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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Turanil" data-source="post: 2828780" data-attributes="member: 9646">After having started <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=162453" target="_blank">this thread</a>, I decided to add an orc or hobgoblin PC race to my homebrew. Now I wanted some advice to help me refine this homebrew orc / hobgoblin:Concern: I think that hobgoblins and orcs are redundant and fill the same niche (and in C&C moreso than in D&D). I don't see the need for having two such races together in the campaign. Especially when the MM tells that "hobgoblins are often leaders among tribes of orcs". Besides, orcs directly come from Tolkien, for whom "orc" was just another name for goblins in his stories, not two clearly different races.Hobgoblins/Goblins IMC: In my homebrew, there is a goblinoid empire, where hobgoblins rule and goblins are serfs/slaves. Their society is militaristic and violent, yet fairly organized with infrastructures and so on. So goblinoids are not just primitive tribes of brutish cretins roaming the countryside at random. They have their own lands, with government, citis, etc.My take on Orcs: Orcs are just hobgoblins, but a psychopath or degenerate breed. The thing is that hobgoblin society is a violent one. Children among goblinoids are commonly raised with abuse and brutality. However, this can only produce people who will become either mindless brutes or broken subservient characters. But worse, it also produce a fair number of enraged psychopaths. These characters, after having been so much abused and violented during their childhood, have become hateful reckless rebels within their own society, of which they reject everything. These mad hobgoblins are totally unable to fit in the goblinoid society, and will either have to flee or be eventually executed. "Orc" is in fact an insulting word, in the goblinoid tongue, to designate such dangerous and mindless hobgoblins psychopaths. Being so full of rage, and having survived the harshness of their violent upbringing, orcs tend to look different than normal hobgoblins, more brutish and stronger. However, they were born from hobgoblin parents, and are (racially speaking) but hobgoblins. Now, orcs who haven't been executed while still in their native society, have fled beyond the empire, and often form roaming warbands of their own with no purpose but to go on rampage. Orcs lack discipline and rarely care for their safety (being mad), so they rarely get experience and become fearsome warriors, and tend to die quickly (which accounts for most of them being 1HD only creatures). Orc Racial Traits: based on MM orcs, plus some additional traits.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> +4 Str, -2 Int, -2 Wis, -2 Cha.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Base speed is 30 feet.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Darkvision out to 60 feet.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> <s>Light sensitivity. Orcs are dazzled in bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.</s> (No need for that since they are of the hobgoblin race now.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Automatic language: goblin/hobgoblin; no other language, orcs are illiterate.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Favored class: barbarian.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> [new trait] When speaking to another orc, they add their Str modifier to their Diplomacy, Gather Information, or Intimidate checks.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> [new trait] +1 psychopath-racial bonus to attack and damage rolls against other orcs and goblinoids. Orcs really hate their kin, that bastard race who made them so much suffer.</li> </ul>Hobgoblin Racial Traits: As above except that ability scores adj. is +2 Str and -2 Int; hobgoblins can be literate; none of the new traits. So, what are your comments and suggestions for this take on orcs?</blockquote>

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