Orcs preview

[Lizard]

Overlevelled minions are playing GURPS in D&D!

Can we kill them and take their rulebooks?

 

[Lurks-no-More]

On the "fighting orcs at 1st level" thing, wasn't that kind of a dangerous idea in 3e already? The orc warriors in MM are strong enough to hit fairly often, and do a hellacious amount of damage for a "cannon fodder" critter.

 

[drjones]

A real juicy excerpt, I loved it.

For level 1 characters you can totally have them fight orcs but you will have more interesting fights tactically by going with kobolds or goblins because they go down faster and you can throw more of them with more interesting roles at the players without fear of overwhelming them. Besides, unless they have a lot of leveled variants you will want to use the kobolds at low level since you might not find them much of a challenge once you level up a bit.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I like 'em. The entry is fluffy enough to give some good inspiration, the orcs are heavy hitters with some staying power.

Not sure I'm a huge fan of their link to giants, but that's pretty easy to fix if I find it kind of weak sauce.

Acceptable! I think the humanoids are going to really shine in this edition (though I'm still a little worried about the rest of the critters).

 

[Celebrim]

Hmmmm... some good, some bad.

1) I like the new racial templates. Very flavorful and makes combat more interesting with low level critters.

2) I love the new emphasis on gamist design in terms of what it means in play. These are fun monsters, and I'm starting to lean toward buying the 4e MM just to mine ideas from it.

3) I have mixed feelings about the whole idea of the general population being high level minions. I see the point, and you can find similar ideas in 1st edition (Hickman does this in I3: Pyramid, for example). But I presume that average human townguards/elf warriors/drawf warriors are now level 7-10 minions as well? Are the days of hiring men-at-arms to adventure with you at low levels back? Sure, they are 'red shirts' but they are red-shirts that have very high 'to hit' scores. I wouldn't mind having a half dozen level 9 human minion archers at my back, especially when it came to killing (1 hp) orc soldiers.

4) I think if I were to do 4e, one of my first house rules would be along the lines of 'Minions get 1 hp per level'. It won't matter too much in terms of ability to survive attacks from PC's of comparable level (who will still probably be dropping minions in one hit most of the time), but it does reduce some of the glass jaw silliness of having 1 hp and might reduce the temptation to metagame that knowledge.

6) Never before in the games history have 1st level characters been so far beneath the assumed average power level of other beings in the world. Alot of people touted 4e as making the players heroes from 1st level. Quite the contrary, we see that 1st level PC's are extremely subpar individuals in terms of just about everything. There are whole armies of 9th level characters out there with base to hit scores well above 1st level PC levels. Heroic tier, despite its name and high amount of flash, is really mundane tier in disguise. That's not all bad but it is wierd. Not only are PC's not nearly as skilled in a fight as your average orc minion, but their ability scores are far below those of say average orc chieftains (who look like they start with 3 18's plus several other good scores), and the will never ever be 'elite' in the same fashion that an 'elite' NPC will be. That 8th level Chieftain for example has hp comparable to a 20th level PC. A party of 5 elite NPC's - and it seems the world will never lack for these - is pretty much always going to be more capable in a fight than the PC party is. Never before in the games history has there been quite the oppurtunity for PC's to actually let the cool uber-NPC do the heavy lifting, nor has the game quite as endorsed the concept of uber-PC since the days of the 2nd edition rules for 'Chosen of Mystra'.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Sixth...an orc hospital must consist of a bag of rats. "Whack rat till feel better."

Seventh...let's say, Ghu forbid, I *do* want to make my own orcs. I know that's "tedious and dull" and no sane DM wants to actually tinker with worldbuilding, but bear me out. Nothing in the article says "This is what a generic orc is". There's no clear indicator which powers are "orc powers" all orcs get, and which are pseudo-class powers. (To judge by the drudge, there's nothing which ALL orcs get by default.) There's not even a basic racial profile to use if I want to build an Orc Fighter from scratch. Do I staple levels onto the minion? The raider? I want to make a first level orc warlord who has gathered some drudges into a bandit gang. How?

6. I recall it having been stated for 4e that in order for a power that activates from hitting or killing a target to function, the target must be an actual threat. A bag of rats isn't a threat, so it would not grant an orc any healing.
I suppose that beaten orcs could regain hp by fighting each other, assuming they were legitimately trying to beat each other senseless/dead, but I don't have a problem with that... an orc feeling better after beating another orc to death feels very... orcish.

7. I'm fairly certain that they've stated that there will be a section in either the MM or DMG that explains the math and method behind monster creation. They've also mentioned they'll have rules for scaling creatures up and down in level, and a way to add aspects of a class.

 

[Cadfan]

I like the way the power curve has been rewritten. Characters on average are better than 3e counterparts, but instead of using that power bump to send the players against weird and wacky opponents, regular opponents like kobolds, goblins and orcs have received a boost.

I like the idea of introducing orcs as a threat at around level 4, then rounding off the campaign at about level 10 with a final showdown against the biggest and the best of the orc horde.

 

[Wolfspider]

As for hacking with clubs - obviously, the club design is exception-based.

HA!

 

[Cadfan]

Seventh...let's say, Ghu forbid, I *do* want to make my own orcs. I know that's "tedious and dull" and no sane DM wants to actually tinker with worldbuilding, but bear me out. Nothing in the article says "This is what a generic orc is". There's no clear indicator which powers are "orc powers" all orcs get, and which are pseudo-class powers. (To judge by the drudge, there's nothing which ALL orcs get by default.) There's not even a basic racial profile to use if I want to build an Orc Fighter from scratch. Do I staple levels onto the minion? The raider? I want to make a first level orc warlord who has gathered some drudges into a bandit gang. How?

I definitely understand your concern. There are so many possible ways to build an orc, but if you choose one that's Wrong (tm), you will be shot.

But I presume that average human townguards/elf warriors/drawf warriors are now level 7-10 minions as well?

I believe we've seen stats for a level 3 human guard. I assume there will be a number of human NPC statblocks, just like there are orcs.

4) I think if I were to do 4e, one of my first house rules would be along the lines of 'Minions get 1 hp per level'. It won't matter too much in terms of ability to survive attacks from PC's of comparable level (who will still probably be dropping minions in one hit most of the time), but it does reduce some of the glass jaw silliness of having 1 hp and might reduce the temptation to metagame that knowledge.

I had a similar thought. But I'm only going to bother with it if there are effects in the game which do gamebreaking things like deal 1 point of damage per round to everyone within 30 feet. So far, the lowest damage effect we've seen has been the damage stemming from Cleave, so I haven't seen a problem.

 

[jaelis]

6) Never before in the games history have 1st level characters been so far beneath the assumed average power level of other beings in the world. Alot of people touted 4e as making the players heroes from 1st level. Quite the contrary, we see that 1st level PC's are extremely subpar individuals in terms of just about everything. There are whole armies of 9th level characters out there with base to hit scores well above 1st level PC levels. Heroic tier, despite its name and high amount of flash, is really mundane tier in disguise. That's not all bad but it is wierd. Not only are PC's not nearly as skilled in a fight as your average orc minion, but their ability scores are far below those of say average orc chieftains (who look like they start with 3 18's plus several other good scores), and the will never ever be 'elite' in the same fashion that an 'elite' NPC will be. That 8th level Chieftain for example has hp comparable to a 20th level PC. A party of 5 elite NPC's - and it seems the world will never lack for these - is pretty much always going to be more capable in a fight than the PC party is. Never before in the games history has there been quite the oppurtunity for PC's to actually let the cool uber-NPC do the heavy lifting, nor has the game quite as endorsed the concept of uber-PC since the days of the 2nd edition rules for 'Chosen of Mystra'.

Not sure I get this. Of course NPCs that are more powerful than the PCs will be more powerful than the PCs. An orc warrior minion is generally more powerful than a level 1 PC, but so is, say, a pit fiend. All I really see is that orcs are a lot tougher than they used to be. That doesn't mean that there aren't all kinds of weak NPCs out there to make the PCs feel special.

Also, the orc warriors are evidently designed as level 9 minions, not level 1 soldiers. Even if a level 9 minion and a level 1 soldier a supposed to represent a similar challenge (in terms of XP say), it makes sense to me that they would work differently. Being a non-ignorable mook for a high level party is just a different thing than being a major opponent for a low level party.