D&D Homebrew Monster of the Week: Blood Ogre

“What are they saying? I don’t speak Giant.”

“They say they’re going to send us to the arena to fight ‘Golrath the Blood Monger.’”

“Oh… He doesn’t sound very nice…“

“Gee, I wonder why…”

– Two captured adventurers.

Welcome to the realm of Giants, where 9/10 times, the game plan in a fight is to smash, smash again, maybe bash for some extra flavor, and then smash. It’s no surprise that an entire group of monsters built around the idea of “what if a guy was the size of a large house?” all happen to play fairly similarly where they just use a high STR and CON stat to deal out devastating blows and take hits like nobody’s business. So that raises the question, how does one make a giant unique and interesting while still leaning into their simple play style?

Blood Ogres: The Overview.

Ogres are the low level fodder of Giant-kin, clocking in at a measly CR 2. They show up, they hit hard, they die. Typically, an ogre is a good boss for a very low level party of 1-2, but otherwise it has very little interesting features aside from their bulk and high damage. Blood Ogres are a much higher step above their average brethren, using the jewels of congealed blood across their armor for a variety of uses including bonus damage, healing wounds, and reducing damage from incoming attacks.. I imagine Blood Ogres being either right hand men to other stronger Ogres or leading entire war bands themselves. Just like other Ogres, they take no nonsense, don’t back down from a fight, and are incredibly dangerous close-quarters-fighters.

Stats and Abilities:

Just like most other Giants and Ogres, Blood Ogres focus on high STR and CON with lackluster stats across the board. While it’s stats are better than the average Ogre, the Blood Ogre’s other 4 stats are nothing to write home about with it’s next highest stat being a 12 in DEX. With lower mental abilities across the board and despite being much more intelligent than a regular Ogre, it still is an Ogre at the end of the day and still can be rather easily goaded into a trap or quickly succumb to a spell’s effect.

The big focal point is the Blood Ogre’s Blood Jewels skill, as most of its abilities revolve in some form or fashion in tandem with Blood Jewels. When compared to the regular Ogre’s laughable 5 in INT (-3 modifier) and 7 in WIS (-2 modifier), the Blood Ogre seems like a tactical genius to its brethren, and to a degree it is. Regular Ogres will run forward, throwing caution to the wind in the same direction the launch a commoner in. With an 11 in both INT and WIS, Blood Ogres are much more intelligent and perceptive, and can quickly shift from one form of bashing to another. They’re smart, but they’re not geniuses. At the end of the day, they still really only excel in smashing others underfoot, but they have a better idea on who to smash with their fist now.

• Stats and Skills: Boasting no saving throw proficiencies hurts the Blood Ogre a lot less than it initially leads on thanks to Magic Resistance. It’s not an answer to every spell and effect due to the innately lower mental stats, but it can help with balancing that out slightly. Having proficiency in Athletics and Perception allows Blood Ogres to be in the fray and bulldoze through obstacles to close distance while also keeping a semi-sharp eye on others while its fighting in the fray. the proficiency in Intimidation is there more for flavoring because these should be intimidating. I mean come on! It’s a 10-12ft. hulking roided up behemoth of a man that can somehow conjure blood from the gemstones in it’s armor.
• Resistances, Immunities, and Senses: Having no immunities or resistances to speak of does hurt the Blood Ogre a bit, but not to an insane degree. If there is one thing that I could argue for, it would be a resistance to Necrotic damage as it is constantly using blood for its features. Otherwise, everything else is pretty one-to-one to the regular Ogre statblock: 60ft. of Darkvision, 40ft. movement speed. Now granted, regular Ogres can’t speak Common, but again, they have 5 INT. That’s barely sentience for most creatures, and so with having over double the INT score it makes sense for Blood Ogres to be able to speak common in my eyes.

Passive Abilities and Actions:

This is the entire gimmick of the Blood Ogre as almost every other feature it has in it’s arsenal can be enhanced by expending a use from Blood Jewels. I figured 8 would be a good amount to allow the Blood Ogre to be a bit reckless with these, especially it can almost guarantee 1/round of combat by using a reaction. Additionally, a Blood Ogre might choose to fight with much squishier allies such as Goblins to maximize the amount of passively gained charges.

No notes.

Typically, the Regeneration feature works in one of two ways
– A.) The creature regains hit points so long as it has 1 hit point left.
– B.) The creature regains hit points no matter its current hit points. This is balanced by a sentence being tacked on usually stating “If the [ ] takes X or Y damage, this trait doesn’t function at the start of the [ ]’s next turn. The [ ] only dies if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn’t regenerate.”
So, a Blood Ogre’s Regeneration functions like option A, but it has the added benefit of being buffed by Blood Jewels if the Ogre chooses. Now while this could cost a Bonus Action, I figured that because Regeneration never requires any action to function, the optional buff should follow suit as Rules As Written, the Ogre will never be able to buff the hit points gain due to the regenerating hit points happening at the start of its turn, before it has the chance to do anything.

No notes. The Blood Ogre has no other attacks that would be applicable to use in a multiattack.

Typical attack for a typical bruiser. Hit hard and ask questions later. Average of 42 damage without pumping using Blood Jewels, which is not too shabby. Could be bumped a little bit up, but again it’s right along the typically CR 8 damage boundaries.

The ogre can expend 1 Blood Charge to deal an additional 10 (3d6) necrotic damage.

The big nuclear option for a Blood Ogre, something it’s going to use every chance it gets to maximize the damage it can pull off. Same damage as a Fireball spell, which is a nice middle ground. Honestly, might re-flavor this to be a self-centered AoE as it feels more in line with the Ogre running into the fray and causing an explosion on those its focused on rather than trying to take out the back line. After all, would an Ogre of all things be smart enough (even one with advanced intelligence) to target backliners when there are resilient frontliners to trade blows with?

This is the only ability that partially conflicts with Blood Jewels as it requires a reaction to use. I personally imagine, until the Ogre is presented with somebody that can easily chunk its hit points like a Barbarian, Fighter, or Rogue, its going to use its reaction to keep gaining Blood Charges through Blood Jewels. Once there is a threat that is quickly burning through the Ogre’s hit points, its going to start using what it can to minimize the damage it takes.

Revisions:

As I’m finishing this post, I’m leaving somewhat… mixed. On one hand, there’s nothing that blatantly is in need of fixing. On the other, there is just this sense of something missing? Like yeah it has a gimmick through Blood Jewels, but because everything else is dependent on that one feature, it feels like I have somewhat limited myself on its features. It also doesn’t feel that healthy for supposedly being a tougher Ogre, but any Barbarian, Fighter, or Rogue at level 8 will make mincemeat out of these guys. They don’t resist any weapon damage, magical or otherwise. They don’t resist any damage from any other source, and are susceptible to all conditions so even spellcasters can still get an edge on them. They also feel heavily dependent on fodder to aid them, again helping maximize their Blood Jewels refilling, but if they need something fragile, what’s stopping a party from instantly killing half of the fodder with a single Fireball or something similar. This feels like a monster that needs to be revamped from the ground up sadly, though there’s something to be said about someone being their own worst critic. Again, this is a perfectly fine statblock, I just feel like it’s missing that little extra spice to really elevate it.