(Dragon #73)

By popular demand Roger Moore finishes what Gygax started. Is this power creep? Half-ogres can gain unlimited fighter levels, level 4 as clerics, and can multi-class. Unfortunately, Moore’s article is full of filler.

What does a Half-Ogre get?

• Height and Weight. Makes for a better grappler than the lizardman. Should dominate against humanoid opponents.
• High STR. Half-ogres have a 2-in-6 chance of rolling an 18 STR. Fighters get a +25% bonus to their exceptional STR roll. Getting mature either by roll or multi-classing gives a +1 STR bump making an 18 even more likely. However, Moore’s rolling method feels unsatisfactory. A multi-class half-orc using 4d6dL will get you to 18 more reliably.
• More hp. Half-ogres start with 2 hit dice at level 1, giving fighter half-ogres a significant durability advantage.

The Downside

• Large Size Damage. Half-ogres take damage as a large creature, but most foes won’t wield weapons designed to exploit this.
• Spell failure. With a WIS cap of 12, half-ogre clerics have a 5% spell failure chance, the failure chance increases with lower WIS scores.
• Average Armour Class.  Finding appropriately sized magic armor is impossible. Coupled with a DEX cap of 12, their AC remains average, particularly at higher levels.
• No one likes you. CHA cap of 8 and all races (except half-orcs and humans) hate you.

Why add the race? 

In a mini-campaign I ran years ago, two players chose half-ogre fighter/clerics. At low levels, they were powerhouses, boasting high hit points, exceptional Strength, and cleric spells. However, we stopped before the characters reached higher levels where things might have evened out and the cleric cap would have hurt. Half-ogres are fine if only one is allowed in the party and someone really wants to play a ‘big’ race. On reflection, though, half-orcs fill this role better, making half-ogres redundant.