I never played D&D 3.5 or any other D&D, but I bought Pathfinder Beta Playtest some weeks ago and I ask myself a question : Why Half-Orc ?
I would replace Half-Orc with just Orcs. I would keep the same stats for the Orcs however (these stats seems to be just right to me).
I know Half-Orc can be born from rape of human women, but I can't beleive there is so much Half-Orc in the world to be awarded a race in the rule book.
I can't understand why they chose Half-Orc instead of Orcs. Somebody has some time to explain ? They just don't belong there.
I read a lot of Fantasy and I have never read Half-Orc anywhere. It just makes me feel bad when i think about it.
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PRPG is trying to keep the common links from previous editions of D&D, and that means keeping the same races/classes from the 3.5 PHB.
Like it or not, half-orcs have been a part of the game for a long time (at least as far back as 2nd Edition, I've never played 1st). They're a race that has developed its own little following in D&D (like gnomes). In a way, they are tied to the Uruk-hai in Tolkein's LotR (orc blood mixed with human to produce a new race to serve above the lowly orc).
I'm sure there is more info other, more experienced gamers, can provide. But suffice to say, half-orcs aren't going anywhere, Paizo has said no races will be added or removed.
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I never played D&D 3.5 or any other D&D, but I bought Pathfinder Beta Playtest some weeks ago and I ask myself a question : Why Half-Orc ?
I would replace Half-Orc with just Orcs. I would keep the same stats for the Orcs however (these stats seems to be just right to me).
I know Half-Orc can be born from rape of human women, but I can't beleive there is so much Half-Orc in the world to be awarded a race in the rule book.
I can't understand why they chose Half-Orc instead of Orcs. Somebody has some time to explain ? They just don't belong there.
I read a lot of Fantasy and I have never read Half-Orc anywhere. It just makes me feel bad when i think about it.
Well, that's basically what they did for 4e. The bad feelings the thought of half-orcs might engender is precisely one of the reasons they didn't put the race in the 4e PHB. Complaints from longtime players over their omission are getting them included in PHB2 AFAIK.
And my whole issue has always been there's no chance that a semi-stable population of half-orcs hasn't been able to establish itself? Second-, third-, even fourth-generation half-orcs living in relative peace with the other races, their kids not ever even thinking about "Why do I have greyish skin and big teeth and Mommy doesn't?"
Half-Orcs were a part of 1e, but removed from the PHB as yet another part of the "clean-up" of 2e (No assassin class, no demons or devils in the core monster books - remember, the 2e MM was released several years down the road into 2e's lifespan.) They saw meaningful treatment as a PC race in the Complete Humanoid's Handbook, along with goblins, kobolds, etc.
Contributor
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Half-orcs were more predominant in 1E than they were in 2E. They've been part of D&D for a loooong time.
One of the common complaints about 4E was that half-orcs were left out of the core rules. Pathfinder is at least in part trying to appeal to the people who didn't like 4E, so it's important that they include most of the stuff that 4E ditched from previous editions. Particularly the stuff their fanbase was upset about being removed.
Not to stoke edition wars. Pathfinder is just providing an alternative for those who want to stike with something closer to 3.5
Creative Director
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We're going with half-orcs for two reasons.
1) Half-orcs have been a player choice for race since first edition, and as the previous poster mentions, we're trying to retain the feel of D&D as much as possible in the Pathfinder RPG.
2) Orcs are monsters in Pathfinder, not heroes. There are several other great games that present orcs as heroes, but that's not the type of game we're trying to present the baseline for with the Pathfinder RPG. The core rules are meant to steer players toward playing the more humanlike races for a reason; because the main world those rules will support, Golarion, is a world built with those races in mind. In Golarion, the orcs are ravenous, brutal, savage monsters; an orc PC wouldn't fit well into the setting as a result unless the campaign he was playing in was an all-orc game.
That all said... this doesn't mean that you can't choose to play an orc anyway. Nor does it mean we'll NEVER present the orc as a PC race in an expansion to the rules a few years down the road. It's just not one of the baseline choices we want to present for the core game.
In closing... you're right about there not being many half-orcs in the world. There aren't many half-elves either. But both races make GREAT choices for PCs, since this lets a PC play the "underdog" or the character who has no real home to call his own. Also, keep in mind that in any one campaign, you've only got around 5 PCs at a time, so even if ALL of them are half-orcs, that's still only 5 people overall; half-orcs can still be rare and be a PC race without making the race common.
In closing... you're right about there not being many half-orcs in the world. There aren't many half-elves either. But both races make GREAT choices for PCs, since this lets a PC play the "underdog" or the character who has no real home to call his own. Also, keep in mind that in any one campaign, you've only got around 5 PCs at a time, so even if ALL of them are half-orcs, that's still only 5 people overall; half-orcs can still be rare and be a PC race without making the race common.
Well, I understand now.
Thanks for the information everybody.
i think in 3rd edition dnd they tried to emphasize the half-blood races', especially half-orcs, rarity by making them terribly underpowered and thus a rare player choice. ;)
No really, half-orcs are as said an integrate part of DnD and I, as many other layers would think it sad to remove them or replace them with orcs.
@Uruk-Hai reference
Pretty much like that except in DnD settings the "lowly" orcs usually tend to set themselves above the half-bloods.
The core rules are meant to steer players toward playing the more humanlike races
Yeah that part is a little saddening to me personally, because I think the less humanoid a race is, the better (humans and their variations, be those short and stocky or tall and long-eared, are pretty boring in my opinion). Which is why I can't wait for more material offering the possibility to play some more "creative" races.
But still the pathfinder system so far rocks!
That all said... this doesn't mean that you can't choose to play an orc anyway. Nor does it mean we'll NEVER present the orc as a PC race in an expansion to the rules a few years down the road.
It would be really great to have a group of Orc and/or Ogre as PCs. It would be really interesting for Roleplay purpose too.
If you ever make this expansion, count me in. I will buy it.
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It would be really great to have a group of Orc and/or Ogre as PCs. It would be really interesting for Roleplay purpose too.
In the mean time you don't need Paizo to provide such rules for you. The 3.5 monster manual gives you the information you need to play an Orc and/or Ogre as a PC. :P
Always disappoint a Nymph doesn't have AS PC rules without breaking out the DMG. ;)
It would be really great to have a group of Orc and/or Ogre as PCs. It would be really interesting for Roleplay purpose too.In the mean time you don't need Paizo to provide such rules for you. The 3.5 monster manual gives you the information you need to play an Orc and/or Ogre as a PC. :P
Always disappoint a Nymph doesn't have AS PC rules without breaking out the DMG. ;)
though these are not really on par with the current races rules. Maybe you should turn the orc stats from -2 Wis to +2 Wis and take over the half-orcs features (except that they dont count as human of course). then the relations would be closer.
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though these are not really on par with the current races rules. Maybe you should turn the orc stats from -2 Wis to +2 Wis and take over the half-orcs features (except that they dont count as human of course). then the relations would be closer.
Sure they're on par with the rules. Reduce the ECL of all the monsters by 1 and you have a perfectly compatible monster as pc stat block. The core races were bumped to lower the other ECLs by 1.
though these are not really on par with the current races rules. Maybe you should turn the orc stats from -2 Wis to +2 Wis and take over the half-orcs features (except that they dont count as human of course). then the relations would be closer.Sure they're on par with the rules. Reduce the ECL of all the monsters by 1 and you have a perfectly compatible monster as pc stat block. The core races were bumped to lower the other ECLs by 1.
The ECL monsters are on par alright, but what I'm thinking of is the orcs, who aren't at all. The 3.5 orcs were already underpowered in their own edition. Having no racial traits other than darkvision and light sensitivity (which is even an extra drawback) and a total ability modifier of -2. Now races got extra advantages and the normal total ability modifier has been raised from 0 to +2. That throws orcs back a lot more than they were thrown back already.
I made up some guidelines for nonstardard races from 3.5 in my campaign:
If they have less than a total +2 in ability score adjustments, then keep adding +2 to stats that seem consistent or just make sense with their concept until they have a total +2 modifier.
All races get two favoured classes, chosen from descriptions "race x has y as a favoured class, but they are also good at being w" or just chosen based on what makes the most sense.
Otherwise, I leave them alone.
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Creative Director
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This is also treading into one of my own pet peeve regions:
Monsters should be built using the same rules that are used to build PCs, but monsters should NOT be built with the intention that they should be USED as PCs. In other words, if you want to have orcs in your game and you're the GM, that's cool; feel free to adjust them as you will to make them "on par" with other races. But the intent of the Pathfinder RPG isn't to make Every Monster playable as a PC right out of the box. That's not the world we want to support with Golarion, for sure, and it's not the implied baseline world we want to infer with the core Pathfinder Rules.
The BEST place for us to tackle that, I think, would be a "Savage Species" type product some day. For now, though, we want to focus on making the baseline game work as best as it can for the standard core races.
You know... it strikes me that if you wanted, you could easily house-rule that half-orcs were actually just orcs. It's a pretty easy name/flavor change (you'd just use the PF RPG half-orc rules for ALL orcs, in this case, if you'd rather have only orcs and no half-orcs in your game).
Not too long ago I posited the idea that half-orcs *were* orcs, just ones that had become more civilized through interaction with humankind.
I was thinking of the Germanic barbarian tribes the Romans used to fight other Germanic tribes. In this case, though, I was seeing some human empire using orcs to fight other orcs. Over time, the orcs who interracted with the humans became more settled and civilized. Their stats altered to indicate a drift towards civilization and even their darkvision became weaker. They were still called half-orcs, though, by both sides of the fight. The still-savage orcs saw them as half-an-orc because they'd grown so soft, and the humans saw them as half-an-orc because they weren't as bad as the fully savage ones.
Not too long ago I posited the idea that half-orcs *were* orcs, just ones that had become more civilized through interaction with humankind.
I was thinking of the Germanic barbarian tribes the Romans used to fight other Germanic tribes. In this case, though, I was seeing some human empire using orcs to fight other orcs. Over time, the orcs who interracted with the humans became more settled and civilized. Their stats altered to indicate a drift towards civilization and even their darkvision became weaker. They were still called half-orcs, though, by both sides of the fight. The still-savage orcs saw them as half-an-orc because they'd grown so soft, and the humans saw them as half-an-orc because they weren't as bad as the fully savage ones.
I think this is the definition I will use in my campaings. I like it much more than the standard one.
Not too long ago I posited the idea that half-orcs *were* orcs, just ones that had become more civilized through interaction with humankind.
I was thinking of the Germanic barbarian tribes the Romans used to fight other Germanic tribes. In this case, though, I was seeing some human empire using orcs to fight other orcs. Over time, the orcs who interracted with the humans became more settled and civilized. Their stats altered to indicate a drift towards civilization and even their darkvision became weaker. They were still called half-orcs, though, by both sides of the fight. The still-savage orcs saw them as half-an-orc because they'd grown so soft, and the humans saw them as half-an-orc because they weren't as bad as the fully savage ones.
It's nice but you should eliminate the human blood rules then.
It's nice but you should eliminate the human blood rules then.
Well, saying Half-Orcs count as Orcs for any effect related to race is a very little change to me.
One of my PC started an Half-Orc druid yesterday evening. And the vision of the half-orc I brought to my group seems to be accepted by everyone.
Orc blood(or Human blood) rule is a detail to me.
It's nice but you should eliminate the human blood rules then.Well, saying Half-Orcs count as Orcs for any effect related to race is a very little change to me.
One of my PC started an Half-Orc druid yesterday evening. And the vision of the half-orc I brought to my group seems to be accepted by everyone.
Orc blood(or Human blood) rule is a detail to me.
it is pretty much. The only thing that it changes is that they are not affected by human bane and favored enemy - humanoid: human anymore. Otherwise there are little things that are affecting or requiring being human particularly. It might even help the balance as the half-orc race still is going slightly behind the other races on power levels. While they yet are much closer than before.
If you haven't looked into FFGs Dawnforge products I really suggest you do so simondeschenes.
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10087.phtml
While a bit more powerful then standard OGL fair, Dawnforge includes races like Ogres and Lizardfolk as playable races, using an additional race progression system to increase their power over levels.
This is why OGL is such a great thing, it isn't overly hard to cherry-pick your way to a game "you want to play."
In my home games, I look at it this way:
Orcs are only male. A problem with the species, to say the least. In order to survive, the race must procreate with other races, usually violently. On the plus side, they are able to breed true with a variety of other races.
Half orcs are the "runts" of this breeding system. They are the rare offspring that don't breed true, yet are still viable. You could create variants such as "half orc, half goblin", or virtually any other race you like.
This gives orcs a specific need to be aggressive and violent, conquering lands and taking women. PG-13 or R rating, for sure, but this is how my group likes it. Orcs are not nice, and they provide a lot of reason for PCs to go out and "rescue the princess". It's also a good way to have orcs that don't kill everything in their path. Using the default orcs, they would have little concern with taking prisoners, and would simply kill everyone. Fantasy RPGs are more fun (IMO) when the bad guys take prisoners to be rescued by heroes.
-Scott
As far as Half-whatever races are concerned, there was a book published by Technomancer Press titled, PLAYER'S COMPANION. There are several half-races in there. It is 3.5 based and I found my copy through Noble Knight Games.com. If Mr. Jacobs and company are interested in a resource for some unusual half-races I suggest this resource. With that being said, one of my players wanted to modify the Half-orc race in the Beta to be Half-orc/Half-dwarf. We decided to go with the Half-orc racial characteristics and build his back story from there. So it isn't hard to develop whatever you want to do as a home-rule. I just require a good background to explain it.
In my home games, I look at it this way:
Orcs are only male. A problem with the species, to say the least. In order to survive, the race must procreate with other races, usually violently. On the plus side, they are able to breed true with a variety of other races.
Half orcs are the "runts" of this breeding system. They are the rare offspring that don't breed true, yet are still viable. You could create variants such as "half orc, half goblin", or virtually any other race you like.
This gives orcs a specific need to be aggressive and violent, conquering lands and taking women. PG-13 or R rating, for sure, but this is how my group likes it. Orcs are not nice, and they provide a lot of reason for PCs to go out and "rescue the princess". It's also a good way to have orcs that don't kill everything in their path. Using the default orcs, they would have little concern with taking prisoners, and would simply kill everyone. Fantasy RPGs are more fun (IMO) when the bad guys take prisoners to be rescued by heroes.
-Scott
A race that relies entirely on rape to ensure their very existence? That surely isn't a concept to made published without political consequences ;) But for private games it might just work.
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A race that relies entirely on rape to ensure their very existence? That surely isn't a concept to made published without political consequences ;) But for private games it might just work.In my home games, I look at it this way:
Orcs are only male. A problem with the species, to say the least. In order to survive, the race must procreate with other races, usually violently. On the plus side, they are able to breed true with a variety of other races.
Half orcs are the "runts" of this breeding system. They are the rare offspring that don't breed true, yet are still viable. You could create variants such as "half orc, half goblin", or virtually any other race you like.
This gives orcs a specific need to be aggressive and violent, conquering lands and taking women. PG-13 or R rating, for sure, but this is how my group likes it. Orcs are not nice, and they provide a lot of reason for PCs to go out and "rescue the princess". It's also a good way to have orcs that don't kill everything in their path. Using the default orcs, they would have little concern with taking prisoners, and would simply kill everyone. Fantasy RPGs are more fun (IMO) when the bad guys take prisoners to be rescued by heroes.
-Scott
The Amazons though are ok >.> guess that rule only applies to males doing the raping.
In my opinion, the half-orc doesn't only represent the result of a violent raid of orcs upon a human village.
Outside of its hybrid origins, the race can also be used for a strong character. Maybe not very smart nor attractive, but certainly efficient when muscle is needed.
With minor adjustments to its origin and appearance (tall, stocky, furry, scaly etc), the half-orc can offer an alternative for a primitive race or a monstrous humanoid, whether you call him half-orc, neanderthal, trollkin or manbeast...
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I've always had the damnedest time incorporating half-orcs into my own game world. It started as a Basic D&D game, so no half-orcs.
In my world, there were no female orcs, and technically no male orcs (though orcs are invariably identified as masculine). Orcs, much like in Tolkien, were spawned in the earth, or as it was stated in my campaign "in the black bloodstained earth." Orcs, creatures of hatred and malice, spawned in dark caverns full of blood and gore and filth, places where "all evil secrets came to lie." Necromancers and other foul sorts would intentionally created orc breeding grounds by pouring tons of blood into rich soil. Goblins in my world also spontaneously generated. Except they came from garbage, not gore.
Some of the solutions I've come up with are:
- Defining half-orcs as full-blooded humans with atavistic traits -- the name "half-orc" being a misnomer. These beings are actually part neaderthal or "cave man." Their hulking build, sloping brows, heavy jaws and prominent canines remind people of orcs, so it is suggested they have orc parentage, but this is actually a scientific imposibility.
- Defining half-orcs as neaderthals or cave-men. Found on the edges of human society, these early human ancestors are slowly dying out, unable to compete with their more advanced brethren. Subjected to scorn, prejudice and patronization, some try their best to participate in human society as humans, while others cling to the old ways and still follow the teachings of Lord Bear and Master Elk.
- Defining half-orcs as "brutes" as in "On the brute squad? He IS the brute squad!" There's no particular reason they exist, it's just a fact that some humans tend to be big hulking brutes of low intelligence with a preference for barbarianism. Brutes may be born to normal humans, and may be parents of normal humans.
This is also treading into one of my own pet peeve regions:
Monsters should be built using the same rules that are used to build PCs, but monsters should NOT be built with the intention that they should be USED as PCs. In other words, if you want to have orcs in your game and you're the GM, that's cool; feel free to adjust them as you will to make them "on par" with other races. But the intent of the Pathfinder RPG isn't to make Every Monster playable as a PC right out of the box. That's not the world we want to support with Golarion, for sure, and it's not the implied baseline world we want to infer with the core Pathfinder Rules.
The BEST place for us to tackle that, I think, would be a "Savage Species" type product some day. For now, though, we want to focus on making the baseline game work as best as it can for the standard core races.
You know... it strikes me that if you wanted, you could easily house-rule that half-orcs were actually just orcs. It's a pretty easy name/flavor change (you'd just use the PF RPG half-orc rules for ALL orcs, in this case, if you'd rather have only orcs and no half-orcs in your game).
The thing is many or at least a few vocal people don't see just the pathfinder game as Golarion the RPG they see it as the next incarnation of D&D which as of 3.5 dropping Greyhawk for the most part as the default campaign setting was a Generic fantasy setting. Golarion might not be thier cup of tea and i know many players that are very very tired of the humanocentric or at least demihumanocentric worlds tht keep popping up. These rules are often time presented to them.. And in part in my opinion marketed to them as 'The next old D&D' or 'Fixed rules same face and flavor.'. Golarion has a flavor all its own but to those people just comming in to Paizo's stuff I can understand how the 'But.. those are supposed to be monsters' way of thinking doesn't work with them. They might want to build thier own worlds with your rules but still take an adventure or two from you.. This becomes much much harder if any races are shoehorned into monsterhood and treated thusly in the rules as well as the flavor. You will always have the people who don't want to be pretty things out there who like their gaming a bit more savage or feral all of whom will love your products that much more if you give them just a little nod..
In my campaign world, I've been taking pains to make the other races fit more.
I've made the Lizardfolk a common race (of course, I rework them, taking hit dice and ecl), added Mountain Orc (the common grey one, not natural to the world, being brought by creatures in eons past) and Forest Orc (green-skinned druidic and shamanistic orcs, honorable in their own way like in eberron or warcraft), and even Hobgoblin (reworked to be a little "300"), Tiefling, Aasimar and Genasi.
I'm still trying to make my player comprehend that those are "COMMON races", so they are supposed to see them around. I'm doing this trying to roll a little and fast secret roll if they are going to speak with a random npc, but they still are ammused to see a lizardfolk trading things with a forest orc and a water genasi... But they are getting it.
In the end, I think the "humancentristic" or better yet "sexycentristic" world of elves and humans is a problem of the personal gm. It's easy to make the world a little more integrated without becoming a freakshow, I think.
The Amazons though are ok >.> guess that rule only applies to males doing the raping.A race that relies entirely on rape to ensure their very existence? That surely isn't a concept to made published without political consequences ;) But for private games it might just work.In my home games, I look at it this way:
Orcs are only male. A problem with the species, to say the least. In order to survive, the race must procreate with other races, usually violently. On the plus side, they are able to breed true with a variety of other races.
Half orcs are the "runts" of this breeding system. They are the rare offspring that don't breed true, yet are still viable. You could create variants such as "half orc, half goblin", or virtually any other race you like.
This gives orcs a specific need to be aggressive and violent, conquering lands and taking women. PG-13 or R rating, for sure, but this is how my group likes it. Orcs are not nice, and they provide a lot of reason for PCs to go out and "rescue the princess". It's also a good way to have orcs that don't kill everything in their path. Using the default orcs, they would have little concern with taking prisoners, and would simply kill everyone. Fantasy RPGs are more fun (IMO) when the bad guys take prisoners to be rescued by heroes.
-Scott
Exactly.
Maybe men just dont mind that much being forced to have sex.
Orcs can be female too. They're only male in the Lord of The Rings movies. I, personally, don't like half-races. They shouldn't be so darn commen either. How many elves and humans get it on? They should be rare. Half-orcs are human. Half-elves are human. That's kinda my opinion. I don't think TSR nor Wizards ever wanted Orcs as PCs. They're great villians. I'd rather have Orcs over Half-orcs. I think alot of folks would like Drow too. A beuatiful yet utterly sinister race. Almost every game I play or dm has a drow pc. And two of us have had cool Orc pcs. I just don't like the whole 'every pc race has to resemble humans thing'. Give me Orcs or Hobgoblins! Gnolls or Lupin! Drow! Tieflings and Aasimars, or whatever they're called now! Catpeople or Nezumi (ratpeople), lizardmen or Saurians (no dragonborn- because dragons should be rare and awesome. And dragonmen are for Dragonlance (draconians)!
Just my nickels worth.
Orc, Gnoll and Hobgoblin's the way to go! Down to the "human-elf-dwarf" kingdom!!!
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FOR THE HORDE!!! (???)
Not too long ago I posited the idea that half-orcs *were* orcs, just ones that had become more civilized through interaction with humankind.
I was thinking of the Germanic barbarian tribes the Romans used to fight other Germanic tribes. In this case, though, I was seeing some human empire using orcs to fight other orcs. Over time, the orcs who interracted with the humans became more settled and civilized. Their stats altered to indicate a drift towards civilization and even their darkvision became weaker. They were still called half-orcs, though, by both sides of the fight. The still-savage orcs saw them as half-an-orc because they'd grown so soft, and the humans saw them as half-an-orc because they weren't as bad as the fully savage ones.
Hmm, I like this definition.
Personally I am rather fond of having variety of races, and it was kind of sad that in 3.5 Monster Manual there were PC stats for orcs and goblins but they were so clearly weaker (to compare, in GURPS the goblins out of Fantasy Folk were rather common NPCs and occasional PCs too).
Just like I want to use more dwarves and gnomes, I would like to see goblinoids in other roles than burn-kill-pillage-adversaries (and lizardmen and fey and various other critters). They are not and should not be always compatible, but, hey, that just adds storytelling possibilities!
Personally I am rather fond of having variety of races, and it was kind of sad that in 3.5 Monster Manual there were PC stats for orcs and goblins but they were so clearly weaker (to compare, in GURPS the goblins out of Fantasy Folk were rather common NPCs and occasional PCs too).
Just like I want to use more dwarves and gnomes, I would like to see goblinoids in other roles than burn-kill-pillage-adversaries (and lizardmen and fey and various other critters). They are not and should not be always compatible, but, hey, that just adds storytelling possibilities!
Orcs can be female too. They're only male in the Lord of The Rings movies. I, personally, don't like half-races. They shouldn't be so darn commen either. How many elves and humans get it on? They should be rare. Half-orcs are human. Half-elves are human. That's kinda my opinion. I don't think TSR nor Wizards ever wanted Orcs as PCs. They're great villians. I'd rather have Orcs over Half-orcs. I think alot of folks would like Drow too. A beuatiful yet utterly sinister race. Almost every game I play or dm has a drow pc. And two of us have had cool Orc pcs. I just don't like the whole 'every pc race has to resemble humans thing'. Give me Orcs or Hobgoblins! Gnolls or Lupin! Drow! Tieflings and Aasimars, or whatever they're called now! Catpeople or Nezumi (ratpeople), lizardmen or Saurians (no dragonborn- because dragons should be rare and awesome. And dragonmen are for Dragonlance (draconians)!
Just my nickels worth.
Orc, Gnoll and Hobgoblin's the way to go! Down to the "human-elf-dwarf" kingdom!!!
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FOR THE HORDE!!! (???)
So I'm not the only one here who prefers races that are actually different from humans (i mean come on, gnomes and halfings are just small humans, dwarves are just short and stocky humans and elves are nothing but tall humans with bunny ears, about half-orcs and elves the core books even admit that they are mostly human)
I like to have things that look extrodinary, animal-people (cats, rats, wolves, foxes, bears, lizards, birds... you name it), creatures with extraordinary colorings (genasi, tiefling, aasimar, and other planetouched just as an example), or even races that look like nothing you'd have ever seen on earth (mudokons?)
Well the point is, all these near humans are just really uninteresting, I see humans every day, so in my games i'd rather like to see something different.
I'm new to Pathfinder too, having not played DnD.
Okay, so; are their enough of them to warrent a race?
Strong and/or unattractive men and woman might be called half-orc as a insult.
Orcs are so feared a whole family might be known as half-orcs because their anceastor was one.
In some orc tribes half-orcs might be wanted, given positions such as shaman, spy or some kind of warrior-performer (doing tricks with swords and other moves that usual, dumb orcs can't) so the tribe often take human wives just to gain a half-orc.
Perhaps human barbarians see worth in half-orc warriors and keep any half-orcs that are born. A good warrior will gain reputaion and so the half-orc will marry and breed.
Some orcs might be considered half-orcs if they are civilised, and again they will marry and breed within the civilised area they live in.
On the other side of the coin, is a human raised by orcs that acts like a orc, pretty much a half-orc?
Lastly...You could always say that long ago, a wizard did it.
So yeah, I'd say there is enough of them. :]
Having half-orcs as a PC option is fine. DMs are entirely free to line them out their personal worlds if they don't fit. Ditto everything else.
Keeping everyone pretty much humanoid also makes the Disguise skill useful--something it's not so much if there are people with giant donkey ears, crocodile tails, bull horns and gods know what else walking around as acceptable members of society.
For my world, if you want to see the Star Wars Cantina scene as reimagined by Heironymous Bosch, you go the Troll King's Court. But that should be what you see when you walk into every pub.
Welcome to the new folks!
OT: at Kevin
I think it was mentioned before, but I like to run my games with half-orc and half-elf races. OP brings up the very good point of why they should justify a racial entry in the PHB if it's only half-breeds, I personally never understood why half-elves would Trance if born of a human mother (I hate Trance anyway, heee) plus as a half-breed, that really puts way too major of a pathological background detail into your PCs background by default. In the Tolkien material, half-elfs and half-orcs were the product of magical unions anyhow. Two other good examples of 'halfsies' that aren't actually half-breeds would be the half-giants from the Dark Sun setting and halflings. On that point, they don't necessarily even need to have any racial connection to elves or orcs, but it might make sense to change up a couple of abilities in that case.
I've just always considered Half-Orcs a cross between Orcs and Goblins to avoid any questions from people who are worried about that type of topic.