Revising the Half-Orc -- a Variant

[Viktyr Gehrig]

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.

The fear immunity doesn't need to be cultural, either. Orcs are naturally very aggressive and ferocious, and it's not too far out to suggest that they might be naturally immune to fear.

Maximillian's suggestion about the +2 bonus to saves vs. Poison and Disease could work, and adding a skill bonus to Survival checks make sense. Replacing the fear immunity with those might make a balanced Orc and Half Orc.

My only change to the MM Orc to make the +0 ECL PC Orc is the Immunity to Fear and the Intimidate bonus. From Dragonstar, I remove the ability to change the associated ability to social skills when dealing with other Orcs and change the FC back to Barbarian.

+4 STR, -2 INT, -2 WIS, -2 CHA
Medium Humanoid
Base Speed: 30 feet
Darkvision 60 feet
Light Penalty
Immune to Fear Effects
+2 bonus to Intimidation checks
Auto Languages: Orc and Common. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Elven, Giant, Gnoll, Goblin, and Infernal.
FC: Barbarian.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

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.

Not to be rude, but I don't think that the DMG is the ultimate source from on high. For Fighters and Barbarians, Wisdom is mechanically more important than Charisma, and arguably more important than Intelligence.

 

[Technik4]

Re: Fear

If youre going to give any race a natural bonus (or immunity) to fear, please consider the dragons, the liches, etc. Some things are so beyond the ken of normal races that the first time seeing it you will be afraid, regardless if youre the son of Thog the mighty warchief, or Tom the son of the cobbler.

I would consider giving an immunity against non-magical fear to orcs. I believe this would not help against fear effects from a dragon.

Technik

 

[Ruvion]

This is my version of the much debated half-orc...s/he gets a +2 Str and -2 Int:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45283

 

[EPRock]

Inherent bonus vs fear

Instead of giving an Orc immunity to Fear effects it should be a racial bonus, then if a a low level orc sees a dragon it will still wet his pants.

Orc
+4 Racial bonus to Fear Effects

Half-Orc
+2 Racial bonus to Fear Effects.

 

[redkobold]

The -2 Cha has always seemed problematic to me. Is a half orc genetically less social, even if raised with humans? This seems a little stereotypical and racist. Also, the orc and half-orc seem to me fitting candidates for being a sorcerer. Should they be weaker sorcerers?

Instead of the -2 Cha, I have opted to let characters just have a -2 on Skill Test rolls with Charisma based interpersonal skills with non-orcish blood peoples and those who are not regularly exposed to half bloods. A half-orc in a border wilderland town or a wild port town may have no negative modifiers while in the capital of a human country, he may.

In addition, a -1 to Dex and a -1 to Int or Wis (character's choice) is included to offset the +2 Str.

I like the idea discussed here of the Intimidate bonus. I think that where the -2 on Charisma applies, I will also give the bonus on Intimidate.

 

[DonAdam]

I think a Str/Int tradeoff is most appropriate.

The DMG says that physical stats are worth 2 mental stats, but I don't find that to be true of intelligence. Int is uber haus; remember that a +2 or -2 change is like the human bonus points PLUS the skill modifications.

I would go with dropping the charisma penalty and adding an intimidate bonus (and, something I like from 3.5, weapon familiarity).

 

[Bean 2.0]

consider the mountain orc - 2 to all 3 mental stats for a +4 to str now at first glance this is unbalanced as a +0 ecl race throw in light sensitivity and the darkvision 60, the balance is close to +0 but not quite. Then consider that all mountain orc spellcasters, and rouges are going to be weaker than any other other race leaving, fighter which still gets hit by low mental scroes because of the ever so deadly expertise based feats, so barbarian is the only good way to go and even then my money's on the dwarf barbarian with spiked full-plate and improved grapple. So maybe the problem is the mountain orc base race sucks, and that makes it hard to make a good half-breed.

try looking at the grey and Deep orcs in races of faerun make their half-breeds then come back to the mountain

 

[Azul]

You know, my biggest problem with the half-orc as it stands is that it doesn't fit the role half-orcs supposedly play in orc society - that of the smarter, more skilled, more cunning but physically weaker members of the race.

The current half-orc is just as dumb as an orc (-2 Int) and does not benefit one whit from his human blood in terms of brain power. Oddly, he has the same wisdom as a human (which should make him just as strong willed and wise) but is described as impulsive and violent.

IMHO, half-orcs should have a -2 Wis and -2 Cha penalty rather than a -2 Int and -2 Cha. This would make them smarter than orcs (and thus able to fill in the highly skilled roles in orcish society) , but just as prone to the same kind of rash, violent judgement. Removing their Cha penalty would make them rivals to orcish warlords as tribal leaders, which doesn't seem to quite fit the mold. Half-orcs seem to rule orcish tribes by outsmarting and manipulating the full-blooded orcs, not by being more charismatic (frankly, no one seems to like half-orcs much).

Also, any race that is half-human shouldn't be the absolute worst core race at acquiring skills. Half-orcs should reflect both sides of their heritage, not just be watered down orcs.

 

[haiiro]

Also, any race that is half-human shouldn't be the absolute worst core race at acquiring skills. Half-orcs should reflect both sides of their heritage, not just be watered down orcs.

This is kind of what got me started on thinking about revising the half-orc in the first place. I haven't stopped thinking about it, and since this thread keeps bubbling back to the top I guess other folks haven't either.

I'm still looking for feedback on my current version (which is fairly conservative, and based on Andion Isurand's variant posted in this thread):

Half-Orcs:

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

Again comparing this half-orc to a human, I'm equating the imbalanced stat shift with the bonus feat, darkvision with the skill point, and orc blood and the Intimidate bonus with FC: any. I still like this variant, but I wish the human side showed through in more than the removal of the WIS and INT penalties, STR reduction and lack of light sensitivity.

What do you think?