15 feet from the Ogre, thus avoiding the attack. She hadn't even moved this round. BUT.... according to the mechanics of the rules (unless I'm missing something), Mr. Ogre moves his FULL move, then attacks, and then and only then can Talia take her five foot step. Too late, she'd down to -7 in one swing. Elspeth misses with the next handful of slime, Red hides back into the storage room.

Mechanics question, already asked: Is there something in the rules to allow for Talia to react to the Ogre's move, to let her have her 5 foot step *before* the Ogre complete's his full 30 foot movement *and* his attack?

DMing question: Damn.... I mean... Damn! What should I be doing now, other than preparing to retcon the whole encounter? Oh, Talia's got the only healing, so no more cure lights for them! That's actually a player's mistake, not to have points in Heal skill, to try to stabilize people.

So Elspeth tries Unseen Servant, trying to scoop up a 20lb pile of goo, while Red takes another pot shot, succeeding, and scoring another 5 points of arrow damage on the Ogre. I now have a question brewing on the Ogre's mind: At what point do I leave, fearful for my life?

This of course has no corresponding 'mechanics' question, only a DMing question: If you were DMing the Ogre, and you've had handfuls of Slime move towards you in mid-air (MageHand is invisible, as is Unseen Servant, so the slime is just a pile of green good levitating towards you), *and* you've been hit by a crit, arrow to the head, *and* you're now aware of another enemy you've not seen before, firing from the other room, **and** that next pile of green goo looks large enough to totally soak you down... when do you decide to run, screaming like little children?

More importantly... should I have had Mr. Ogre take the Expeditious Retreat option much earlier, as he was alone against four unknown opponents? Would you have handled it differently? How and why? And remember, while it is a *freaking Ogre* vs a party of 1sties, it's also a test game to try out different tactical situations.

*~*

Anyway, Talia bleed to death, but they did barely save Darkwind in time. Talia then, by the DMing power of RetCon, reappeared alive but unconscious, and the game continued. DM applauded party for surviving a challenge way over their head. Inwardly I wondered if I should have been roleplaying the 'big dumb Ogre' to allow for them to have actually used their original tactics, instead of playing the Ogre 'mechanically', which then mechanically kicked their assets all over the room.

Party then returned to the storage room to rest and recuperate. Hmmm... deciding on a sleep-over in a bandit stronghold, where the enemy is fully aware of you from *three* encounters so far... DMing question time: Should I let them sleep unmolested, then leave for town, or do I send a half-dozen bandits, plus Ogre, armed with the oil the party didn't find from the stairway shelves, and blast them to smithereens?

All in all, a fun game, and we went out to dinner afterwards. Mmmm... Chinese. :smallbiggrin:

Matthew
2007-08-16, 04:54 PM
1) Strength Bonus x1.5 (Rounded Down) from Two Handed use = 2D6+7

Fax Celestis
2007-08-16, 04:55 PM
Right. Wielding a weapon in two hands allows you to add one and a half times your Str modifier to the damage, instead of just once.

Raolin_Fenix
2007-08-16, 04:56 PM
The Ogre's greatclub is two-handed. Two-handed weapons deal 1.5 x Str in bonus damage (rounded down), not just Str. Simply put, it uses the strength bonus plus half the strength bonus again.

So a +5 Strength bonus on a two-handed weapon yields a damage bonus of 5 + (5/2 = 2.5, rounded down = 2), or 5 + 2, or 7.

Make sense?


[EDIT] Man. Double-NINJA'd. I feel the two NINJAs should fight to the death for the honor of NINJAing me, thus allowing me to escape. :D

Matthew
2007-08-16, 04:58 PM
Yah! I'll follow up with the claim that in 4e this Damage will be 2D6+10 (Strength Bonus x2). *Draws Ninjaken, remembers they don't exist, then draws katana*

brian c
2007-08-16, 05:26 PM
Yah! I'll follow up with the claim that in 4e this Damage will be 2D6+10 (Strength Bonus x2). *Draws Ninjaken, remembers they don't exist, then draws katana*

All part of the grand plan to make TWF and Sword&Board more attractive in 4E, right?

Matthew
2007-08-16, 05:29 PM
All part of the grand plan to make TWF and Sword&Board more attractive in 4E, right?

A Saga Rule, I am given to understand, but yeah that's my supposition.


Well... it doesn't say that for MageHand... but realistically it seems logical that both should have the same restrictions, yes? I wasn't sure how to rule on that, and I've got an old policy of giving the players idea's a legitimate chance, so my ruling is that Magehand can try to smear slime.

Probably shouldn't be allowed to make anything approaching an Attack Roll, including smearing on the Ogre.


First, a mechanics question: Is there something in the initiative rules that would allow for the party to act as a group? Is there something I should have been taking into account here, a rule that I missed?

Yes, it's called the Delay Action. You simply delay until you are all acting on similar Initiative counts. Alternatively, you could have used the Initiative Variant Rule that has each Character act on the same Initiative.


Second, a tactics/roleplaying question: Should I have, as DM, had the Ogre act confused, pause, maybe roar out a challenge, and basically let the party take their actions first, reacting to them only after the three had moved. Yes, that means purposely letting the party get the better of the Ogre, but hey, it was a *freaking Ogre* vs a 1st level party!

Up to you, but since niether side was surprised, probably no reason.


Question: Was there some other mechanic in the rules to keep the Ogre "distracted" or otherwise preoccupied, to allow Darkwind to escape? Or how about, could Darkwind had pulled off that tactic while moving faster (he did one movement action, standard move, one movement action to draw oil, toss, drop torch). Is there something else I'm not seeing in the rules that pertains to the situation here?

Not really, the only thing that could be done is Readied Actions to interrupt the Ogre's Action, but that wouldn't stop him entirely. Some sort of Spell or Skill Check could have been used to confuse the Ogre.


Further Question: As DM, how would you have handled the situation differently? Should I have dumbed down the Ogre even further, to allow for the party to essentially pull a Harry Potter 'outthink and outmaneuver the big dumb Ogre'? Or should I have played the Ogre to the best of it's rule-mechanics limitations, as the party had already made the mistake of distracting themselves, not checking for intelligent adversaries, and making a bunch of noise in an unknown habitat? (Then again, we are still talking a *freaking Ogre* vs a 1st level party. Should I have given them every break in the book and then some?)

Many schools of thought on this. My opinion, no, don't coddle the Players, let them learn from their mistakes.


Quick DMing question: Should I have let him find oil, even though the oil was in the shelf on the stairway, that they not searched for? Do I let his tactic work by DMing fiat, changing the location of the oil on the fly, or do I keep to what was prewritten, and they missed it, too bad for them?

Completely up to you. No reason to do so, though. Spot Check might have been allowable.


Ogre is 40 feet away, coming either from the left or the right. Ogre could move 30 feet, then use his 10 foot reach to flatten her. So, if he comes from the right, all she has to do it take her 5 foot step to the left, and if he comes from the left, she takes her five foot step to the right. Either way, she keeps 15 feet from the Ogre, thus avoiding the attack. She hadn't even moved this round. BUT.... according to the mechanics of the rules (unless I'm missing something), Mr. Ogre moves his FULL move, then attacks, and then and only then can Talia take her five foot step. Too late, she'd down to -7 in one swing. Elspeth misses with the next handful of slime, Red hides back into the storage room.

Mechanics question, already asked: Is there something in the rules to allow for Talia to react to the Ogre's move, to let her have her 5 foot step *before* the Ogre complete's his full 30 foot movement *and* his attack?

She could have used a Readied Action to prevent this, taking her Standard Action as the Ogre approaches and then moving 5' to escape him.


DMing question: Damn.... I mean... Damn! What should I be doing now, other than preparing to retcon the whole encounter? Oh, Talia's got the only healing, so no more cure lights for them! That's actually a player's mistake, not to have points in Heal skill, to try to stabilize people.

Just let it continue to play out.


This of course has no corresponding 'mechanics' question, only a DMing question: If you were DMing the Ogre, and you've had handfuls of Slime move towards you in mid-air (MageHand is invisible, as is Unseen Servant, so the slime is just a pile of green good levitating towards you), *and* you've been hit by a crit, arrow to the head, *and* you're now aware of another enemy you've not seen before, firing from the other room, **and** that next pile of green goo looks large enough to totally soak you down... when do you decide to run, screaming like little children?

Used to be Morale Rules. You could try a Charisma Check to randomise it.


More importantly... should I have had Mr. Ogre take the Expeditious Retreat option much earlier, as he was alone against four unknown opponents? Would you have handled it differently? How and why? And remember, while it is a *freaking Ogre* vs a party of 1sties, it's also a test game to try out different tactical situations.

Nah, Ogres are dumb enough to keep fighting.


Anyway, Talia bleed to death, but they did barely save Darkwind in time. Talia then, by the DMing power of RetCon, reappeared alive but unconscious, and the game continued. DM applauded party for surviving a challenge way over their head. Inwardly I wondered if I should have been roleplaying the 'big dumb Ogre' to allow for them to have actually used their original tactics, instead of playing the Ogre 'mechanically', which then mechanically kicked their assets all over the room.

Consider not letting negative scores count down. Instead, just leave them at where they start. Monsters can finish off Characters as they like.


Party then returned to the storage room to rest and recuperate. Hmmm... deciding on a sleep-over in a bandit stronghold, where the enemy is fully aware of you from *three* encounters so far... DMing question time: Should I let them sleep unmolested, then leave for town, or do I send a half-dozen bandits, plus Ogre, armed with the oil the party didn't find from the stairway shelves, and blast them to smithereens?

This party should be looking for a way out. They have faced an Encounter way too strong for their level without much idea of how to handle it and got their asses handed to them. They will all die if you 'follow up'. Consider having the Bandits offer them terms of surrender.

Jasdoif
2007-08-16, 05:30 PM
All part of the grand plan to make TWF and Sword&Board more attractive in 4E, right?Absolutely! A minor part, to the point of appearing inconsequential, but a part none the less.

Morbius
2007-08-16, 05:37 PM
The following is based on 3.5 some things may have changed from 3.0:P




First, a mechanics question: Is there something in the initiative rules that would allow for the party to act as a group? Is there something I should have been taking into account here, a rule that I missed?

delay action (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialInitiativeActions.htm)




Second, a tactics/roleplaying question: Should I have, as DM, had the Ogre act confused, pause, maybe roar out a challenge, and basically let the party take their actions first, reacting to them only after the three had moved. Yes, that means purposely letting the party get the better of the Ogre, but hey, it was a *freaking Ogre* vs a 1st level party!


I think that is really up to you, you decide how he acts, but ogres are supposed to be agressive... so IMO he should try kill them on sigh




Question: Was there some other mechanic in the rules to keep the Ogre "distracted" or otherwise preoccupied, to allow Darkwind to escape? Or how about, could Darkwind had pulled off that tactic while moving faster (he did one movement action, standard move, one movement action to draw oil, toss, drop torch). Is there something else I'm not seeing in the rules that pertains to the situation here?


Aid Another (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm)
In melee combat, you can help a friend attack or defend by distracting or interfering with an opponent...You make an attack roll against AC 10. If you succeed, your friend gains either a +2 bonus on his next attack roll against that opponent or a +2 bonus to AC against that opponent’s next attack (your choice)...[/QUOTE]

And about his Darkwind actions I don't think he could have done all that in only one rond but I will need to check later




Further Question: As DM, how would you have handled the situation differently? Should I have dumbed down the Ogre even further, to allow for the party to essentially pull a Harry Potter 'outthink and outmaneuver the big dumb Ogre'? Or should I have played the Ogre to the best of it's rule-mechanics limitations, as the party had already made the mistake of distracting themselves, not checking for intelligent adversaries, and making a bunch of noise in an unknown habitat? (Then again, we are still talking a *freaking Ogre* vs a 1st level party. Should I have given them every break in the book and then some?)

I think I would have done pretty much the same, if they decided not to use stealth or run later it was their option



Mechanics question, already asked: Is there something in the rules to allow for Talia to react to the Ogre's move, to let her have her 5 foot step *before* the Ogre complete's his full 30 foot movement *and* his attack?

Read above :smalltongue:



So Elspeth tries Unseen Servant, trying to scoop up a 20lb pile of goo, while Red takes another pot shot, succeeding, and scoring another 5 points of arrow damage on the Ogre. I now have a question brewing on the Ogre's mind: At what point do I leave, fearful for my life?

IMO you should not use Unseen Servant and mage hand to do damage... not directly anyway, but activating traps, pushing levers or even droping flasks from above one's heads would be nice.
And for the ogre I would roleplay as an angry PC who had his house invaded, so he would try to defend it as much as he could and flee if needed on about a 1/4 of his life



This of course has no corresponding 'mechanics' question, only a DMing question: If you were DMing the Ogre, and you've had handfuls of Slime move towards you in mid-air (MageHand is invisible, as is Unseen Servant, so the slime is just a pile of green good levitating towards you), *and* you've been hit by a crit, arrow to the head, *and* you're now aware of another enemy you've not seen before, firing from the other room, **and** that next pile of green goo looks large enough to totally soak you down... when do you decide to run, screaming like little children?

I would likely make him think think: 2 down, two more to go :smallwink:



More importantly... should I have had Mr. Ogre take the Expeditious Retreat option much earlier, as he was alone against four unknown opponents? Would you have handled it differently? How and why? And remember, while it is a *freaking Ogre* vs a party of 1sties, it's also a test game to try out different tactical situations.

I would probably have killed them all if they didn't run.

Jarawara
2007-08-16, 05:58 PM
1) Strength Bonus x1.5 (Rounded Down) from Two Handed use = 2D6+7

AHA! That's it! And I had read the rules, too, just didn't put two and two together! Thank you.

OK, dad's got a doctor appointment, gotta run for now. I'll read the rest of the responses when I get back, but thank you for all the advice!

And yeah, I'm thinking I should have the Bandits offer terms of surrender too. I can just see Darkwind's call out his response: "Sorry, but we don't have the facilities to take you all prisoner." :smallamused:

Douglas
2007-08-16, 06:17 PM
My question: Where'd the other +2 damage come from? What am I missing?
Already answered, but I'll repeat for completeness. Weapons wielded in two hands get strength-and-a-half to damage.


First, a mechanics question: Is there something in the initiative rules that would allow for the party to act as a group? Is there something I should have been taking into account here, a rule that I missed?
Party members who rolled well could delay their actions to let other people go first, but this has the drawback of also allowing the ogre to go before the delaying people if they delay that much.


Second, a tactics/roleplaying question: Should I have, as DM, had the Ogre act confused, pause, maybe roar out a challenge, and basically let the party take their actions first, reacting to them only after the three had moved. Yes, that means purposely letting the party get the better of the Ogre, but hey, it was a *freaking Ogre* vs a 1st level party!
That depends entirely on how easy you want to make the fight. If you want to avoid PC deaths, they're going to need every advantage they can get at level 1 against a CR 3 opponent because that CR 3 is quite capable of one-shotting 1st level characters.


And yes, I could have had an Attack of Opportunity, but as battle hadn't truly begun yet, I presumed the Ogre was just a bit mystified as to why there are people here, and so simply didn't react in time.
Actually, you were quite correct to not give the Ogre an AoO. The ogre had not yet acted in this combat so it was flat-footed, and flat-footed creatures cannot take AoOs unless they have the Combat Reflexes feat.


Question: Was there some other mechanic in the rules to keep the Ogre "distracted" or otherwise preoccupied, to allow Darkwind to escape? Or how about, could Darkwind had pulled off that tactic while moving faster (he did one movement action, standard move, one movement action to draw oil, toss, drop torch). Is there something else I'm not seeing in the rules that pertains to the situation here?
No, this is just what tends to happen when level 1 characters go up against an ogre.


Further Question: As DM, how would you have handled the situation differently? Should I have dumbed down the Ogre even further, to allow for the party to essentially pull a Harry Potter 'outthink and outmaneuver the big dumb Ogre'? Or should I have played the Ogre to the best of it's rule-mechanics limitations, as the party had already made the mistake of distracting themselves, not checking for intelligent adversaries, and making a bunch of noise in an unknown habitat? (Then again, we are still talking a *freaking Ogre* vs a 1st level party. Should I have given them every break in the book and then some?)
That's all up to each individual DM. Played with no handicaps, an ogre should be expected to drop one character per round against a level 1 party, all the way to -10 and instant death in one hit for the squishier types. It all depends on whether you want that sort of peril or if you just want to scare them a bit before they take it down.


Red finds no barrels of latern oil, says to heck with it, and comes out to fire arrows. Quick DMing question: Should I have let him find oil, even though the oil was in the shelf on the stairway, that they not searched for? Do I let his tactic work by DMing fiat, changing the location of the oil on the fly, or do I keep to what was prewritten, and they missed it, too bad for them?
Again, individual DM preference.


Mechanics question, already asked: Is there something in the rules to allow for Talia to react to the Ogre's move, to let her have her 5 foot step *before* the Ogre complete's his full 30 foot movement *and* his attack?
A readied action (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialInitiativeActions.htm#ready). Since all she needed to get out of the way was a 5 foot step, she could even combine it with a standard action.


DMing question: Damn.... I mean... Damn! What should I be doing now, other than preparing to retcon the whole encounter? Oh, Talia's got the only healing, so no more cure lights for them! That's actually a player's mistake, not to have points in Heal skill, to try to stabilize people.
Heal can be used untrained and, for the first aid application of stabilizing someone, can be retried every round until successful.


Party then returned to the storage room to rest and recuperate. Hmmm... deciding on a sleep-over in a bandit stronghold, where the enemy is fully aware of you from *three* encounters so far... DMing question time: Should I let them sleep unmolested, then leave for town, or do I send a half-dozen bandits, plus Ogre, armed with the oil the party didn't find from the stairway shelves, and blast them to smithereens?
I'd say you should point out how foolish this seems, give them a chance to change their minds and/or barricade/hide the room, then play it out in a way that makes sense. Perhaps a lone bandit shows up first, unaware of exactly where they're staying, and if they escape his notice no one else comes. If they kill him before he can escape, one or two more come a while later to investigate where he disappeared to, and after they off those the rest of the bandits show up en masse.

AtomicKitKat
2007-08-17, 01:34 AM
Ogre was Flat-footed on Darkwind's action, couldn't interrupt him.

Talia could have readied an action to do "5 foot step in the opposite direction" when the ogre moves in the other direction, providing she hadn't taken any kind of movement(including a 5 foot step) during her turn.

I haven't looked through Heroes of Battle completely, but I remember some stuff from AD&D Player's Options, where there was some morale modifiers. I think losing 25% of your HP is 1 "penalty", losing another 25% is an additional 1 each(3 for losing 75%). For groups it was based on overall numbers "dropped". Getting criticalled should probably count as another 1 point. For every HD you have over the enemy's average HD, you get 1 bonus.

Overall, I guess that Ogre would have -2(lost 50% HP), +3(that many more HD than the party), maybe +1 more for being a size bigger, total of +2. Had they perhaps dropped him another 5 points or so, he might have decided to sack it and run(if we presume that when your morale hits 1 or 0, you're probably scared).

Funnily enough, Sleep would probably have turned it into a cakewalk. Maybe Grease.

Meeeeebit
2007-08-17, 05:08 AM
Eeeep! too many big words.....:smalleek:
Are you purposely* trying too confuse us!












*Not sure if word is spelt right

Saph
2007-08-17, 06:04 AM
Short answer: The PCs were horribly outmatched and should have been expected to all die. Partly this is because they're Level 1 characters facing a CR 3 monster, but partly it was due to which CR 3 monster.

When you're deciding whether to throw a monster against the PCs, it's always a good idea to look at the numbers. In this case:

• Level 1 PCs can be expected to have a HP score of somewhere between 4 (for an average-Con wizard) and 14 (for a high-Con barbarian). Their average HP will probably be 9 or so.

• An Ogre does 2d8+7 damage on a hit. The average roll will be 16.

• That means that on an average hit, an Ogre will drop a level 1 PC from full health to -7 HP with just one swing. And that's not taking into account the chance of a critical. If he crits or rolls high, that'll be an instant kill.

It's a good general rule that when a monster can drop the toughest character in the party to dying status with one attack, it's too powerful for them. Your real mistake was sending them against an Ogre at all. Ogres are nasty even at level 3. At level 1, they're just overkill.

Still, it sounds like you had fun, so just take it as a learning experience and remember to run the numbers in advance next time so that you don't have to resurrect PCs by DM fiat. :P

- Saph

Renx
2007-08-17, 07:03 AM
Elspeth has this wild idea of using MageHand to pick up a handful of Green Slime and hurling it at the Ogre. We look up the spell, no, no 'hurling', but you could 'spread it' around like fingerpainting. How about a big SPLAT of Green Slime to the Ogre's face? That's got to hurt! We then look at Unseen Servant, which in many ways is an identical spell, but can carry more slime, and continue to operate beyond just 'one function'. However, it specifically states that Unseen Servant "Cannot ever make an attack roll of any kind". Well... it doesn't say that for MageHand...

Actually it does. Mage hand (in 3.0) is a move-equivalent action. Anything you can do with a move action, you can do with mage hand. So no attacking.


Red finds no barrels of latern oil, says to heck with it, and comes out to fire arrows. Quick DMing question: Should I have let him find oil, even though the oil was in the shelf on the stairway, that they not searched for? Do I let his tactic work by DMing fiat, changing the location of the oil on the fly, or do I keep to what was prewritten, and they missed it, too bad for them?

Fire is always interesting. If you've decided beforehand that the oil is somewhere for the players to find, then no. Then again, if you want to add some spice into the soup, why not. Go with the flow, that's what DMs do :P


Question: Was there some other mechanic in the rules to keep the Ogre "distracted" or otherwise preoccupied, to allow Darkwind to escape? Or how about, could Darkwind had pulled off that tactic while moving faster (he did one movement action, standard move, one movement action to draw oil, toss, drop torch). Is there something else I'm not seeing in the rules that pertains to the situation here?

Mm... not really. The initiative rules allow for delaying actions, not doing something before your init turn. Darkwind ran past the ogre and did something, so I'd say the ogre definitely goes for him. If there was someone who had initiative before the ogre, then he/she might use his/her turn to distract the ogre somehow. If not, he shouldn't have run into his reach in the first place.


Second, a tactics/roleplaying question: Should I have, as DM, had the Ogre act confused, pause, maybe roar out a challenge, and basically let the party take their actions first, reacting to them only after the three had moved. Yes, that means purposely letting the party get the better of the Ogre, but hey, it was a *freaking Ogre* vs a 1st level party!

...well, I vote that players should learn that actions can have horrible consequences sooner than later. A 1st level death isn't that bad (especially if retconned), but a player with a dead 10th level character going "what the heck, I can't die!" is trouble for everyone.


DMing question: Damn.... I mean... Damn! What should I be doing now, other than preparing to retcon the whole encounter? Oh, Talia's got the only healing, so no more cure lights for them! That's actually a player's mistake, not to have points in Heal skill, to try to stabilize people.

Do you need training in Heal to try to stabilize? I don't think so.


More importantly... should I have had Mr. Ogre take the Expeditious Retreat option much earlier, as he was alone against four unknown opponents? Would you have handled it differently? How and why? And remember, while it is a *freaking Ogre* vs a party of 1sties, it's also a test game to try out different tactical situations.

I'd say no. The ogre has one-hit-ko'd two of four party members. If he gets hit by arrows, I'd say have him hurl stones at the unreachable target. Ogres are clever and cruel, if not intelligent.


Party then returned to the storage room to rest and recuperate. Hmmm... deciding on a sleep-over in a bandit stronghold, where the enemy is fully aware of you from *three* encounters so far... DMing question time: Should I let them sleep unmolested, then leave for town, or do I send a half-dozen bandits, plus Ogre, armed with the oil the party didn't find from the stairway shelves, and blast them to smithereens?


Hell no. This isn't a computer game.