D&D (2024) Should 2014 Half Elves and Half Orcs be added to the 2025 SRD?

[Not a Decepticon]

They aren't exactly the same though. Similar in theme but not the same. And when they reached 5e, they diverged. Half orc became the heavy trooper to the orc's shock trooper.

This is such a worthless difference you may as well say there is none, those terms do not even exist in the game. You sound like you're mad roles from 4e have been removed in 2014.

They can dash in any direction. Great for a squishy character to run away. They no longer have savage attacks because it’s inconsistent with the current ethos, and dropping to 1 hp instead of falling is great for low hp characters who are busy running away.

Watch him now say it doesn't count because "they change it and that's wrongbad"

 

[Minigiant]

This is such a worthless difference you may as well say there is none, those terms do not even exist in the game. You sound like you're mad roles from 4e have been removed in 2014.

I didn't mention roles. Others did.

I just said the races weren't the same and that they have aspects that could be retained

Watch him now say it doesn't count because "they change it and that's wrongbad

I'm not the one says "We can only use the problematic lore and weak mechanics for judgement.".

I want the Divinely crafter Super Soldiers lore. Half Orcs as Medieval Adepts Custodes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think I may look for a way to balance that, will make an attempt later


I do have that need. I see something that boils down to "I got this abilities due to my ancestors or contact with something special and think "Why exactly is this limited to on group of people, when such things can happen to anyone?" That's what bugs me.

Well, even more reason for me to put them in "if all special about you is having specific ancestors, that's not really a full playable species" bracket.

You should put them in, if you want them in your game. What's stopping you?

 

[Minigiant]

Which is the point. They are gradually removing features that might make a species better for one class than it is for another, because the ethos is “you can be whatever you want to be.” So savage attacker is out, but bonus action dash is in.

Why not update the feature.

Let a half orc reroll any single damage dice Proficiency times per long rest.

Works for majors warriors and rogues and still matches the spirit of the original.

 

[Minigiant]

Wotc also originally gave them a -2 Int to reinforce the "stupid orc, smarter half-orc" trope..

Which didn't makes sense since they included progs In the monster manual as the smarter orc.

Which goes to my point of them constantly reverting to old school stuff with no rhyme and reason in order to placate old fan that they lost.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You should put them in, if you want them in your game. What's stopping you?

Because as we've seen thousands of times over the past decade(s)... it's not enough to have the game a person wants to play-- they need WotC to agree with them and make the game they want to play. It's always about personal ego.

 

[Mecheon]

I never said half elf and half orc are more deserving than goblin.

I'm just saying contrary to popular belief they have unique mechanics and often to get unique lore. It's just that the community constantly likes to go back to problematic times out of Nostalgia or Money Grubbing which causes them to constantly have problematic lore rather than expanding the non-problematic lore.

How many times has D&D revered back to lore that we now consider problematic?

Instead of taking the kernels of uniqueness in some of these species, we always revert back to the problem times.

They've had 50 years to get unique lore out of "I can mix the chocolate ice cream with the mint and the vanilla" and they've never had it. This isn't community reseting things, this is "The only decent attempt at it has ever been Eberron and that barely touched half orcs at all". When the baseline is that bad and has never been challenged by the official work, its kinda ridiculous to say that the community's resetting it.

Ultimately though, the reason they're noot in the SRD and the PHD is because other races are more intesresting and easy to sell people on. That's the long and short of it. Half Elves are boring when Human and Elf already exists, but other options bring something unique to the table. Mechanics don't mean squat here, what matters is the lore, and they're always going to lose on that because the half races are just mixes of pre-existing races already in the game.

WOTC gave Half Orcs a STr bonus, a melee crit bonus AND an antideath mechanic.

They gave Orcs a STR Bonus and Bonus Action dash.

They designed the two races with natural physical combat roles. It was their limited old school grognard chasing design that caused the ignore the advancement of 3e and 4e and not have it apply to spells at well.

The orc stats were invented whole cloth to justify them being included in a new book selling you orc stats (and probably to quiet the crowd who wanted seperate orc stats). Mechanical differences are arbitary and shouldn't be justification for splitting things into wholly seperate ones.

Also, let's not forget, the original orc stats were so absurdly bad that the vast majority of people out there just let you take half orc stats and be a full orc, because nothing about the half orc stateline doesn't work for full orcs. If they were so different to each other, folks shouldn't have been able to do so. And yet, they did.

 

[Remathilis]

I didn't mention roles. Others did.

I just said the races weren't the same and that they have aspects that could be retained




I'm not the one says "We can only use the problematic lore and weak mechanics for judgement.".

I want the Divinely crafter Super Soldiers lore. Half Orcs as Medieval Adepts Custodes.

That's not a half-orc any more than my feyblood was a half-elf.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Why not update the feature.

Let a half orc reroll any single damage dice Proficiency times per long rest.

Works for majors warriors and rogues and still matches the spirit of the original.

A single die is worthless to casters though. Are you incapable of believing in games with orc wizards?

And it was always a “use a greataxe or suck” ability. Better to cut the crap.

 

[Minigiant]

They've had 50 years to get unique lore out of "I can mix the chocolate ice cream with the mint and the vanilla" and they've never had it. This isn't community reseting things, this is "The only decent attempt at it has ever been Eberron and that barely touched half orcs at all". When the baseline is that bad and has never been challenged by the official work, its kinda ridiculous to say that the community's resetting it

I'm not blaming the community.
I'm bling blaming Wizards.

Like you said they had 50 years to change it but they keep insisting that they have to keep it.

And finally in the 50th years after being dragged kicking and screaming they finally did something. But they just wiped both lores and combined mechanics.

A single die is worthless to casters though. Are you incapable of believing in games with orc wizards?

And it was always a “use a greataxe or suck” ability. Better to cut the crap.

That's on WOTC for making too few d10 and d12 spells

There's ways to make it work if you design it right