Revising the Half-Orc -- a Variant

[haiiro]

The skill bonus cancels out the penalty to charisma for an important skill in orc culture

You mention a penalty to CHA, but there aren't any stat shifts listed in your post. Does your half-orc include stat mods?

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Why is +2 Str balanced against -2 Int and -2 Cha for Half Orcs, but +4 Str balanced against -2 Int, -2 Wis, and -2 Cha for full orcs? Is Wisdom inherently more valuable than Intelligence?

I agree with the Half Orcs' stat adjustment balance, but I think that they are completely screwed for special abilities compared to any core race, and any Monster Manual ECL +0 race I can think of.(except a couple which should be ECL minus)

I would give them FC: Any, to represent that they are half human and share the versatility of that part of their ancestry. They would keep Darkvision and Orc Blood. A +2 Intimidation bonus would compensate for their Charisma penalty (because Intimidation is rightfully Charisma-based) and reflect the brutish instincts inherited from their orcish ancestors. (I would add a similar bonus to full Orcs, which I think should be a PC race as well) Orcs keep FC: Barbarian.

Give Orcs and Half Orcs an immunity to fear effects, and you've effectively balanced them against Elves and Half Elves with their immunity to sleep. Fear effects are more common than sleep effects, but sleep effects are effectively fatal. They're still a little low because of Elves' and Half Elves' bonus against Enchantments, but they're a lot closer to decently balanced.

They have less of a skill bonus, but it's more focused, and their abilities reflect their culture and their image. The skill bonuses for Elves and Half Elves aren't based on a skill they take a penalty in, either.

This makes Orcs and Half Orcs decently balanced as PC races and makes them distinct from each other, as they should be. Half Elf takes over Half Orc's spot as bottom of the barrel PC race, but at second-worst, they were in need of a boost, themselves.

 

[haiiro]

Why is +2 Str balanced against -2 Int and -2 Cha for Half Orcs, but +4 Str balanced against -2 Int, -2 Wis, and -2 Cha for full orcs? Is Wisdom inherently more valuable than Intelligence?

My guess would be that the orc's imbalanced attribute shift (which should have another -2 somewhere, as you say) is compensated for by their light sensitivity.

Give Orcs and Half Orcs an immunity to fear effects, and you've effectively balanced them against Elves and Half Elves with their immunity to sleep. Fear effects are more common than sleep effects, but sleep effects are effectively fatal.

The main difference that I can see between sleep and fear effects is that sleep effects lose their punch once you're through low levels. If memory serves, dragons and other particularly terrible beasties generate fear effects with much higher save DCs, making fear immunity a more powerful ability than sleep immunity, IMO.

Nonetheless, if you leave in the -2 INT, I think adding something along those lines would be just fine (particularly when coupled with "favored class: any," which is a good ability).

This makes Orcs and Half Orcs decently balanced as PC races and makes them distinct from each other, as they should be.

I hadn't thought about the half-orc from that perspective. Without "favored class: any," the only thing differentiating them from full orcs is their attributes and lack of light sensitivity, which really just makes them less orc-y, not different. Interesting.

I do think the favored class versatility loses a bit of oomph when INT and CHA are penalized -- you still won't see many half-orc sorcerers, wizards or bards (or much multiclassing with those classes), and to a lesser extent clerics, rogues and paladins will all feel those stat hits as well. That's one reason I think having barbarian as a favored class makes sense.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Nonetheless, if you leave in the -2 INT, I think adding something along those lines would be just fine (particularly when coupled with "favored class: any," which is a good ability).

I hadn't thought about the half-orc from that perspective. Without "favored class: any," the only thing differentiating them from full orcs is their attributes and lack of light sensitivity, which really just makes them less orc-y, not different. Interesting.

I do think the favored class versatility loses a bit of oomph when INT and CHA are penalized -- you still won't see many half-orc sorcerers, wizards or bards (or much multiclassing with those classes), and to a lesser extent clerics, rogues and paladins will all feel those stat hits as well. That's one reason I think having barbarian as a favored class makes sense.

Well, I got most of the idea from Dragonstar. Orcs are a core race in Dragonstar, but I noticed the designers changed the Orcs' Favored Class to Fighter-- without changing the Half Orc. It irritated me, and also led me to realize how little difference there was between the two races-- a problem 2e had, as well.

Rogue does feel a bit of a bite from the Int penalty, but the Half Orc Fighter/Rogue was one of my favorite archetypes from Second Edition, and I wanted to make it a bit more viable in Third Edition. Also, I think Half Orcs were only stuck with FC: Barbarian because they didn't have Orc to compare to in the PHB. Half Orcs were "the savage race" instead of a hybrid race, like Half Elves.

With no offense intended to the game designers, I don't think they gave the Half Orc as much consideration as the other player races. It seems to have the same afterthought status as it did in Second Edition, where it was first a subrace of Orc in the monster splatbook. (It was identical to full Orcs, except Half Orcs had a Con bonus that full Orcs didn't. )

 

[haiiro]

Korimyr, can you post your version of the D&D orc (as a PC race) for comparison purposes?

I like the idea of making orcs a viable ECL 0 race, but I've always leaned more towards them being ECL +1 (even though the DMG lists them as ECL 0, I believe). I'll have to sit down with the MM and Savage Species later today and see how they look.

 

[Stalker0]

Anyone tinkered with giving halforcs -2 str -2 int instead? As someone pointed out, cha doesn't mean ugly, and I don't think of halforcs as necessarily shy people.

I highly disagree with giving halforcs immunity to fear effects. Immunities are not cultural in nature, they are inherent. Elves are not immune to sleep because they grow up being hit with sleep effects all the time, its because they don't sleep. I don't care how much your culture tries to take out fear from you, when magical fear hits its going to effect you. However, a bonus against fear effects I could see.

 

[haiiro]

Anyone tinkered with giving halforcs -2 str -2 int instead? As someone pointed out, cha doesn't mean ugly, and I don't think of halforcs as necessarily shy people.

+2 STR/-2 INT certainly seems reasonable. I think for the average melee fighter INT is only marginally more important than CHA, and it fits the orcish parentage. Ultimately, I'd say it would depend on what else (if anything) you change about the half-orc.

If you only change the stat shift and nothing else, that seems workable. If you give them FC: any, however, then I'd say having an INT penalty -- something which, IMO, is likely to make it harder for you to be adaptive and versatile -- makes slightly less sense.

From a mechanical standpoint, though, I see no problems with it.

 

[Gez]

What about:

Half-Orcs:

- +2 Str, -2 Int, -2 Wis
- Medium size
- Base speed 30 ft.
- +2 bonus to Intimidate and Survival* checks
- Orc blood
- Darkvision 60 ft.
- Automatic languages: Common and Orc
- Bonus languages: Draconic, Giant, Gnoll, Goblin, and Abyssal
- Favored class: Barbarian

Don't see half-orcs as shy or introverted. However, a bit nutty would fit well. Their wilderness survival ability wouldn't be too affected thanks to the counterbalancing bonus.

* As everyone knows now, Survival == Wilderness Lore

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Something to consider about Wis penalties in general:

Unless you're a spellcasting class or a Monk, you won't have good Will saves. If you also have a penalty to Wisdom, that decreases your Will saves yet more -- and there are a ton of Will Save or (effectively) die effects. So, Wis is generally more important to the Fighter/Barbarian kind of classes than Int or Cha, and arguably as important to Rogues.

 

[Maximillian]

Haiiro: I intended the stats to stay the same, but it seems we've moved on from that post, so, I'll just leave it alone.

Mike Sullivan: You can't talk about "arguably" more important, the answer is in the DMG. Wisdom and Charisma and Intelligence are all equally weighted against strength. It takes two of them to balance it out.

The full-orc is special because it's a monster. It's considered +0 ECL because it has no abilities to speak of. I think that it's more powerful than the half orc, with no discernable drawbacks. Frankly, my suggested variant offers some new "toys" for half-orcs. Things to make them interesting. I think that the future of the half-orc lies fully within the realm of house rules, and there will never be an "official-unofficial half-orc." I'm saddened that the developers at WotC didn't take our complaints (which have been steady since before the rules came out in 2000) seriously with a revision in 3.5.