3.5 Orc/Half-Orc Fix

[cheetobenito]

Half-Orc -

+2 Str, -2 Cha: Strong due to their orc heritage, the abuse they experienced in their youth has left half-orcs reserved.
Humanoid (human, orc)
Medium: As Medium creatures, half-orcs have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Half-orc base land speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision: Half-orcs (and orcs) can see in the dark up to 60 feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight, and half-orcs can function just fine with no light at all.
Orc Blood: For all effects related to race, a half-orc is considered both a human and an orc.
Powerful Build: The physical stature of a half-orc lets him function in many ways as if he were one size category larger. Whenever a half-orc is subject to a size modifier or special size modifier for an opposed check (such as during grapple checks, bull rush attempts, and trip attempts), the half-orc is treated as one size larger if doing so is advantageous to him. A half-orc is also considered to be one size larger when determining whether a creature's special attacks based on size (such as improved grab or swallow whole) can affect him. A half-orc can use weapons designed for a creature one size larger without penalty. However, his space and reach remain those of a creature of his actual size. The benefits of this racial trait stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject's size category.
Automatic Languages: Common and Orc. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Giant, Gnoll, Goblin, and Abyssal
Favored Class: Any. When determining whether a multiclass half-orc takes an experience point penalty, his or her highest-level class does not count.


Orc -

+4 Str,+2 Con -2 Int, -2 Wis, -2 Cha: Incredibly strong and tough, Orcs don't tend to value pursuits of the mind.
Humanoid (orc)
Medium: As Medium creatures, half-orcs have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Darkvision: Orcs can see in the dark up to 60 feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight, and orcs can function just fine with no light at all.
Powerful Build: The physical stature of an orc lets him function in many ways as if he were one size category larger. Whenever an orc is subject to a size modifier or special size modifier for an opposed check (such as during grapple checks, bull rush attempts, and trip attempts), the orc is treated as one size larger if doing so is advantageous to him. An orc is also considered to be one size larger when determining whether a creature's special attacks based on size (such as improved grab or swallow whole) can affect him. An orc can use weapons designed for a creature one size larger without penalty. However, his space and reach remain those of a creature of his actual size. The benefits of this racial trait stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject's size category.
Automatic Languages: Common, Orc. Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Giant, Gnoll, Goblin, Undercommon.
Favored Class: Barbarian. A multiclass orc’s barbarian class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty.

[Celestia]

I feel like these are simple but effective changes. I would definitely play either. Personally, I'd try to give the orc another ability to better differentiate them from the half orc, something that's potentially more flavorful then strong. Maybe Scent to show their more bestial nature?

[liquidformat]

by adding powerful build to the orc and half-orc you effectively make the goliath at la +1 moot point. Most min/maxers already jump at war-orc which is considered at the high end of 0 la base races by most people and you are adding yet another powerful ability on top of that which most likely tips it over the la 0 threshold. If you pull powerful build off both they would be comparable and competitive with other base la 0 races.

[Celestia]

by adding powerful build to the orc and half-orc you effectively make the goliath at la +1 moot point. Most min/maxers already jump at war-orc which is considered at the high end of 0 la base races by most people and you are adding yet another powerful ability on top of that which most likely tips it over the la 0 threshold. If you pull powerful build off both they would be comparable and competitive with other base la 0 races.
Goliaths also have net +4 ability mods, two other traits, and a skill bonus. The orc having powerful build as (essentially) its only trait is perfectly fine.

Also, ability mods and darkvision does not a "competitive" race make. Such an assertion is laughable.

[Arael666]

You do realize your "fix" is just getting the water orc and giving it powerfull build, right?

Also, I don't think a mix between a human and an orc should gain something neither the orc nor the humans have, the half races usually get something from each parent race. A more viable option would be to just give the half orc a bonus feat or bonus skill points.

Ok, I saw the orc as the half-orc fix, my bad. thats what I get for browsing GitP foruns while working

But at least one of my poits still makes sense

[Pleh]

Maybe Scent to show their more bestial nature?

Wouldn't hurt to add a couple race bonuses to skills. Those were never game breaking anyway. I like the idea of +2 Survival, Intimidate, and Sense Motive. Orcs (and half orcs) are accustomed to a predator's life of hunting, fighting, and detecting traps.

[Celestia]

Wouldn't hurt to add a couple race bonuses to skills. Those were never game breaking anyway. I like the idea of +2 Survival, Intimidate, and Sense Motive. Orcs (and half orcs) are accustomed to a predator's life of hunting, fighting, and detecting traps.
Yeah, that's good. I'd try to differentiate them a little more, though, so that they look more like different choices. Maybe Intimidate and Survival for orcs and Intimidate and Sense Motive for half orcs.

[liquidformat]

Goliaths also have net +4 ability mods, two other traits, and a skill bonus. The orc having powerful build as (essentially) its only trait is perfectly fine.

Also, ability mods and darkvision does not a "competitive" race make. Such an assertion is laughable.

So water orc just magically happens to be charops choice for many melee builds by happenstance?

I wasn't saying they should have anything else besides their net 0 ability scores just that powerful build specifically is powerful enough especially at low levels that it really shouldn't be on a +0 la race.

[Kish]

Looks good.

Looks definitely not more powerful than humans. That, not goliath or water orc, should be the comparison for LA.

[Luckmann]

war-orc

Whatnow? Never heard of that.

[Celestia]

So water orc just magically happens to be charops choice for many melee builds by happenstance?

I wasn't saying they should have anything else besides their net 0 ability scores just that powerful build specifically is powerful enough especially at low levels that it really shouldn't be on a +0 la race.
Water orc is not regular orc and has different traits.

Powerful build really is not as strong as you are making it out to be. It gives you a bonus to certain special attacks, most of which you'll rarely use, and a buff to damage so small that it becomes irrelevant by, like, level three. That's all. It's an ability that's nice to have, but it's not going to be the centerpiece of any build.

[Pleh]

Water orc is not regular orc and has different traits.

Powerful build really is not as strong as you are making it out to be. It gives you a bonus to certain special attacks, most of which you'll rarely use, and a buff to damage so small that it becomes irrelevant by, like, level three. That's all. It's an ability that's nice to have, but it's not going to be the centerpiece of any build.

I'm afb, so maybe my memory's crosswired, but I thought half the point of Powerful Build was accessing Oversized Weapons (especially Powerful Build stacking with other size increases) in order to optimize THF.

Point being it contributes to keeping melee damage values relevant with respect to level. How do you improve damage based on multipliers when you hit the multiplier cieling for your level? Grab a bigger stick and increase the damag you're multiplying

[liquidformat]

Whatnow? Never heard of that.

Graphics card is going out on my comp and I am getting 'screen blinks' that should have been water-orc.


Water orc is not regular orc and has different traits.

Powerful build really is not as strong as you are making it out to be. It gives you a bonus to certain special attacks, most of which you'll rarely use, and a buff to damage so small that it becomes irrelevant by, like, level three. That's all. It's an ability that's nice to have, but it's not going to be the centerpiece of any build.

That really depends on party power level, sure in super high power game powerful build might level off by 3rd level but in the average game you are talking closer to 5-10 and compared to any other melee build using base races you will always have a large bonuses comparatively. Furthermore, you would now be making half-orc one of the very best if not the best base race for int based gish, hands down you would go with this half orc or orc for dungeon crasher builds, tripper builds, grappler builds, heck any strength based build is receiving a massive bonus by taking either of these races compared to other base races. No competition I would choose them for just about any melee build that is dumping cha, even then it isn't a horrible choice.

I really don't think you are appreciating the breadth and power change giving a base race powerful build is. You are getting an untyped +4 bonus to every single strength check, with no down side. You are also increasing your damage by quite a bit through at least fifth level. And no saying this is balanced out by enlarge person is a false argument because the orc and half-orc can get that too.

[Buufreak]

Looking at this, I can't help but note how this seems like a mash up of 3.5 orcs and 5e orcs.

[Celestia]

Graphics card is going out on my comp and I am getting 'screen blinks' that should have been water-orc.



That really depends on party power level, sure in super high power game powerful build might level off by 3rd level but in the average game you are talking closer to 5-10 and compared to any other melee build using base races you will always have a large bonuses comparatively. Furthermore, you would now be making half-orc one of the very best if not the best base race for int based gish, hands down you would go with this half orc or orc for dungeon crasher builds, tripper builds, grappler builds, heck any strength based build is receiving a massive bonus by taking either of these races compared to other base races. No competition I would choose them for just about any melee build that is dumping cha, even then it isn't a horrible choice.

I really don't think you are appreciating the breadth and power change giving a base race powerful build is. You are getting an untyped +4 bonus to every single strength check, with no down side. You are also increasing your damage by quite a bit through at least fifth level. And no saying this is balanced out by enlarge person is a false argument because the orc and half-orc can get that too.
The bold is a straight up lie. That's not what powerful build does. It gives you a bonus on opposed checks for special attacks, like grappling and bullrush. It absolutely is not a blanket bonus on strength. If you're trying to break a rope or smash a door or anything else you use strength for powerful build does nothing.

Oversized weapons only increase damage die, so your 2d6 greatsword becomes a 3d6 greatsword, which increases average damage by 3.5. If that remains relevant until level ten, then I'm sorry but you simply don't know how to build melee characters. By level three, your power attack is already doing 6 damage per hit, almost double what your bigger weapon does, and that gap only widens with each passing level. An oversized weapon may be slightly better than weapon specialization, but they still live in the same house.

I in the end, half orc gives you an average damage increase of 5 points per hit and little else. I'm sure there are plenty of good reasons to play other races. Probably the human bonus feat is still better.

[paddyfool]

Perhaps rather than the full powerful build package you could just give some smaller, more specific bonuses along the same lines, eg +2 to bull rush and grapple? The Orc's already getting a +2 to these anyway, so you don't need to go too crazy. Although I also like the survival and intimidate package idea. Maybe room for subraces here, with the latter subrace (feral orc, perhaps) also getting the Scent ability.

[Troacctid]

The bold is a straight up lie. That's not what powerful build does. It gives you a bonus on opposed checks for special attacks, like grappling and bullrush. It absolutely is not a blanket bonus on strength. If you're trying to break a rope or smash a door or anything else you use strength for powerful build does nothing.
Okay, so it's a +4 untyped bonus on all Strength checks that you care about.

[liquidformat]

The bold is a straight up lie. That's not what powerful build does. It gives you a bonus on opposed checks for special attacks, like grappling and bullrush. It absolutely is not a blanket bonus on strength. If you're trying to break a rope or smash a door or anything else you use strength for powerful build does nothing.

Oversized weapons only increase damage die, so your 2d6 greatsword becomes a 3d6 greatsword, which increases average damage by 3.5. If that remains relevant until level ten, then I'm sorry but you simply don't know how to build melee characters. By level three, your power attack is already doing 6 damage per hit, almost double what your bigger weapon does, and that gap only widens with each passing level. An oversized weapon may be slightly better than weapon specialization, but they still live in the same house.

I in the end, half orc gives you an average damage increase of 5 points per hit and little else. I'm sure there are plenty of good reasons to play other races. Probably the human bonus feat is still better.

So out of all the possible strength checks the two you don't get a +4 untyped bonus to are pushing something (which technically isn't a strength check just a function of your strength via carrying capacity) and breaking an item; all other uses of strength checks, pull rush, grapple, trip, gives you a bonus... Ya thanks for that really useful clarification since so many builds are based around breaking your treasure and all...

I said 'bonuses' not damage, bonuses. As in powerful build gives you bonuses over every other base race. Between the bonus to attack maneuvers and the bonus to damage it carries you, Sure the damage bonus drops off relatively quickly but the bonus to your attack maneuvers stay relevant until somewhere in level 5-10.

[Pleh]

I said 'bonuses' not damage, bonuses.

I think that might have been an unreferenced response to me. I commented about oversized weapons dealing better damage getting multiplied.


Oversized weapons only increase damage die, so your 2d6 greatsword becomes a 3d6 greatsword, which increases average damage by 3.5.

Actually, consider Powerful Build with Monkey Grip and Permanent Enlarge Person. This half orc with Powerful Build started with a 3d6 Large Greatsword, picked up Monkey Grip to buy a Huge Greatsword, and got a caster friend to permanency Enlarge Person (which explicitly stacks according to this wording), so our Large Orc is wielding a Gargantuan Greatsword.

I forget how weapon size affects damage. I guess I'm not very good at making melee characters. How much damage is that again?

And remember, just because the effect may be small, that doesn't mean it's not a good pick for optimizers, who get so few nice things going into melee builds that this might not have much in the way of competition.

[liquidformat]

I think that might have been an unreferenced response to me. I commented about oversized weapons dealing better damage getting multiplied.



Actually, consider Powerful Build with Monkey Grip and Permanent Enlarge Person. This half orc with Powerful Build started with a 3d6 Large Greatsword, picked up Monkey Grip to buy a Huge Greatsword, and got a caster friend to permanency Enlarge Person (which explicitly stacks according to this wording), so our Large Orc is wielding a Gargantuan Greatsword.

I forget how weapon size affects damage. I guess I'm not very good at making melee characters. How much damage is that again?

And remember, just because the effect may be small, that doesn't mean it's not a good pick for optimizers, who get so few nice things going into melee builds that this might not have much in the way of competition.

6d6 so ~10.5 damage increase over standard 2d6 greatsword. It would take until level 5ish for you to be able to afford Permanent Enlarge Person so you are pretty much getting a slight jump in damage compared to the average melee person at level 3 and 6 and that is balanced out somewhat by your drop in attack bonus even so it would be a net gain. Also the only two other races I can remember off the top of my head that get powerful build are goliath and redcap neither of which can benefit from enlarge person.

[OgresAreCute]

6d6 so ~10.5 damage increase over standard 2d6 greatsword. It would take until level 5ish for you to be able to afford Permanent Enlarge Person so you are pretty much getting a slight jump in damage compared to the average melee person at level 3 and 6 and that is balanced out somewhat by your drop in attack bonus even so it would be a net gain. Also the only two other races I can remember off the top of my head that get powerful build are goliath and redcap neither of which can benefit from enlarge person.

A 4d6 increase is equal to 14 damage on average, not 10.5 (nitpicking). Half-Giants also get powerful build (but can't be enlarged), and humans with the Jotunbrud feat get powerful build sans weapon size increase.


And remember, just because the effect may be small, that doesn't mean it's not a good pick for optimizers, who get so few nice things going into melee builds that this might not have much in the way of competition.

Not necessarily disagreeing with your point, but if a small bonus is good enough that it beats all other melee options, maybe melee could use some better options. :smallwink:

[Pleh]

Not necessarily disagreeing with your point, but if a small bonus is good enough that it beats all other melee options, maybe melee could use some better options. :smallwink:

Oh for sure, but we're talking about how effective the half orc fix works. It's not meant to be an end all solution to melee problems, just help the half orc do better at it's job, which is being 1 solution to melee problems.

I think powerful build manages to do exactly what it was intended: it brings half orc back up to par without overhauling it.

[liquidformat]

A 4d6 increase is equal to 14 damage on average, not 10.5 (nitpicking). Half-Giants also get powerful build (but can't be enlarged), and humans with the Jotunbrud feat get powerful build sans weapon size increase.

yep I did times 3 rather than 4, simple math some days... I hadn't heard of Jotunbrud before and forgotten about half-giant. Jotunbrud is an interesting partial powerful build ability.

I agree that powerful build does a lot for the orc and half orc my concern is whether it as an ability tips the orc and half-orc into +1 la territory. Specifically in the case of orc I lean towards yes, sure you are net zero on ability mods for the orc but compare the la 0 orc to the la +2 half ogre, the only difference between these two is really that the ogre has +4 NA and natural reach, the ogres +2 str increase over the orc is balanced out by its size adjustment to attack so it does a bit more damage but is slightly less likely to hit. Just looking at the numbers these two seem very similar and the half-ogre has only a slight advantage over the orc. The issue crops up from the difference in LA, at any given level the orc will have better or equal saves, more hp, more skill points, less ac, hit significantly more often and by virtue of hitting more often do more damage, and finally has more iteratives 2/5th of the time. The fact that adding powerful build to a base race makes it more powerful and a better choice across the board than a +2 LA race means you have an issue. Honestly I believe if you want to keep powerful build on the orc you should probably drop the penalty to wis or int and increase la to +1, and maybe adding a few skill bonuses as well. There is also a decent argument that half-ogre should be an la +1 rather than la +2 especially compared to things like mineral warrior and goliath.

This issue isn't as prominent for the half-orc since it doesn't have such a range of ability scores. Lets compare human with Jotunbrud and half-orc. First issue is since Jotunbrud is world specific it raises issues of being accepted for all campaigns where as the half-orc change is not world specific, but homebrew so they balance out ish on this point. Jotunbrud is categorically worse than powerful build so it gets you close to simulating powerful build but not quite there. Due to half-orcs strength bonus it will always hit more often and due more damage than a human created for the same build (same class, same stat point allocation, same feats). Whereas, the human will always have slightly more skill points for the same build. Over all the half-orc change actually seems to compare fairly evenly with a human. Like normal due to the extra skills and feat human is a bit more versatile whereas half-orc is a better beat stick. Dropping the int penalty makes the half-orc a more versatile and viable choice for many builds such as gishes it previously wasn't even considered for. I think this actually might be good as is, adding further bonuses would throw it out of wack with human as a comparison point.

[Nifft]

Orc - NPC only, no Water Orcs at all.

Half-Orc - Darkvision, +2 Str, no ability malus, "For abilities and effects that depend on race, you are either Orc or Human, whichever would be more beneficial to you."

Boring, but seems pretty reasonable.