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Race and species in D&D
- Thread starter Hollywood
- Start date
Alex
Arcane
Just an aside, but I really hate the way 3e onwards handles charisma, making its most important feature being a "spellcasting attribute". 2e D&D made it not very clear how it should be handled, and I guess even the other editions understate its importance in exchange of explaining the hundreds of spells, equipment and what not, but the old way of dealing with it really clicked with me when I read Gamma World.
About races being simply specializations, yeah that sucked, I agree. I understand that Runequest actually made other races interesting, rather than being simply a bonus to this or that kind of character by having the different races and cultures of the world be really different from one another. I don't know for sure, cause I only played a little runequest, and it was a human centric game (as much as I wanted to try out the duckmen). But from what I read, certain races were still more focused on certain roles as far as adventuring was concerned, however. Still, better than nothing, I think.
The game that did races best, I thik, was Burning Wheel. Burning Wheel's races are really varied, and they do things differently from one another. In BW, each races has various lifepaths. that is, stuff that a character did on his life up to now. For example, a dwarf might be born into a noble family, into a guild family, as an artificer or as a clansman (the "peasant" class). From there, he could take jobs such as a herder, a brewer, a carter, a tyro or a lot of other professions. He might eventually be part of the dwarven host, which is basically the army. Later he might leave them too. So, the result is that each race has a culture associated with it, describing different roles a person can fit in society. Dwarves make awesome warriors merchants and craftsmen in BW. But you have lots of options different from those to focus into. Heck, even if you want to follow their obvious natural strengths, there are still many differentiations between these aspects. The host subsetting, for example, offers the opportunity to become a personally powerful warrior, a captain able to manage many man, an artilerist, or even a field engineer.
Even more interesting, the system has a huge variety of skills, some of which are race spscific. Dwarves are able to build wonderful objects of metal and stone no other race can achieve. Elves have many craft skills that tare somewhat magic in nature, and allows them to weave subtle enchantment into what they make (like the elven bread, or boots that make the user silent). Humans are the only ones able to use the flashy, D&D style of magic, and so on. This means that even if you take a race that is much more "warlike" than another, the latter probably will still be able to produce interesting warriors that aren't simply worse than those of the first.
About races being simply specializations, yeah that sucked, I agree. I understand that Runequest actually made other races interesting, rather than being simply a bonus to this or that kind of character by having the different races and cultures of the world be really different from one another. I don't know for sure, cause I only played a little runequest, and it was a human centric game (as much as I wanted to try out the duckmen). But from what I read, certain races were still more focused on certain roles as far as adventuring was concerned, however. Still, better than nothing, I think.
The game that did races best, I thik, was Burning Wheel. Burning Wheel's races are really varied, and they do things differently from one another. In BW, each races has various lifepaths. that is, stuff that a character did on his life up to now. For example, a dwarf might be born into a noble family, into a guild family, as an artificer or as a clansman (the "peasant" class). From there, he could take jobs such as a herder, a brewer, a carter, a tyro or a lot of other professions. He might eventually be part of the dwarven host, which is basically the army. Later he might leave them too. So, the result is that each race has a culture associated with it, describing different roles a person can fit in society. Dwarves make awesome warriors merchants and craftsmen in BW. But you have lots of options different from those to focus into. Heck, even if you want to follow their obvious natural strengths, there are still many differentiations between these aspects. The host subsetting, for example, offers the opportunity to become a personally powerful warrior, a captain able to manage many man, an artilerist, or even a field engineer.
Even more interesting, the system has a huge variety of skills, some of which are race spscific. Dwarves are able to build wonderful objects of metal and stone no other race can achieve. Elves have many craft skills that tare somewhat magic in nature, and allows them to weave subtle enchantment into what they make (like the elven bread, or boots that make the user silent). Humans are the only ones able to use the flashy, D&D style of magic, and so on. This means that even if you take a race that is much more "warlike" than another, the latter probably will still be able to produce interesting warriors that aren't simply worse than those of the first.
Telengard
Arcane
The race system exists and persists because D&D used to be a very different game, built for a much different purpose, and those early versions were highly influential, so lots of designers keep going back to that time for inspiration.
That early game was about playing Tolkien, since Tolkien was huge, so the world structure is a Tolkien structure. Complete with the other races being on the fade-out, and the 5th age being the age of man. And then, since you were rolling for Attributes anyways, and only 15+ really mattered, getting a +1/-1 wasn't going to mean that much really. Instead, it was the special abilities that actually mattered for defining a race. After all, starting out as a fighter with a 10 strength and 4 hit points wasn't an unusual thing.
Plus, the system wasn't just intended to be human-centric, it was human-focused. That's why humans had no bonuses/negatives/special abilities. They are the statistical norm for the system. The other races have specialties in order to define how they are different from the norm. As well, since the other races were fading, it was also defining why they were fading.
D&D has since gone in a much different direction, but parts of that old system - reflecting a very different game - still persist in the newer versions in many ways. Because, for whatever reason, they chose to utterly rebuild the game system several times without redesigning it from the ground up in order to reflect their new focus.
As for other designers: D&D was seminal, so there's nostalgia, common knowledge, and ease of implementation.
*
At one time, Charisma was important - it defined two things. 1) Number of henchmen, which was very important. And 2) your encounter roll reaction with wandering monsters. Once both of those things were dropped, Charisma kind of lost its purpose. They've been trying to jack it back in in various (and usually silly) ways ever since. When they cut its purpose, though, they should just have cut the Attribute too, rather than leave a useless vestige.
That early game was about playing Tolkien, since Tolkien was huge, so the world structure is a Tolkien structure. Complete with the other races being on the fade-out, and the 5th age being the age of man. And then, since you were rolling for Attributes anyways, and only 15+ really mattered, getting a +1/-1 wasn't going to mean that much really. Instead, it was the special abilities that actually mattered for defining a race. After all, starting out as a fighter with a 10 strength and 4 hit points wasn't an unusual thing.
Plus, the system wasn't just intended to be human-centric, it was human-focused. That's why humans had no bonuses/negatives/special abilities. They are the statistical norm for the system. The other races have specialties in order to define how they are different from the norm. As well, since the other races were fading, it was also defining why they were fading.
D&D has since gone in a much different direction, but parts of that old system - reflecting a very different game - still persist in the newer versions in many ways. Because, for whatever reason, they chose to utterly rebuild the game system several times without redesigning it from the ground up in order to reflect their new focus.
As for other designers: D&D was seminal, so there's nostalgia, common knowledge, and ease of implementation.
*
At one time, Charisma was important - it defined two things. 1) Number of henchmen, which was very important. And 2) your encounter roll reaction with wandering monsters. Once both of those things were dropped, Charisma kind of lost its purpose. They've been trying to jack it back in in various (and usually silly) ways ever since. When they cut its purpose, though, they should just have cut the Attribute too, rather than leave a useless vestige.
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2011
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DnD's difficulties for representing accurately characters comes from the fact it is too combat oriented. Every aspect of the game has combat applications and everything is moved by this idea. DnD was a wargame once, so it is not difficult to understand the reasons for this.
Pathfinder has made some very good moves to kinda fix a skill system that completely neutralized any different options without hampering your character. Now I can safely play a fighter with lots of points in stealth or diplomacy because fuck you I want my fighter to learn stealth and diplomacy without spending all my skill points there for some half-arsed ranks.
Even the alignment system has combat applications, especially through some specific classes. Yes, it offers some limited flavour and a simple (or complicated if you are too much into WCDM black and white thinking) moral framework but other than that, it is a useless mechanic for most characters.
Finally, you can see how combat oriented the game is by looking at some spells. Charm Person, a spell that should have its best applications outside of combat, has verbal and somatic components. This makes it almost useless outside of a combat situation unless you have Still and/or Silent spell, just to not make everyone more hostile against you immediately. On the other hand, Presence from Vampire: The Masquerade works wonders outside of combat, making it a Charm Person spell that isn't a burden.
There are other examples like that, showing some really combat-centric design decisions that make the mechanics a burden when you try to RP or customize your character. The conclusion is that if you care a lot about character customization and RP, forget DnD and search for a class-less skill based system. There are other systems that will help you achieve this without house-ruling the shit out of them.
If you want some light RP between dungeons and dragons, Pathfinder is great.
Pathfinder has made some very good moves to kinda fix a skill system that completely neutralized any different options without hampering your character. Now I can safely play a fighter with lots of points in stealth or diplomacy because fuck you I want my fighter to learn stealth and diplomacy without spending all my skill points there for some half-arsed ranks.
Even the alignment system has combat applications, especially through some specific classes. Yes, it offers some limited flavour and a simple (or complicated if you are too much into WCDM black and white thinking) moral framework but other than that, it is a useless mechanic for most characters.
Finally, you can see how combat oriented the game is by looking at some spells. Charm Person, a spell that should have its best applications outside of combat, has verbal and somatic components. This makes it almost useless outside of a combat situation unless you have Still and/or Silent spell, just to not make everyone more hostile against you immediately. On the other hand, Presence from Vampire: The Masquerade works wonders outside of combat, making it a Charm Person spell that isn't a burden.
There are other examples like that, showing some really combat-centric design decisions that make the mechanics a burden when you try to RP or customize your character. The conclusion is that if you care a lot about character customization and RP, forget DnD and search for a class-less skill based system. There are other systems that will help you achieve this without house-ruling the shit out of them.
If you want some light RP between dungeons and dragons, Pathfinder is great.
Telengard
Arcane
And the question of race or species. Well, elves and orcs can mate with humans and produce offspring that can themselves reproduce. Orcs and elves, supposedly so. Dwarves and humans, no (Muls were sterile). Dwarves and anyone else, no. (Though I've heard that's been changed lately.) Halflings and humans, I don't know that the question has ever been answered.
So, it's race. Mostly. With dwarves as a sub-species.
So, it's race. Mostly. With dwarves as a sub-species.
Alex
Arcane
I agree with most of your post, Telengard, but I wanted to point this out:
Indeed, the white box had attributes as something unimportant, mechanically. Although I also heard many games made them more important when deciding one of the many things they didn't cover. Like rolling under your dexterity on a d20 to accomplish some acrobatic feat or something. But the point i really disagree is about Tolkien. According to Mr. Gygax, Tolkien was a very small influence in the game. You can read about it here. Now, some have said he was simply pissed off because of the lawsuit Tolkien's estate threw his way, but after seeing Burning Wheel, a game where the dwarves, orcs and elves really feel Tolkien like, I have to agree with him.
Alex_Steel
I don't really think it is fair to say old D&D was combat oriented. I mean, sure, it the one place where it gives a lot of rules. But if you read those rules, they are actually quite minimalist. Even AD&D, which was much more of a clusterfuck of combat rules, isn't nearly as detailed or complicated there as 3e. I mean, you had the segments, which made initiative a whole lot more important, but aside from that, you didn't have a whole lot of choices or complications. You roll your THAC0, do your damage and maybe, if you are a high level fighter, attack again. IT was a bit slow, but still fast as long as you avoided miniatures and the like.
A good example I like to use to show this is mentioning that of the 27 MU spells in the Moldvay edition of the basic set, 2 of them are direct damage ones. And only about 10 have direct combat use. The old game did not focus so much in combat, but in overcoming situations. Combat was one of the tools you used for that, but it was far from the only one, and resorting to it too much, or in the wrong time, or in the wrong way, would get you killed.
Indeed, the white box had attributes as something unimportant, mechanically. Although I also heard many games made them more important when deciding one of the many things they didn't cover. Like rolling under your dexterity on a d20 to accomplish some acrobatic feat or something. But the point i really disagree is about Tolkien. According to Mr. Gygax, Tolkien was a very small influence in the game. You can read about it here. Now, some have said he was simply pissed off because of the lawsuit Tolkien's estate threw his way, but after seeing Burning Wheel, a game where the dwarves, orcs and elves really feel Tolkien like, I have to agree with him.
Alex_Steel
I don't really think it is fair to say old D&D was combat oriented. I mean, sure, it the one place where it gives a lot of rules. But if you read those rules, they are actually quite minimalist. Even AD&D, which was much more of a clusterfuck of combat rules, isn't nearly as detailed or complicated there as 3e. I mean, you had the segments, which made initiative a whole lot more important, but aside from that, you didn't have a whole lot of choices or complications. You roll your THAC0, do your damage and maybe, if you are a high level fighter, attack again. IT was a bit slow, but still fast as long as you avoided miniatures and the like.
A good example I like to use to show this is mentioning that of the 27 MU spells in the Moldvay edition of the basic set, 2 of them are direct damage ones. And only about 10 have direct combat use. The old game did not focus so much in combat, but in overcoming situations. Combat was one of the tools you used for that, but it was far from the only one, and resorting to it too much, or in the wrong time, or in the wrong way, would get you killed.
D&D elves and dwarves never really felt Tolkien-like. An implementation of Tolkien-like races (with the exception of halflings) in 2nd edition AD&D can be found in the Birthright setting which I thought captured the feel of Tolkien orcs, dwarves and elves quite nicely. Then again, I love the hell out of that setting. It also had subraces of humans that had attribute modifiers.
As far as charisma goes, I actually liked its implementation in 3rd edition and Pathfinder. It's a reflection of your strength of character and personality. A sort of magnetism. Some classes use it for casting, it's arguably the most or second most important stat for paladins (competing with strength, but more important than wisdom), it's important for turning undead and for interacting with others (e.g. social skills). I think charisma is an important type of stat for a simulation and I thought it was nice that in 3E there were reasons for various types of characters not to use it as a dump stat other than, say, a paladin needs 17+ charisma just to qualify for the class but other than that it doesn't do much.
It's true though, that for RP and even for a lot of combat and such, skill-based RPG systems tend to cover more ground and perhaps are more suited towards a decent world simulation and RP that goes beyond dungeon crawling and combat. Either way, one of the strengths about (A)D&D was the wide selection of spells which had all sorts of utility uses. There were combat spells but also a wide variety of non-combat spells. It really becomes apparent when you compare any older edition of D&D with 4E where everything short of a few utility abilities and "rituals" is combat focused. The whole design for 4E feels more like a video game or boardgame where the only thing to do is fight.
As far as charisma goes, I actually liked its implementation in 3rd edition and Pathfinder. It's a reflection of your strength of character and personality. A sort of magnetism. Some classes use it for casting, it's arguably the most or second most important stat for paladins (competing with strength, but more important than wisdom), it's important for turning undead and for interacting with others (e.g. social skills). I think charisma is an important type of stat for a simulation and I thought it was nice that in 3E there were reasons for various types of characters not to use it as a dump stat other than, say, a paladin needs 17+ charisma just to qualify for the class but other than that it doesn't do much.
It's true though, that for RP and even for a lot of combat and such, skill-based RPG systems tend to cover more ground and perhaps are more suited towards a decent world simulation and RP that goes beyond dungeon crawling and combat. Either way, one of the strengths about (A)D&D was the wide selection of spells which had all sorts of utility uses. There were combat spells but also a wide variety of non-combat spells. It really becomes apparent when you compare any older edition of D&D with 4E where everything short of a few utility abilities and "rituals" is combat focused. The whole design for 4E feels more like a video game or boardgame where the only thing to do is fight.
Telengard
Arcane
Nothing will ever fully determine Tolkien's influence, but my favorite article is this 1972 one from Gary Gygax about Chainmail, where they were listing what figures they were representing:
1972 Gygax Article
Reader Jervis Johnson kindly sent along the following short article by Gary Gygax, published in the October 1972 (No. 127) issue of Wargamer's Newsletter. There's no copyright statement on the issue from which this is taken, but it's assumed to be copyrighted to Donald Featherstone, who began this venerable periodical in 1962.
Here's the text of the article, typos and misspellings included:
Reader Jervis Johnson kindly sent along the following short article by Gary Gygax, published in the October 1972 (No. 127) issue of Wargamer's Newsletter. There's no copyright statement on the issue from which this is taken, but it's assumed to be copyrighted to Donald Featherstone, who began this venerable periodical in 1962.
Here's the text of the article, typos and misspellings included:
FANTASY BATTLES
By
GARY GYGAX
I offer the following details of our fantasy battles:
The rules used are those designed by Jeff Perran and I – CHAINMAIL, Guidon Games, P.O. Box 1123, Evansville, IN 47713, U.S.A., at $2 plus postage. The revised and expanded version should be available by the time this is read. The booklet contains brief information about the scales used for different figure-types, and the expanded edition has things like how fast goblins, orcs and dwarves can tunnel under the walls of a besieged stronghold.
Tolkien purists will not find these rules entirely satisfactory, I believe, for many of the fantastic creatures do not follow his “specifications”, mainly because I believe that other writers were as “authoritative” as he.
Because I have a large force of 40mm Elastolin figures, we use a base 40mm as man-size, but 30mm will do as well. Regular troops have only a few added touches of paint, but hero-types have such things as gilded or enamelled armour, jewels, and carefully painted devices on their shields.
Orcs and elves are 30mm – that is what it says in our book. However, because we have not got around to preparing them, Orcs are 40mm Turks and Elves are bowmen of the same scale.
Trolls and ogres are 54mm. I located some inexpensive plastic Indians in this scale, and a bit of conversion has produced sufficient numbers of black, grey, green and purple creatures of this ilk.
Metal mediaeval figures in 25mm scale can easily be painted up to make goblins and dwarves, while converted Airfix “Robin Hood” men serve as Hobbits.
Giants are made from the 70mm Elastolin figures. At the moment we have only a pale blue fellow with a head of bushy hair (snipped from one of my daughter’s dolls when they weren’t looking), who is brandishing a huge club. He was originally a Viking with a sword and shield, but the shield was stripped off, the sword removed and a puttied matchstick became the bludgeon.
The Balrog has caused considerable problems, and right now we are using a giant sloth from an assortment of plastic prehistoric animals, which (converted) makes a fearsome looking beast, albeit not quite as Tolkien described it.
Nazgul, like the Balrog, are also difficult. Presently we are employing unconverted 40mm Huns on black horses, but we would like to put wings on the steeds and cloak the figures riding them.
There are two dragons in our force of fantasy figures. One I made stegosaurus: First, the head was enlarged with auto body putty, a wire was inserted into the tail and puttied to make it longer – and barbed, the spikes of the tail were clipped off and added as horns to the head end, cardboard bat wings were puttied into place, and finally the entire affair was given many coats of paint, gilding and glitter (as sparkling gems on its belly). The other was made by Don Kaye using a brontosaurus, with two smaller heads added to the long neck, spikes along the back, wings, and so on.
A large stock of plastic wolves, bears, vultures, and the like are used for lycanthropes or whatever other fairly normal looking creatures are called for. Soft plastic “horrors” and insects from the dime store serve as elementals and giant insects.
Perhaps the best part of fantasy wargaming is being able to allow your imagination full rein. Whatever the players desire can be used or done in games. For example, for one match I built a chest of jewels as the object to be obtained to win. However, I did not mention to either team that I had added a pair of “basilisk eyes” (large pin heads dotted appropriately) which immediately turned the first ogre who opened it to stone. The possibilities are boundless.
The way the rules are selling here, it seems a good bat for some model figures firm to start producing a line of properly scaled fantasy figures!
Mr Botham’s observations about the possibilities of Airfix “Astronauts” as Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” (or other future warriors) has also crossed my mind as a fair possibility. In fact, if Mr Botham eventually puts his ideas into a set of rules I can state, as Rules Editor at Guidon Games, that I would like to see them with eventual publication in mind.
It's an intriguing article for a number of reasons, not least because of his comment about other authors being as "authoritative" as Tolkien when it comes to describing fantastical creatures. That ought to add more fuel for the fire of future discussions on that topic.By
GARY GYGAX
I offer the following details of our fantasy battles:
The rules used are those designed by Jeff Perran and I – CHAINMAIL, Guidon Games, P.O. Box 1123, Evansville, IN 47713, U.S.A., at $2 plus postage. The revised and expanded version should be available by the time this is read. The booklet contains brief information about the scales used for different figure-types, and the expanded edition has things like how fast goblins, orcs and dwarves can tunnel under the walls of a besieged stronghold.
Tolkien purists will not find these rules entirely satisfactory, I believe, for many of the fantastic creatures do not follow his “specifications”, mainly because I believe that other writers were as “authoritative” as he.
Because I have a large force of 40mm Elastolin figures, we use a base 40mm as man-size, but 30mm will do as well. Regular troops have only a few added touches of paint, but hero-types have such things as gilded or enamelled armour, jewels, and carefully painted devices on their shields.
Orcs and elves are 30mm – that is what it says in our book. However, because we have not got around to preparing them, Orcs are 40mm Turks and Elves are bowmen of the same scale.
Trolls and ogres are 54mm. I located some inexpensive plastic Indians in this scale, and a bit of conversion has produced sufficient numbers of black, grey, green and purple creatures of this ilk.
Metal mediaeval figures in 25mm scale can easily be painted up to make goblins and dwarves, while converted Airfix “Robin Hood” men serve as Hobbits.
Giants are made from the 70mm Elastolin figures. At the moment we have only a pale blue fellow with a head of bushy hair (snipped from one of my daughter’s dolls when they weren’t looking), who is brandishing a huge club. He was originally a Viking with a sword and shield, but the shield was stripped off, the sword removed and a puttied matchstick became the bludgeon.
The Balrog has caused considerable problems, and right now we are using a giant sloth from an assortment of plastic prehistoric animals, which (converted) makes a fearsome looking beast, albeit not quite as Tolkien described it.
Nazgul, like the Balrog, are also difficult. Presently we are employing unconverted 40mm Huns on black horses, but we would like to put wings on the steeds and cloak the figures riding them.
There are two dragons in our force of fantasy figures. One I made stegosaurus: First, the head was enlarged with auto body putty, a wire was inserted into the tail and puttied to make it longer – and barbed, the spikes of the tail were clipped off and added as horns to the head end, cardboard bat wings were puttied into place, and finally the entire affair was given many coats of paint, gilding and glitter (as sparkling gems on its belly). The other was made by Don Kaye using a brontosaurus, with two smaller heads added to the long neck, spikes along the back, wings, and so on.
A large stock of plastic wolves, bears, vultures, and the like are used for lycanthropes or whatever other fairly normal looking creatures are called for. Soft plastic “horrors” and insects from the dime store serve as elementals and giant insects.
Perhaps the best part of fantasy wargaming is being able to allow your imagination full rein. Whatever the players desire can be used or done in games. For example, for one match I built a chest of jewels as the object to be obtained to win. However, I did not mention to either team that I had added a pair of “basilisk eyes” (large pin heads dotted appropriately) which immediately turned the first ogre who opened it to stone. The possibilities are boundless.
The way the rules are selling here, it seems a good bat for some model figures firm to start producing a line of properly scaled fantasy figures!
Mr Botham’s observations about the possibilities of Airfix “Astronauts” as Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” (or other future warriors) has also crossed my mind as a fair possibility. In fact, if Mr Botham eventually puts his ideas into a set of rules I can state, as Rules Editor at Guidon Games, that I would like to see them with eventual publication in mind.
I was disappointed by the half-orc stat allocation as well as racial traits.
The Orc race in pathfinder is a paragon of strength and pure unrepentant violence, and while half-orcs get some decent bonuses for certain classes, such as barbarian and inquisitor, they don't make up for the fact that Half-Orcs are supposed to be a brutal race that takes after their physically superior orc-blood in some way.
Instead, half-orcs get that stupid +2 to any trait you want bullshit that humans get cause they're human and half-elves get fucking saddled with.
Yeah, I get it, they wanted half-orcs to be more than a base combat race. That's cool, but I still like the idea of a half-orc screaming as he jumps out from an alleyway and swings a fucking greataxe into your unsuspecting face, then rapes your woman in front of your corpse, then cleaves her as well.
Pathfinder really should have gone with something like a +2 to strength and +2 to any other stat for half-orcs, and a -2 to a single mental stat of the player's choosing (simply because full orcs get -2 to all of them). They could have done something similar with half-elves, though I haven't really thought about the half-elf side of things because they're fucking half-elves and thus gay because of it.
Maybe some people are happy with half-orcs, but I'm not. Half-orcs are supposed to have something up on humans physically, due to their orc blood, and honestly, Orc Ferocity doesn't cut it as far as I'm concerned, unless you're going the unbreakable fighter route with all the awesomeness that comes with it. Personally, I'd like to see just something that gives them an advantage in strength over the average human. Fuck, humans get a lot of advantages with their alternate racial traits and feats.
Half orcs make up for it with access to Orc and half-orc class archtypes (dirty fighter is fun) and they can go the deathless route with feats should they decide to do so.
Shit, even hobgoblins get great starting stat bonuses, +2 to both dex and con. That's some crazy shit. And no minuses. Me? Give us a +2 to strength and any other stat, and a -2 to a single mental stat of our choosing. That way, if we want, we can pile on the strength, or we can cancel out the penalty.
Also, I hate the fact that Orcs, as iconic as they are, aren't considered a core fucking race. Anyone else hate that about these dnd styled games?
The Orc race in pathfinder is a paragon of strength and pure unrepentant violence, and while half-orcs get some decent bonuses for certain classes, such as barbarian and inquisitor, they don't make up for the fact that Half-Orcs are supposed to be a brutal race that takes after their physically superior orc-blood in some way.
Instead, half-orcs get that stupid +2 to any trait you want bullshit that humans get cause they're human and half-elves get fucking saddled with.
Yeah, I get it, they wanted half-orcs to be more than a base combat race. That's cool, but I still like the idea of a half-orc screaming as he jumps out from an alleyway and swings a fucking greataxe into your unsuspecting face, then rapes your woman in front of your corpse, then cleaves her as well.
Pathfinder really should have gone with something like a +2 to strength and +2 to any other stat for half-orcs, and a -2 to a single mental stat of the player's choosing (simply because full orcs get -2 to all of them). They could have done something similar with half-elves, though I haven't really thought about the half-elf side of things because they're fucking half-elves and thus gay because of it.
Maybe some people are happy with half-orcs, but I'm not. Half-orcs are supposed to have something up on humans physically, due to their orc blood, and honestly, Orc Ferocity doesn't cut it as far as I'm concerned, unless you're going the unbreakable fighter route with all the awesomeness that comes with it. Personally, I'd like to see just something that gives them an advantage in strength over the average human. Fuck, humans get a lot of advantages with their alternate racial traits and feats.
Half orcs make up for it with access to Orc and half-orc class archtypes (dirty fighter is fun) and they can go the deathless route with feats should they decide to do so.
Shit, even hobgoblins get great starting stat bonuses, +2 to both dex and con. That's some crazy shit. And no minuses. Me? Give us a +2 to strength and any other stat, and a -2 to a single mental stat of our choosing. That way, if we want, we can pile on the strength, or we can cancel out the penalty.
Also, I hate the fact that Orcs, as iconic as they are, aren't considered a core fucking race. Anyone else hate that about these dnd styled games?
Probably.
I'm still disappointed about Half-Orcs.
I'm still disappointed about Half-Orcs.
One thing in Pathfinder that bugs the hell out of me: Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves all get a shit ton of weapons that are useful that are specifically called racial weapons (useful or flavorful, whatever).
The fuck do Orcs get? The Orc Double Axe. Yeah, that's fucking it! Really? Not a vicious type of weapon that shows the brutal killing nature of the Orc, like some sort of giant sword that needs an insanely high strenght, or an axe or hammer that can sunder the hell out of things? No, just a stick with two axes, one on each end.
That's nice if you're a two weapon fighter. But what about the rest of us that want fucking FLAVOR?
The fuck do Orcs get? The Orc Double Axe. Yeah, that's fucking it! Really? Not a vicious type of weapon that shows the brutal killing nature of the Orc, like some sort of giant sword that needs an insanely high strenght, or an axe or hammer that can sunder the hell out of things? No, just a stick with two axes, one on each end.
That's nice if you're a two weapon fighter. But what about the rest of us that want fucking FLAVOR?
Damned Registrations
Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
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Isn't that what all the other racial weapons usually are? Lame double weapons? http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#urgroshDwarven for example?
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He probably talks about the elven curve blade and the dwarven waraxe.
Hey, we're talking about history, yay! Telengard 
According to Jon Peterson's "Playing at the World",
More related material (pasted from the Kindle edition, so don't yell at me about the formatting:
Also, "purist" wargamers were pretty upset that their pristine hobby was getting polluted with fantasy crap...
Fun stuff
Sorry, what were we talking about?
According to Jon Peterson's "Playing at the World",
More related material (pasted from the Kindle edition, so don't yell at me about the formatting:
Also, "purist" wargamers were pretty upset that their pristine hobby was getting polluted with fantasy crap...
Fun stuff
Sorry, what were we talking about?
Very solid post. You basically stole every thought I was going to attempt to add to this thread, and expressed them in a better fashion than I could have. I will only add what tangential bits I can to reinforce it.
I remember as a kid reading Gygax' and Arneson's rules on demi-humans for the first time and not being shocked by or objecting to them in any way. I never perceived the brutally restricting (in hindsight) rules as being discriminatory at all; rather, I interpreted them in my young mind as the way things were supposed to be, reinforcing Telengard's summary of their being seminal in all of today's derivative works. The maximum level attainable of 7th or 8th, IIRC, assigned to dwarves and elves felt completely natural and "right" back then, because no one had been yet marinated in the sauces of min/maxing, powergaming and ridiculous entitlement that we see coming out of every corner of RPG's in this era. Gary's word was law, you either accepted it or broke the rules on your own -- such was life as a non-human in his and our D&D world.
Were the liberating changes introduced in AD&D and later in 2E and 3E for the best? Were these times to be considered a revolution, expanding the horizons for better and more varied roleplaying, or should they be considered to have been part of a greater decline, leading to the racial stereotypes we see in NWN2 and the laughable super-enabling PnP MMO that is 4E/D&D Next? This is debatable, but I can tell you from my standpoint that I haven't seen anything I consider to be fundamentally revolutionary or even innovative on the subject of fantasy races in any of the many RPG/CRPG products I've taken the time to look at since the 1970's (a nod to the aforementioned Runescape, though). It's always some variant on dwarves or elves, or the addition of some new beast race, but never anything that, IMO, marginalizes and therefore preserves the importance of racial distinctions like the old guys back in Lake Geneva did and decided upon for their campaigns.
Sure, things may have been primitive and needlessly restrictive when viewed through today's Elves Gone Wild lens, but they were made so out of a necessity in maintaining a respect for what was then considered exotic. Just as always, the original seems to be the best.
Lastly, here's another fun little tidbit of the special rules assigned to dwarves from the original set:
Rather significant concessions made to justify the hard cap, I think, especially considering the nature of the game back then.
3-booklet boxed set rules in HTML here: http://tametick.com/dnd/
DraQ
Arcane
What I hate about D&D styled/derived games (including cRPGs) is that apart from core races there is metric shitload of races serving only as XP-fodder.
I most certainly am. Would it have been so hard to give Orcs a 2 handed weapon that's either 1D10 or 1D12/2D6 that is deadly and either x3 or 19-20x2?
Would it have fucking killed them? Apparently so, because they just gave us Orcs that fucking shitty double axe.
Even the metal masked assassin from Metalocalypse had a double sword!
For fucks sake, why not give Orcs and Half-Orcs a weapon that does 2D8 damage, x3 critical, and causes a -1 to armor class because it's difficult to wield and worry about defense.
Damned Registrations
Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
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Dwarven waraxe is just an axe version of a bastard sword. The weapon you're asking for is a greataxe or greatsword or greatclub, which are all martial weapons anyways. Also, dwarves get shafted on their movement speed, which is pretty fucking important for a melee fighter. Getting a free proficiency in a slightly better (1 damage on average) weapon for sword (axe) and board builds isn't exactly amazing. That's like getting half a feat. Why does it matter anyways? Fighters are pretty much barrel scraping tier balance wise, and if your DM is going to be kind enough to intentionally drop a racial weapon for you in the loot, min-maxing is probably not a priority.
No, but you can get large dwarven waraxes. If you're doing pure damage output, Large D. Waraxes and Bastard Swords are the way to go.
That and the Impact magic weapon quality, which further sizes the weapon's damage up by 1. So basically, with a large dwarven waraxe that is Impact, you've got 3D8 damage, crit x3, at only -2 to hit. You go with any fighter that has access to the weapon training, like two handed fighter or weapon master, and it's a negligible penalty.
That and the Impact magic weapon quality, which further sizes the weapon's damage up by 1. So basically, with a large dwarven waraxe that is Impact, you've got 3D8 damage, crit x3, at only -2 to hit. You go with any fighter that has access to the weapon training, like two handed fighter or weapon master, and it's a negligible penalty.
catfood
AGAIN
Yeah, that's kinda lame. But I think that any GM can be talked into coming up with other orc specific weapons. It's not that hard to come up with some stats for it. Adding a flavor description to it is easy as well. But I agree that it's kinda silly that the one race that is considered most warlike gets so little combat goodies.
Thank god someone agrees with me.
Telengard
Arcane
I agree with you, too. Half orcs have been sadly neglected over the years, to the point where they were even struck from the game for a while. But I'm not normally moved to talk about racial weapons, since I struck all racial weapon bonuses from my games long ago, unless the race came out of the womb with the weapon in hand.
I don't mind losing racial weapons. That actually doesn't bother me.
It's just that they include the fucking things into the game, and once again Orcs and Half-Orcs get the shit end of the stick.
If your going to include them, then fucking do so in a good enough number that things aren't wasted.
It's just that they include the fucking things into the game, and once again Orcs and Half-Orcs get the shit end of the stick.
If your going to include them, then fucking do so in a good enough number that things aren't wasted.
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