Mearls redesigns the Ogre Mage

[Fishbone]

I don't think the limited usage of Invisibilty is necessary, though if I were to limit its use of invisibility I'd give it the ability to use Displacement or Blur.
Hey, throw 3 racial HD and 8 levels of sorcerer and we've got a very frightening CR 10 on our hands. Its more than you can say for the current Ogre Mage.

 

[Plane Sailing]

In 1e I ran an excellent series of adventures with an Ogre Mage as the key enemy, and it was an excellent foe at that time. The only time I've used it in 3e was in "The Speaker in Dreams" and he got killed quite quickly; he didn't have the fearsome staying power that the 1e version did comparitively.

 

[Graf]

God I love this kind of stuff....
(does that make me weird?)

 

[Drowbane]

Ogre Warlock 7?

 

[Sammael]

His basic premise is good (and the O-M was not a balanced CR 8 creature by any stretch of imagination), but I hate the execution (much as with the rust monster). Somehow, Mike manages to strip all the really cool flavor and replace it with boring (but mechanically sound) stuff.

 

[Sammael]

Ogre Warlock 7?

That makes even more sense, as it is less reliant on Cha (and requires less digging through books to run). Give it Hellrime Blast to replace the cone of cold and Walk Unseen (though that requires making him Warlock 8), and you're pretty much there.

 

[Fishbone]

Eh, I'd rather have a sorcerer. At CR 10 it could have all the little "nanner nanner boo boo" things that make the class cool and I think it would be stronger. With just one more set of racial HD I love the monster. With a set of racial dice the thing has 9d8+9d4, fast healing, flying, casts at 9th level, and a good AC and set of abilities. That is a total friggin' beating, man. I'd love to use Ogre Mage/Sorcerer 6 or racial diced Sorcerer 9 and catch a party with its pants down completely. For once an Ogre Mage isn't flying XP, its a throwdown.

 

[Thomas Percy]

I'm very happy with this lifting.
I always had problems with this monster, I cried on EnWorld about it circa 1 year ago.
Now I'm happy

ps. I like redesigning of rust monster too.
I think now is the time to do something with "save or die" spells and abilities, which make high level game more deadly and less heroic than low level game.

 

[frankthedm]

I would have preferred a return to the origins of the monster in Japanese folklore. But this version doesn't look too bad.

Anime and manga tend to have the best looking oni . Being an Urusei*Yatsura fan, I am quite amused mearls chose lightning bolt, now i don't have to change it to that myself.

 

[Thomas Percy]

By the way, does anybody have a link to BIGGER picture below: