Half-orcs and why people think they are/aren't powerful

[Plane Sailing]

And inmy experience, only the rankest newbies (in terms of using point buy), and dedicated spellcasters, buy 18's with the DMG standard scale.

I hope you appreciate the opportunity to extend your knowledge with the additional data I provided then, since my group of players are not rankest anything.

Cheers

 

[Piratecat]

The other is "eat anything." Basically, orcs & half-orcs can consume any as-yet undigested organic material that is not explicitly poisonous or a hardness equal to or greater than wood that expresses mechanically as a reduced difficulty for finding food & water using Survival.

Yoink. I love it. Fantastic flavor without a real power boost.

Incidentally, I sometimes give point buy characters 18s, too. Does that qualify me as a rank newbie?

We give half-orcs their choice of one bonus feat or one bonus skill point per level. It seems to work pretty well.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Our group gives half orcs and half elves extra skill points like humans get. We've still only had a couple half orcs in our games and a few half elves. People just don't like going half way. People like playing full blooded races. I allow PCs to play as full blooded orcs in my game if they want (we had one).

 

[Bauglir]

So. Take all the numeric bonusses otehrthan that to Constitution ... and cut 'em in half. If the halfling's flat +1 to all saves isn't a problem, then a +1 to spell- and poison-saves shouldn't be, either. ^_^

Sounds perfect ^_^

+2 stability bonus, +2 AC vs giants, +1 to saves, +1 vs goblinoids, darkvision, racial weapon and movement rate in heavy armour.

Looks much more balanced to me.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I like the route taken with some of the new Eberron races - not giving an ability bonus but giving skill bonuses to reinforce certain stereotypes.

If a player IMC wanted to play a half-orc I would consider allowing him a +2 bonus to intimidation to offset the CHA penalty and add a little bit.

FWIW I've seen players have more fun with half-orcs than other races because it gave them a tremendous excuse for "hamming up" the role-playing.

Thinking back over the last few years the majority of PC's have been human, then elf, then a few dwarfs, then half-orcs. I haven't seen any halflings, gnomes or half-elves yet.

 

[jarlaxlecq]

I just use a wood elf, +2 str, -2 Int. Fav Class Ranger. It works for me