half-ogre

[Pax]

So what's wrong with just giving the half-ogre a +2 ecl instead? Sounds good to me.

Because the full Ogre -- with better attributes and better natural armor -- has that very +2 level adjustment (and 4 giantish HD).

So, you end up with Ogres being WEAKER than half-Ogres ... a Half-Ogre Barbarian(4), ECL 6, would be far superior to an Ogre (ECL 6 due to innate HD).

Simply dropping the 2HD on the half-Ogre's head does the trick; it's like a phantom ECL or two.

 

[Lord Ben]

It's one of those 'on the verge' races that are crazy powerful if you powergame it, but if you're just creating fun characters to walk through the dungeon with then it's not that great.

Want stats? Fine. I rolled 15, 14, 14, 14, 13, 13 and the DM let me swap 2pts in one stat for 1pt in another so I dropped 6pts off a 14 for an 18.

Bbn1:
Str 24
Dex 12
Con 16
Int 11
Wis 8
Cha 11

+7 Ogre Greatclub (2d8+10), +8 mw Greataxe (3d6+10), +8 blessed bastard sword (1d10+11)
+1 Ogre Javalin (1d8+7)
AC16 (+2 leather, +1 dex, +4 natural, -1 size)
+11 climb, +11 Jump, +11 Swim, +3 Wilderness Lore
Feat: Power Attack.

The feat chain I'm going for is Improved Bull Rush and then Awsome Blow (3.5).

The other players are an elf wiz/archer, a dwarven fgt/clr, a human wiz, and a 3-eyed something psychic warrior. They all rock in their respective rolls, just as I rock in mine. I don't think it's unbalancing though.... just my opinion. I usually DM and I wanted something original to play so the half-ogre fit the bill. If someone wants to play a half-ogre in my game I'd still let them. The way the DM runs our game is that there is lots of treasure you find, but it's relatively hard to craft/buy it on your own. No "ye old magic store" or anything. So it'll be awfully hard to me to twink my character out with all kinds of goodies.

 

[Lord Ben]

To explain a bit better my opinion. I think it's marginally better but ECL+1 is still the best choice. It's definately not a 2!

Look at Half-Orcs, and look at Dwarves. If you figure humans rate at 100 for perfect balance then Half-Orcs and Half-Elves are probably around a 80 and Dwarves probably stretch up to 120. That doesn't mean Dwarves are overpowered, it just means they have more bonus's. Dwarves shouldn't be ECL+1 just because they're more powerful then Half-Elves.... Just like I don't think a Half-Ogre Bbn1 should be ECL+2 just because it's marginally better then a Half-Orc or Full Orc Bbn2.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Because the full Ogre -- with better attributes and better natural armor -- has that very +2 level adjustment (and 4 giantish HD).

Then the question becomes, is the Ogre balanced at +2? I mean, we've pretty much accepted now that the Half-Ogre is too strong at +1, and compared to all the other races and classes in the books it's probably balanced at +2. If the only conflict then, ECL-wise, is with the Ogre then maybe they should be moved up, also.

If Ogre gives better bonuses than that, it should probably be a +3 then as a no-level race. Except that you're then being forced to take 4 monster HD, which should NOT count as ECL on a 1-for-1 basis due to their inherent suckage. Using Soldarin's system, each Giant HD counts as +0.5 ECL. That'd put the base Ogre at +5 ECL for a 4-HD race, which sounds about right.

That's why your +2HD fix works: 2 Giant HD adds 1 ECL, which means if it's now balanced as ECL +3 then without the HD it'd be +2...

In fact, let's run the entire Half-Ogre package through Soldarin's calculator:
http://soldarin.tripod.com/rpgpages/id5.html

Size (Large): +1.0
Speed (slower than normal for size): -0.2
AC (Natural +4): +0.8
Darkvision: 0.0
Treated as Giants: I'm going to call this one a Minor Power, since it mimics "immunity to a handful of spells". The ability to use giant-only items is more than counteracted by the ability to be a target of Bane weapons and racial abilities. +0.2
Ability Scores:
STR/DEX/CON: +6/-2/+2 = +0.6
INT/WIS/CHA: -2/0/-2 = -0.2

Total: +2.2. Yep, it's ECL +2 all right. And according to his tables, an Ogre (with 4 HD) is a +5 ECL, exactly like I said above.

 

[Wolf72]

are you guys using the Savage Species half-ogre or the Creature Catalog/Tome of Horrors version?

if the SS doesn't seem to work, try the CC ... or vice versa

 

[Spatula]

Dwarves shouldn't be ECL+1 just because they're more powerful then Half-Elves.... Just like I don't think a Half-Ogre Bbn1 should be ECL+2 just because it's marginally better then a Half-Orc or Full Orc Bbn2.

Except that the half-ogre barbarian 1 is more than 'marginally' better than a half-orc barbarian 2. Your half-ogre gets +9 to hit with his greataxe and does 3d6+10 damage with it. That's 20.5 average damage on a normal hit - for a second level character. When raging, that jumps up to +11 to hit and 3d6+13 damage, and your rages last a little longer than normal because of the racial Con bonus. A half-orc barbarian 2 with the same starting stats would get +8 to hit with a MW greataxe and do 1d12+7 damage. That's an average damage of 13.5 per normal hit, a full 7 hit points less than the half-ogre. And the half-ogre gets a natural 10' reach on top of that, which means free attacks against melee opponents, among other things.

Then the half-ogre has 100% immunity to Daze, Charm Person, Hold Person, and Dominate Person.

Getting +7 damage on each swing, having just the non-powergamey benefits of reach (taking or avoiding AoOs), and being immune to the most important lower-level enchantments goes a bit beyond the relative power differences between dwarves and elves, don't you think? More pertinently, it goes more than a bit beyond the abilities granted by other +1 ECL races.

 

[SpikeyFreak]

Sure, everything I hit dies - but that's my only benefit.

As a fighter, that's pretty much all that matters.

Besides, that's NOT your only benefit. You get 1 AoO a round, and at low levels that probably means that you kill 2 creatures a round.

Plus you're immune to some of the low-level spells that are very effective, like charm and daze.

Plus you can trip, sunder, bull-rush and grapple better than any other 2nd level character. Not that you'd need to grapple. While raging with +11 on attacks you're likely to hit any arcane caster and 2d8+15 damage is likely to kill in one hit.

If you REALLY want to get crazy, use a huge spiked chain.

--Scared Spikey

 

[Camarath]

Simpel fix: give it MORE!!!

I really like this solution it is simple and elegant, good job Pax.

 

[Grog]

Running the numbers, your fix looks really good, Pax. Thanks.

Whoever said the halfogre is ok at ECL +1 never saw one with Improved Trip and the best net stats by far due to point buy craziness.

Of course, to get Improved Trip, the halfogre has to spend 8 points on Intelligence. For a fighter-type character, that's a lot (assuming 28 point buy).

 

[Grog]

Oh, and if you think the halfogre is bad, take a look at the desmodu. Yikes! ECL 14 for that???