Custom / modified Orcs

[beemer4188]

I wrote this sub race of orcs for 3.5 and recently found my old notebook so I thought I would convert them to Pathfinder and see what you awesome people thought. So here it goes...

Snow/Mountain Orcs
Ability modifiers: +4 Strength -2 Intelligence -2 Charisma
30 Feet base Speed
Immunity to snow blindness (possibly giving them -2 to ranged attacks like the Dayrunner alternate racial trait of Orcs but not sure)
Climate Tolerant: Snow orcs do not need to make fortitude save when exposed to cold environments. Functions as spell Endure elements but only for cold enviroments.
Languages known: orc and common
Bonus languages from high intelligence: Dwarven, Goblin, Gnoll

Snow orcs are more materialistic than their orc counterparts and are more prone to be Fighters or rangers rather than Barbarians, also they are more ranged combatants that use hit and run tactics(why I was unsure to dive them the -2 to Ranged attacks). They are not as "savage" as regular orc and would rather trade with a village/settlement than pillage it.

I didn't reference the race builder for RP I just converted what i had to what I thought would be the Pathfinder equivalent. So if anyone would like to figure the RP it would be more than welcome.

Let me know what you all think.

[Klorox]

Question, normal orcs have the -2 on wisdom too, why did you suppress that on snow orcs?

I dot this for later checking and comparison with standard orcs...you seem to have deleted ferocity and weapon proficiencies, and I don't know what else.

[beemer4188]

Klorox wrote:

Question, normal orcs have the -2 on wisdom too, why did you suppress that on snow orcs?

I dot this for later checking and comparison with standard orcs...you seem to have deleted ferocity and weapon proficiencies, and I don't know what else.

The Wisdom is because snow orcs have "evolved" to be "smarter" than orcs but not in a bookish intelligence type of way so I thought that it was fitting.

Weapon familiarity should be Short bows and long bows to show their favoritism to ranged combat. And I'm not really sure why I left off Ferocity....maybe going with the theme that they are more "civilized" than orcs and that they utilize hit and run tactics rather than the toe to toe combat favored by orcs.

[Klorox]

OK, they seem to be fine then :)

[Claxon]

I think this is best down by custom making two alternative racial traits.

The first is would be Snowvision - Snowvision replaces Darkvision and Light Sensitivity and allows the Snow Orcs to see through snow and similar visual impairments. *There isn't actually a snow blindness condition in Pathfinder, though there is a 3rd party supplement which provides it as a disease. Due to this I didn't think it necessary to be immune to a condition which doesn't exist.

The second would be Cold Acclimatization - Replaces Ferocity and functions as Endure Elements for cold climates only. Due to the acclimatization Snow Orcs take a -4 penalty to hot weather related saves.

Aside from these trait options, I wouldn't make other changes.

I wouldn't consider Snow Orcs a completely separate race with different weapon familiarizes, but a off-shoot group that took to living in a snowy region for a few generations. Take a look at Aquatic Elves compared to Elves for an example of how this is handled.

As for not having a penalty to wisdom...I think you should keep the stat spread as is. Otherwise you need to remove more features (like Weapon Familiarity) to account for the bonus of not having a penalty to mental scores.

[beemer4188]

I was going for what a Drow is to an Elf rather than a sub-race. Snow orcs have evolved from orcs.