Elemental Ogres?

Giants in the ttrpg space have an intense connection with the elemental forces of the world around them. Over the years and editions most giants have fluctuated in size leaving me with strange large sized fire and frost giants and now with the newer game editions giants sit on a much larger base size, huge. This makes for a visual and strategic imbalance when placing fire giants and suddenly one of them looks tiny compared to the others. They could be used as a smaller or younger giant, but I came up with a different solution… Elemental Ogres. Most ogres are just piles of hit points, low armor, with one big attack per round. Adding on extra elemental damage, resistance or immunity depending on what level the party is facing them, and an elemental burst when slain. I added a modified description when they appear on the battle field with this mostly applying to fire or frost giant adjacent ogres.

“As the smoke clears away you see a ten foot tall fire wreathed form rising from the crater. Its coal hued skin cracking to reveal the glow of an internal fire. The fire ogre smashes its club on the lip of the crater, sending flames along the edge.” This shows the party that this creature is most likely tied to fire, is larger then them, and its body and weapons might do something different then ogres they encountered in the past.

“Stepping out of the cold tunnels are three tall forms, the icy sheen of their bodies reflecting your torch light. Blue illuminated runes seemingly carved into their bodies release faint trails of frost as they move.” This again gives the party clues as to what these creatures are and what they might be able to expect from them.

Technical stuff: add elemental resistance, so half damage from the element they match, or immunity depending on party level. For the ogres attacks I would add on an extra d6 or d8 of fire or cold damage depending on the ogre type. The kicker, add an elemental burst effect when slain, reflex or dexterity check to resist 3d6 elemental damage in spaces adjacent to ogre, releasing its elemental essence.

Lore stuff: how did the ogres gain this elemental connection? They could gain it by living along side the giants as allies, the giants could have magically infused their smaller kin with elemental energies as weapons of war or as guardians. In my world lore ogres were once rulers of a great kingdom but were struck down and captured by the giants. Ogres appear in many places in my world, many other creatures share the ogre stat block, if I have a larger super goblin or an oversized wolf person, I will just use the stats for an ogre versus coming up with a new creature block.

I play tested this solution at the game stores in the before times and it did not seem to imbalance things. the party was high enough level to give full fire giants a bad day and seeing the party react to exploding ogres was enjoyable, the group adapted well and kept an eye out for ogres with flashing runes the rest of that campaign.

The back row are three huge sized fire giants with three small fire giants in the front row. I will use these smaller giants now as elemental ogres. There is quite the size difference between the models. 

Here we have four huge frost giants with two large sized frost giants in the front right. Again a very noticeable scale difference. 

Thanks for checking this out!

-Rob