Dwarves rock, Half-orcs suck! - An analysis

[MoogleEmpMog]

And while this mechanical analysis is impressive, do you guys have a bunch of players using l337 Dwarf characters, or have you noticed that the Dwarf character overshadows the others (by virtue of being a Dwarf)

I've played in several campaigns where more players gravitated toward dwarves after seeing the fate of other characters - including one in which, starting with the only dwarf at 1st level, said dwarf was the only character to survive from 1st to 15th level. The human VoP monk made it to 13th before he dropped for the first time, presumably because he was a monk and because his player showed up infrequently.

IMX, saves are the single most important determinant of character value to the party. Damage and hit points are all fine and well, but the ability to save on a 7 against a creature two CRs above the party level is what makes the biggest difference.

Note: I've always played and DMed an extremely high lethality campaign. It's possible that if the DM fudges rolls or uses only "appropriate" CRs, dwarves would be less effective.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I've always played and DMed an extremely high lethality campaign. It's possible that if the DM fudges rolls or uses only "appropriate" CRs, dwarves would be less effective.

Aye, well, there ya go. In your games, a bonus to a save, a bonus to Dex, Con, or Wis, are going to be the most important qualities to have. hp's and AC's fall by the wayside when the critter usually hits anyway and deals 90% of your hp in a single blow...a few extra points of padding either way aren't going to affect it. But on the low axis of saves, where one point either way is a more significant difference, percentage wise, you're going to get people selecting for those saves. Prolly halflings and dwarves and gnomes will have the highest success, and if you don't want that -2 Str, it's dwarves all the way. Humans are okay, the half-elves are a bit iffy, and elves could be a dangerous choice (unless you're playing a Dex-focused elf, with levels in rogue or monk). Half-orcs are probably the riskiest.

It's a difference in play style, so to balance them for your own campaign, certainly nerfing them a bit would be acceptable for you. Kinda like if you were running an Eberron campaign focused on a plague and assassins, altering or forbidding the Warforged might not be a bad idea. So ditch their bonus to saves vs. magic, for instance, or switch the bonus to Con to a bonus to Str, and you'll see a more careful decision. Or, be a little gentler on the PC's, but what fun is that, really?

 

[SSquirrel]

In the games I run or play, we ALWAYS have a halfling thief (except in one game where tournament characters were assigned). Our resident min-maxer assures us that the halfling bonuses are the best deal: +2 dex, +1 Ac, +1 to hit, skill bonuses, etc. Otherwise, we see alot of elves. Some humans. Few half-elves & half-orcs. Even fewer dwarves.

Heh Our group all sort of went from having a halfling thief to an adopted family member halfling wizard, a gnome druid, a dwarf fighter and finally a half orc monk and human cleric. But the cleric is kinda short I recall. We were trying to encourage her to pick a shorter race but it never happened heh. Parties built around style over bonuses are always fun *grin*

Oddly the half orc misses like mad even with a high strength. Our dwarf is our 2nd best fighter...right after the druid's badger *grin* He's freakin NASTY! Esp for a 3rd/4th lvl party.

Hagen

 

[Plane Sailing]

Ummm have you ever played a Rogue?
A Rogue is a skill based class. Int very important for number of skills.
Too answer your question Rogues need INT as does any skill based class.

Half Orc rogues... can sneak around in complete darkness and use their sneak attack in complete darkeness or partial light conditions while their human/elf/halfling/gnome/half-elf friends can't.

Being able to scout a dungeon without needing a light source is tremendous - all other races apart from dwarf have to alert the opposition when scouting in a dungeon.

Even with an INT penalty the standard half-orc rogue gets 7 skill points per level. Plenty to have move silently, hide in shadows, spot, optionally listen, tumble and a couple of other skills of choice maxed out (and nothing says that skills *must* be maxed out).

The half-orc rogue won't be a great spy or con-man, but he will be a fantastic mugger.

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

I assigned 40 points for a +2 to an ability score, and a -40 for a -2 to an ability score. So for all the races, except half-orc, these cancel each other.

I think that there are very good grounds for making a penalty worth less than a benefit. Just look at point buy. If I'm an elf and I want an 18 Dex (say), I purchase a 16 Dex and the +2 racial bonus saves me 6 points! My Con penalty I can purchase up to "no change" for the total cost of 4 points (base 8, -2 racial, +4 points = 10).

Compared to a human under point buy, in optimum differential cases, the attribute bonus is worth +6 points and the penalty is worth -4 points.

In your calculations it might be interesting to make attribute bonuses +30 and attribute penalties -20 and see where that comes out.

Of course, it also might be interesting to rank ability scores by the number of classes that really *want* that ability to be high (i.e. get mechanical bonuses for having it high)

e.g.
Con: everyone!
Str: fighter, barbarian, paladin, ranger, monk
Dex: rogue, ranger, bard, Monk (+wizard, sorcerer as non-armour wearers)
Wis: Cleric, Druid, Monk (+paladin, ranger as demi-casters)
Cha: paladin, sorcerer, bard
Int: Wizard

Thus an overall weighting could be assigned to attribute bonuses or penalties to reflect how many class concepts it affects.

I gave 20 points for low-light vision, and 40 points for darkvision.

I think you undervalue darkvision - it is the single biggest tactical advantage amongst all the racial powers because it allows you to operate freely in an environment that totally shafts all the other races - furthermore, with the "back to the dungeon" idea of WotC it is the environment that you are *most* likely to be playing in according to their research (obviously not necessarily true for Enworlders )

I'd rate this higher than an additional feat - it would raise up the half-orc but it would also raise up the dwarf too.

 

[Berandor]

Is the Half-Orc underpowered? I think there's no question that it is. Aside from the stats (which makes almost, if not all, casters unattractive choices for a half-orc character, and I think Dex is even more important than Str, btw), the half-orc only gets darkvision... and orc blood. Wow.

Now, darkvision is a great boon, and a nice add-on. However, most of the times the adventuring group will not consist only of characters that have darkvision, and most of the times, a light source will still be needed, negating the benefit somewhat. Only when going alone will the benefit come fully into play, and then the half-orc will have to face any dangers by himself.

Now, the half-orc was underpowerd in 3.0, imo, and then is woefully unchanged in the revision, when the half-elf got a much needed power-up and racial weapon proficiencies were doled out - but not to the half-orc, no.

Yes, half-orcs are strong. It's just sad that that's the only thing they can bring to bear.

 

[Darklone]

Dex is more important than strength? Depends, let's make another thread?

I think it has probably been said already... but high point buy systems or 4d6 drop lowest often produce characters where the +2 racial attribute modifier is negligible.

 

[Numion]

In my combat intensive campaigns HO has proved to be much more common character than the Dwarf. This was 3.0, though. I guess most people really didn't like the slow movement.

 

[der_kluge]

that's a pretty big assumption to say that strength is more importan than Con. Especially if I'm playing a sorcerer.

I can see it now:
Fighter: "Why do I have to pay +40 for my +2 to strength, but the sorcerer only has to pay +15 for a boost to his con?"

Structure it according to that scale, and a player choosing to build a race perfect for sorcerer could boost up his cha by 4 or maybe even 6 points if you price it cheap enough.

I don't know about you, but have you ever seen what a high level sorcerer with the right feats and an uber charisma can do?

Way more damage than a fighter ever could, I can tell you that.

 

[Felon]

Really, this is not a problem endemic to just the half-orc. The designers have fairly screwed-up notions about what it's worth giving up just to get an ability score bonus.

For instance, there's a distinct tendency to gravitate towards Dex and Con bonuses with LA +0 races. They don't like giving out Strength or any of the mental attributes. Perhaps they're afraid that, for instance, everyone would make a gnome wizard if a gnome had an Intelligence bonus instead of a Con bonus. That's probably an overreaction though, since a human's package is pretty appealing even in the face of such of a bonus. And the other core races are pretty unappealing comparatively speaking (even the elf, who is supposed to favor the wizard class).

They're also pretty quick to hand out a level adjustment of +1 or more to any race whose ability scores don't "zero-out" in their estimation. A hobgoblin is a good example. All it gets is a bonus to Dex & Con, Darkvision, and a bonus to Move Silently checks. There's precious little there to actually compensate for forfeiting one level's worth of hit points, skill points, base attack bonus, and save bonuses, not to mention delaying the acquisition of class features, feats, and ability score bonuses over the course of levels. To their mind, the race doesn't zero-out and that's that.

And let's not even get started on multiple hit-die humanoid races like bugbears, gnolls, and lizardmen, who get thoroughly shafted. They have to pay for their hit dice with class levels on a 1-for-1 basis, despite the fact that humanoid levels stink on ice compared to class levels. And on top of that, they still have to cough up a level adjustment because their ability scores don't zero-out. Totally farkakte!

As for dwarves, it is pretty obvious that they are the exception that proves the rule. A dwarf not only gets lots and lots of nifty racial features, but its ability score trade-off is hardly balanced. Why they were ramped-up even more in 3.5e is something I will just never understand. The one thing that seemed to warrant an excess of racial features was the slowed movement, and even that disadvantage has largley been ameliorated.

Suffice to say, races in general need a lot of work, and that's one thing I hope they get right come 4e.