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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2009469" data-attributes="member: 1129">Heroes of High Favor: Half OrcsWritten by Benjamin DurbinPublished by Bad Axe Games64 6 x 9 pages$9.95Half Orcs are one of the most under represented classes in the whole of the D20 fantasy system.  First off, like half-elves, they’re not truly a race in and of themselves.  Second off, one of their parent races isn’t a standard player race. There’s not a lot of information you can pull from an orc book to mold your half-orc on.That’s where Benjamin Durbin steps up to the plate.A word of warning first.  This isn’t a book about angst-ridden characters but rather, a book whose main focus is on the barbaric and orc aspect of the half-orc.  There are no weeping orphans of war here but instead, savage tribal aspects to add to any campaign.The book starts off with a brief introduction to the Heroes of High Favor line and why half-orcs favor barbarism.  The simple solution is that it’s the blood.  Of course on the mechanical side, the high strength and low intelligence help push players in that direction too.The book jumps right into the game mechanics starting with feats.  Benjamin introduces the half-orc and rage feats.  One example of a half half-orc feat is Craft Savage Magics, which combines several item creation feats (Craft Wondrous Items, Craft Magical Arms and Armor) but relies on the remains of monsters slain.  This idea ties into the skills latter in the book.  Another half-orc feat that’s also a rage feat is Extra Orcish Raging where the character can rage more times per day.  For rage feats, things like Boar’s Hide, give the character the ability to ‘spend’ another daily rage to get damage reduction, or Focused Rage, which ‘spends’ another rage and grants the user Improved Critical with his weapon.The feats add depth to the barbarian and the idea of ‘spending’ daily rages for special effects makes for some truly intense characters who can be walking whirlwinds of death, but only when in the middle of a rage.  It also helps equalize the rage ability to the turning ability of a cleric, who with feat selection can do numerous things instead of turn undead.  I can already see DMs lining up the small fry to get the player to use up his rages to insure that his main baddie isn’t chopped to bits by a half orc.One of the feats, Tribal Focus/Totem Focus, gets a separate section.  A half orc that takes this feat at first level is dedicated to following a chain of feats and gains a bonus to his skills when he takes a feat in the list. For example, the Wyvern has Berserk Rage, Weapon Focus (spear, any), and Wyvern’s Roar.  When he takes one of these feats, he gains a +1 bonus that he can apply to one skill from a list.  When he takes another one, another +1 bonus can be stacked to that same skill, or applied to a different skill from the list.  It’s a useful way of rewarding role-playing and can provide the GM some quick ideas when they want to emulate Warhammer with the more savage orcs therein. Chapter Three, Skills, provides information that players and GMs can use to customize the savage or wild aspect of the half-orc barbarians.  For example, skills like Craft Rope, Savage Weapons and Savage Armor, allow bones, stones, and wood to be used.  Such items aren’t as good, but creation times aren’t as long either.  Even better is the fact that there’s no raw material cost.More interesting to me at least, is the section on Handle Animal.  Now this goes into crossbreeding different creatures and while I don’t know many players who’ll get into this aspect, I know that it makes great ideas ferment to the top of my brain.  There are DCs listed for cross breeding and handling animals, beasts and magical beasts, as well as the results of such breedings in terms of how many powers are gained and what strength of breed was produced from the coupling.  I’m thinking I may have to throw together a few displacer beasts griffins or something along those lines to torture my party with.Intimidate gets a new use that may prove a little too powerful for some DMs.   The player makes a DC check against 15 + the target’s level and depending on his success, can cause anything from shaken to paniciked results.  Mind you it’s highly unlikely that panic will result, but the fact that a skill can do something without a saving throw to resist it is overpowered.The expanded rules for Wilderness Lore will come in very handy for those GMs who’ve always wondered what’s theDC for preserving meats and hides and how to harvest poison, and those with the feats to do so, can harvest components.Chapter Four gets us into Prestige Classes and like Dwarves, has ten classes, one for each core class as combined with the barbarian.  Each class-combo has background information, role in half-orc society, role in adventuring party, and how to play the character by multi-classing, and then the 10 level prestige class.  Now me, I’m thinking that Benjamin plays a little Warhammer because some elements of that campaign world have crept through certain ideas here.  Take for example the Barbarian-Sorcerer, the Wyrd.  This character becomes empowered by the rage of those around him but the rage can actually damage the caster if he can’t release the power of his brethren.  The similarities here are with the Waaagh! Magic that the Greenskins utilize.  It would also seem he takes a page from Skaven (that’s rat men to the uninitiated) with the Barbarian-Druid, the Moulder.  These strange beings are masters are cross-breeding animals and can even absorb animals to take some of their traits.My personal favorites though are the Coal-Tongue Raver and the Dire Stalker.  The Coal-Tongue Raver is the Barbarian-Rogue and is a master of poison.  This hails back in some way to 1st edition AD&D where half-orcs could be assassins but takes it much further with the half-orc becoming addicted to poisons and the poisons having strange effects on the character’s body like making his blood poisonous.  The Dire Stalker, the Barbarian-Ranger, is not only a dangerous combo from the core class side, but gains more favored enemies, and a totem focus.  Even better is the Grim Feast ability, where he can devour the heart of a favored enemy and gain bonuses dependant on the enemy’s CR.Chapter Four Closes off with three quick tips for role playing a barbarian and some more tips for showcasing your half-orc nature.  I’m particularly fond of the defining fighting styles of all power attack, all the time, and rage on sight.  These tips should help new players get into the mood.Andrew Hale provides the internal art and his skill has grown since the first book.  However, I don’t like his take on the half-orc.  For some reason, many of the illustrations have these funky looking horns growing from the back of their heads.  Text density is fair with good use of white space in most cases.  A few of the illustrations are so huge that with the smaller format, there’s hardly any text on the page.The book suffers a little in the heavy orc flavor too.  Because this is a player’s book, and a player’s book that focuses on crunch, there’s little material on role playing a half orc or how the half-orc’s upbringing may result in different styles of characters entirely.  It’ll be interesting to see how the half-elf, a half-breed with no favored class is written up.For myself, I’ll be adding several bits (prestige classes) and pieces (cross breed guardians) right away to several tribes.  Players might not get as much use due to the orc tie ins for the Prestige Classes, but the feats and skills, especially the wilderness lore, are useable right away.If you’re looking for in depth analysis of their motivations, move on but if you find that your barbarian half-orc needs just that extra bit of burning rage at the end of the day, Heroes of High Favor: Half Orcs is for you.</blockquote>

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