D&D (2024) The Half Orc. Are they still needed?

[DND_Reborn]

I was furious when it was removed in 2E for that edition.

You know, since we only used 2E as a hybrid with 1E, I never even noticed half-orc wasn't in 2E! To us, they never left...

If a "swap feature" Half Orc and a full Orc are extremely similiar, you are just making redundant races in a game

They aren't though. The half-orc has half the features of the full orc and half the features of something else.

With 4 features for orc, for instance, there are 6 combinations of two features each (more if you include the weak duplicates option) for the orc-side of a half-orc alone, plus all the combinations of features for all the other races that could constitute the other half of the half-orc.

This makes the vast varieties of half-orc vastly different from orc--hardly "redundant".

Well, to reiterate:

Any way, this is going no where fast, so enjoy your greataxe half-orcs. Frankly, savage attacker is a pretty poor and limiting racial trait IMO, so I am glad someone seems to like it.

Cheers!

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

At least, if those half-x races have their own identity and have descendant that arent just diluted versions their ancestors, I think they should have a name. Being called half-X when your kind is kinda common would be offensive, I think.

 

[Staffan]

The idea of a lineage, as opposed to a race, is you do not have to be "genetically pure" to use those stats.

Thus, half elves are unnecessary. You can still play characters with both elven and human ancestry, but you stat them with whatever lineage best describes what they can do. What you look like has been removed, that is now up to the player.

Personally, I like to have half-orcs and half-elves that are distinct from their parent races. Much like bronze has different properties than either copper or tin, so does the half-orc have properties neither the human nor the orc have. That is something I think is missing from the way Pathfinder handles them (essentially as human sub-races with low-light vision and the ability to take both human and elf/orc feats, but nothing that's distinctly half-elf or half-orc).

I also like how in Eberron, half-elves have developed a culture distinct from elves and humans, and how most half-elves have two half-elf parents. That's not quite the same for half-orcs: rather, most of them come from the Shadow Marches where many clans include both humans, orcs, and half-orcs.

 

[DND_Reborn]

At least, if those half-x races have their own identity and have descendant that arent just diluted versions their ancestors, I think they should have a name. Being called half-X when your kind is kinda common would be offensive, I think.

Also a good point.

This is largely table/world specific IME. I've had (and played in) games where half-orcs had their own identity but also in games where they were always just individuals making their way in the world. So, are half-orcs their own "people" or individuals who mix with either orcs or humans or make it on their own?

(Same for half-elves, of course...)

Personally, I never have imagined either to be common enough to be considered their own "people", but I know others have.

 

[MGibster]

Being called half-X when your kind is kinda common would be offensive, I think.

I hear halflings complain about that all the time! Truthfully I don't. Not unless I'm sitting down or tying my shoes or something.

 

[MGibster]

I also like how in Eberron, half-elves have developed a culture distinct from elves and humans, and how most half-elves have two half-elf parents. That's not quite the same for half-orcs: rather, most of them come from the Shadow Marches where many clans include both humans, orcs, and half-orcs.

I dislike that the most about a half anything race. If we're at the point where they have their own distinct culture and viable population they're not half-anything they're their own thing.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Don't touch people's gnomes, don't touch my half-orc.

I was furious when it was removed in 2E for that edition. Prior to dragonborn, it was my favorite D&D race.

I take it you a big bruiser player then?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

A potential solution is to say that the various “races” are what we would consider separate species, and aren’t compatible breeding partners. Then if you do want any half-and-half races, you specify that they’re sterile crossbreeds like mules, hinnies, ligers, and tyons.

This is an explanation I use for settings where I want the mixed species to exist, but I want them to be relatively rare.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You know, since we only used 2E as a hybrid with 1E, I never even noticed half-orc wasn't in 2E! To us, they never left...

I think a lot of groups did that. I remember someone playing a 1E monk in a 2E campaign back in the day.

 

[James Gasik]

Barbarians and Cavaliers were still allowed in a lot of games I played, even when everyone had bought all the 2e books and used them. Though I had one guy play a Cavalier subclass Paladin and immediately after I banned that version of the class. I knew one guy who sweet talked the DM into letting him play a 1e Ranger.