Playable ogres (and other monsters)

[Yora]

Are there any rules for making monsters like ogres playable as PCs?

If not, are there any homebrew systems that could be recommended?

[Pefgis]

I would simply re-flavor an Orc (for a more aggressive, brutish Ogre) or Goliath (for a more resilient, mountain ogre)and let it speak Giant instead of orc as a starting language if you choose an Orc. It wouldn't have the large size of an Orge, but Powerful Build will offset this for the most part. Orges are pretty nondescript and generic, without any real defining abilities, so they should be fairly easy to reskin.

[JNAProductions]

I would simply re-flavor an Orc (for a more aggressive, brutish Ogre) or Goliath (for a more resilient, mountain ogre)and let it speak Giant instead of orc as a starting language if you choose an Orc. It wouldn't have the large size of an Orge, but Powerful Build will offset this for the most part. Orges are pretty nondescript and generic, without any real defining abilities, so they should be fairly easy to reskin.

What they said.

If you REALLY want a more powerful race, build it like a class. So you take, say, three levels of Ogre to start, giving you various boosts, and then multiclass into another class.

[MaxWilson]

Are there any rules for making monsters like ogres playable as PCs?

If not, are there any homebrew systems that could be recommended?

Pull out a monster stat block and hand it to the player. "You are now an [ogre/ogre magi/oni/vampire/dragon/whatever]. You gain a share of party XP but you don't have any use for it and you don't advance in levels, but you can gain gold, magic items, reputation, and social connections just like anyone else! You just don't get personally more powerful through experience like a human does."

For dragons/vampires, you could let them gain power with age instead of with XP. (Or even just straight-up let them advance in a PC class after all--all of my NPC dragons are Dragon Sorcerers, so a PC dragon presumably would be too.)

[No brains]

Unfortunately WotC has been nervous about introducing large PCs, their most infamous example being their asinine take on a centaur. I don't often get to use the literal definition of that word; 'of or relating to a donkey'.:smallbiggrin:

One of the problems of designing an ogre PC is that ogres don't really have a lot of powers. It's hard to express being big without just letting them be big. The best available option, powerful build, is far away from its 3.x glory days and there are already a ton of races that get it.

I suppose if you wanted to play a half-ogre ogrillon, a half-orc with powerful build added on would work for most DMs.

If you get a DM who wants to be a brave reckless cowboy, maybe just being large with +2 Str +1Con -2 all mental stats would be 'balanced'.

[Kurt Kurageous]

But how in the heck would you work with other characters?

Ogres are just not good team players unless someone is paying their butcher's bill. Then they will work for that character.

[JNAProductions]

But how in the heck would you work with other characters?

Ogres are just not good team players unless someone is paying their butcher's bill. Then they will work for that character.

PCs are exceptional. They can be that one ogre that works well with the little folk.

[JackPhoenix]

Unfortunately WotC has been nervous about introducing large PCs, their most infamous example being their asinine take on a centaur. I don't often get to use the literal definition of that word; 'of or relating to a donkey'.:smallbiggrin:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who considers the Ravnican centaur half-assed.

[LibraryOgre]

I would steal 2e's method, personally.

Use the MM and the standard array to come up with their attribute modifiers (the Standard Array lets you fudge things a bit up or down, making the base ogre smarter by saying they had that big of a bonus/penalty in part due to the array). Use the MM to determine the racial abilities of a member of their race. Give them bonus HP equal to their standard HD.

A playable ogre doesn't have much going on (no racial abilities to speak of, aside from darkvision and big ups to strength and con), but +7 HP to stout them up at 1st level.

[JNAProductions]

They also get double damage from weapons due to large size. Makes them nasty Fighters.

[Yora]

If you REALLY want a more powerful race, build it like a class. So you take, say, three levels of Ogre to start, giving you various boosts, and then multiclass into another class.

That was my first plan in case there are no existing rules for an ogre PC.

[MaxWilson]

But how in the heck would you work with other characters?

Ogres are just not good team players unless someone is paying their butcher's bill. Then they will work for that character.

And that makes them... different from other murderhobos^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HPCs?

[LibraryOgre]

They also get double damage from weapons due to large size. Makes them nasty Fighters.

So, preliminary ogre
***
Attributes: Ogres are huge, but not quick, nor bright, nor personable, nor perceptive. They receive a +4 to Strength, a +3 to Constitution, a -1 to Dexterity, a -3 to Intelligence, and a -2 to both Wisdom and Charisma.

Side note: Trying an idea: Just use their stat bonuses/penalties as their racial adjustments. It probably breaks somewhere, but it works out for ogres

Long Stride: Ogre's long legs make them comparatively fast, despite their lumbering movements. Base movement speed is 40'.

Night Hunters: Ogres have beady eyes that nonetheless function very well in the dark, giving them 60' Darkvision.

Brutish Giants: Ogres are quite large, often standing 9 or 10 feet tall. As such, they can carry twice as much as a human of the same strength, and they can wield many Large weapons in a single hand and, should they acquire or make them, use Large-sized versions of human weapons at double the damage dice. In addition, they add 7 additional Hit Points to their total at 1st level, in addition to class and constitution bonus.

Languages: Ogres speak both Giant and Common.

***
They are pretty one-note as characters... they're big and dumb as a man can come, but they're stronger than a country hoss. When the bad folk all get together at night, they may not call him boss, but you don't mess around with him.

[TripleD]

Pull out a monster stat block and hand it to the player. "You are now an [ogre/ogre magi/oni/vampire/dragon/whatever]. You gain a share of party XP but you don't have any use for it and you don't advance in levels, but you can gain gold, magic items, reputation, and social connections just like anyone else! You just don't get personally more powerful through experience like a human does."

For dragons/vampires, you could let them gain power with age instead of with XP. (Or even just straight-up let them advance in a PC class after all--all of my NPC dragons are Dragon Sorcerers, so a PC dragon presumably would be too.)

I’d say you could even agree to take class levels with certain restrictions.

For example: a Minotaur Cleric that has taken a vow of pacifism to never physically harm another creature (spells are a loophole; “it’s not me striking them down, it’s Pelor!”). Mental stats are actually on the low end for a PC, and if they can’t use weapons then all you really have is a typical cleric that can lift and push a ton of weight.

[Tvtyrant]

I would probably just have them take "Ogre feats." Starts out as an Orc, becomes bigger and dumber over time. Instead of the choice of stats or feats it just becomes more Ogre-like, so much bigger, stronger, dumber and loses the ability to wear armor.

[No brains]

Doubling damage dice is probably taking it too far because that will cause exponential damage growth with crits and multiple attacks. A better compromise may be to add +2 to weapon damage rolls since that's more stable. If a DM wants to be nice, maybe it can work like a permanent Enlarge with a +1d4 to attacks.

[MaxWilson]

I’d say you could even agree to take class levels with certain restrictions.

For example: a Minotaur Cleric that has taken a vow of pacifism to never physically harm another creature (spells are a loophole; “it’s not me striking them down, it’s Pelor!”). Mental stats are actually on the low end for a PC, and if they can’t use weapons then all you really have is a typical cleric that can lift and push a ton of weight.

Sure, I can imagine that. It all depends on the metagame situation and why the player wants to play the monster. If they meet, I dunno, a Stone Giant and beat it in a riddle game and manage to talk it into joining the party, then a PC dies and someone is like, "Hey, can I adopt [the giant] as my PC? He's fun!" then they might not even care about class levels as much as riddling. If they want to take the Stone Giant in a new direction ("Cromgor wants to learn to use armor and become the first Stone Giant Battlemaster!") then we'd work something out that seemed fair to everyone.

I can imagine stealing a page from AD&D's dual-classing rules and just saying, "Sure, Cromgor, you're now a Stone Giant AND a level 1 Fighter but you don't start gaining any HP or ASIs until your level in your new class exceeds your HD in your race (at level 12+)."

[TripleD]

@MaxWilson

Yep. I’d say the only real rule, regardless of mechanics, is: be willing to work with your DM, and don’t use it as an excuse to hog the spotlight.

[Damon_Tor]

I think there ought to be a "big" size between medium and large. Takes up a 5/5 square like everybody else. 5e has basically removed the baked in advantages and disadvantages between medium and small creatures, so another tier of "PC sizes" would be almost entirely a "fluff" move.

[MaxWilson]

I think there ought to be a "big" size between medium and large. Takes up a 5/5 square like everybody else. 5e has basically removed the baked in advantages and disadvantages between medium and small creatures, so another tier of "PC sizes" would be almost entirely a "fluff" move.

You could let them take up a 7.5' x 7.5' square. Lots of people don't play on grids after all, and even if they do you can just subdivide the grids.

A Giant Constrictor Snake should be "any contiguous sequence of nine 5' x 5' squares".

[Yora]

I am favoring starting with a standard monster stat block (with adjustable ability scores) and then adding class levels on top of that. The question is how to estimate how many levels the base monster is worth.

[Wizard_Lizard]

don't conplain when the dm has a party of NPC adventurers hunt you down.

[No brains]

I am favoring starting with a standard monster stat block (with adjustable ability scores) and then adding class levels on top of that. The question is how to estimate how many levels the base monster is worth.

Being large doubles your damage, which is vaguely equivalent to the extra attack feature and being an ogre gives 7d10 hit dice, so starting as a 7th-level character doesn't seem too extreme. You will be comparatively starved for class features, but being large gives you defense against shoving, grappling, swallowing, and other unexpected things. Also large size will eventually stack with any form of extra attack, giving you something 5 levels of another attacking class could never give you. Don't sweat the lack of skills on the ogre, class and background can fill that in once you choose them.

[MaxWilson]

I am favoring starting with a standard monster stat block (with adjustable ability scores) and then adding class levels on top of that. The question is how to estimate how many levels the base monster is worth.

It depends upon what class you pick. For a Fighter, getting to use bigger weapons is worth a lot as it gains Extra Attacks, especially if it can use Heavy weapons one-handed with GWM. Also Huge grappling/shoving is valuable, again with Extra Attacks. For a single classed wizard, being bigger is arguably a net disadvantage although the extra movement isn't horrible.

Have you considered XP % penalties instead of charging levels up front? My powergamer instincts cease to be excited by an Ogre PAM/GWM somewhere around a 50% penalty, so 50% penalty might be approximately balanced. For an Ogre wizard, it depends on stats but if I had to take ogre Int you'd need to give me a +200% XP bonus to make me excited. :)

[Damon_Tor]

Being large doubles your damage

Not as an inherent property of being large, or even of wielding large weapons. There's guidance to that effect for creating NPCs in either the DMG or MM, but size directly effecting damage was removed along with the inherent AC and attack bonuses/penalties for size as the editions have marched on.

All that said, if we were to breakdown an "Ogre Class" I'd be fine with them having a "class" feature which explicitly allows them to use oversized weapons which deal 2X their normal dice. If the character's first 7 levels were unavailable because they had to use those to be an ogre, they'd be level 12 before they got extra attack, dealing 4W+2Str damage with two attacks. At level 11 a pure fighter is doing 3W+3Str damage. So it seems to be in the right ballpark.

[Yora]

It depends upon what class you pick.

But we don't adjust for multiclassing either. A 6th level wizard benefits much more from taking another level in wizard than a 6th level fighter does.

[SkipSandwich]

Its never made much sense to me to be afraid of allowing large PC's when bugbears are perfectly acceptable and have a 10ft reach.

I can kind of get the size making it hard to navigate traditional dungeons but the squeezing rules exist for a reason and failing that you may just have to tunnel. Its a pain buts its what you signed up for.

If i was making a large size race id give them powerful build at 1st level then replace it with Large size at 5th (at 1st-4th you are a juvinile of the species)

[Sigreid]

I am favoring starting with a standard monster stat block (with adjustable ability scores) and then adding class levels on top of that. The question is how to estimate how many levels the base monster is worth.

I think a CR2 ogre is about the equivalent of a 4th level character. If you then limit them to the same overall level total of the other characters it would probably be fine since they'll be ahead in HD, have large weapons but their extra attack will come on line far later.