Why do half-orcs max out at 200lbs?


General Discussion


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I mean, it doesn't affect me because I'm disregarding the living heck out of that statistic, but it does strike me as curious.

Someone standing in the mid five foot range & weighing 200lbs is going to be fairly bulky, but at six feet that shifts over to them being on the leaner side, and by the time you get to 7ft(the max height listed), weighing 200lbs is going to look down right emaciated.

Was there a conscious design decision to shift half-orcs into a leaner, scrappier mold rather than the bulky bruisers they've historically been?


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Drow taskmasters are running them. And they ain't doing it for their good looks! They're going to get the menial jobs requiring lots of strength. That's going to make them scrappy and lean.

They probably are only fed the bare minimum too.


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FormerFiend wrote:

I mean, it doesn't affect me because I'm disregarding the living heck out of that statistic, but it does strike me as curious.

Someone standing in the mid five foot range & weighing 200lbs is going to be fairly bulky, but at six feet that shifts over to them being on the leaner side, and by the time you get to 7ft(the max height listed), weighing 200lbs is going to look down right emaciated.

Was there a conscious design decision to shift half-orcs into a leaner, scrappier mold rather than the bulky bruisers they've historically been?

Half-orcs should be beefier, working out to build those muscles. I say 200 lbs is too less.


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I'm 200lbs, 6 feet and technically overweight.

A healthy half-orc should be heavier than me easy.


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Because writers thought that the Body mass index was based on something besides a formula just getting lucky with a 5 foot 9 male human and working nowhere else?


It's because Orc society has a serious body-shaming problem.


Overweight orcs rarely survive long. Orcs face a cruel life.


Ignoring square cube law is also how you get three feet tall ysoki that bottom out at 60 pounds...


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I think we have a typo here. I honestly cannot see any reason for Orcs to be lighter than humans in this setting.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

the half orc i built out is even smaller.

according to the fluff, most of them are basically the dregs of Apostae. I'm guessing they are half-starved, malnourished, and sickly.


But yet the art in the book has a pretty buff-looking half-orc woman.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Azalah wrote:
But yet the art in the book has a pretty buff-looking half-orc woman.

you don't know how tall she is.


David knott 242 wrote:

I think we have a typo here. I honestly cannot see any reason for Orcs to be lighter than humans in this setting.

Yeah but they reprinted that typo.

Full blooded orcs, which have it just as bad if not worse on Apostae, are still huge; their art is, if anything, beefier & bulkier than ever even if their official weight cap is slightly less than their PF cap, but that's a simple rounding, down eight pounds from 328 to 320 for males, compared to half-orcs who drop a full 118lbs from their maximum.

So, if it were just the living conditions I'd expect it to have a noticeable effect on full blooded orcs as it did on half-orcs.

Even then, slave/second class citizen on Apostae isn't the only life available to orcs & half-orcs. That may be where their majority is, but that kind of consideration is why you put in a qualifier, "half orcs can reach up to 300lbs in ideal conditions but in the poor conditions on Apostae, rarely get above 200". Which, I get there is a character count in these books, but I feel a way to communicate that intent could still be found.


They weigh less because they are weighed on Apostae. The real but unanswerable question is how much they mass.


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They mass approximately one half orc.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
FormerFiend wrote:
David knott 242 wrote:

I think we have a typo here. I honestly cannot see any reason for Orcs to be lighter than humans in this setting.

Yeah but they reprinted that typo.

Full blooded orcs, which have it just as bad if not worse on Apostae, are still huge; their art is, if anything, beefier & bulkier than ever even if their official weight cap is slightly less than their PF cap, but that's a simple rounding, down eight pounds from 328 to 320 for males, compared to half-orcs who drop a full 118lbs from their maximum.

So, if it were just the living conditions I'd expect it to have a noticeable effect on full blooded orcs as it did on half-orcs.

Even then, slave/second class citizen on Apostae isn't the only life available to orcs & half-orcs. That may be where their majority is, but that kind of consideration is why you put in a qualifier, "half orcs can reach up to 300lbs in ideal conditions but in the poor conditions on Apostae, rarely get above 200". Which, I get there is a character count in these books, but I feel a way to communicate that intent could still be found.

those are also PC orcs.

it may well be that the typical orc is half-starved and disease-ridden. they are just slaves on a deathworld. after all. i can't imagine they are fed well.

moreover, the orcs look different in starfinder than in pathfinder. i imagine they've been genetically modified by the drow or other parties in the interim.


Ravingdork wrote:

Drow taskmasters are running them. And they ain't doing it for their good looks! They're going to get the menial jobs requiring lots of strength. That's going to make them scrappy and lean.

They probably are only fed the bare minimum too.

I think the last is the biggest point. On that planet all air and food are basically shipped in or grown in specific green houses. So I can see drow gouging orcs heavily on air/water/food which would tend to select for smaller sizes over time.


Yakman wrote:
FormerFiend wrote:
David knott 242 wrote:

I think we have a typo here. I honestly cannot see any reason for Orcs to be lighter than humans in this setting.

Yeah but they reprinted that typo.

Full blooded orcs, which have it just as bad if not worse on Apostae, are still huge; their art is, if anything, beefier & bulkier than ever even if their official weight cap is slightly less than their PF cap, but that's a simple rounding, down eight pounds from 328 to 320 for males, compared to half-orcs who drop a full 118lbs from their maximum.

So, if it were just the living conditions I'd expect it to have a noticeable effect on full blooded orcs as it did on half-orcs.

Even then, slave/second class citizen on Apostae isn't the only life available to orcs & half-orcs. That may be where their majority is, but that kind of consideration is why you put in a qualifier, "half orcs can reach up to 300lbs in ideal conditions but in the poor conditions on Apostae, rarely get above 200". Which, I get there is a character count in these books, but I feel a way to communicate that intent could still be found.

those are also PC orcs.

it may well be that the typical orc is half-starved and disease-ridden. they are just slaves on a deathworld. after all. i can't imagine they are fed well.

moreover, the orcs look different in starfinder than in pathfinder. i imagine they've been genetically modified by the drow or other parties in the interim.

Yeah but the 200lb cap is for PC half-orcs so I'm not seeing your point here.

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