Removing The Stat Penaly on Volo's Guide Orcs

[TheCosmicKid]

If you don't care about stealth, ranged combat farther than 40', using 2handed weapons or using a weapon and a shield, or risk being blinded by a mug of cheap ale, rain, diving, yeah sure, it can get substituted.

I care about keeping up concentration on spirit guardians more.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

There was a lot of D&D history between 1e & 5e.

Which, except for a five-year experimental foray into the tactical board game genre that didn't pay off, mostly looked like 1E and 5E on this front.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So you concede that for most characters, darkvision can be effectively substituted for by the cheapest item on the Adventuring Gear table?

Illuminating an enemy with a torch is actually a very powerful tactic for gaining advantage in ranged combat. Doing that to yourself is silly, so if combat occurs you'd better be prepared to drop that torch immediately.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It's a fair variety of concepts, and some variety in Exploration (depending on stat, background & skill choices), potentially some in Social challenges (missed Mastermind), but in combat, particularly, they're all just pushing out the DPR. There's very little actual flexibility inherent in the small range of capability among those sub-class options in the other two pillars, either, not compared to a 'normal' party with plenty of supernatural resources.

The DM, as always, can make it work, by adding a greater variety of non-magical player options and/or tightly constraining the challenges presented (or depending on the PCs to choose their 'battles' very carefully).

I had in mind mostly the latter. Obviously the campaign would have to be designed with low-magic in mind. E.g. if the DM writes half of his high-level adventures in the expectation that the party will be able to teleport and/or cast Water Breathing, the campaign will fail.

But I can't help but wonder if this might be the easiest kind of campaign to take all the way to 20th level, especially for a novice DM. The game never undergoes a phase change where it suddenly becomes a different game. You can keep using pit traps and cliff walls as interesting challenges all the way up to 20th level. Just use bigger and badder monsters, taller and steeper cliffs, and larger armies. This is pretty much what comics books seem to be all about.

Good catch on Mastermind BTW.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

But anyway, how 'bout them orcs?

 

[Tony Vargas]

But anyway, how 'bout them orcs?

They fugly.

But I can't help but wonder if this might be the easiest kind of campaign to take all the way to 20th level, especially for a novice DM.

Assuming he can keep coming up with adventures & beatable challenges, and hold the group's interest, sure, so much of the potentially-problematic issues that magic traditionally brings are just gone.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

Well not on grapple checks, but the rules are pretty explicit how much weight you can drag and what effect that has on your speed. A Str 20 human can carry 300 lbs, or drag 600 lbs but at 5 ft movement. When carrying or dragging a grappled creature, your movement is halved, so you can move a 300 lb creature 15 ft, or a 600 lb creature 2.5 ft. That effectively limits the trick to 300 lbs, which excludes any number of medium creatures and most large ones.

All irrelevant because weight doesn't factor into pushing/pulling a creature in combat unless maybe they're unconscious and thus a dead weight. Only size matters.

 

[Krachek]

I tend to use in my games more Warcraft and Elder Scrolls based Orcs than the standard D&D ones (i know that in both franchises the orcs started off as closer to classic ones, but i prefer the more known and evolved versions) and was actually pretty disappointed when i read about them having a -2 penalty to int. Since i also feel that stat penalties are a step backwards, i started thinking what would happen if i would just decide to remove the penalty.

It will be a bit time until i get a copy of Volo's Guide to monster so i'm not having a full knowledge of their racials. I remember mentions of the aggressive trait and powerful build, also +2 str. So they are already losing a stat point even without the penalty. Also combat wise they aren't gaining much from int (unless they are wizards, arcane tricksters or eldritch knights). Having possibly better int checks is not a problem for me

So would it be a reasoinable step or am i better off either using the half-orc stats for full orcs or homebrewinga better fitting version for me?

Create a sub race for your setting. Half orc could be a good start.
but even in wow orc mage are an exception. You wont find orc mage in the original wow lore.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

To be fair, Aggressive is pretty darn good. Relentless Endurance and Savage Attack for Aggressive seems like a fair trade.

I don't know. As, say, a Berserker (which is pretty orcish), I can't use Aggressive on rounds that I want to start Raging, nor if I'm using my Frenzy, but Relentless Endurance and Savage Attack are always nice to have.

Aggressive can help a barbarian in those situations where you need extra movement to make an attack at an enemy...but so can throwing a hand axe.

It just seems that it is a pretty bad trade off, before even factoring in the -2 Int (which is probably okay as a trade off for Powerful Build, even if slightly unfavorable).

 

[TheCosmicKid]

but even in wow orc mage are an exception. You wont find orc mage in the original wow lore.

That's a matter of tradition and labeling, not capability. Gul'dan and the other warlocks are easily as intelligent as human mages, and learn their magic through books and study. They're not Charisma casters like in D&D.