The Orc Warlord

[NeoSeraphi]

Now this is what I'm talking about! I picked up the Races of Faerun book to check out the cool dwarf subraces and I skimmed through the racial prestige classes, only to find an orc class based around the Leadership feat? Yes. Absolutely.

The Might Makes Right feat is crazy as hell, and with this class, you can make a barbarian BBEG who will command a horde so large he will say "Call me a CR 1/2 now! I dare you!"

So this thread isn't about optimizing or anything, it's story time! I want to hear any cool anecdotes you guys have from actual playtesting, gaming, or fighting against an orc warlord. It's a pretty unique class (Especially given how little love Leadership received in 3.5, to the point where the designers hid it in the DMG instead of giving it to the players in the PHB)

[Greenish]

(Especially given how little love Leadership received in 3.5, to the point where the designers hid it in the DMG instead of giving it to the players in the PHB)"How little love"? How much love do you think Leadership needs? :smallconfused:

Also, Heroes of Battle.

[Medic!]

Never did the Orc Warlord but I did play an Eye of Gruumsh once, who used his Command the Horde ability to get free drinks at the tavern every time the DM forgot about the ability and put big scary evil orcs in bars.

[NeoSeraphi]

"How little love"? How much love do you think Leadership needs? :smallconfused:

Not much, but then, I didn't think Core Wizard needed any love either. Didn't stop WotC from printing celerity, draconic polymorph, or Abrupt Jaunt.

Or planar shepherd. Seriously, what the hell was that designer thinking? :smalleek:



Also, Heroes of Battle.

I never picked up Heroes of Battle, never actually saw it on any shelves. What, does it have some Leadership support?


Never did the Orc Warlord but I did play an Eye of Gruumsh once, who used his Command the Horde ability to get free drinks at the tavern every time the DM forgot about the ability and put big scary evil orcs in bars.

:smallbiggrin: That is hilarious. Epic use of an otherwise situational ability. :smallcool: Good show, sir.

[Greenish]

Not much, but then, I didn't think Core Wizard needed any love either. Didn't stop WotC from printing celerity, draconic polymorph, or Abrupt Jaunt.

Or planar shepherd. Seriously, what the hell was that designer thinking? :smalleek:Well, there's Thrallherd, which is basically Leadership on drugs, and…


I never picked up Heroes of Battle, never actually saw it on any shelves. What, does it have some Leadership support?It has a whole new category of feats based on Leadership. Like Extra Followers, which doubles the amount of followers you can have.

Also a PrC for commanding said followers.

[ExemplarofAvg]

Splee was neither an Eye of Gruumsh, an Orc Warlord or ever had the Leaderhip feat, yet somehow he still conquered the Orc Tribes of the SouthEastWestern Plains (In reality, all of them lot of open spaces on the map) My DM didn't even realize what was happening until we got near the end of the campaign, Splee would merely fight against the tribe leader (or group leader depending on where the Orcs were) and when it came time to take out the BBEG's castle, he just sent out emissaries to each group. The DM freaked when I showed him that I wrote down each group/tribe that Splee as rule of combat and arete' was the leader of. 17 Tribes, 20 Independent Groups, totalling easily over 1000.

So, Just good roleplay can get that kind of stuff too. (I'll minorly note {because this is Orc focused} he also did this with the elves. He was Half-Elf/Half-Orc. They ended up killing each other a lot, but afterwards the two races ended with an unsteady truce and both sides had to go to an annual treaty council held in Splicity (Splee-City) It's kind of famous in our group.

[NeoSeraphi]

EoA, that is an awesome story. Congratulations to you for beating people up and taking their lands. Out of curiosity...what was your build? Did you have any ranks in Diplomacy or Intimidate, or a particularly high Charisma score, or were you just a fighter being played by a 3.5 veteran?

[ExemplarofAvg]

EoA, that is an awesome story. Congratulations to you for beating people up and taking their lands. Out of curiosity...what was your build? Did you have any ranks in Diplomacy or Intimidate, or a particularly high Charisma score, or were you just a fighter being played by a 3.5 veteran?

Half-Orc/Half-Elf Barbarian, Started Lv 1 Worked up to Lv 20, got bit by a WereBoar at one point, Permanencied Enlarge Person. Played by a first timer. I joined a game that had already been going on for a bit, by the time we stormed the castle I was experienced. The rest of the party was a few levels higher. I am the living embodiment of good roleplaying in any group I play in. I can't build worth much of anything, and as for Diplomacy and Intimidate I had ranks in Intimidate but I think it was more the Wizard and Cleric helping Splee out along with the Paladin's Pre-Battle Healing as well as the Bard's buffs that really cinched the first battle and formed the plan. (Splee had offended the Orc Chief by claiming to be one of the tribe while openly claiming to be both Elf and Orc in equal parts, he got hated a lot)

Now that I'm with a different group and we're doing Pathfinder I really want to play him again, but it was just a great combination of teammates and luck, along with creative thinking. The Vorpal Greataxe he got off the first chief didn't hurt, but only activated I think 4 times in total.

Although after all of that conquering, taking out the Big Bad and whatnot he started taking Fighter Levels, ended up as a Barbarian 20/Fighter 10 (Like I said, not optimized at all.) He specialized in Dual-Wielding Specialized Greatswords called "Stone Rage" It let him burn a Rage per day for an affect equal to an Earthquake of his level. But we were really ridiculous by that point.

[Coidzor]

Well, there's Thrallherd, which is basically Leadership on drugs, and…

It has a whole new category of feats based on Leadership. Like Extra Followers, which doubles the amount of followers you can have.

Also a PrC for commanding said followers.

Doesn't it also contain the rules for volley attacks so that your followers can do something other than hoping for a roll of a nat 20 or having 5% of the number of attacks made by the followers hit?

Some kind of reflex save that scales with number of creatures participating and how many attacks in a round they get, right?

Or am I just thinking of the homebrew fix/upgrade of the mob template (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129179) here on the boards

[Red_Dog]

Or am I just thinking of the homebrew fix/upgrade of the mob template here on the boards

City Scape has good rules for making Mobs... I actually had to nerf it a LOT when I made Dretch's Mob [looooow lvl demon but in packs of say 40... Outsider Hit Dice is too good ^^]. That template also made Raised Skeletons of humans worth... well Raising ^^. They didn't need to be nerfbatted as even when your average NPC is lvl8[homebrew campaign stuff], his skeleton is STILL lvl1.

To NeoSeraphi =>

Have you looked at Warchief? (Miniature Handbook)
What about him as an NPC leader? You can have one at lvl4 minimum and he raises Charisma too to complement potential Leadership feat NPC might have?

I always avoided him because on higher levels damage members take is kind of High... But if there would be a way, say regenerate, or get Deathless Frenzy ^^. Very Orc-sih IMO