Ogre Mage - CR 8?

[StreamOfTheSky]

Advance the ogre mage to 8HD, max out ranks in concentration and give him combat casting to ensure he never fails his check to cast defensively.

Whoah, careful there. Hideous Blow AND Combat Casting? Let's not powergame this guy too much now...

 

[Great Guru]

Some "minor" tweaks one could employ: change the ogre mage from giant to monstrous humanoid (which I like better than outsider); add a couple hit dice (or even just 1 for the boost to BAB and saving throws); definitely raise its AC.

I think an "ogre warlock" would be cool.

 

[Runestar]

I think an "ogre warlock" would be cool.

Or what if we simply tacked warlock lvs onto an existing ogre?

Treating them as non-associated class lvs, we can get an ogre warlock5 as a cr6 npc.

Just ignore invocations with a save (so their low cha is not an issue).

Lacks many of the iconic abilities such as flight or cone of cold, but some of the lower lv invocations could be useful in combat, such as hid..*GAH!!! Why can't I stop thinking of how to optimize hideous blow?!?*

 

[Uder]

Hideous blow is never the answer.

If you buy into the premise that Hideous Blow provokes an AoO, then you're right. I'm in the "as if" crowd though.

 

[pawsplay]

If you buy into the premise that Hideous Blow provokes an AoO, then you're right. I'm in the "as if" crowd though.

Even then, your criticals will make you weep with regret.

 

[Runestar]

The ogre mage has reach, right? Give it a reach weapon and provoking AoOs may not even be an issue when you are attacking from 20-ft away and the players are in no position to take advantage of this. Combos well with flyby attack too.

 

[icallitdnd]

How about a nice eldritch glaive? Touch makes attacking easier and it slides right into the whole warlock thing. If thats not enough dm can slip a haste spell on him

 

[Dandu]

Haste does not affect Eldritch Glaive because the glaive gives you iterative attacks based on your BAB. Says so in the feat.

 

[Jhaelen]

MM5 has the mindflayer cleric4, which for +2cr, gives it a massive boost in AC and hp, as well as some actual melee capability.

Yeah, it does. However, it's not really worth the CR boost. I wanted to use them in my last adventure but after reading the stat-block I decided I'd rather create my own version to get something more effective.

The main problem is that the cleric levels don't actually add anything wortwhile - the default mindflayer options are always better!

So, for a start I decided that cleric levels are non-associated for mind-flayers. Then I switched most of the feats to get Practiced Spellcaster (for the cleric levels) and Practiced Manifester (for the psion levels).
Note, that I used the XPH version of the mind-flayer as a basis switching a couple of powers for additional fun (empathic transfer, mental barrier, vigor, etc.).

The results looked a lot more like a CR 10 monster. It may even have been a bit on the strong side, at least considering its defenses (SR30, AC40+). But then the party's effective level was 15, so it was okay (I used two of them plus six Thoon soldiers for an EL14 encounter).