half-ogre

[Darklone]

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).

Yeah, right. But the halfogre might easily keep a low dex (thanks to his nat armour boost which comes in pretty handy especially for raging barbarians), afford a strength of "only" 20 and would probably have a much better average of his abilities

And well... he's not that bad with normal trip attacks either

 

[Dash Dannigan]

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.

Looking at adding 2HD to the 1/2Ogre seems to do the trick, thanks Pax. The 2HD waters down the half-ogre to a manageable level. Though it's not awfully templatish, I wish the SS folk had done a little more work on the half-ogre. All they had to do was weaken it a bit more and it would have made the +1 ecl.

 

[BLACKDIRGE]

My group and I have found that the half-ogre is just fine a ECL +1, for our gaming style. With the penalty to intelligence and charisma the half-ogres in our campiagn have found themselves sitting around a lot and not being able to contribute much in non-combat situations, which are frequent.

As a DM I have had three half-ogres in my game and not once have I thought they were over powered.

Now, that said, another group with a different style of play, geared more towards combat and powergaming would probably find the Half-Ogre a bit much a ecl+1.

Half-ogres seem to be on the cusp, a little to strong for ECL+1 but IMO not quite strong enough to warrant ECL+2 (compare to other ECL +2 races like drow and you'll see what I mean). So the conclusion that I have drawn is that that the DM needs to take a good long look at his group and their playing style before ruling on the ECL of the Half-ogre. ECL +1 for a less combat oriented group and possibly higher for more combat intensive groups.

Dirge

 

[TracerBullet42]

Yeah, right. But the halfogre might easily keep a low dex (thanks to his nat armour boost which comes in pretty handy especially for raging barbarians), afford a strength of "only" 20 and would probably have a much better average of his abilities

And well... he's not that bad with normal trip attacks either

And when you have a half-ogre barb/monk, it just gets crazy....larger damge dice, macho str bonus....becomes a mean, lean, grappling machine. And you get Improved Trip at Monk6 without any prerequisites....

It worked pretty well for me, much to the dismay of the dwarven barbarian in my party who I often pinned to the ground and reminded him who his "daddy" was...

 

[Hypersmurf]

And when you have a half-ogre barb/monk

Ex-Monk Barbarian, or Ex-Barbarian Monk?

You're better off taking your 6 Monk levels before switching to Barbarian, so you don't lose Rage for becoming Lawful...

-Hyp.