Ok so I have a player who wants to play a Half-Giant race (Dreamscarred Press) and while it is a good race +2 Str, +2 Wis, -2 Dex along with Powerful Build and Stomp 1/day He wanted to add something to the other Half.
Basically he wanted to add the Ogrekin or Half-Ogre Template which is a CR +1 and I added the link to the template and race above.
We are starting out at level 5, and this is a Gestalt game so I except higher power characters anyway. But what level should at least one side of his character be?
Half-Giant is playable race and doesn't seem to have a level adjust in PF so if he was just a Half-Giant I would say he can have Class X 5//Class X 5 with no problems but with the Template what would that be?
His reasoning is because Ogrekin has some flavor too it. His mother was a Half-Giant race (Not someone born from a human and giant) and was raped by his father whom he has sworn revenge against. This however does hit him with the races deformities and I will be the one rolling his 1d6 to determine the random deformity he gets.
He also suggested due to Ogrekin Template all NPCs begin with a Diplomacy of Unfriendly for common NPCS and Hostile for anyone with a reason to hate Ogres personally.
I think this is a terrible idea. Basically, he wants to have a +8 Str and +4 Con racial bonus, and be able to use oversized weapons with no penalty.
If he wants to roleplay a half-ogre, let him do that. But I feel like if you give him the template you will regret it, because it's ridiculous.
Well as I said a Gestalt game is always more powerful then a standard games.
I do agree the +8 Str and +4 Con are way powerful. But a -2 Dex, -2 Int, -2 Cha is not quite a lot of the offset.
I was going to give him Fragile to remove the +4 Con bonus.
And I rolled Thick Skin, but I might fudge the roll and give him Oversized Maw so he has a bite attack which might not be used much, or the Metabolism +2 Fort save.
Oversized Maw is probably the strongest option on there. With his MASSIVE strength score, he'll be doing serious damage on the bite and even with a -5 to hit he'll be able to hit with it regularly.
Even in a gestalt game, PCs simply aren't supposed to have that much strength. The only way this is a good idea is if he's the only member of the party that is designed to do damage. Otherwise, he'll just overshadow the other players.
Really the strongest.. not the oversized limb that lets him carry a weapon a size bigger and adds more str? (To be clear that would be HUGE weapons and a +10 str total)
I might go Natural Armor or Fort save then, his Con will make him already have a good Fort save anyway adding a +2 is not too bad.
Total of +5 Natural Armor might be too much though.
Also if I allow this I have to allow the others to take CR 1 Templates too to even them out. I am just asking how this will stack for it.
They are likely going to add Advanced
Well as I said the others are likely going to take the Advanced template which is a +4 to all stats and a +2 to Natural Armor. His would limit him to strictly martial classes, while the others have more options.
Templates are not designed to be taken by PCs. They are not balanced. If you allow templates, you are all-but-certain to end up with a wildly unbalanced party.
I mean, imagine a player taking the Celestial-Blessed template. They could get a 5/day free action (no limit per round) that is save or die (astral deva-blessed) along with +1 on attack and all saves, resist electricity 20, improved uncanny dodge, and +2 to all stats. Or be leonal-blessed and get Pounce, +4 Str and +2 to all other stats, spell-like Cure Serious, along with the +1 on attacks and saves and the electricity resistance.
Unless you have years and years of GMing experience, this campaign is going to end up wildly unbalanced.
Yes because in a game where a Wizard can slaughter gods virtually just by thinking it and create his own demi universe Stats being wildly different is what breaks all rules of balance.
But thanks for the info. goodbye