Variable Body Points

[Jalapenotrellis]

It is a hive mind. If you read the rule book, they explain the ogre body points pretty clearly. An ogre will die faster if another character has been wailing on one elsewhere.

[Pancho]

The only explanation I can think of is the concept of reduncy, like how an engineer puts more rivets on a plane than it actually needs nearly all of the time, the game designer put more “skulls” on the chart than there are actual Ogres in the quest. Those skulls will never realistically get used, but in theory they could be if a player decides to add in extra ogres or make the Wandering Monster into an Ogre, or extra cards that allow an Ogre to be raised from the dead etc.
It’s not that odd really. If I was writing these quests I’d probably do the same, for the same reasons. But I’m not a fan of the variable body points in the first place, so I’d never get to that stage.

[Zenithfleet]

Here I go again with one of my rants about posts from years ago...

(please feel free to read the following in Sheldon voice)

Shown here -
http://english.yeoldeinn.com/downloads/ ... t-book.pdf

Additionally on page 6 (sorry its upside down) the instructions state -

That the Barbarian attacks Ogre A and scores 2 out of 3 life points,
The dwarf in the same room takes a swing at Ogre B scoring 2 points,

one of those points is discarded and the other point kills Ogre A

how does that make sense to anyone,

and why is Ogre B ignored?

And FYI after reading this I appear to be having a rant, I assure that that is not the case I am genuinely perplexed by it and need it clarified by someone.

But... that's not what the book says...

The example shows an Ogre body point track that looks roughly like this (the {#} s are the skulls that mean you've killed an Ogre):
[ ] [ ] {#} [ ] [ ] [ ] {#}

The text for the example says:

"In this Quest, the Barbarian meets two Ogres and attacks one of them, scoring two Body points against it. These two points are immediately crossed off on the Body point track."

[x] [x] {#} [ ] [ ] [ ] {#}

"The Dwarf then joins the Barbarian and attacks the second Ogre, scoring two Body points as well. However, as the next box on the Body point track is a skull, the Ogre is killed at once and the second Body point is not recorded."

[x] [x] {x} [ ] [ ] [ ] {#}

The two Ogres don't have A and B labels. However, if they did, then the one the Barbarian attacks would be Ogre A. The one the Dwarf attacks would be Ogre B.

The Ogre that dies is Ogre B, because that's the one that took the Body point loss that crossed a skull off.

The extra hit is wasted because he killed the Ogre, same as the extra hits are wasted when you roll five skulls and 'overkill' a humble goblin.

Simple.

This means that (in story terms) the Ogre the Barbarian attacked turned out to be much tougher than the one the Dwarf picked a fight with.

It's not a hive mind either. It's just a way to represent the idea that you never know how strong an Ogre is when you meet one. Plus it doesn't require keeping track of individual Ogres' body points. That's something the EU made a deliberate design choice to avoid, for whatever reason (avoiding the need for bookkeeping perhaps). Only named 'personality' monsters and one-off bosses like the Garg at the end of Kellar's Keep get more than one Body point in the EU rules. They were very strict about it.

The players can't see the Body point track. In fact, in an ideal world they wouldn't even know the Body point track exists and would think every Ogre has its own little track.

Giving each Ogre a random number of BP would be better in my opinion, and could have been done. But that would take up space in the Quest Notes (Ogre #1 body track, Ogre #2 body track, etc.) And you could easily lose track of which Ogre was which on the board.

On the other hand, giving each Ogre a set number of BP is less interesting. It takes away one of their quirkier traits that make them different from 'just a stronger monster'. Still, if you prefer to do it that way, go for it.

As for the extra skulls on the shared track:

The only explanation I can think of is the concept of reduncy, like how an engineer puts more rivets on a plane than it actually needs nearly all of the time, the game designer put more “skulls” on the chart than there are actual Ogres in the quest. Those skulls will never realistically get used, but in theory they could be if a player decides to add in extra ogres or make the Wandering Monster into an Ogre, or extra cards that allow an Ogre to be raised from the dead etc.
It’s not that odd really. If I was writing these quests I’d probably do the same, for the same reasons. But I’m not a fan of the variable body points in the first place, so I’d never get to that stage.

Yep, I'd say it's from the Department of Redundancy Department. Just in case you end up with extra Ogres on the board. My best guess is that they were going to have Ogres as Wandering Monsters a bit more often so you needed to accommodate them.


Edit: What I really want to know is, why does the Ogre Champion have exactly the same stats as the ordinary Ogres? He doesn't usually get his own little BP track either. What's the point of him? Always bothered me.

[laukiaerkko]

With a quick scan of the two possibilities i found that variable body points system sounded really cool and wanted to try it out. In reality it doesn't work so you should go with the 4/5 body points system. That makes the Ogres formidable foes that need the whole group to engage like it makes thematic sense.

It's ok that they tried something else, but the fixed BP system is better.

[Oftkilted]

With a quick scan of the two possibilities i found that variable body points system sounded really cool and wanted to try it out. In reality it doesn't work so you should go with the 4/5 body points system. That makes the Ogres formidable foes that need the whole group to engage like it makes thematic sense.

It's ok that they tried something else, but the fixed BP system is better.

You could address some of that by upping the number of squares between skulls.

[ ][ ][ ]{#}[ ][ ][ ][ ]{#}[ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]{#}

You then still have 4/5 in the track, and don’t need to know which one has which.

[Kurgan]

Even with NA rules, your Heroes may get lucky. We played ATOH that way using Phoenix's conversion and the first Ogre encounter went like this... Zargon sent the two Chaos warriors to soften up the Heroes. After they were defeated, the Ogre was killed in 1 round of turns. First hit wiped him out. Zargon used a card to revive the monster ("Raise Dead"). Next hit killed him again. Zargon played another card ("Thick Skull") to shrug off the killing blow. Next hit killed him for real, since Zargon had no more tricks up his sleeve! Battle Axes + Potions are a deadly combination if the Heroes happen to get lucky rolls.

[Se_doki 1]

Hello everyone, it's the first time that I play the horde of ogres in EU version. I don't understand the variable points very well, so I take it in the following way; first ogre that appears, first of the list in the BP and successively. Once the ogre is dead, if there are more skulls in the attack, they do not count for the next ogre.
And if I don't like how the first mission turns out, then I'll switch to fixed points US version for the rest.

[Jalapenotrellis]

We just finished that quest pack using the variable body points and the NA rules.
Yes, if damage takes it to a skull, there is no carryover damage. If Ogre A takes 1 damage and Ogre B takes 2 damage and there are only 3 body points till a skull/death, Ogre B dies from 2 damage and Ogre A is still alive until the next skull.

This almost never happened when we played this expansion. I mainly see it coming into play in rooms with multiple ogres. There were only a few.

[steeltekki]

I was just doing some reading up on the variable body points and thats so cool!
I'll def stick to fixed points for the house rules heavy versions I'm doing with my son, but I can't wait to try the variable with my twin brother etc.
Thanks everyone for all the helpful information.
(fingers crossed they bring over this and the WoM expansions!)

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Just trying to unpick these rules myself and wanted to share my thoughts in the hope that they might help others as well as myself.

First observation - two distinct concepts are introduced in this batch of new rules in the Quest Book but they seem to be muddled together which doesn't help.

1. Monsters with multiple (fixed) Body Points
2. Monsters with variable Body Points (1+)

Note: technically multiple (fixed) Body Points is re-introduced as the Gargoyle in KK under UK/EU rules had multiple body points although a different method of tracking them - YES - multiple BP monster in UK/EU rules before the US Edition of the game - shock! horror! put that in your cross-pond rivalry pipe and smoke it (unless I've just got my dates wrong of course!)

Multiple Body Points (Fixed)

Gargoyle, Orc Warlord, Orc Magical Statue all have multiple fixed Body points and even the Ogre Lord whilst it COULD have variable Body Points according to the Monster cards and some of the text only a single Ogre Lord actually appears in the Quest Book and he has fixed BP (5)

Two Ogre Chieftains are present, one with fixed BP (4) and one with variable BP

Monsters with multiple fixed Body Points is I think agreed by most to be a good thing for gameplay, and we understand it, but as far as I am aware ATOH was published after the US version of the game so I don't understand why they went with an 'in-Quest book track' for multiple BPs as they could have just included some of the skull counters from US Edition and used that mechanism (which wouldn't have included more book-keeping)

Variable Body Points

The Ogres have variable BPs (including the 'personalities' which CAN have variable BP although the Lord doesn't), I get that makes Ogres a little different and more exciting than most, but it adds complexity (hence we are still debating it many decades later!) and for this type of large beefy powerful monster why would it sometimes have only 1 BP the same as a Goblin?

Personally I don't think I'll be using variable BP (although I could see it being possibly applicable to some other monster group, something magical and/or ethereal, like Imps) I will be adopting the drathe version of Ogre Warrior (3), Ogre Champion (4), Ogre Chieftain (4), Ogre Lord (5) and this also resolves the Champion otherwise having the same profile as the Warrior.