Savage Species- Ogre Mage balance.

[ThorFluff]

The question i simple as always, but i predict that the anwser is not.
Is the ogre mage progression Balanced? i see some potential trouble being caused by massive CHA and the potential to take 8 lvls of paladin. Would you allow a player to play this?

[Starsinger]

I wouldn't allow my players to use that book... period. I totally think it should've been a blue book.

[Fax Celestis]

I wouldn't allow my players to use that book... period. I totally think it should've been a blue book.

Yeah. The choice to brownbook it was a bad one indeed.

[DaMullet]

Pardon my ignorance, but while I do know that there are two different colors of supplement, I do not know the differences between the two. Is it that blue books are DM reference, and brown are for players?

Just asking.
-Mullet, Esq.

[Fax Celestis]

Pardon my ignorance, but while I do know that there are two different colors of supplement, I do not know the differences between the two. Is it that blue books are DM reference, and brown are for players?

Just asking.
-Mullet, Esq.

That's the general idea, and it's been that way for some time. The DMG-II even makes reference (in the Magic Items section, I believe) to "bluebooks" and "brownbooks."

[Tokiko Mima]

The question i simple as always, but i predict that the anwser is not.
Is the ogre mage progression Balanced? i see some potential trouble being caused by massive CHA and the potential to take 8 lvls of paladin. Would you allow a player to play this?

I don't see too much charisma in Ogre Mage? You start with a +2 Cha, and gain another +2 Cha at 4th and 12th level. Heck, the Succubus progression starts at +6 Cha and they advance twice as fast so I don't see how Ogre Mage is especially unbalanced with regard to Charisma alone. Now the regeneration and spell resistance are a concern, but that's true of most monster races.

If anything the Paladin class itself is broken for characters with extremely high Charisma's. Divine Grace lets you have too much of a bonus all at once, when it should have been limited to a point of Cha bonus per level or something.

Like most of Savage Species, you do have to be careful. Keep in mind that this book is only 3.5ish. It's technically 3.0, which is why it lists Succubus as having 'summon balor' as a spell when that spell doesn't exist in 3.5, and succubus summon vrocks instead.

[Stephen_E]

Lets see, if you put a 18 in Cha then at 20th ECL, 12 Ogre Mage/8 Paladin, you'd have 18 +6 Ogre Mage, +2 lev increase.
Base save +4/+1/+1 Ogre Mage
Base save +6/+2/+2 Paladin
So +18/+11/+11 before Con/Dex/Will bonuses.

This isn't scary or powerful.
You also have 13 HD at 20th level.

Basically it isn't really balanced because it's underpowered, but if the DM is willing to give it some tweaks you can make it ok.

Stephen

[ThorFluff]

It gains Con, Wis, Str, Int and Cha, along with Spellrecistance and Regeneration. Regeneration more or less means the charakter would be utterly unkillable unless the entire party gets wiped out. Which kind of makes him the ultimate tank... and spellcaster... and leader... i mean He can do anything!

[Yechezkiel]

I brought out the feather of Maat for this one... it's not looking so good for the Ogre Mage.:smallmad:

[Tokiko Mima]

It gains Con, Wis, Str, Int and Cha, along with Spellrecistance and Regeneration. Regeneration more or less means the charakter would be utterly unkillable unless the entire party gets wiped out. Which kind of makes him the ultimate tank... and spellcaster... and leader... i mean He can do anything!

Those abilities are not.. umm... as great as you think they are. Your Ogre Mage would be an OK melee tank, that's for sure but I can't stress how terrible a spellcaster it would be, aside from the spell like abilities you have. Ogre Mage's savage progression doesn't give you any sorcerer spell levels, so you could be an 8th level caster at best at level 20.

Also, Regeneration while powerful and useful, doesn't keep someone alive no matter what. You just need to have a source of fire or acid ready to finish you off once the non-lethal damage knocks you out.

Spell resistance 6 + ECL gives you a 30% chance to resist spells from a caster the same ECL as you. That's good but not mind blowing.

The ability to fly at 4th level is very nice and does a lot more to make you invulnerable to death than most any other ability the Ogre Mage has.

You do get a lot of ability bonuses, though. Which you're going to need since your skill points, saves, and base attack progress so slowly.

[Stephen_E]

It gains Con, Wis, Str, Int and Cha, along with Spellrecistance and Regeneration. Regeneration more or less means the charakter would be utterly unkillable unless the entire party gets wiped out. Which kind of makes him the ultimate tank... and spellcaster... and leader... i mean He can do anything!

His stat increase are nice but we're talking a +7 level adjustment here.
Seven freaken levels.

Regen: Yes, this makes you unkillable to an unlucky punt but you still go down, and if the rest of the party runs you're dead except for DM fiat.
And the pure Wizard will have similiar hps to an Ogre Mage/Paladin, and the Wizard isn't going to be frontline fighting, so any combat that makes the party run will probably see you down 1st. (if you want unkillable tank go Troll. Much better Con and only +5 level adj. With a little boosting it's workable)

Spell Resistance: Don't make me laugh. At 20th level you'll have SR14 (class levels +6). Ooooh, that'll scare the enemy casters.....NOT.

Spells: They have Invisibility at will, but not greater invisibility, so after an attack they have to make themselves invisible again. Darkness at will, no big shake. They get Cone of Cold and Polymorth 1/day as their biggies, and Cone of Cold depends heavily on what you count it's CL as, and Polymorth has been cut back some. If you take class levels in a caster class then you suck completely.

Leading: He's got the Charisma but sod all skills, and of a race that tends to trigger a negative response from people you meet in most campaigns.

Don't get me wrong. By all means play one, you could have heaps of fun, but be warned, they aren't power machines. They can do anything mediocre to poorly. They do nothing well, with the possible exception of leader in a campaign where their race isn't a negative impact.

Stephen

[Stephen_E]

Spell resistance 6 + ECL gives you a 30% chance to resist spells from a caster the same ECL as you. That's good but not mind blowing.


Correction here. If you use Savage Species, the spell resistance is Class level +6.
Not ECL, and racial levels aren't "class levels".

If you take the 3.5 MM. it's a flat 19, which is better until from ECL 8 (when you get it) till ECL 25, but still isn't any great shakes.

Stephen

[Tokiko Mima]

Correction here. If you use Savage Species, the spell resistance is Class level +6.
Not ECL, and racial levels aren't "class levels".

If you take the 3.5 MM. it's a flat 19, which is better until from ECL 8 (when you get it) till ECL 25, but still isn't any great shakes.

Stephen

I know. I just usually cut people a break on that and base Spell Resistance on ECL, because otherwise they get punished for taking racial levels on a racial level ability. It was kinda a best case scenario.

[Ramos]

Ogre mages suck against spells. Phantasmal Killer. Now make those saves or die-no regeneation. Baleful Polymorph. Flesh to Stone. Finger of Death. Suggestion.

Pretty much any save-or-lose or save-or-suck does them in. That is because they lose 7 whole HD and, unless they are paladins-which requires them to be lawful good while ogre mages are usually lawful evil-they suck at saves.

[AslanCross]

The Ogre Mage (even its MM incarnation) isn't that strong. It has a really high ECL but doesn't really have the stats to back it up. The abilities are a bit too random and don't really work well together. This is why WOTC came up with this article. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060721a)

Unfortunately, I doubt they never really did anything for Savage Species but you might be able to take some cues from this.

[CASTLEMIKE]

The Ogre Mage (even its MM incarnation) isn't that strong. It has a really high ECL but doesn't really have the stats to back it up. The abilities are a bit too random and don't really work well together. This is why WOTC came up with this article. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060721a)

Unfortunately, I doubt they never really did anything for Savage Species but you might be able to take some cues from this.

Didn't see where the new and improved 6HD retweaked Ogre Magi had any LA so much better than the old one for a PC.

[Ted_Stryker]

The +7 LA is a ginormous built-in glass jaw for Ogre Mage characters. It's a pretty underpowered option as a PC class. An Ogre Mage with two paladin levels would get wiped out by a build like Pal 2/Sorc 6/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5, I'm thinking.

[ThorFluff]

My unfamiliarity with the system seems striking, I'm actually the one who wants to play it, and the reply i get is that he's a bit dull and desperatly underpowerd.. dang, i was expecting the exact opposite.

[Merlin the Tuna]

My unfamiliarity with the system seems striking, I'm actually the one who wants to play it, and the reply i get is that he's a bit dull and desperatly underpowerd.. dang, i was expecting the exact opposite.Here's the rule of thumb: if it's not human, it's probably not that good.

It's harsh and maybe a bit cynical, but it's usually the truth. Designers have mentioned in the past (I'll admit that a citation would be really helpful here) that they deliberately made humans powerful so that PCs would want to play as them. If they weren't as good as they are, fewer PCs would play humans, and worlds wouldn't fit their preconceived notions of "Humans live almost everywhere, and every other race is rare." (It's similar to how a lot of people got annoyed when Drizzt clones popped up all over the place; they got the impression that a disproportionately large number of drow were CG loners looking to cast off their reputations.) It's frustrating, and it's part of why level adjustments and racial hit die hurt players as much as they do, but it's the way things are.

Note that there are some races with level adjustments that are worth it. The Goliath is a good example. They're mentioned in Races of Stone, and are a terrific race if you want to be a big guy with a bigger axe. But generally speaking, if you want to be anything but a bruiser, non-LA'd races are best.

[Tokiko Mima]

If you didn't have to pay for all those nice Ogre Mage abilities... yeah it would be great and overpowered. But you're going to pay by being 12 levels behind everyone else in class abilities. That's a *huge* cost.

By comparison, a Drow pays 2 levels for spell-like abilities about as useful, and Spell Resistance that's pretty functional. They don't regenerate and they have no natural armor and fewer stat bonuses, but it's easy to build a tenth level drow that will massacre an Ogre Mage any day of the week. Ten levels is enough time to get the the high powered part of Wizard, enough to get the good spells from Cleric, and enough to have twice the HP an Ogre Mage has depending on the build. Class levels are nearly always better than racial levels.

[ThorFluff]

then the followup question remains the same (only reversed) what would you do to tweak it to something more balanced?

[lord_khaine]

the question is then, what do you want from a ogre mage?

[Tokiko Mima]

You could ask your DM if it would be ok if something between 6 and 11 of your 12 racial levels included '+1 spells/day of existing arcane spell casting class.' That way you *could* be a mage and an Ogre Mage. That might even make it overpowered, actually.

[ThorFluff]

the question is then, what do you want from a ogre mage?

The world we're going to play in does not have alignment (only rulechange is that instead of Smite, paladins get Favored Enemy). So i wanted to play a Rebel Leader, a charismatic fighter with supportive spells and the distinct ability to lead (IE, Cohorts and so forth) For all i care i could just loose all the wis bonuses, aside from saves, it won't do much for me.

[Stephen_E]

As a generic fix to adapt "Monsters" to playable PCs.

1) 1st lev skill points should be 1xRacial skill pts and 3xExpert NPC skill pts.
(this isn't a bad mod for all PC's as it removes the temptation to make sure your 1st level is a skill monkey class). Monster classes are penalised enough by non-HD levels. Forcing them to take their 1st lev as a 2 skill point class (as most monster racial levels are) is just adding insult to injury.

2) Each non-HD racial level should give the character 2 hps and 2 skill pts unmodified by attribute bonuses. This makes them a little bit less fragile.

3) For every 3 racial levels (both HD and non-HD) you can disregard 1 feat, class ability or 5 ranks of a skill (2nd level arcane caster would take 6 levels - 3 for 2nd lev caster, 3 for 1st lev caster). This would allow monster classes to enter into prestige classes as fast as standard PC's. It also makes caster monsters vaguely viable by quick entry into the dual caster classes. For example the Ogre Mage could take Mystic Theurge without any Wizard or Cleric levels. Still weak, but a 20th ECL creature who cast both Arcane AND Divine as 8th lev casters is enourmously better than someone who can only do one of them. Better for something with 6 ECL you could take 1 Wiz/1 Cleric and then use your 6 ECL to pay for 2nd lev Arcane and Divine casting prereqs and go straight into Mystic Theurge.

4) Allow the PC to take up to half their levels as class levels before they've finished their racial levels. This means something like the Ogre Mage (12 racial levels) actually gets some leveling options before level 13.

Stephen