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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 3023467" data-attributes="member: 13966">I'll add that the half-ogre is unbalanced in my experience; I've seen about 3 or 4 half-ogre PCs in play (almost certain it was 4) for several combats alongside other melee-types (such as human and hobgoblin fighters, half-orc barbarians, and such).All of them totally outperformed their non-ogrish comrades in melee, and hardly suffered any disadvantage (they were only a teeny bit lower in HP and Reflex saves and ranged attack rolls).  Warrior types are generally poor in non-combat activities, so compared to the other warriors in the group, they weren't much worse in skills and such (they all sucked about equally in skills <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ).Half-ogres are also too powerful according to my calculations.  They'd have a +2 Level Adjustment in my campaigns if I ever allowed them otherwise 'as written'.  They might possibly be a tad on the weak end of LA +2, but they're too strong for just LA +1.Remember that half-ogres have no racial hit dice, which are themselves part of the balancing factor for normal ogres and your version of ogres.  Racial hit dice are weaker than class hit dice except for certain creature types (i.e. Dragon HD are quite strong, and Outsider HD aren't half-bad either).Of course, your particular version of ogres get more benefits with their racial HD than normal (the darkvision, low-light vision, and numerous proficiencies), but they're still a minor disadvantage for your version of ogres, so they still contribute a bit towards balancing the race's benefits.Also, and I really cannot stress this enough, Savage Species is broken and it sucks.  It has several good ideas in it, to be sure, but a lot of it is poorly executed and unbalanced (not necessarily overpowered in most cases; at least a decent amount of it is underpowered; but several bits and pieces of Savage Species are terribly inaccurate, or completely eliminate some of the important drawbacks of various races, or simply jack up the power of some racial abilities too much).  As I have and will continue to mention, Wizards of the Coast sets most racial Level Adjustments a bit too high, for the sake of making core races more palatable to powergamers.  WotC wants the core races to be dominant and other races are only really around as options for bored players, who don't mind being weaker than the rest of the party for the sake of having a unique character who might be a fun change of pace.  While this may be all well and dandy for certain campaigns, it is not at all balanced for creating custom races that aren't meant to be inferior and rare choices of character.You almost certainly won't find a single Player's Handbook race, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting race, or Eberron Campaign Setting race that actually adheres to the guidelines in Savage Species.  The Savage Species guidelines encourage giving 1 or more points of Level Adjustment for just about every racial feature that isn't virtually insignificant.</blockquote>

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