D&D General Reincarnate is and has always been, weird.

[Voadam]

Wouldn't Ookla the Mook essentially be a Bugbear?

Physically as far as stats? I don't remember a lot of stealth and surprise from Ookla, but yes, most hulking brute reskins could work for most of the stats.

Couldn't you use that to modify their lore?

If you rewrote bugbears to narratively be a version of a Thundar Mook or a Star Wars Wookie (which Ookla is based off of) that would be different social interaction dynamics than the cowardly, greedy, bullying ambush brutes who are used as a terrorist special forces part of hobgoblin armies and it could work. You'd probably lose most of the D&D/Pathfinder narrative bugbear theming about being fear feeding and ambushes and the intertwining goblin interactions, but it could work.

Chewie can walk into a Tatooine cantina, hang out, and make a deal with Obi Wan Kenobee. You don't expect Chewie to hide under a child's bed to do jump scares the way an encounter with a bugbear goes in one of my Pathfinder adventure path modules.

 

[James Gasik]

So there was a discussion on the Tales of the Valiant Discord server today about Reincarnation that I felt was pretty relevant. For the most part, with the distinct separation of Lineage (what you are) and Heritage (how you grew up), and the disassociation of ability scores from either, ToV's version of Reincarnate is the easiest to implement of any version I've seen.

But there's still an elephant in the room- Humans.

Because it was decided back in 3e that Humans have "more skills" and "bonus Feat" as their only real traits, Reincarnating from Human to something else or from something else to Human, despite only creating a new body, can have some pretty wild results.

Like a Human being turned into an Elf might suddenly have a Ritual book that's unintelligible gibberish, or a Orc turned into a Human can suddenly become an accomplished chef, lol.

 

[Voadam]

I was looking something up in the B/X expert book and saw this sixth-level magic user spell:

 

[Stormonu]

Physically as far as stats? I don't remember a lot of stealth and surprise from Ookla, but yes, most hulking brute reskins could work for most of the stats.

If you rewrote bugbears to narratively be a version of a Thundar Mook or a Star Wars Wookie (which Ookla is based off of) that would be different social interaction dynamics than the cowardly, greedy, bullying ambush brutes who are used as a terrorist special forces part of hobgoblin armies and it could work. You'd probably lose most of the D&D/Pathfinder narrative bugbear theming about being fear feeding and ambushes and the intertwining goblin interactions, but it could work.

Chewie can walk into a Tatooine cantina, hang out, and make a deal with Obi Wan Kenobee. You don't expect Chewie to hide under a child's bed to do jump scares the way an encounter with a bugbear goes in one of my Pathfinder adventure path modules.

Ah - I use older 1E/2E lore for most of my creatures. Those bugbears are generally cave dwellers who come out to hunt other humanoids to capture and/or eat. They're hulking (mercenary) brutes that are fearsome and prefer to travel and strike in the dark, but don't feed off fear.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

My druid PC should threaten their enemies with a fate worse than death; body dysmorphia.

 

[Richards]

In an earlier 3.5 campaign, my son ran a human paladin who was slain and subsequently reincarnated as an elf. That went well, until a fiendish ancestor reactivated his demonic bloodline, and he was transformed into a tiefling. And then, many years later, he was captured by cultists and slain by Orcus, who turned him into a self-loathing vampire slave. He was retired at that point, but became a final-adventure combatant in a different campaign.

Johnathan

 

[Richards]

And in a more recent 3.5 campaign, we broke into an evil gnome's alchemist shop and slew her, although she hadn't done anything technically illegal. Filled with guilt (especially as we had a paladin PC in the party), we had our druid PC reincarnate her and she came back as a halfling.

My PC in that campaign was a sorcerer who made some money on the side writing songs. The situation prompted him to write the following song:

SORRY, GLADYS

We're really sorry, Gladys,
And we're glad your current status
Is back among the living, where you really do belong

We never should have killed you
And I'm sure it never thrilled you
But we're really, really sorry and we want to get along

See, we happened to be nearby
When rising in the clear sky
Was the multicolored smoke from your accidental blowup

And heroes such as we five
Always attempt to revive
Anyone who might have gotten hurt before we show up

Admittedly, in this case
When we arrived at your place
You said that you were fine and that we all should go away

We didn't do as you said
And the actions we took instead
Got us caught up in combat and ended with your doomsday

However, in our defense
Before the battle commenced
Our half-elf read your aura and found out it was evil

That won't excuse our actions
Not to your satisfaction
But to our battle-ready reflexes, it caused quite an upheaval

If we'd have left you alone
We wouldn't have to atone
(At least those among our number who feel what we did was wrong)

But we've done all that we could
To fix things and to make good
We hope you will forgive us for all being so headstrong

When we burst into your home
You were a little old gnome
With reincarnation spells, you just don't know what you'll get

So now that you're a halfling
It might be somewhat baffling
But you do look some years younger and at least your clothes still fit

And with your evil nature
Upon your death, I'll wager
You got a nasty look at which eternity awaits

I'm sure it wasn't pleasant
So now, here in the present
You have an opportunity to change your final fate

So once again, we're sorry
You really weren't our quarry
We were merely on our way to look at tailored matching cloaks

But letting you see your Hell
Might just turn out to be well
Our killing you just might have been a really lucky stroke!

- - -

Johnathan