|
Ok, here's what happened last night.
I'm DM on a Monday night. My party consists of one 2nd level character and seven 1st. We'd been playing for 5 sessions so most 1st level characters were better equipped than novices (players are experienced, BTW).
I am running an amalgam of the first two adventure paths converted to Pathfinder. Yesterday it was time for the party to move from Sandpoint to Korvosa using a little 1 session travel scenario that I basically wrote myself.
In the course of this, the party had two encounters - both times by being raided at night.
In the first, two Ogres attacked the Lizardman village (in the Mushfens) where they were staying (basically after the party first came across the Ogre's lair and nicked all their treasure!). I gave the party complete control over this encounter - since the Lizardmen would eventually kill the Ogres albeit at great loss to themselves. The party took the Ogres on one at a time and killed them without too much trouble.
Much later on, not far from Korvosa, the party were attacked by 10 Orcs from Belkzen (out raiding - if a little lost).
The Orcs, being useless at Stealth, were heard by the party Watchmen 2 rounds before they arrived. The two Watchmen made a bit of a mistake in not sounding the alarm (they just cautiously woke a couple of other characters), and then the Orcs charged in.
And won. To cut a long story short. No one in the party was actually killed. Once the carnage was over the 3 surviving Orcs helped themselves to about 1000gp's worth of armour, weapons and coinage and disappeared. Since the Orc's couldn't do a Detect Magic the party's wand and magic light mace survived - all they took was daggers, axes, and the party's three best suits of armour.
IMO, the odds were heavily on the Orcs' favour.
We'd just been doing a lot of Goblin fighting and I'd seen that Goblins and Orcs had the same CR, and 10 Goblins would have been fine.
The problem with Orcs is that their weakness, low AC, is well compensated for by their Ferocity (effectively tripling their hp). This then allows their strength (9 hp damage on average with a Falchion, crits 18-20) to become overpowering.
The fact that an Orc is still staggered when below 0 didn't seem to matter much. By that time, the Orc is in the middle of combat anyway, so he can generally still hit every round (and I'm not sure if this is right but I did allow them a 5' step as well as a standard action).
In fact, the odds are pretty good that an Orc would kill a Hobgoblin, so they should be at least CR 1/2 (how about 2/3?).
What do you think?
Richard
Were your orcs automatically losing 1hp/round when acting via ferocity?
Did anyone think to try disarming them, especially after they were staggered?
Speaking of feats: apparently neither the orc nor the hobgoblin has Weapon Focus worked into their attack line.
And speaking of hobgoblins: they actually are the same CR as orcs. The sample hobgoblin is a fighter with the elite array, which bumps it to 1/2. Why it doesn't get a maximized first hit die for this, yielding 16 HP, I'm not sure. (Always thought that was tied to PC classes. Maybe not... or maybe that's yet another stat block erratum.)
|
|
The orcs did bleed. It made a little bit of difference.
Can someone not AoO when staggered? There is a monk in the party, but he grapples rather than disarms.
On another note, is the favoured class option available to all races? And can a creature take "humanoid" for example as a favoured class?
Richard
Orc Ferocity: Once per day, when a half-orc is brought below 0 hit points but not killed, he can fight on for one more round as if disabled. At the end of his next turn, unless brought to above 0 hit points, he immediately falls unconscious and begins dying.
This only gives the orc one extra round of combat. I think this is a change from the beta, though.
I don't think they could take the 5' adjust while staggered.
Can someone not AoO when staggered?
To both of these: I'm aware of no such restrictions. Staggered only means no full-round actions and only one of standard or move; you're otherwise able to act normally.
On another note, is the favoured class option available to all races? And can a creature take "humanoid" for example as a favoured class?
Any race with class levels can have a favored class. Racial hit dice aren't class levels, you can't favor them. There seems to be another rule in place somewhere, though: NPCs, even those with the elite array, frequently do not have favored class benefits (or a maximized first hit die). I don't know what the reasoning is here.
This only gives the orc one extra round of combat. I think this is a change from the beta, though.
They were full orcs, not half-orcs. Check the Bestiary. :)
Speaking of feats: apparently neither the orc nor the hobgoblin has Weapon Focus worked into their attack line.
Yep, either they forgot to add in the weapon focus benefit or the class level benefit. Its also interesting that orcs do not have "Light Sensitivity" indicated in their stat block either. I guess only orc characters suffer from this?
Orc Ferocity: Once per day, when a half-orc is brought below 0 hit points but not killed, he can fight on for one more round as if disabled. At the end of his next turn, unless brought to above 0 hit points, he immediately falls unconscious and begins dying.This only gives the orc one extra round of combat. I think this is a change from the beta, though.
"Orc Ferocity" is the half-orc racial.
Actual orcs get regular ferocity, which lasts until dead.
"Orc Ferocity" is the half-orc racial.
Actual orcs get regular ferocity, which lasts until dead.
And is not limited to one use per day.
Wow, that is REALLY lame. If they were going to make it suck, they could have at least let them have it at-will. They nerfed it twice, was that really necessary? I haven't run any numbers on this, but it seems awfully rude.