3.5 Shifter Orcs

[Pleh]

Creating some stuff for custom campaign setting. I had an idea for Orcs to have this particular origin and flavor. When I did some research, I found it was very close to Shifters from Ebberon. I had the idea of kind of merging the races (Shifter and Half Orc already have close to the same stats) so they'd have Half Orc Attributes and Darkvision, but keep the Shifter's titular Shift ability.

There's a slight narrative shift as well, where these will be considered true orcs, not half blood. The setting views orcs in more of a primitive beast folk light, so culturally, they are shifters from Ebberon.

I'm also playing around with an idea for a harrowing ritual that upgrades them to using Orc stats (increasing Str to +4 and decreasing Wis to -2), awakening the primal rage inside themselves and allowing them to fully Wild Shape instead of Shifting. The more rural and traditional orcs view the ritual as a honorable demonstration of resilience and fortitude, while those who have embraced civilized society with humans and elves feel they are better off leaving the brutal practice behind.

Very rough draft early concepts. Thoughts?

[SquidFighter]

Sounds cool !

Maybe you could make the actual shifting capability is somewhat rare and those with the shift be a specific caste, or clan, or having religious significance within the larger ''Half-Orc'' community. They could be the King's Kin or some such, or only be the religious caste, tapping in the energy of ''Ancestral Spirits'' and preserving the naturalist tradition of the clans of old.

This makes for a great conflict between tradition and progress, I think.

[Mr Adventurer]

EDIT: Forgot to say, this idea sounds great, I love it.

Full Wild Shape feels a bit too 'natural' for a fusion beast race, to me. Have you thought about looking at the alternative class feature from the PHB2? A bit less powerful but I think makes more sense with the Shifter aesthetic.

[Uncle Pine]

I like it.

Shifters and half-orcs are similar enough stat-wise that, while technically stronger, a breed that combines the best parts of both races (darkvision and shifting) shouldn't warrant any level adjustment.
Give some thoughts to the various racial options the shifter half-orcs will have access to: would a character be able to select both shifter substitution levels and half-orc ones? Changelings set a precedent for mix-and-matching substitution levels and not causing a huge mess, but you may want to cherry pick and make available only the substitution levels that make sense with the kind of mental image you have for this new race. Same goes for racial prestige classes, feats, and so on.
I'd look into Half-Orc Paragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/racialParagonClasses.htm#halfOrcParagon) or take inspiration from those described in Savage Species for the awakening ritual, but I'm suspicious about the upgrade from shifting to wild shape for a few reasons: for starters, wild shape is in itself quite a powerful ability, to the point that even the template that only grants a limited version of it (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20050209a) is frowned upon more often than not. Secondly, while a shifter who decided to embrace the wilderness of his heritage by taking the druid class and maybe even several shifter feats could both wild shape and shift at the same time, a shifter who loses access to his shifting by "upgrading" to wild shape could find himself losing the main prerequisite necessary to access some of his feats, prestige class abilities, etc. Therefore, I find wild shape best unlocked via class levels - perhaps the ritual could grant one or maybe even two (depending on the cost) shifter feats instead?

[Pleh]

I do like me some political controversy in my games.

Though as a set up for a character option, I'd tend away from suggesting players sacrifice mechanical utility for only roleplay benefit. That was more my logic behind the Amplification Ritual (working title), so they have that roleplay for political posturing in their own community, but there's a choice to be made between amounts of mechanical advantage and how much of the "ostracized orc" stereotype they want for their character. Clearly, the less they lean into ancient customs and brutal rituals, the more they'll be accepted as basically human in civil society. If they go full Orc Smash, they get a little more oomph out of the character and revel in being a rebel.

Edit: got ninja'd by a couple posts. Definitely a lot to look into. The Wild Shape idea was definitely the least refined, but I was thinking it made most sense that, like the Shift ability, it gets locked into one form. Whatever the bonus they get from shifting informs what they might wild shape into.

Superedit: this also might give rise to separate Orc tribes, based on which branch of lycanthropy they were closest related to.

But even then, it was an idea that it would be cool for the Amplification Ritual to do more than make you stronger and dumber.

[frogglesmash]

Considering shifting only allows you to gain the traits of one specific animal, it might make more sense for the amplification ritual to grant an ability similar to a lycanthrope's alternate form ability, instead of wildshape.

[Falontani]

I think it should be closer to the primeval's shifting ability than wild shape. Perhaps the ritual could be a 3rd level racial paragon class choice. Example:
Level 1: +1 bab, +2 fort, +0 ref, +0 will, low light vision, shifting +1/day
Level 2: +2, +3, +0, +0, +2 listen, survival, spot
Level 3: +3, +3, +1, +1, Ritual

Ritual: gain either Enhanced Shifting 1/day, +2 str, -2 wis, or gain +2 int, +2 cha, +2 sense motive

[Pleh]

Secondly, while a shifter who decided to embrace the wilderness of his heritage by taking the druid class and maybe even several shifter feats could both wild shape and shift at the same time, a shifter who loses access to his shifting by "upgrading" to wild shape could find himself losing the main prerequisite necessary to access some of his feats, prestige class abilities, etc.


Considering shifting only allows you to gain the traits of one specific animal, it might make more sense for the amplification ritual to grant an ability similar to a lycanthrope's alternate form ability, instead of wildshape.

Going along with these ideas, I agree that the Amp Ritual makes sense to offer an Orc character:

Full Orc stats
A Lycanthropic Alternate Form (matching their Shift form)

I wonder about the balance of also granting:

Orcish Daylight Sensitivity
Lycanthropic DR/Silver


It feels like simpler is better and adding these gimmicky, but flavorful advantages and disadvantages is more trouble than it's worth. But before I abandoned them, I wanted to check with the internet hive mind?

[daremetoidareyo]

Going along with these ideas, I agree that the Amp Ritual makes sense to offer an Orc character:

Full Orc stats
A Lycanthropic Alternate Form (matching their Shift form)

I wonder about the balance of also granting:

Orcish Daylight Sensitivity
Lycanthropic DR/Silver


It feels like simpler is better and adding these gimmicky, but flavorful advantages and disadvantages is more trouble than it's worth. But before I abandoned them, I wanted to check with the internet hive mind?

And these benefits should cost a feat. It's not too out of line with the power of some racial feats. Particularly if you put 6hd as a prereq.

[Uncle Pine]

I agree with daremetoidareyo regarding putting full orc stats and alternate form behind a feat tax (6 HD as one of the prerequisites seems about right).

Other things that I forgot to mention about in my previous post are the lycanthrope class (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040117a) (which grants lycanthropic alternate form along with a bunch of assorted goodies for +1 LA if you just dip into it) and the quasilycanthrope template (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040721a) (DR 10/silver and some fundamentally fluff transformation for +1 LA).

[Pleh]

I agree with daremetoidareyo regarding putting full orc stats and alternate form behind a feat tax (6 HD as one of the prerequisites seems about right).

Other things that I forgot to mention about in my previous post are the lycanthrope class (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040117a) (which grants lycanthropic alternate form along with a bunch of assorted goodies for +1 LA if you just dip into it) and the quasilycanthrope template (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040721a) (DR 10/silver and some fundamentally fluff transformation for +1 LA).

I agree. The 6HD feat seems like a great balance point. I'll have to look into those classes and templates

[Yogibear41]

DR is really good and anything greater than Say DR 2/material should warrant a level adjustment.