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Behold_the_Void
2007-11-01, 10:48 PM
I may be starting up a game soon, and one of my potential players wants to play an Orc. I looked over the Orc, and I'm considering some changes to the race, which will spread over other races as well.

One of the most important things about the changes I'm making is how I treat charisma. I view Charisma as force of personality, not personal magnetism. By this I mean people with strong personalities have high charisma (The warrior who charges headlong into impossible odds) and people with weaker personalities have low charisma (the meek librarian).

That said, currently the orc stat block looks like this:


* +4 Strength, -2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma.
* An orc’s base land speed is 30 feet.
* Darkvision out to 60 feet.
* Light Sensitivity: Orcs are dazzled in bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.
* Automatic Languages: Common, Orc. Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Giant, Gnoll, Goblin, Undercommon.
* Favored Class: Barbarian.


What I'm thinking is something like this:

* +4 Strength, -2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom
* An orc’s base land speed is 30 feet.
* Darkvision out to 60 feet.
* Light Sensitivity: Orcs are dazzled in bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.
* Intimidating: Orcs have a fearsome reputation and get a +2 bonus to intimidate.
* Weapon Familiarity: Orcs with martial weapon proficiency gain proficiency with the Orc Double-Axe.
* Automatic Languages: Common, Orc. Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Giant, Gnoll, Goblin, Undercommon.
* Favored Class: Barbarian.

My concern here is that they might be a wee bit too strong. The +4 to strength is huge, and while they don't have any major benefits (most are flavorful) their penalty isn't necessarily crippling. If possible, I want to preserve the orc flavor without dropping any other ability scores. Is this balanced? -1 skill point and -1 to will saves isn't anything to sneeze at, although it may not quite equal +2 to hit and +3 to damage (since the character will be wielding a greataxe like any good orc before they changed them to falchions in 3.5).

This will, of course, apply to Half-Orcs, dropping off their charisma penalty and giving them some extra stuff, like perhaps some kind of skill boost to reflect their human heritage and generally just making them less suck.

Also, this means a change for dwarves, as most dwarves are portrayed as having a strong force of personality. I'm thinking for dwarves, -2 to dex instead. Not crippling, but more reflective of dwarves and it makes them less overpowered as a core race.

Anyway, thoughts?

BardicDuelist
2007-11-01, 10:55 PM
Not too strong, and for half-orcs, they are generally considered weak anyway (the thing about ability modifiers and all that in the DMG is a lie), so just removing the Cha penalty actually balances them out halfway decently.

The Dwarf thing was done in RoS with a variant race, and before that in FRCS. It is also what we normally use for anything other than Dwarven Barbarians (who dump Cha anyway).

Grynning
2007-11-01, 10:57 PM
It depends on your view of the race as a whole. If you base your perceptions of Orcs and Dwarves off of WoW, then yes, they have much more personality than their D&D standards. However, I personally believe that Charisma penalties are appropriate for both races. As you said, D&D charisma is NOT an assessment of physical beauty. Dwarves tend to be stodgy, narrow-minded, and tight-lipped, that is where the charisma penalty comes in. Also, remember that Dwarves in D&D are based more on Scandinavian culture (where they originally come from mythologically) than on the awful Scottish stereotype they've evolved into over the years. If you ever meet a Norwegian or Swedish farmer from the American Midwest, you'll see where the tight-lipped part comes in at least. (listeners of Prairie Home Companion know what I mean).

Orcs have a charisma penalty for slightly different reasons - it's not that they can't be bold, scary, or impressive, it's that they base all of their assessments of people off of physical and martial strength. That can make them very hard to get along with, and similarly makes them easily dominated by those more powerful than they are, hence their traditional role as henchmen.

BardicDuelist
2007-11-01, 11:00 PM
It depends on your view of the race as a whole. If you base your perceptions of Orcs and Dwarves off of WoW, then yes, they have much more personality than their D&D standards. However, I personally believe that Charisma penalties are appropriate for both races. As you said, D&D charisma is NOT an assessment of physical beauty. Dwarves tend to be stodgy, narrow-minded, and tight-lipped, that is where the charisma penalty comes in. Also, remember that Dwarves in D&D are based more on Scandinavian culture (where they originally come from mythologically) than on the awful Scottish stereotype they've evolved into over the years. If you ever meet a Norwegian or Swedish farmer from the American Midwest, you'll see where the tight-lipped part comes in at least. (listeners of Prairie Home Companion know what I mean).

Orcs have a charisma penalty for slightly different reasons - it's not that they can't be bold, scary, or impressive, it's that they base all of their assessments of people off of physical and martial strength. That can make them very hard to get along with, and similarly makes them easily dominated by those more powerful than they are, hence their traditional role as henchmen.

Love you explanation on orcs. I whole hartedly agree flavor wise (as otherwise it wouldn't make sense for them to be mooks all of the time).

Note: This does not counter my above post. MECHANICALLY, it is balanced and so if you want to use that flavor, it will be fine, but as for flavor, I prefer to leave them as they are (except the dwarves, but that is because my world is different from the traditional D&D).

Behold_the_Void
2007-11-01, 11:04 PM
It depends on your view of the race as a whole. If you base your perceptions of Orcs and Dwarves off of WoW, then yes, they have much more personality than their D&D standards. However, I personally believe that Charisma penalties are appropriate for both races. As you said, D&D charisma is NOT an assessment of physical beauty. Dwarves tend to be stodgy, narrow-minded, and tight-lipped, that is where the charisma penalty comes in. Also, remember that Dwarves in D&D are based more on Scandinavian culture (where they originally come from mythologically) than on the awful Scottish stereotype they've evolved into over the years. If you ever meet a Norwegian or Swedish farmer from the American Midwest, you'll see where the tight-lipped part comes in at least. (listeners of Prairie Home Companion know what I mean).

Orcs have a charisma penalty for slightly different reasons - it's not that they can't be bold, scary, or impressive, it's that they base all of their assessments of people off of physical and martial strength. That can make them very hard to get along with, and similarly makes them easily dominated by those more powerful than they are, hence their traditional role as henchmen.

I don't regard those personality traits to be indicative of a low charisma. What I'm getting at with Charisma is self-confidence and presence. Sure, Dwarves can be tight-lipped, stodgy and narrow-minded. That doesn't mean that their presence is any less than that of a human's. Same goes for orcs and their belief in strength. I'd say the easily dominated is reflected by low intelligence and wisdom just fine. They can still have a strong sense of self even if that sense of self isn't traditionally desirable in polite company.

Grynning
2007-11-03, 10:46 PM
I'm not saying you can't house-rule in Orcs or Dwarves without Cha penalties, that's fine - Rule 0, y'know. However, I think you're underestimating how much perception is based on the "force" of a personality. To have an impact and influence people, you have to interact aggressively. If the dwarf stands in the corner and never says much because his culture has taught him to only speak when it's absolutely necessary, people aren't going to consider him to have much of a "presence." The other thing is that it's totally possible to have a talkative, likable dwarf with high (12+) charisma - remember, just because a race takes a penalty doesn't eliminate those with high scores, they just won't have people with the highest scores around. Sure, a high-charisma dwarf will be unusual, but most PCs are unusual individuals to begin with.