The Whole Half-Ogre

These are ideas for playing a Half Ogre in Castles & Crusades, rather than come up with a new approach what is presented here is based upon the articles by Gary Gygax and Roger Moore published in Dragon Magazine issues 29 and 73 respectively.

The Whole Half-Ogre

Half-ogres may become Fighters, Clerics, or Rogues. Fighter/Clerics are the only Multi Class options available to Half Ogre player characters.

Half-ogres can advance to an unlimited level as Fighters or 5th level as Clerics or Rogues.

In addition to learning common, ogrish, orcish, and troll tongues if raised by their ogre parent, half-ogres may learn one additional language apart from common if raised by a non-ogre parent.

Half-ogres range from 7ft to 8ft in height (80 + 4d4 inches) and weigh between 315 and 425 pounds (305 + 10d12). Skin colour and hair colour is variable but tends to be brown, greyish, black, dull yellow (skin only) or one of the above with a slight grey-green hue. Most half-ogres have human-like eyes, though about 1 in 5 have the white pupil’s common to ogre kind.

The initial age of a half-ogre when his or her adventuring career begins is 15 + 1d4 years for fighters, 20 + 1d4 years for clerics, and 24 years for fighter/clerics. An aging table for half-ogres appears below -

Young Adult	12-18 Years
Maturity	19-40 Years
Middle Age	41-80 Years
Old Age	81-110 Years
Venerable	111-140 Years

Alignment for half ogre player characters is a touchy subject, as they 'lean' towards evil alignments - since most adventuring groups are full of paladins, rangers, knights and evil-hating neutrals - this can be a problem. Though half ogres aren’t generally of good alignments, half ogres may be of any alignment the player desires - however good alignments should be rare.

Like all beings except humans, half-ogres are immune to lycanthropy. On the negative side, half-ogres are never psionic. The alignment tendency toward evil makes the acquisition of henchmen and hirelings difficult. The cost of armour and clothing is high, perhaps two or three times the norm for any other humanoid. Half ogres once slain will stay dead unless raised by a wish or the use of a rod of resurrection (However, poisoning may be reversed using the appropriate spells, as with any other character).

They are too big to ride anything but a huge horse or an elephant, neither of which is readily available or of low cost.

Going deeper into things, there are even more factors working against the half-ogre. Numerous magical items that vary in effect with the user’s weight become less effective when used by a being that weighs an average of 370 pounds. Magical boots, brooms, armour, robes, cloaks, and magical walking or flying steeds either won’t fit, won’t work very well, or won’t work at all for a half ogre. Enterprising DMs may allow the existence of potions of half-ogre control and leave such lying about for discovery by enemies of a half-ogre pc. Certain items will affect a half-ogre as they would a full-blooded ogre.

Half-ogres, whether PC’s or NPC’s, are affected by the Dwarven Expertise ability.

Half-Ogre ability scores

STR	+2
INT	–1
WIS	–
DEX	–1
CON	+2
CHA	–2

In addition, Half Ogres get an extra Prime (this is due to their Human parentage).

Special Characteristics

• Deepvision up to a range of 60 ft.
• The languages of ogres, orcs, and trolls are learned only if the ogre parent is present.
• Two hit dice of the appropriate at 1st level – hit dice progression as normal from 2nd level.
• The base movement rate of a half ogre is 45ft.
• Conspicuous - Half-ogres, due to their larger size, suffer a 2 point penalty to all stealth and sleight of hands checks.