Race: Black Orc

[Akroma666]

I would like to offer the formal suggestion of the following race as discussed before:

Description: Standing six feet high and weighing an average of 250 pounds with skin the color of ebony, the black orc, or great orc, is worthy of its name. With rippling muscles and a stare that lacks any friendly emotions, the black orcs sit at the top of the breeds and brook no equals.

Stats: +4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Wis, -4 Cha
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Vision: Darkvision out to 60 feet.
Special Qualities:

Endurance: +4 bonus on saves involving endurance related tests. This stacks with the Endurance feat.

Sunlight Resistance: Black orcs do not suffer the –1 penalty for sunlight or daylight spells.

Poison & Disease Resistance: Immune to all natural poisons and diseases. Saves against supernatural toxins or diseases receive a +4 Fortitude bonus.

Automatic Languages: Orcish.
Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Goblin, Giant, Merchant’s Tongue, Terran, and Undercommon.

Favored Class: Fighter

[7threalm]

I would add -4 intelligence, and favored class barbarian, scent

[Lighters]

ECL +4?

[Akroma666]

We can clearly tone it down, but this is what was in the books supposedly.
I'd drop the charisma and the strength to 2's. Perhaps ECL +1, make it like an earth genasi.

[Atlas]

-

[Flasmix]

Lore wise, black orcs are just mountain orcs who formed their own tribe and paint their skin black.

[Steve]

The Black Orc playable Race was already 99% designed and approved by Staff maybe 2 years ago now.

It just needed a Dev to build it.

[Eclypticon]

We can consider adding mountain orcs.

[Hawke]

We can consider adding mountain orcs.

And add warpaint option to the face, so people can play black orcs if they wish.

Or Sarumon's orcs... whichever.

[Sputnik]

So, our server's black orcs are just mountain orcs *Hawke Edit for obvious reasons*

[Sputnik]

So, our server's black orcs are just mountain orcs that paint their faces black?
This reminds me of certain 19th century minstrel shows


I mentioned this because I was told by an HDM that we could not play black orcs because they are not a playable character race.

Heck, I was even asked to edit an RP post I made because of that.

Now I hear they're just fans of make-up.

Good to know.

[Eclypticon]

It would need a -2 at least to INT. All the casting stats would need to have an offset and -2 INT does that. This would make it balanced enough to be acceptable in my opinion.

[thids]

They were to be defined as a homebrew race, when made into a Player Race.

There is/was a long history of development of the Black Orc since TheVoid started pushing them into greater "existence" on BGTSCC. That history and more related information was simply never shared with the Player Base, on a whole. Tidbits may have leaked out over the years, but since the whole "Black Orc as a Playable Race" issue appeared to have died a slow and painful death in 2014...then, somewhat found resurrection when Luna rediscovered the Orchome files tfunke made, and randomly—it seems—added them to the Server (with little fanfare, and a whole bunch of incomplete design aspects (which I should know, since I was probably the only one around involved/that could remember where the pieces did not fit).

Nonetheless, the Black Orc as a Player Race was irrelevant considering so few Players actually wanted to play any Orc-type monster race, in the last years. But, if that has changed, and further changes related to this issue probably will only come about if Players establish cause to make them happen.

As Maecius said, a Dev would have to put a lot of work into the Black Orcs to make them Player Races, as well, make sure the Northern "lawless lands" support that kind of Player Race, in balance, to what elves, halflings, dwarves, humans, etc. can experience and achieve. Tall order!!

This is a quote from Steve from back in July on playable black orcs, someone who should know plenty about Black Orcs and the development of the race, seeing as he was both a DM and a HDM during their prominence in several plots I think.

Well... that's sloppy to say the least. Significant changes to the setting we play in should be documented openly. I also do not like the fact that someone went about and created a race of supermuta... I mean superorcs just because they didn't like how orcs were portrayed in lore.

And this was my response to his post.

So, my question is, why would we want to encourage this sort of behavior from the past staff members by making their creations into an actual playable race? It sets a dangerous precedent to current and future staff members. One which tells them it's perfectly fine to take a dump all over FR lore. I think I speak for most of the population here when I say that one of the main reasons I'm here is to RP in an authentic Forgotten Realms setting. Or, perhaps a better way to put it is, as authentic as realistically possible. Black Orcs are not a part of that setting. And to be quite honest, I can not possibly understand why one of the several DM teams didn't grab the opportunity with both hands to wipe them out completely when they had the chance. I can remember at least 3 times when Black Orcs were not only in disarray, but all but extinct and would have been easily erased from existence while still making IC sense. Why do the DM's keep holding onto this horrid creation? I understand that it's easy to have an emergency plot device handy, such as the black orc race, when everyone is feeling exhausted and burned out. Throw some black orcs and let the pc's slaughter them or get slaughtered by them. Easy. But surely there are other things, from the actual FR setting, that can fill that purpose...

Furthermore, how does anyone think this is a good idea? This server can't support "civilized races" evil roleplay properly, how do you think it will go when it comes to roleplay of evil monstrous races? And I don't just mean the DM's here, but the server as a whole. Why don't we ask the Kogans, or one of the other 15 orc tribes that were attempted over the years. Longetivity was ~2 months or so.

As much as I personally dislike RP of monstrous races, because I don't feel they contribute to anything nor do I think they can have meaningful stories in any sense whatsoever, having active roaming orcs or other monsters as playable races would help with one thing: It would stop people from frolicking down the Tradeway in their nightgowns.

[Steve]

Well, I never said Black Orcs—either as NPCs or PCs—was a good idea!

TheVoid started it, from out his perspective, and being HDM at the time, his prerogative. I was recruited to help him from the NPC side, and would myself much prefer to keep the Black Orc as NPCs, and as well, remove the Gray Orc from the Server (the UD had Tanurruks, so it would be okay to completely wipe).

But, and this IS a valid but, a good deal of Players clamored for a Monstrous Race to play, and the Black Orc WAS to be an experiment to see if Players could make something of this kind of RP. The real question is whether the Server could handle it...and like Thids correctly points out, BGTSCC can't even "handle" non-monstrous Evil RP.

I think that atm, it is possible with Uruk Lurra in-game and the NPCs there, given it is Server History (whether we like it or not), that at least Half-Orcs have a place to be wild and Orc-y, without the prejudices of civilization. And that is fine—the Server could still wipe the Gray Orc and forget the Black Orc.

That all said, I had a blast playing a Gray Orc in the Orcbloods faction, while it lasted. But any alternative RP will die a quickish death on BGTSCC, unless the DMs are also supporting it.

Players aren't here to play in a vacuum, and rightly so!

[thids]

I didn't point a finger at you, I just took your post to show what the black orcs actually are on bg.