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Post by The Archivist on May 7, 2015 16:01:34 GMT -5
Ogres are large powerfully built monsters ranging 7 - 10 feet in height, although some can be as tall as 12 feet in height. They can be found leading bands of smaller goblinkin. Bugbears and ogres are the only goblinkin that can operate freely in full sunlight.
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Post by waysoftheearth on May 8, 2015 6:48:38 GMT -5
I'm not sure Ogres really need be any taller than 8ft; 9ft is verging on giant-sized territory. Check these guys out (add armor and huge maces at own peril!) 7ft 10" 8ft 1" 8ft 2" 8ft 3" 8ft 5" 8ft 11"
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Post by The Archivist on May 8, 2015 8:29:14 GMT -5
waysoftheearth, 7-10 feet is btb and I just noted that a few are a bit bigger than that. Cool pictures btw, I had only seen a couple of those before.
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Ogres
May 8, 2015 14:44:12 GMT -5
Post by Crimhthan The Great on May 8, 2015 14:44:12 GMT -5
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Post by Vile Traveller on May 8, 2015 22:55:15 GMT -5
I quite like the D&D ogre at 10' tall - makes them a nice "sub-giant" class that fits well into the progression of the giant types.
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Post by waysoftheearth on May 9, 2015 8:20:39 GMT -5
I guess it depends on "which fantasy" you have in mind. In a "vaguely believable" fantasy, one might consider the square cube law to be generally applicable. It says that any figure which doubles in size will increase to eight times its volume. If we assume that a figure's basic capacity to withstand damage (i.e., number of HD) is proportional to its body mass then: A 5ft tall man with 1 HD who grew to 10ft tall should then have about 8 HD. Hill Giants are man-like figures with 8 HD, so they should probably be about 10ft tall. Ogres have 4 HD so, by the same logic, they should probably be about 7-8ft tall. Likewise, a 10ft tall Hill Giant with 8 HD who grew to 20ft tall should then have about 64 HD! Cloud Giants are said to be 20ft tall, but they have only 12+2 HD, so they should "more realistically" ( ) be about 13ft tall. Bear in mind also that an adult Giraffe or Tyrannosaurus-Rex is "only" about 15ft tall. IMHO these creatures are "soiled hose"-sized as it is, and anything much bigger is probably more due to the poet's exaggerating the facts than the actuality. Of course, all that is merely one fantasy and there are countless others where all this logic ain't worth squat
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Post by Admin Pete on May 9, 2015 13:52:57 GMT -5
Given the sizes of some of the dinosaurs, I have no problem with large monsters. The Argentinosaurus was about 120 ft from head to tail and weighed between 95-100 tons. It would have been about 25 feet at the top of front shoulder. The Futalognkosaurus for which they have discovered about 70% of a complete skeleton was 100 ft long and about 75 tons. The Bruthathkayosaurus may have been 150 ft long and up to 200 tons. Dreadnoughtus schrani, a dinosaur dug up in Argentina, had thigh bones about as tall as a person, giving a height at mid back of around 20 feet. Then consider this: Using that article a 30 foot tall giant would have weighed 11 3/4 tons and a 25 foot tall giant would have been 6 3/4 tons. See How Heavy is my Giant? Reality & OD&D! Justifying Large Monsters? How about we just have fun! Even if you increased the weight of Giants and other large monsters by 50% they are still plausible when you consider the carnivorous dinosaurs that went on two legs and had body lengths of 30-55 feet and weighed from 3 tons up to 20 tons. You can argue about how accurate some of the data and estimates are if you want; however, for me there is sufficient real world corroboration of the size of large two legged creatures that it all works for me. BTW when I threw in a 85 foot tall giant a couple of years back in the game and the players were fighting for their lives as they fled, I had total buy in from the players and we all had a lot of fun, so I can not get too concerned about realism even when I go beyond what is clearly reasonable and I think you can make a very good case that a 25 ft tall storm giant is reasonable - he just would not look like a big human. BTW the titanboa is the same length as purple worm (50 feet) but 3 1/2 feet in diameter instead of 10 feet in diameter.
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Post by Admin Pete on May 9, 2015 14:31:24 GMT -5
Ogres – are very large and have powerful very heavily muscled builds with broad shoulders and very large hands, there is no quit in an ogre, they can often be found with mixed parties of other monsters. The average ogre runs 9-10 feet tall and weighs around 700-800 lbs.
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Post by Vile Traveller on May 9, 2015 20:41:43 GMT -5
If we assume that a figure's basic capacity to withstand damage (i.e., number of HD) is proportional to its body mass then: A 5ft tall man with 1 HD who grew to 10ft tall should then have about 8 HD. Hill Giants are man-like figures with 8 HD, so they should probably be about 10ft tall. Ogres have 4 HD so, by the same logic, they should probably be about 7-8ft tall. I handwave that by assuming that the larger humanoids have all kinds of physical problems like fallen arches and gammy knees and bad backs, which mean that they are relatively "delicate" for their mass.
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Post by Admin Pete on May 9, 2015 21:29:25 GMT -5
If we assume that a figure's basic capacity to withstand damage (i.e., number of HD) is proportional to its body mass then: A 5ft tall man with 1 HD who grew to 10ft tall should then have about 8 HD. Hill Giants are man-like figures with 8 HD, so they should probably be about 10ft tall. Ogres have 4 HD so, by the same logic, they should probably be about 7-8ft tall. I handwave that by assuming that the larger humanoids have all kinds of physical problems like fallen arches and gammy knees and bad backs, which mean that they are relatively "delicate" for their mass. Whereas, I assume the opposite!
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Post by waysoftheearth on May 9, 2015 22:32:13 GMT -5
Given the sizes of some of the dinosaurs, I have no problem with large monsters. The Argentinosaurus was about 120 ft from head to tail and weighed between 95-100 tons. I have no problem whatsoever with large monsters. My issue is only with large monsters having comparatively trivial hit points (and causing trivial damage). FWIW, I suspect that a 100 ton dinosaur probably spent most of its life in water and/or swamp for buoyancy. Even if you do allow 100 ton terrestrial dinosaurs in your games, consider this: Fairy Penguin:Man = 3lb:150lb = 1:50 Man:Elephant = 150lb:9,000lb = 1:50 Man: 100 ton Dinosaur = 150:220,000 = 1:1,500 By mass ratio a man is to an elephant what a fairy penguin is to a man. Next time you see a 3 pound fairy penguin waddling harmlessly up the beach, you can estimate for yourself its odds of "taking you down" in hand to hand combat. Let's just say it's an utterly ridiculous proposition. The penguin has barely a hope against a domestic cat (twice its mass), let alone a grown man. The fairy penguin's odds of taking you down are directly proportional (by mass) to your odds of taking an elephant down. If you've ever been anywhere near an elephant, even at a zoo, you'll surely realise that this is an equally absurd proposition. Even armed with an axe or sword you've got Buckley's Chance. In fact being armed might be more of a danger to yourself than to the elephant; it might give you the false impression that you could actually hurt it and thereby dissuade you from running away. Now consider that your 100 ton dinosaur is 25 times more massive than an elephant! All this is to say: Yes super-sized monsters can exist, but men are not (IMHO) a viable combat challenge to them. These should (IMHO) be treated as Sea Monsters, for which OD&D states: "As a general rule these creatures are more for show than anything else." (M&T p15) p.s. yes, I'm aware of the notion that cavemen may have hunted woolly mammoths. There is one discussion (of many) about this here. The synopsis is that groups of Men working in concert can eventually wear a larger animal down to the point of total exhaustion, not slay it outright in melee combat.
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Post by Vile Traveller on May 9, 2015 23:30:55 GMT -5
Good points, waysoftheearth. Another example of how humans tackle the big beasts with primitive weapons is the case of the longbow-armed elephant hunters of Africa, who relied on targeting the soft parts of the animal with poisoned arrows, and then tracking it until it fell over. In other words, no human in their right mind would take on such a creature in melee combat. In the context of semi-realism in fantasy gaming I just make a distinction with oversized humanoids, which are clearly too big to realistically function under normal laws of physics, which gives me the excuse to flavour them a little by introducing these aches and pains - probably one of the reasons they are all so ornery. I was quite pleased to note that Philip José Farmer used a similar device with his "titanthrops" in the Riverworld books, required Appendix N reading.
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Post by Admin Pete on May 11, 2015 14:47:48 GMT -5
Given the sizes of some of the dinosaurs, I have no problem with large monsters. The Argentinosaurus was about 120 ft from head to tail and weighed between 95-100 tons. I have no problem whatsoever with large monsters. My issue is only with large monsters having comparatively trivial hit points (and causing trivial damage). In the context of semi-realism in fantasy gaming I just make a distinction with oversized humanoids, which are clearly too big to realistically function under normal laws of physics, which gives me the excuse to flavour them a little by introducing these aches and pains - probably one of the reasons they are all so ornery. I was quite pleased to note that Philip José Farmer used a similar device with his "titanthrops" in the Riverworld books, required Appendix N reading. I have no problem at all with vastly increasing Hit Points and Damage Given by very large monsters. Also the large carnivores they have found that are larger that the T-rex were clearly land-based and there are similar sized herbivores that were also land-based. A two-legged 55 ft long 20 ton carnivore with a stationary standing height of 25-30 ft is essentially the same size or bigger than a Storm Giant or a Titan which would clearly (at least to me) indicate that under the normal laws of physics (which do not have to apply to my fantasy world to begin with) Giants are plausible the same as the large carnivorous dinosaurs are not only plausible but did exist. Now would a giant look like a normal man only bigger? No it would look more Hulk shaped with over-sized bones and massive muscles. But here is the other thing for me, in my fantasy world(s) I am not obligated in anyway to follow the exact same Laws of Physics that the real world does, nor should that affect the buy in of the players and IME is does not affect the buy in of the players.
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Post by waysoftheearth on May 11, 2015 18:30:24 GMT -5
I largely agree with Admin Pete. I would add that in addition to "player buy in", an additional consideration is enabling the players to make intelligent decisions. I.e., in many games it may be a "reasonable" or even "intelligent" for a man/hero/superhero to attack an elephant or a giant. On the otherhand, if your gaming group includes a bunch of animial physiology PhDs then player perception/expectation about what is "reasobale" or "intelligent" may be somewhat different p.s. Although there are larger (marginally, I think) theropods known, T-Rex is still widely regarded to be one of the largest known land predators, ever. T-Rex is also relatively well represented in the fossil record, and the largest individual specimen is thought to have been 40ft long, 15ft tall, and to have weighed around 7-8 tons (making this largest T-Rex roughly twice as massive as a modern elephant). The "average" of all T-Rex specimens would be considerably less, of course. see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosaurus
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Ogres
Jul 23, 2015 10:25:43 GMT -5
Post by The Archivist on Jul 23, 2015 10:25:43 GMT -5
I agree that the HD for a lot of monsters should likely be revised upward. Per the Fantasy Supplement to Chainmail (direct precursor to D&D) "ogre" is an alternative name for what are more commonly in folklore and mythology called trolls (as opposed to what Chainmail calls "true trolls," which is what D&D calls trolls, which are specifically based on the monster from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions). Thus the trolls in The Hobbit and in most myths and folktales in D&D terms would more properly be considered ogres, aside from the turning to stone in sunlight thing.
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Ogres
Jul 23, 2015 10:30:24 GMT -5
Post by The Archivist on Jul 23, 2015 10:30:24 GMT -5
Perhaps like Crimhthan The Great we should have multiple types of trolls and perhaps also multiple types of ogres, including true trolls and true ogres.
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Ogres
Aug 4, 2015 9:39:52 GMT -5
Post by The Red Baron on Aug 4, 2015 9:39:52 GMT -5
p.s. yes, I'm aware of the notion that cavemen may have hunted woolly mammoths. There is one discussion (of many) about this here. The synopsis is that groups of Men working in concert can eventually wear a larger animal down to the point of total exhaustion, not slay it outright in melee combat. Men were probably the main causes of mammoth extinction, as many survived until fairly recently in regions uninhabited by humans. Imagine you were stupid drunk, and a group of 50 fairy penguins swarmed around you in a circle pelting you with rocks and flaming dart-board darts, trying to drive you into a mud-pit or off a cliff.
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Ogres
Aug 4, 2015 23:41:15 GMT -5
Post by waysoftheearth on Aug 4, 2015 23:41:15 GMT -5
Imagine you were stupid drunk, and a group of 50 fairy penguins swarmed around you in a circle pelting you with rocks and flaming dart-board darts, trying to drive you into a mud-pit or off a cliff. Yep. This needs to somehow find its way into a motion picture
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