Knights & Knaves Alehouse

So one of the players in my game lost their character (an elf fighter/magic-user), and the party had him reincarnated by a local magician up to the task. Neutral elf went in so I deemed that all doors were open - including "evil" monsters. It's not as though the spirit adapts to the form that radically, although as noted in the spell's description characters of one extreme won't be reincarnated as a being from the other extreme, so had the character been lawful good I'd have ruled that out.

So, poof, he came back as an ogre. He fights as an 18/00 STR 4th level (4HD) monster, and advances on the fighter chart - assuming anyone can or will train "it".

The party's paladin had a fantastic reaction roll (I want to say it was like 96 or so) and I had decided prior to the roll to subtract 25 from it - and only that little because of the party's growing reputation in the town, so the gendarme was favorably disposed to not put the "thing" to the sword.

What happens later is anyone's guess.

Anyway, he can no longer advance as a magic-user, his CHA is now 7, the high strength as noted, he is stuck with polearms, clubs, swords and axes as his only weapons. He can advance to 8th level, gaining 1d8 hit points per advance.

I think that's all by the book, yes?

At first I thought "Oh great, I gave them too much of an edge" but the new form has 20 hit points (not out of proportion for a 4th level fighter) and an 18/00 STR and...that's it. They have a powerful fourth level fighter with 20 hit points, AC 5 (good luck to them getting him any armor that fits).

Thoughts?

Did something like this way back when we were kids. Whilst exploring my home brewed Tomb of the Lizard King a human magician character found some magical bracers, which turned out to be cursed and polymorphed him into an ogre. Being in the middle of a swamp and not having access to anything that would undo the curse we had him advance as a fighter, worked well from what I recall. I have a niggling feeling that the books do not suggest class advancement for monsters, but rather something more like subchief to chief, maximum hit points per die and so on.

The example given under reincarnation in the Dungeon Masters Guide indicates that (say) a character reincarnated as a badger might acquire three, four or five hit dice and be able to use appropriately sized weapons, etc., so that's the line I'm taking. Reason being, the advancement to subchief, then chief is IMO a training and dominance thing in the ogre hierarchy. The ogre in question who advances to that point does so because he's quicker, more clever, bigger and stronger than other ogres. Also, his sire might well have groomed him to be the chief or subchief. In the case of a reincarnated character they aren't part of the given creature's society and may advance (or be restricted) in terms of personal growth accordingly.

The spell is clearly a way to keep the game going for that PC (so I'd tend to allow them the maximum latitude, with the physical limits of the thing they transform into). I think what you stated is a good call. Though I might allow a periodic save for the PC to see if they can do a little better (hold on to their alignment, keep focused and perhaps able to level higher in fighter in the above example). I might also allow the ogre to become a shaman (I think they are mentioned in the DMG shaman description ?).

thedungeondelver wrote:The example given under reincarnation in the Dungeon Masters Guide indicates that (say) a character reincarnated as a badger might acquire three, four or five hit dice and be able to use appropriately sized weapons, etc.,

Just as a sidebar, would such a character behave as the cat in Shrek? Could it speak?

AxeMental wrote:The spell is clearly a way to keep the game going for that PC (so I'd tend to allow them the maximum latitude, with the physical limits of the thing they transform into). I think what you stated is a good call. Though I might allow a periodic save for the PC to see if they can do a little better (hold on to their alignment, keep focused and perhaps able to level higher in fighter in the above example). I might also allow the ogre to become a shaman (I think they are mentioned in the DMG shaman description ?).

Good point about the shaman. I'll consider this.

TRP wrote:

thedungeondelver wrote:The example given under reincarnation in the Dungeon Masters Guide indicates that (say) a character reincarnated as a badger might acquire three, four or five hit dice and be able to use appropriately sized weapons, etc.,

Just as a sidebar, would such a character behave as the cat in Shrek? Could it speak?

Well, ogres have the capacity for speech so I'd say yes. While I would tend to disallow actual speech from the aforementioned badger character, anyone who could speak with animals (a druid, monk or someone using the appropriate spell or magic item) could converse with a character so transformed.

The character could also try to get polymorphed back to being an elf, which would be permanent.

The interaction between polymorph other and reincarnation is an interesting one. I think, the player would become a "new" elf. He'd look different, have different stats, and could be a different class, probably starting at first level, but would probably have all his memories and personality, with perhaps some residual ogre-ish-ness. (Maybe, instead of being a fighter-mage, he's a fighter-thief, and is Chaotic Neutral instead of True Neutral.)

Depending what level you're at, this might be preferable to clodging together an ogre-class.

Axe already mentioned the shaman option for the ogre pc, which is a good point.

thedungeondelver wrote: The example given under reincarnation in the Dungeon Masters Guide indicates that (say) a character reincarnated as a badger might acquire three, four or five hit dice and be able to use appropriately sized weapons, etc., so that's the line I'm taking. Reason being, the advancement to subchief, then chief is IMO a training and dominance thing in the ogre hierarchy. The ogre in question who advances to that point does so because he's quicker, more clever, bigger and stronger than other ogres. Also, his sire might well have groomed him to be the chief or subchief. In the case of a reincarnated character they aren't part of the given creature's society and may advance (or be restricted) in terms of personal growth accordingly.

Right, the badger example, that is what I was thinking of. As I say, we used a fighter progression, but I would probably be inclined toward something like that now, where the ogre gains in hit dice and advances "as a monster".

rogatny wrote:The character could also try to get polymorphed back to being an elf, which would be permanent.

The interaction between polymorph other and reincarnation is an interesting one. I think, the player would become a "new" elf. He'd look different, have different stats, and could be a different class, probably starting at first level, but would probably have all his memories and personality, with perhaps some residual ogre-ish-ness. (Maybe, instead of being a fighter-mage, he's a fighter-thief, and is Chaotic Neutral instead of True Neutral.)

Depending what level you're at, this might be preferable to clodging together an ogre-class.

Axe already mentioned the shaman option for the ogre pc, which is a good point.

The same magic-user who reincarnated him is quite capable of polymorphing him into an elf again, so, yeah they could definitely do that.

The way I described it is his CHA is now permanently 7 - physically as he is an ogre his body language, gross motor movements etc. are slovenly and crude, as is his speech, due to his physiology. That will stay regardless of whether or not he's polymorphed. As intellect and memory comprise the large components of spirit or soul, I didn't deem that he lost any INT or WIS. STR of course increased to 18/00 - a boon indeed! DEX has been negatively impacted, but not terribly so (I set it at 10; it wasn't exceptional anyway). His Ogre body is fairly hearty, so CON wasn't impacted (there's no CON adjustment for being reincarnated, so no 1-point loss).