+2 to one ability score is functionally the equivalent of a +2 bonus to two ability scores and a -2 penalty to others. The 3.5 penalties would be crippling within the context of the bonuses of other races in Pathfinder; relative to the other races, the lack of a bonus is effectively a penalty. Given the racial ability adjustments of the other races, what they did with the half-orc was an attempt to be fair to that race.
Now, half-orcs are probably the best rogues of the core race. That makes sense!
Darkvision is objectively the best racial ability in the game. It is equivalent to a 2nd-level spell effect active continuously. If we were talking about at-will invisibility, web, or alter self, there would be no question of this ability's power. A rogue walking around a dungeon with a lantern gives himself away before he can spot anything at all. And other characters with ranged attacks often have to target creatures that are cloaked in darkness.
The reason the spell is prepared so rarely in play is due to the competing interests of rogues and wizards. Wizards generally hang back behind the lines, while rogues head to the front lines; while it's a spell that aids rogues most, wizards have little personal incentive to prepare it. It's a fantastic choice for a mage/thief...but a Rog3/Wiz3 is not a fantastic rogue. Potions are also expensive.
I've taken goggles of night as a wizard, which turned out to be an item of such enormous utility that it was constantly on loan to one character or another. Swap city.
my personal choice would be for half-orcs abilities
+2 str
+2 con
and to choose -2 penalty between int or cha.
RP explanation; if raised by humans you would get -2 charisma as you would be always an orc to them and without much socializing. And with orcs -2 to intelligence because...err...well you're raised by orcs :D
As a (tongue in cheek) quick fix I offer the following new Half-orcs only flaw:
Orc Regression
You are butt ugly and sharp as a marble.
Effect:You take a -2 penalty to Intelligence and Charisma.
Special:Gnomish bards with Perform (Comedy) are always making "Your momma is so fat..." jokes whenever you are around them.
This is a great NPC trait, which explains why all the half-orcs in the 3.5e adventures converted on the fly are so dumb.
Contemporary half-orc PCs OTOH, have overcome the degradation of their orc heritage.
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Oh! Genetics! So two half orcs get jiggy....do they produce half orcs, pure human, pure orc or nothing because half orcs are infertile?
Or you could go the Tigon / Liger route, and have a male orc and a female human produce a runt that's like some mashup between a Dwarf and a Goblin, while if a female orc and a male human mate (much rarer), you get some overly tall muscular brute that looks more like a Half-Ogre!
Less jokingly, this could even be used as a 'precedent' for introducing two different stat options for half-orcs (or half-elves, or whatever). A male of the first species and a female of the second produces different offspring than a male of the second and female of the first...
I kind of miss that kind of quirky (and actually somewhat realistic) difference between different species. Its fine for some cross breeds to automatically be X, but its kind of fun for some to be X (male/female) and Y (female/male).
One thing that I didn't like in 3rd edition is that it did kind of over standardize things like gender differences in species, like "medusa" being an overall race instead of being listed as female only creatures. The cross breeding thing is another example of this.
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I wouldn't mind a half orc that doesn't necesarily have to be a fight/barbarian class.
Who ever said it was necessary to be a fighter type half-orc? I'd be more afraid of a half-orc archmage than a half-elf one. Doesn't mean you have to like the half-orc wizard to be in the smae group. Now I would be really afraid of a half-orc sorcerer(unless I was playing one), because not knowing if it is a good idea or not to fireball the silver dragon just to if you can can cause a lot of deaths... ;)
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The PRD (PRPG Reference Document).
The new half-orc.You're welcome :)
Upon further review, I'm starting to like the new half-orc more. I just started playing a half-orc rogue at my FLGS (greataxe proficiency + sneak attack FTW!). I can't tell you how giddy I am over the fact that darkvision penetrates darkness now.
I understand the foolishness inherent in giving a race a bonus to Wisdom when the threat of CoDzilla looms. The "any stat bonus" does feel very human, but I've got my fingers crossed that the new PRPG orc is going to fill the void left by the beta half-orc.
This is a bit of a hybrid argument.
You say that the game rules for PCs of a race don't have to reflect the trends for NPCs of the same race (metagame arguement), but when asked why you don't apply this metagame argument to other races you site a half-orc's "human blood" (in-game argument).
But fair enough.
It's not like I'm trying to convince you that the new rules are dumb and you shouldn't like them. If it works for you, then cool. =)
Well, I don't have much more to add other than I really didn't think of it as an "argument" at all, I was just on here discussing something in the new rules I find interesting. I don't want to be seen as one of those jerks who go around telling people they're playing wrong. I was actually going to say something similar to that last line you typed there but I think you get the idea.
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Hmmm... I personally feel that this should have been +2 to STR *or* CON, as half-orcs are tough and ferocious (and this would have made them a bit more versatile, without giving them too much).
BTW, did half-elves get to choose between +2 to DEX or +2 to INT? Or do they also get +2 to any stat (like humans). I think the former option would have been (thematically) better.
No, they, like humans and half-orcs just get a +2 to any stat.
However, I really like the idea of half-orcs getting +2 to either Str or Con and half-elves getting +2 to either Dex or Int, and may end up stealing that as as a house rule after I ponder it a bit more. :)
Well, I don't have much more to add other than I really didn't think of it as an "argument" at all, I was just on here discussing something in the new rules I find interesting. I don't want to be seen as one of those jerks who go around telling people they're playing wrong. I was actually going to say something similar to that last line you typed there but I think you get the idea.
This is a bit of a hybrid argument.
You say that the game rules for PCs of a race don't have to reflect the trends for NPCs of the same race (metagame arguement), but when asked why you don't apply this metagame argument to other races you site a half-orc's "human blood" (in-game argument).
But fair enough.
It's not like I'm trying to convince you that the new rules are dumb and you shouldn't like them. If it works for you, then cool. =)
Yup!
(And I didn't mean "arguement" in a confrontational sense. It was just used as a general term for an idea packaged in words. )
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Shadowdweller,
It would seem that the 3rd Edition developers determined early on that a "+1 / -1" adjustment didn't work well. A player could assign scores of "11" to each attribute. The "+1" would roll the attribute over to "12", giving the character a score that generated a bonus, but the "-1" wouldn't have any effect.
I'm guessing a lot of GMs will house-rule the beta stats for flavor. As said before, the rogue class becomes very attractive to the half-orc, now. Greataxe or falchion + sneak attack is nice! Darkvision makes him good to go anytime, anywhere; also good for sneaking/scouting well ahead.
I'll just take it that their human side gives them some of the variety and adaptability humans are known for.
Actually now that we know the attribute modifiers from the Bestiary ...
... and see that they are unchanged from D&D 3.5!
The racial modifiers for the Half-Orc race in the final Pathfinder RPG definitely seem wrong.
The +2 Strength, -2 Intelligence, & +2 Wisdom of Beta seemed like both a smart and balanced way of blending both the orc and human racial modifiers. :(
my personal choice would be for half-orcs abilities
+2 str
+2 conand to choose -2 penalty between int or cha.
RP explanation; if raised by humans you would get -2 charisma as you would be always an orc to them and without much socializing. And with orcs -2 to intelligence because...err...well you're raised by orcs :D
+1
That is almost the same rule I use!
Mine is
+2 Str
+2 Wis
and to choose -2 penalty between int or cha.
I can't believe this thread is still alive.
What have I done?!
No one can resist a pretty half-orc
I can't believe this thread is still alive.
What have I done?!
Not quite.
When I got access to the Pathfinder Bestiary, I Necro'ed this thread.
The way that the Half-Orc is now being handled in the Pathfinder RPG only made sense if they were planning to use the Beta Half-Orc attribute modifiers for the Full Blood Orcs.
Alas, they are not. At which point, I am mystified why they changed the ½Orc to "+2 to any one Attribute"?
When I got access to the Pathfinder Bestiary, I Necro'ed this thread.
The way that the Half-Orc is now being handled in the Pathfinder RPG only made sense if they were planning to use the Beta Half-Orc attribute modifiers for the Full Blood Orcs.
Alas, they are not. At which point, I am mystified why they changed the ½Orc to "+2 to any one Attribute"?
Yeah it doesn't make any sense at all, I don't know why they changed the half-orc.
Not to mention the average orc is 6ft and the average human the same. Why on earth are average half-orcs 6'6?
This is an area they probably did too much thinking on in regard to balance and flavor etc. They should have made the minus in CHA or INT or both if they were afraid of half0rcs being too powerful.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Yeah it doesn't make any sense at all, I don't know why they changed the half-orc.Not to mention the average orc is 6ft and the average human the same. Why on earth are average half-orcs 6'6?
I admit that my campaign treats orcs and half-orcs strangely, but here's the background I give them:
Orcs are culturally separatists because they have "adaptable genetics". If an orc tribe spends enough time around hill giants, the next generation of orcs will have giantish features, the generation after that will be ogres, and two generations later, the orcs will have become hill giants, all without a single interbreeding couple. (Lamark would be so proud.) My campaign has more orcs-with-templates than any other race.
This is why the orc gods are so militantly racist. Orcs who are hostile to their neighbors don't run the risk of genetic drift. Curiously, there is never any drift toward elven characteristics. Orcs and elves could live side-by-side in harmony without this risk. But they each hate the other too much.
So, half-orcs are the children of orcs who have become too peaceful with humans. Eventually, an orc tribe too close to friendly human settlements will become all half-orc, and then all human.
So, in my campaign, it's important for half-orcs to be as mechanically distinct from humans as I can allow. The Pathfinder half-orcs aren't distinct enough, so I wouldn't use them in my campaign.
The way that the Half-Orc is now being handled in the Pathfinder RPG only made sense if they were planning to use the Beta Half-Orc attribute modifiers for the Full Blood Orcs.
Alas, they are not. At which point, I am mystified why they changed the ½Orc to "+2 to any one Attribute"?
I'm 100% in the same boat as you on this.
I think the main reason they didn't change Orcs is "3.5 Backwards Compatability".
Which is fine on it's own merits, but the Beta Half-Orc would make more sense in that case.
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Well the medusa did have a male counterpart in second edition it was called the Maedar. It was a gray hairless humanoid that could petrify a being with a touch
I thought they unpertfied things. The medusa petrify the victim which was then smashed and depertfied by the Maedar for the meat chunks. If I rembemer how the ecology for the two worked in 2e.
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Here's something to consider...
I remember that in the 2E Monstrous Compendium (and even in 1E,) orcs were described as being able to breed with nearly ever humanoid or demihuman race apart from elves. With a little tweaking, you could play a half-orc who is half-dwarf or half-hoboglin, etc. That might account for the +2 to any one ability score a little better than just saying half-orcs are varied in nature. A dwarf/orc combination might grant a +2 CON while a hobgoblin/orc migth have a +2 STR. All you'd really have to change is the Orc Blood feature so that it reflects your character's lineage. Size and speed don't need to change even if your half-orc is half gnome or half halfling (a wholeling?) since the orc's size would probably make the offspring at least as tall as a dwarf with a more agile frame.
I'm not saying it fixes any of the possible weaknesses of the half-orc rules, but it does give you a new spin on how to play your half-orc. Imagine the rough childhood a dwarf/orc would have. Hated by both races, he might have to live as a feral child raised by cave badgers. An orc/halfling might become her caravan's heroic and cherished defender since she's got alot more size and strength than her brothers and sisters. There are all sorts of possibilities for roleplaying if you look at this way.
Velcro Zipper you have blown my mind with that suggestion.