Ogres As Characters

[Larcen]

I am thinking of selling my DM on letting me have an ogre for the 4th level PC I am rolling up, so I looked up the rules for them...and promply fell out of my chair. WOW. Can this be correct? I get, among other things, 4 levels of giant for the cost of 2 character levels?? This seems to good to be true. For reference, here is the writeup:

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OGRES AS CHARACTERS
Ogre characters possess the following racial traits.
— +10 Strength, –2 Dexterity, +4 Constitution, –4 Intelligence, –4 Charisma.
—Large size. –1 penalty to Armor Class, –1 penalty on attack rolls, –4 penalty on Hide checks, +4 bonus on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits double those of Medium characters.
—Space/Reach: 10 feet/10 feet.
—An ogre’s base land speed is 40 feet.
—Darkvision out to 60 feet.
—Racial Hit Dice: An ogre begins with four levels of giant, which provide 4d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +3, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +4, Ref +1, and Will +1.
—Racial Skills: An ogre’s giant levels give it skill points equal to 7 x (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1). Its class skills are Climb, Listen, and Spot.
—Racial Feats: An ogre’s giant levels give it two feats.
—Weapon and Armor Proficiency: An ogre is automatically proficient with simple weapons, martial weapons, light and medium armor, and shields.
— +5 natural armor bonus.
—Automatic Languages: Common, Giant. Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Orc, Goblin, Terran.
—Favored Class: Barbarian.
—Level adjustment +2.
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Man oh man, this guy is just gonna rock as a 2nd level barbarian. I may even have him move into Dragon Disciple some day.

Anyway, am I reading all this right? I lose two character levels and get 4 giant levels, and hit dice, in return?

 

[DlofSith69]

No, unfortunately that's incorrect. You add the racial hit die to the level adjustment for the starting level. In this case 4HD + 2 LA = 6. You could start at 6th level with no class levels or 7th with 1. Or check out Savage Species to level up monsters.

 

[Marius Delphus]

Anyway, am I reading all this right? I lose two character levels and get 4 giant levels, and hit dice, in return?

The way I read it, Level Adjustment is *added* to monster Hit Dice and class levels to determine the effective level of the character. Your basic ogre therefore starts as a 6th-level character before adding character classes.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

nope

No, an Ogre with no class levels counts as character level 6. You add the level adjustment to the number of giant levels to determine total character level.

Ken

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

Heh - *smack*ed - by the hivemind eh?

Rather than repeat their comments (which I agree with) try this:

In the recently released DragonLance Campaign Setting, there are rules for HALF-OGRE. This will bring your ECL down to where you can start with a 4th level party pretty easily.

Not quite as good as Ogre, but there's also a feat where you can be large size for all intents and purposes, should you so wish.

 

[Larcen]

No, an Ogre with no class levels counts as character level 6. You add the level adjustment to the number of giant levels to determine total character level.

Ken

AH!! Now that makes sense. Thanks guys. Sorry, I do not have Savage Species. They COULD have made it clearer by writing "Total level adjustment +6", not +2

However, since this is only going to be a 4th level character, that effectivetly shuts me out of being an ogre.

Anybody want to suggest another monstrous barbarian idea that might work? I DO eventually want this guy to be a Dragon Disciple. I am going for REACH and high STR bonuses here...

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

AH!! Now that makes sense. Thanks guys. Sorry, I do not have Savage Species.

However, since this is only going to be a 4th level character, that effectivetly shuts me out of being an ogre.

Anybody want to suggest another monstrous barbarian idea that might work. I DO eventually want this guy to be a Dragon Disciple. I am going for REACH and high STR bonuses here...

Half-Ogre as above or Centaur - large creatures are hard to get in under 4 ECL.

 

[Larcen]

We don't use the Dragonlance book, so that's out. Too bad.

As far as the centaur idea goes, now that I know how to read these stats, it looks to me like they are +6 as well, no?

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

We don't use the Dragonlance book, so that's out. Too bad.

As far as the centaur idea goes, now that I know how to read these stats, it looks to me like they are +6 as well, no?

Huh. I thought they were 4th.


You might try seeing if you can play a teenager centaur? I'm reaching (no books here )

 

[Nail]

AH!! ...(snip)...They COULD have made it clearer by writing "Total level adjustment +6", not +2

Well, no they couldn't have.

You see, LA is a number that adjusts a different number. Hence the phrase "Level adjustment" - it's not a total. They could have instead written "ECL", which is the Level Adjustment + HD. That would have been useful for quicker look-ups.