Player Wants to be Master Blaster

[Chester]

I'm not against a player being a Master Blaster type character. I'm wondering how to make this function, though:

Characters are starting at level 2. Essentially, one player wants to be a wizard with an ogre mount. The wizard would need the ogre or be unable to move.

I'm OK with it if the character acts as one unit. His action is either an attack, or a spell.

Maybe the ogre never levels; the wizard is the only one to gain levels, and at the start of the game he's Wizard 1 / Fighter 1. That level of fighter is the Ogre. I'm still wary of that +6 great club attack so early.

Maybe the wizard has to take the mounted combatant feat.

Has anyone every had something like this? How might you rule it?

[nickl_2000]

How about a halfling or gnome Battlesmith Artificer at level 3.

A steel defender is medium sized, so it could easily serve as a mount. It dodges if not told what to do, has decent AC, and a decent amount of hp to survive, and you could easily turn the force damage into bludgeoning damage (which realistically makes it less effective overall)


I am not sure how high of a level this campaign will go, but this is likely the best way to go even though you wouldn't start at level 2 with it.

[Chester]

I am not sure how high of a level this campaign will go, but this is likely the best way to go even though you wouldn't start at level 2 with it.

Tomb of Annihilation, so 11 or 12-ish?

EDIT: The players have opted for "Meat Grinder Mode."

[nickl_2000]

Tomb of Annihilation, so 11 or 12-ish?

EDIT: The players have opted for "Meat Grinder Mode."

Then he would have plenty of levels where he would be riding the steel defender. He would have to RP the gnome on it's own for 1 level before getting the steel defender, but that still might be fun doing it.

[Chester]

Then he would have plenty of levels where he would be riding the steel defender. He would have to RP the gnome on it's own for 1 level before getting the steel defender, but that still might be fun doing it.

I did suggest it to him; he's not against it, but he's definitely more interested in making the ogre work.

I'm thinking animal handling checks, only leveling the wizard, alternately leveling the wizard or the ogre, etc.

[Kane0]

Beastmaster ranger (with Tasha's options)? You might have to make a large size beast of the land if the player isnt going to be a small race (goblin seems appropriate).
You could swap the class spell list for something else like the sorcerer list or just give a couple bonus spells known like the tashas subclasses do.

Edit: you can just use an actual ogre ajd make it a sidekick, then he can play whatever he wants.

[sambojin]

Moon druid. At lvl2, you can be a bear with a familiar riding you.

At lvl3 you get a summoned beast (monkey) to ride you. At lvl5 a summoned fey.

Sure, it looks like the PC is being the blaster, with the summon as the master, but the summons do end up being the smart ones.

You can keep scaling it (huge polar bear at lvl6, two attack fey at lvl7, dragon riding an anklosaurus at lvl9, elementals at lvl10, so it shouldn't get too boring. Plenty of fun stuff to do.

(Could also probably do a wildfire druid version of it if you wanted, lower CR wildshapes, but plenty of teleporting and multi-masters if required)

[Dr. Murgunstrum]

Have the character be a Goliath Wizard. Blaster can only act when Master uses their action to direct Blaster.

Rule that all physical ability checks are handled by Blaster, and all mental checks by Master.

Master and Blaster share the same HP, AC, Saves and initiative.

The Goliath provides the tall, muscular, strong mount and then Master can be whatever race they want, but they don’t get the racial benefits per se.

Or you can give them a warrior sidekick, but be aware that this can be a severe power boost at early levels, as pets can juice the action economy.

In no way should you give a level one character a CR2 mount. Even the half-ogre stat block is a pretty juiced pet, though perhaps taxing them a feat might justify it.

[Talionis]

My advice is to reflavor an existing class. Use existing mount rules and just reflavor the mount.

Paladin gets Find Mount and Find Greater Mount. The appearance doesn’t need to change but it grants an upgrade. Artificer maybe the best fit. Ranger works too.

Bard is a full caster can get Find Steed and Find Greater Steed. Lore Bard can have plenty of Buff spells. Lore Bard can talk trash from the back of Blaster.

If you are worried about first few levels buy a stead and reflavor to desired appearance.

Polymorphing your stead to a Giant Ape could be funny. Enlarge/Reduce could have uses.

Consider Lore Bard. The nice thing is that intimidate is a Charisma skill.

[JLandan]

I like sidekick ogre best. It has some advancement. Would be handy on "meat grinder mode". It is kind of powerful though.

Second best: allow the Wizard to learn Find Steed (have him find a scroll, not on the Wiz list, but so what) and re-flavor the horse to be a bipedal generic minor giant, not specifically an ogre, which kind of overpowers.

Call it a "blaster", keeps all the same stats, uses all the same rules for mounted combat, adjust hooves to slams.

Do the same thing with Greater version, if the Wizard comes across it.

[f5anor]

I'm not against a player being a Master Blaster type character. I'm wondering how to make this function, though:

Not sure what is the difficulty here. I believe what you describe is covered by the rules for mounts. Specifically, what you are describing is a controlled mount.

I suggest that you refluff a standard mount e.g. a mastif or a pony and pretend its a riding ogre. You can also offer upgrades to the player such as a warhorse based ogre later on.

For further inspiration you can look at Find Steed and Find Greater Steed.

As long as you use standard mounts, I dont even see any game balance issues.

If you want to offer more advanced mounts from Find Greater Steed, some extra effort would be needed. The character could be a bard using magical secrets. In this case it would still be fully within the rules.

Last but not least, consider "Mounted Combatant". I would say this should be a prerequisite for this build, possibly as part of Custome Lineage.

[Keravath]

I think you would find a full grown ogre to be quite unbalancing as an NPC in a low level party even if the wizard depended on them for mobility.

Personally, I'd go with something else.

However, if everyone has their heart set on having a "ogre" mount then I'd probably homebrew something like the following.

The wizard discovered an ogre foundling during his early travels and has been raising it. It is now an untrained youth ogre (come up with a reduced ogre stat block with CR 1/4 to 1/2 or so). Use the sidekick rules to level the ogre into a full ogre and beyond depending on the level the party eventually reaches. This approach should give you an "ogre" sidekick that won't break the game early on but which becomes a bit more powerful later on so that they remain useful and relevant.