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<blockquote data-quote="Lizard" data-source="post: 4212082" data-attributes="member: 1054">Sigh.I am trying to overcome grognardism, on the grounds that when I see the same behavior in others, it irks me, and since hypocrisy is the only sin left in our society, I ought to try to avoid it. So I read the &quot;why we did it&quot; bit for the orc article (and tried not to scream at the authors &quot;You DID notice MMIV ended up on everyone's 'worst 3x book' lists, right?&quot;), and endeavored to keep an open mind.Sigh again.First off, what's with no 1st level orcs? Dammit, YOU FIGHT ORCS AT FIRST LEVEL. Sheesh.Second...9th level minions have 1 hit point? (Addendum: I prefer '1 hit point' to 'die when they are hit'. It reduces a lot of rules problems.) Third...fixed damage for minions? Kind of boring, but, meh. I can live with it. I hope there's rules for calculating 'fixed' damage from any weapon, so it's easy to give orc warriors longswords or halberds if you want to.Fourth...minions have no skills? None? Well, it does explain the orc lifestyle.Fifth...why does the Drudge have better armor than the raider? (+4 over reflex vs. +3) You'd think the more elite an orc was, the better armor he'd have. Seems to fit.Sixth...an orc hospital must consist of a bag of rats. &quot;Whack rat till feel better.&quot;Seventh...let's say, Ghu forbid, I *do* want to make my own orcs. I know that's &quot;tedious and dull&quot; and no sane DM wants to actually tinker with worldbuilding, but bear me out. Nothing in the article says &quot;This is what a generic orc is&quot;. There's no clear indicator which powers are &quot;orc powers&quot; 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?Eighth...at least they're chaotic evil. Alignments aren't totally dead.What it boils down to is, I don't see what this system gives me that &quot;Humanoid+levels&quot; didn't. It seems to be more restrictive and more confusing, and if I want to mix &quot;Pre gen&quot; orcs with &quot;custom&quot; orcs, I need, basically, two sets of rules to do it, the &quot;monster&quot; rules and the &quot;pc&quot; rules. That's more retro than I like.Can someone elaborate the advantages for me? What do you see that's superior about this, other than the fact it basically provides you with a &quot;Box of orcs&quot; you can pick pieces out of, if you happen to like the pieces you've been given?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lizard, post: 4212082, member: 1054"] Sigh. I am trying to overcome grognardism, on the grounds that when I see the same behavior in others, it irks me, and since hypocrisy is the only sin left in our society, I ought to try to avoid it. So I read the "why we did it" bit for the orc article (and tried not to scream at the authors "You DID notice MMIV ended up on everyone's 'worst 3x book' lists, right?"), and endeavored to keep an open mind. Sigh again. First off, what's with no 1st level orcs? Dammit, YOU FIGHT ORCS AT FIRST LEVEL. Sheesh. Second...9th level minions have 1 hit point? (Addendum: I prefer '1 hit point' to 'die when they are hit'. It reduces a lot of rules problems.) Third...fixed damage for minions? Kind of boring, but, meh. I can live with it. I hope there's rules for calculating 'fixed' damage from any weapon, so it's easy to give orc warriors longswords or halberds if you want to. Fourth...minions have no skills? None? Well, it does explain the orc lifestyle. Fifth...why does the Drudge have better armor than the raider? (+4 over reflex vs. +3) You'd think the more elite an orc was, the better armor he'd have. Seems to fit. 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? Eighth...at least they're chaotic evil. Alignments aren't totally dead. What it boils down to is, I don't see what this system gives me that "Humanoid+levels" didn't. It seems to be more restrictive and more confusing, and if I want to mix "Pre gen" orcs with "custom" orcs, I need, basically, two sets of rules to do it, the "monster" rules and the "pc" rules. That's more retro than I like. Can someone elaborate the advantages for me? What do you see that's superior about this, other than the fact it basically provides you with a "Box of orcs" you can pick pieces out of, if you happen to like the pieces you've been given? [/QUOTE]

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