Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

I am happy there is a healthy discussion on this, and a LOT of valid points.

For the DMs,, I am not trying to start a revolution, but would love to see HOrcs get some kind of love.

For the community, keep the comments rolling in, for or against, I am good either way


Thank you all.

Speaking with the chat, I came to the conclusion for an idea on bring the HOrc power to bear, while not as powerful as HElves, more in line with them.

No bonus stats.
Skilled Feat
Weapon Bonus Feats - Greataxe and Longbow
Keep Bloodied Feat
+1 Fort Save
Self Sufficient Feat.


While not as awesome as the HElves because of the sleep immunity plus more weapon feats and more skill bonuses... I think it is a start.


What do you all think?

Hawke wrote:No bonus stats.

No...half orc should have negative modifier to charisma and intelligence and bonus to strength. I also like the bg bonus to CON...

*shrugs*

Then toss in Scent or something. To balance things out with the -2 int and -2 Charisma... Or give them +1 Str, +1 Con, -1 Int, -1 Cha...

Hawke wrote:*shrugs*

Then toss in Scent or something. To balance things out with the -2 int and -2 Charisma... Or give them +1 Str, +1 Con, -1 Int, -1 Cha...

Any changes need to take into account of what's already there. If you had levelled up a half-orc to level 30, you probably don't want your strength bonus to suddenly vanish as you've likely built around it. Adding a feat, doable. Changing a feat, doable, but its preferred if its improved rather than changed. Changing statistics? No.

Size: Medium

+2 Strength, +1 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma

Favored class: Barbarian. A multiclass half-orc's barbarian class does not count when determining whether he takes an XP penalty. Ferocity runs in a half-orc's veins.

Darkvision - Half-orcs (and orcs) can see in the dark up to 60 feet.

Bloodied - +2 Spot, +2 Initiative.

(New)Self Sufficient - Specifics: This trait grants the character a +2 bonus to the Survival and Heal skills.

(New)Powerful Charge - Specifics: Listed elsewhere on the forums.


That is my latest offering.

Powerful Charge on its own is one of those feats that isn't worth wasting a feat selection on, and given that it affects the charge feat, and the Half Orc racial feat in the Races of Faerun pdf is called Headlong Rush, it seems like the best fit possible, to me.

Self Sufficient likewise, isn't worth a feat selection in the level up screen, but fits the Half Orc background and setting in the lore.

I like that suggestion Atlas. I do not think that would affect balance and add some flavor.

I am going to take this thread a bit literally.
I tend to lean towards H-Orcs being fine as they are; the added blooded feat and con bonus is pretty good. But....
....one pretty big draw back, for playing this race, that has been touched on but maybe not in detail, is the actual racism. Normally I love it, but there are situations where it is a bit too much. It is not just simply shunning but an open straight up hatred- especially among elves and Dwarves - Yeeshh...

These situations just seems so arbitrary, random and sudden that I will honestly wonder if these players are mistaking my character for a grey orc and not a half-orc. The model/image/skins are similar for the two races and in these situation they always refer to me as "Orc" (along with a long string of obscenities and insults). So I stand there a lot of the time wondering if I should send them a tell or something. But, if it turns out they do know the difference, who am I to tell these people not to RP an extreme racist?
-I have already successfully corrected one player, but I am going to assume most folk know the difference between a half-orc and an actual Orc. I mean, it is rare when some folk go to that extreme- I guess I am usually just caught off guard sometimes when it happens.

Even so, my H-Orc gets way more hate then my Teifling, and I think it should be the other way around.

My H-Orc is female and so I think she gets a bit more acceptance then the male H-Orcs. I have had other players tell me of some of the most random out of nowhere pvp requests they get.

I expected most of it, and think it is fun, good clean wholesome RP. But I have been centered out for pvp, been picked on, left out, and forbidden entry into some factions because of this racism ((well I hope its the racism D: )). Its usually, expected, appropriate and relatively harmless but regardless, it has to be looked at as a fairly big racial limitation for the H-Orc race.

So yeah, my grand point here is that this racism makes the race a bit unbalanced- as in harder to play than other races. So maybe there could be some love given, to make up for this-to give them a bit of flare.
Trade in some popularity for style.
I also want to say that it definitely is a fun race to play- and a challenge.

On the other side of out you have the grey orcs that bake cookies and hand then out around the fai fire while everyone holds hands and sings hallelujah...

Seriously though, I would say racism doesn't get rp'd enough in comparison to fr lore. When I've given a tiefling a hard stare or called a half orc orckin or pig lover I get tells thanking me because players want their race choice recognized in character. Half orcs shouldn't be the brunt of (too) many pvp requests, but should certainly receive a *watches x distrustfully* or *frowns and turns away from x, obviously not interested in speaking with her,* now and again...

The tension, body language and physicality of Channing Tatum in this scene of this movie is a good study of how the typical Half Orc would or could move and talk:




And here you have a good depiction of what the rage repressed by a society at odds with the Half Orc would look like:

Tekill wrote:....one pretty big draw back, for playing this race, that has been touched on but maybe not in detail, is the actual racism. Normally I love it, but there are situations where it is a bit too much. It is not just simply shunning but an open straight up hatred- especially among elves and Dwarves - Yeeshh...

I am often amazed out much racism there is against dwarves. It isn't PVPish like it is on my orc but it is definitely prevelant. A large portion of elves, halflings, and humans refuse to take dwarves seriously in any respect and often open with insults. Tieflings on the other hand I have only ever seen maybe 3 - 4 PC's acknowledge that their heritage might be anything less then noble.

I played a character name Balthazar Dungeondelver who I recently deleted whose main RP focus was that he was racist/sexist. Can't say I ever got a single character to join in with his hatred of any race other than orcs and even then he was the only one vocal about it. Simply put players hold Humanism as perhaps a binding rule their characters will always hold onto. Many have said in the past that we play "Champions who are above and beyond simplistic medieval thinking" and while that is to some extent a valid point I must say that some variety would be nice. So next time you roll a character I challenge yall to pick a race (perhaps at random!) which they hate or maybe only distrust them. Have them be very stuck in their ways on this and require more then a few weeks of getting free cookies at the FAI from a grey orc to change their mind.

A har Thar!!!

http://bgtscc.net/viewtopic.php?f=153&t=45799

AlwaysSummer Day wrote: Many have said in the past that we play "Champions who are above and beyond simplistic medieval thinking"

Interesting. I play a character which is above and beyond morality: the end always justifies the means provided you wield enough power that no retaliation is possible (or advisable). The strongest wins and writes his own history, shaping the truth from his throne built upon the skulls of the dead losers. Rules are a protection for the weak, and a hindrance for the strong. Modesty is an excuse for failure.

You get the point. I am sure many more players have characters that, like mine, differ from that kind of psychological profile. It could be that your character type attracted mainly those individuals, though.

So next time you roll a character I challenge yall to pick a race (perhaps at random!) which they hate or maybe only distrust them. Have them be very stuck in their ways on this and require more then a few weeks of getting free cookies at the FAI from a grey orc to change their mind.

Again, I am pretty sure these characters are around. Maybe not prevalent, but there are a healthy number of them . They're probably just less noticeable than your Friendly Orc Grandma baking for humans...

I haven't encountered racism towards my dwarves, but I can see where the general opinion comes from.

When Kraak Helzak was new I had such troubles with our members. There were a few that were prone to fart jokes, over-indulgant ale drinking and yelling "pigs" at every orc or half-orc they saw. It's difficult to deal with since I didn't want to outright say that their comedic roleplay just reflected badly on all of us, as its not my place to correct others, but eventually some of us made all of that wither away by approving everyone else in our roleplay, like being more attentive to other dwarves and just showing our disapproval by ignoring these instances. That kind of roleplay hasn't been in Kraak Helzak for a long while now, I think at least. At worst, it's spotlight hoarders, at best, it's the classic dour and honourable dwarven RP.

To the OP, I made a topic about this in QC.

Karond wrote:Well, one thing that makes the half-orcs at the bottom of the food chain is that every other ECL+0 race gets +-0 with abilities. Like, a dwarf gets +2 in con, -2 cha. Or wood elves get +2 in two abilities, -2 in two others.

This. Add to that Favorite Class of Barbarian (poor for multiclassing, and poor overall IMO) and Half Orc really gets short end of the stick. Especially when compared to races such as Wood Elf with fantastic physical stats and Keen Senses, bonuses to Listen/Spot and couple of immunities to spells.

Or even better - Shield Dwarf - Fighter favored class, +2 to CON (-2 to Charisma), +2 to resistance vs spells and +4 Dodge AC vs Giants (largest critter group on the server).

Invoker wrote: Interesting. I play a character which is above and beyond morality: the end always justifies the means provided you wield enough power that no retaliation is possible (or advisable). The strongest wins and writes his own history, shaping the truth from his throne built upon the skulls of the dead losers. Rules are a protection for the weak, and a hindrance for the strong. Modesty is an excuse for failure.

That is a perfect description of the demented mindset of a character who is Chaotic Evil.

A nihilist, narcissist and sociopath with little or no empathy.

A character whose moral spectrum is so unbalanced that the amount of regard he shows for those around him is not much more than what a normal person would show an Ant.