Thursday, June 4, 2015

Races of Pathfinder: Ogre

Ogre
Ogres are big, dumb, and evil, accused of everything from cannibalism to genocide to incest.  Strong and tough with a 10 foot reach, they make excellent melee characters.  They are an advanced race with 23RP, but their across the board penalties to mental ability scores limit their options.



Racial Traits:
Ability Scores: +4 (+6) Strength, +2 Constitution, +0 (-2) Dexterity, -2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma. The numbers in parenthesis are the correct ability scores, adjusted for size.   By only exceeding in strength and suffering penalties to Dex, Int, and Cha, the Ogre will be great at hitting things and not much else.

Type: Ogres are giants, but humanoids non-the-less.

Size: Ogres are large.  This gives them reach and bonuses to CMB and CMD, but it also gives them some penalties to AC and attack.  Ogres do gain +2 Strength and -2 Dexterity for being large.  The fact that they get to use large weapons bumps size up to a net positive.

Speed: Ogres have a normal, 30 foot move speed.

Improved/Natural Armor: +3 natural armor is absolutely fantastic, and is another reason to choose a melee class.

Reach: Reach is an absolutely fantastic ability.

Darkvision & Low Light Vision: Darkvision is best vision! Low-Light Vision is second best vision, but nice to have.

Classes:
Ogres excel as melee fighters, the simpler the better.  There are large gulfs in potential from rank to rank, and the Ogre's choices easily span from sky-blue to the darkest of reds.
The Fighter, Barbarian, Cavalier, and even the strength based Rogue will all benefit immensely from the the strength, AC, and reach.  The Rogue in particular can grab the Savage Critical feat to apply his sneak attack more often.  The Inquisitor, Ranger and Monk are also able to use the bonuses while not suffering from a penalty to Wisdom.
However, across the board mental ability penalties keep any other class from sky-blue.  In fact, there's quite the gap between those pure or Wisdom based martials and everybody else.
Charisma is just a bit too important to the Cleric and Paladin.  Depending on how you build them, they are either green or blue.
Solidly in green is the strength based Ninja and the Empyreal Sorcerer, for radically different reasons.  The Ninja suffers from a Charisma penalty, and the Wisdom-based Empyreal Sorcerer will still enjoy the extra attack and survivability.
Next, on the cusp, are those who can still enter melee, but suffer immensely from a penalty to their main casting ability.  The Bard and Magus can become competent fighters, but will never reach the same spell casting feats as their buddies from other races.
A melee Oracle is squarely in the orange, suffering a penalty to his spell casting but really loving the extra damage and survivability. 
Then comes a gulf of potential, and then the pure casters: the Sorcerer, Wizard, Witch and Summoner.  These guys gain very little from the Ogre, and suffer from mental penalties.
Finally, there's no reason to play a Gunslinger or bomb-chucking Alchemist.  You suffer penalties all around and won't use your bonuses.

Feats:
Corrupted Flesh: Stench is great.  As long as you expose your friends to it early on in the day, they'll be immune to it for 24 hours.  However, this is going to be annoying in social situations and cities, where you cannot turn it off.  You might get left behind when  the plot moves forward.  From a technical standpoint the DC scales nicely, but there's no indication of the duration, which is somewhat of a problem.  

Corrupted Flesh: Nauseated is a fantastic debuff, and targeting a cone and affecting enemies for 1d6 minutes is amazing.  A must grab if you can put up with Corrupted Flesh.

Gluttonous Gobbler: Hee hee hee.  You probably aren't going to be fighting that many small things, but when you do you can swallow them whole!  Still, it's usually better just to keep attacking.

Nightstalker: If you enjoy sneaking, then Nightstalker is a good choice.  It nets you a +6 to sneaking while in dark areas.  However, at level 10 and above, Skill Focus: Stealth is a better choice, giving you +6 to sneaking at all times.

Ogre Crush: Constrict is a great ability, and improving your unarmed strike damage is nice if you are using your fists.  If you are building a grappler, then this is an absolute must have.

Raging Brute: This is obviously only as good as the rage power you select, and there are a few good rage powers out there.  Not that you can select it multiple times, and that you gain the effects of all selected rage powers while using it.  If you are a fighter and have feats to spare, then this is certainly something to consider.

Savage Critical: It would be possible to make a build around this.  When using Vital Strike or confirming critical hits, you also add your sneak attack.  This is a fantastic way to get Sneak Attack when you wouldn't be able to otherwise.

Vestigial Head: Immunity to 25% of Will saves isn't bad, even though it does sicken you for at least 1d4 rounds.  If your Will save is absolutely abysmal, then take it.  However, if you Will save is pretty good, and you are making about 50% of saves anyway, then take Iron Will for greater effect.

Quick at Hand: This is probably for flavor more than function, but it's still fun.  You can used improvised weapons without penalty.  Very evocative, but probably not worth the few times that you'll be caught weaponless.

2 comments:

  1. I have no idea why you think that ogres have adjusted stats like that.

    ReplyDelete