Nice pick for an early post. Unfortunately, I haven't played past Return of the Witch King, so I can't offer you a validated opinion. Not too many have played that one, as you probably know. It's the least common expasion owned by posters
here, only about 1 in 5 of us are lucky or obsessed enough to claim it. Right off, most of the European fans are cut out. In time, I imagine the efforts of drathe and others who make the Elf Quest Pack pdfs available will increase the number European and North American players that are qualified to answer.
That being said, you may or may not have read before that there is a consensus of a sort that the Barbarian Quest Pack at least, and perhaps all the expasions after RotWL were never playtested. Your example is more evidence of this. Are there any other obvious errors in play balance you remember?
Your opinion about the Ogres overshadowing a Quest seems accurate. Maybe the Quest designer was compensating.
I personally approve of Phoenix's ogre points, as they pretty much match up with the Against the Ogre Horde numbers. The AtOH Body Point choices--and thus Phoenix's picks--better seem to fit the general Hero Quest power creep upgrade for Quests of that number. However, I'm mainly following others' leads here, as I haven't yet played AtOH, either. Of course, you or others may disagree for valid reasons that I don't yet realize.
The EQP is a cool set of Quests, I'm sure. The designer seems to have upgraded the Ogre Warrior to an Uber Ogre in order to fit it's higher Quest difficulty. He also seemed to desire an Ogre to be more than previously envisaged, a terrifying opponent unlike any other, with more Body points than even the greatest Hero! For those of us, the consensus, who desire continuity between all the released expansions, this is clearly an egregious error contradicting the existing game. It should have been renamed at the least, but it also should have been set with lower Body Points for balance and pacing, as you wisely indicate. The designer apparently wasn't very concerned with either balance or pacing, and certainly wasn't concerned with expansion continuity. What did concern him was upstaging (and probably a deadline). Hooray--ten Body point Ogres are scary. Now let's move on to something that should better fit the Quest Pack and last within the full scope of the game.
An analysis is helpful here. The Ogre stats of the EQP appears to best match the Ogre Chieftain stats of AtOH: the Attack dice are both 6, the Mind points are both 2, and they both have a Move of 4. The important difference is the 4 Defend dice and 10 Body points of the Ogre in contrast to the 6 Defend dice and 4 Body points of the Ogre Chieftian. Judging that the extra 2 black shields will stop 1 in 3 hits, then those Defend dice are worth another 2 Body points: after being damaged 1 BP every turn, an Ogre Chieftian (6 Defend and 4 Body) and an Ogre (4 Defend, 6 Body) will both be dead in six turns. To be equals, the EQP Ogre should be downgraded to 6 Body and 4 Defend (or an AtOH Ogre Chieftian should be upgraded to 6 Body and 6 Defend).
It seems to me the Ogre in the EQP would be the best place to make a change, but not the only one. Some options:
- Castrate the brute and dress him in leather! Reduce him to a Phoenix Ogre Chieftian with 4 Body, 6 Defend. Keep the Ogre name, as a couple of Ogre Chieftians in a corridor seems wonky and the figures wouldn't match the Ogre Chieftain, anyway. Of course, the "Ogre Chieftians" won't likely have the cool spiked guauntlets either, so you'll just have to pretend.
- Knock him down to size and give him a nickname. Reduce him to 6 Body, 4 Defend--the most any other HQ monster has (the Frozen Horror). Other Ogre stats remain the same. Call him an Ogre Guard to differentiate him from the previous ogres. This is my fav.
- Leave the big lug alone, it's just a case of mistaken identity! Leave his Body points at 10 and rename him as a non-Ogre monster, perhaps a Troll.
- Don't mess with "da Ogre"! Leave the published Ogre as is, even the name. Phoenix's Ogres need to cowboy up, or he'll eat them for breakfast. The AtOH ogres don't count--they used variable Body points tracks! Just thinking about it makes me want to write a nasty email to that Legolasbaker guy! Reverse-engineer the Ogre Chieftian to 6 Body, 6 Defend. Base the other ogres off that.
Thanks for bringing this problem to light. A consensus is warranted, I think.