I recently learned that in the BETA for pathfinder, Half-Orcs had the following ability scores: +2 STR, +2 Wis, -2 Int. For me, that was much much more true to the nature of what an Half-Orc is than The CRB will ever be. Abnormal Strength, bestial senses and a dim wit. Because PFO won't be a direct translation of rules, I'm really hoping to get my beloved orcs back.
I want to see Half-Orcs portrayed as strong and stupid with generous helpings of ugly. I'd like to get a discussion going to see where the community stands on this.
I much prefer having the option of a clever half-orc. Besides, why would half-orcs be wise when their orc ancestors are just the opposite?
|
I want to see Half-Orcs portrayed as strong and stupid with generous helpings of ugly.
So dump your int score and boost you're strength score?
Personally I don't link charisma with beauty. Confusion often occurs because beautiful people are often charismatic, but you can still get some one ugly as sin that is charismatic. I know the CRB mentions appearance in the description for charisma, but I just ignore it
"ugly" is more relative than anything else, Sorcerers, Shamans, Bards need some Charisma (either directly or for realistic flavor), the current D&D system most use doesn't have an additional 7th attribute for Beauty anyway (some do), and unless that changes Charisma also means personal power of might/appearance/aura of power of some sort
What I hope for from the online game is a class for a noble or architect character, which can form the world in unique ways
I see the charisma argument, I really do. I always saw CHAR as more of a measure of your force of personality- Something orcs have at least as much as humans.
But cognition? You KNOW that if you breed a human with an orc, odds are the offspring will be dumber than a full human. But these numbers vary and that's why the -2 int modifier works well. Given their human traits, some will become smarter than most full humans- but not many.
Chief Technical Officer
|
Please remember that Pathfinder Online is intended to be an interpretation of the existing Pathfinder campaign setting, so Goblinworks won't be taking things in wildly different directions.
Of course, players who choose half-orc characters will ultimately determine how their characters behave, but mechanically speaking, the developers will attempt to make that race a good choice for characters who are, as the Inner Sea World Guide puts it, "Impatient, impulsive, greedy, prone to violence when frustrated, and often none too bright... half-orcs nevertheless embody the full range of human emotion and imagination."
Goblin Squad Member
|
I really have it hard to also agree with how intelligence is handled in D&D but at the very least it makes more sense than Charisma. If you think about it, why should a half-orc be less intelligent if it was raised in a totally normal human town with education?
Sure, there is the race modifier argument, but just how much exactly is "learned knowledge" and "intuition to grasp things" part of the score? I would say any sentient being's intelligence is mostly based on the circumstances and surroundings while growing up, in a large part the education also matters.
Well this discussion is bringing in real world information, but inteligence is a combination of biology and circumstance. Races in D&D are closer to species in the real world, with the exception of the fact that interbreeding in a P&P game, is possible with much larger species differences than it is in the real world. In the real world if elves or orcs exist, odds of them being able to interbreed are extremely low. Hobbits actually exist in the fossil record, but they are drastically different enough biologically that they would never have been able to breed with humans. Of course in the D&D world, dragons and humans can interbreed, which based on traits, is about as large of a difference as breeding a monkey and a dolphin.
Biology and physiologically the ancestor of humans, homo-erectus is believed to appear mostly human, it is believed that overall their brain's were not capable of actually creating or developing significant languages, and while having some of the basic advantages of homo-sapiens, what they could learn was greatly limited.
If in the real world we took a time machine, took a baby homo-erectus into the present, and enrolled him in the finest school in the world, put it in a family that all of the children were nobel prize winners, etc... It would still fail to even reach the intellectual capacity of most mentally challenged homo-sapiens. It's brain just lacks the processing power to do so.
The same is also a factor just limiting to our own species. Even slight changes in the brain, can equal a person who is naturally prone to anger, less capable of learning etc... Heck that is the entire purpose of the IQ test. IQ tests are designed to measure a persons potential to learn, while limiting what can be gained by actual knowledge.
More or less the biology is like hardware vs software. With very advanced programmers, you can get a whole lot of function out of some very crappy systems. Heck most of us carry cellphones 10x more powerful than what we sent a man to the moon with.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Unfortunately the Half-Orc 'Beta' Stats certainly depicted 'strong', but a +2 to wisdom and a -2 to intelligence does not denote 'stupid'. It speaks of a mind who takes more note of the world around them than book learning, a mind that draws upon common sense than 'rational' thinking.
Personally I'm estatic with Paizo/Pathfinder's take on Half-Orcs. They focused as much on the 'Human' half of the race as they did the 'Orc', and for that, I am forever grateful.