D&D 5E [5E] Half-orc Variant: Arcane Half-Orc

[Xillian]

As I'm adapting my 2e campaign to 5e, I've created a variant of the Half-orc with a fellow DM called the Arcane Half-orc. The intention of this half-orc is to be a half-orc less dominate on the strength side, more on the intellect side. I'd love to get any feedback on balancing:
-------------------------------------

Arcane Half-Orc (variant)

A small faction of half-orcs are born weaker than their standard counterparts. They do however, maintain a connection with some external arcane or mystic being. These half-orcs tend to be smarter, more cunning, and have an aptitude for tapping into the weave.

This variant’s traits replaces the Half-orc’s traits with the following.

Arcane Half-Orc Traits
Your half-orc character has certain traits deriving from your orc ancestry.

Ability Score Increase
Your Intelligence score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.

Age
Half-orcs mature a little faster than humans, reaching adulthood around age 14. They age noticeably faster and rarely live longer than 75 years.

Alignment
Arcane Half-orcs inherit a tendency toward chaos from their orc parents and are not strongly inclined toward good. Half-orcs raised among orcs and willing to live out their lives among them are usually evil.

Size
Arcane Half-orcs are similar to their half-orc counterparts however less bulky, and they range from 5 to well over 6 feet tall. Your size is Medium.

Speed
Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision
Thanks to your orc blood, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Arcane Affinity
You gain proficiency in the Arcana skill.

Feature: Relentless Endurance
When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Feature: Magic Energy Conservation
If the Arcane half-orc is a caster, they have managed to save enough magical energy in his or her daily practices to be able to cast an extra spell every long rest. The half-orc may cast this spell only from the schools of divination, abjuration, or enchantment/charm as these spells use far less energy than most other types.

Languages
You can speak, read, and write Common and Orc. Orc is a harsh, grating language with hard consonants. It has no script of its own but is written in the Dwarvish script.

 

[jaelis]

I can't say this makes a lot of sense to me, unless you've altered the orc race to be fairly different from its usual baseline. I would say that an atypical wizard half orc is one who put his highest score into Int and played a wizard.

But if this makes sense in your campaign, I would mainly just worry about Magic Energy Conservation, that seems much stronger than the Savage Attack ability it replaces. Savage Attack itself is not great and could maybe stand to be improved, but your ability is really strong. Limiting it to a first level spell would be more reasonable, but still quite good.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Looks kind of like a Hobgoblin to me.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

You need to define the Magic-energy conversion feature better. As it stands it could be used to cast a high-level spell - of which casters are usually limited to only one, even at very high levels.

It also does nothing for many classes, which should generally be avoided with racial features unless you have other abilities which support those.
If I had to design something similar, I would tie it into the Relentless endurance feature, and scale it. Something like: "When you use your relentless Endurance feature, and the damage that would have reduced you to 0 was from a spell, you may recharge an expended 1st level spell slot if you have one. The maximum level of the spell slot recharged increases to 2nd level at character level 5, 3rd at character level 11, and 4th at character level 17."
That might still be a bit too powerful, but would be a good basis to start from.

I would have to say that this race looks a little too one-trick: - it is excessively optimised for a single/few classes. Some background on your setting's orcs and why they have such an affinity for the arcane would be cool though, and might help to put this into perspective.

 

[GreenTengu]

You have clearly just designed the race to give you extra abilities and powers for being a wizard. I can't even say this is even a "race" so much as a wishlist pick of abilities that would compliment the Wizard class. There is certainly nothing about this that says "orc" to me.

A well-made race ought to be balanced across multiple classes. Which means if the ability scores tend to really boost one particular class, the racial abilities ought to be things that would be far more valuable to classes that would not be boosted by those abilities scores, especially nice are abilities that would make you feel like you have a level 0 in the class the race seems to specialize in if you are any other class....

Good examples of this are weapon proficiencies in particular beefy classes (any martial class already get proficiency in its best possible weapons) or a cantrip in a class that would obviously tend towards spell-caster (yes, it gives you 1 more cantrip as a spell-caster, but you get enough cantrips anyway and you can only use one a turn-- so getting a bonus one helps a non-caster class a lot more) or getting something akin to a slightly worse version of Cunning Action on a race that would tend towards Rogue.


But when you stack all of the abilities of a "race" toward doing/being only one thing and one thing only like this?

Well, the result is that if someone plays as this race, they are going to be a wizard... AND... if someone is going to play a wizard, they will likely choose this race because it is flatly statistically superior. And that is just bad game design since not every member of this race is supposed to be a wizard nor every wizard a member of this race!

 

[Rossbert]

A small faction of half-orcs are born weaker than their standard counterparts. They do however, maintain a connection with some external arcane or mystic being. These half-orcs tend to be smarter, more cunning, and have an aptitude for tapping into the weave.

Not to pile on here, but this seems to be pretty exactly the definition of a regular old half-Orc sorcerer. So much so that it should almost be in the PHB as an example.

 

[Xillian]

You have clearly just designed the race to give you extra abilities and powers for being a wizard. I can't even say this is even a "race" so much as a wishlist pick of abilities that would compliment the Wizard class. There is certainly nothing about this that says "orc" to me.

It always cracks me up how far people jump to conclusions on the forums or Facebook. In a game where the gods literally change anything at their whim, clearly I've designed a race to give *me* extra abilities and powers as a wizard. The reality is, it's a design I'm working on for a player of mine. We're adapting from 2E to 5E and use a homebrew talent system (similar to feats yet much more diverse). "nothing about this says orc to me", maybe in your world, I can't argue with that. Just like you can't argue it can't make sense in mine. In this case, the player is actually not even playing a wizard, thats the most comedic part about your attempt at lacerating me without cause.

A well-made race ought to be balanced across multiple classes. Which means if the ability scores tend to really boost one particular class, the racial abilities ought to be things that would be far more valuable to classes that would not be boosted by those abilities scores, especially nice are abilities that would make you feel like you have a level 0 in the class the race seems to specialize in if you are any other class....

In general 5e does a great job of homogenizing where everything is equal. This class, while it doesn't balance well to non caster classes, benefits any of the others that do. 66% of the classes out there would benefit. That number also doesn't account for eldritch knights, arcane tricksters, you're up to 83%. Not to mention how easy multiclassing is. Yes, that 11 intellect could easily become a 13 with this class for an option to dip into wizard. I do hear your point here, and it's something I considered. It's more that I'm okay with more than 50% of the classes seeing a skill benefit.

But when you stack all of the abilities of a "race" toward doing/being only one thing and one thing only like this?

Well, the result is that if someone plays as this race, they are going to be a wizard... AND... if someone is going to play a wizard, they will likely choose this race because it is flatly statistically superior. And that is just bad game design since not every member of this race is supposed to be a wizard nor every wizard a member of this race!

Statistically I could argue a scaling breath weapon alone makes a dragonborn statistically best for fighters. Unless you're playing with min/maxers, my experience is players more often than not, do not choose race based on statistical advantage.

All that being said, I don't disagree that there's tuning adjustments to be made, particularly on magical energy conservation. This is why in the beginning I asked for feedback on balancing. It's mostly where I'm focusing my thoughts on this as it stands now.

 

[Rossbert]

I have no idea how this works as a replacement, or even a feature in general.

Channel Magic:
When you hit with an attack, you may spend a hit die to roll that die and add it as force damage to that attack. If the attack affects multiple targets, you only add this extra damage to one of them.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Statistically I could argue a scaling breath weapon alone makes a dragonborn statistically best for fighters.

I'd like to see that argument.

As far as I can tell Dragonborn's Breath weapon is a poor use of an action for a Fighter in most scenarios. It would take a tightly bunched group of enemies for it to be worth it IMHO.

 

[transtemporal]

I think the race is interesting but you could simply replace the word "orc" with "elf" and it would still fit both mechanically and thematically (in fact, more so for elf because Magic Conservation sounds like an ability a fey creature would have). Remember orcs are bred to fight and die in war, that's why orcs have abilities designed around savagery. While its conceivable an arcane variant could arise, orcs aren't going to suddenly value education, writing and scholarly debate as a means to wage war. My guess is they would be sorcerers, not wizards.