Savage Species

[bolen]

My Dwarf got killed last night, so I was playing this big dumb ogre (as opposed to all the puny smart ones) who the party talked into helping us kill some ghoul (or "nasty little green men" as he called them) I had alot of fun being the ogre so I thought I should make him my new character.

I opened my savage species book (I guess it had just sat on my shelf) to see how to balance him as a character. I read his stats and was surprised at how poor he is. He is not even a full Ogre till 6th level. He has half the hit points of a human fighter and even though he is stronger, armor will be hard to buy, no one likes him, it seems like playing a monster class is very unbalanced. Am I wrong here or did they do this to discourage power gamers (which I understand)

 

[DragonLancer]

Monsters are monsters, and are not designed for playing in a "normal" camapign. Thats the point I think. If you are going to play monsters then they need to be weak and grow, otherwise they would be a bit too powerful.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Monsters are iffy....they can be tough, but can also be great.

As an Ogre, you get things like Con bonuses and Str bonuses instead of HD. These are racial, and so stack with things like magical items and spells.

In general, monsters are great for one avenue, but utterly crap for others. It's not idea, but it's the best. That ogre is going to kick more melee ass than any fighter around, honest.

 

[bolen]

afraid I don't follow why is an Ogre character (for a full Ogre he is 6th level) equal to a 6th level fighter. He is stronger but

1) He has less HP

2) he has to get special armor made for him

3) Everyone in the city is either afraid of him or wants to kill him

4) He's dumb as a post if you role-play his intellegence so you cant use any clever tactics if you want to really role-play him correctly

 

[LightPhoenix]

afraid I don't follow why is an Ogre character (for a full Ogre he is 6th level) equal to a 6th level fighter. He is stronger but

1) He has less HP

2) he has to get special armor made for him

3) Everyone in the city is either afraid of him or wants to kill him

4) He's dumb as a post if you role-play his intellegence so you cant use any clever tatics if you want to really role-play him correctly

Because 3 and 4 are roleplaying restrictions, and those shouldn't be used to balance mechanical restrictions.

Also, I think it's a given if the Ogre is a PC that armor will eventually be custom made to fit him.

Is that 2 less HD (about 15 HP) an equivalent tradeoff for +5 natural armor, +6 Str, +4 Con, and Large size (including reach)worth it for less than 6 levels of fighter?

 

[Argent Silvermage]

It's very ballanced. just remember that magic items size themselves to the wearer. so finding armor for him will not be a problem.

 

[Spatula]

Is that 2 less HD (about 15 HP) an equivalent tradeoff for +5 natural armor, +6 Str, +4 Con, and Large size (including reach)worth it for less than 6 levels of fighter?

Ogres get +10 Str.

 

[Felon]

Yes, Bolen, despit what anyone else might be insisting, the fact that a monstrous PC suffers from worse hit points than their ECL0 companions (in some cases, statistically worse than a wizard's) can generally make them seem lame and of highly dubious worth, even despite any other abilities or bonuses they might have. It is indeed a bit off that using the half-ogre race from the back of SS will almost certainly produce a vastly tougher character than playing a full-blooded ogre.

Having said that, I do hope you actually rolled ability scores for the ogre and then applied racial bonuses. As SS points out, the stats given in the MM assume a creature with average stats for its species.