The Gaming Den

The fact that you think that it is impossible to have any penalties that apply to PCs as well as NPCs is dumb.

Do we really want to design the game so that unless everyone has level+3 to a check (any and every check), they're too weak/strong?

That is boringly bland.

You're ignoring the point again, trying to shift it around. Don't. You went on and on about how the fact an orc without the penalty is comparable to giving wholly new abilities that have N/A written down on. That is a bad argument, and you need to admit that.

My point is that if orcs don't have wings, they shouldn't be granted to orc PCs any more easily than "freedom from racial stupidity".

Both are racial features, which is the only reason for comparing them at all.

Question: Am I allowed to play an orc wizard in your campaign?

If the answer is yes, orcs my orc cannot have an Intelligence penalty.

Period. Full stop. End of sentence.

This is largely due to the way D&D magic works, Since we're not (currently) talking about revamping the wizard class, this is what we have to work with.

Is a halfling with Favored Class: Any still a halfling?

Is a dwarf that moves 30' instead of 20' still a dwarf?

Is a human that acquires darkvision (not only possible; not even hard) still a human?

Orcs are not defined by their low Intelligence.

Orcs have >1 racial characteristic (the orcs we're making, not the MM orcs). All (worthwhile) PHB races have >1 racial characteristic, and orcs should be no different.

If you want "orcs are usually dumb," that is doable. I'd be glad to help come up with "dumbness" that doesn't cripple orc wizards.

Let's stop debating why orcs should be racially crippled at wizardry (yet allowed to become subpar wizards) and start figuring out racial options that allow viable orc wizards while still keeping the "savage" flavor.

Okay, first question.

What is the orcish penalty to Intelligence supposed to represent?

That is, what are orcs inferior at?

And where and how is that relevant to adventurering characters?

Because "Great at building cathedrals" is not a trait that alters game balance one bit, so whether dwarves have it or not doesn't hurt balance.

Same with "bad at" for orcs, if that is it.

So obviously their savagery is somehow an issue.

So what does Intelligence do in game other than directly influence your wizardry?

And what would a savage be bad at?

Note: My preference, if you're playing an orc, is this.

Orcs have -2 to Intelligence.

You can choose the "brains over brawn" background, and drop that penalty and lower (or remove) the Strength bonus.

However, its not something that disappears because orc PCs need to balanced. Any orc could take this, most won't (because most orcs do things where Strength is relevant and don't care for the fact they're weaker at Intelligence)

The point is that an orc has about a 1 in 216 chance of having an 16 Int (assuming that the general orc population follows the 3d6 character creation rule). If you extrapolate a bell curve based on 3d6 results, there is some chance that an individual orc has an 18 Int.

There is no chance that an orc will grow wings and no bell curve on which such a possiblilty would exist.

If you extrapolate a bell curve based on 3d6 results, there is some chance that an individual orc has an 18 Int.

Assuming you can have a characteristic equal to X, where X is equal to the highest measurable number.

But statistic caps are another story.

So, assuming orcs are savages but not Int-penalized (penalized at many Int skills, but not at Int directly)...what does "savage" mean?

And are we refering to orcs psychologically (which an individual orc would have a very hard time breaking away from) or culturally (which could be easy)?

Elennsar wrote:Okay, first question.

What is the orcish penalty to Intelligence supposed to represent?

Savagery. Orcs are brutish and violent, with a tendancy towards evil.

That is, what are orcs inferior at?

Racially? Planning. Cooperation. Empathy.

And where and how is that relevant to adventurering characters?

Orc adventurers tend to be more individualistic and have shorter attention spans (which might also explain why even the rare orc genius doesn't become a wizard). Their react quickly and violently, and value raw force over subtle manipulation; small immediate reward over large delayed reward. The tend towards the selfish, only aiding others when it appears to serve their interests.

So what does Intelligence do in game other than directly influence your wizardry?

Limits your skills (breadth of knowledge).
Limits your Int-based skills (depth of knowledge).

And what would a savage be bad at?

Subtlety. Long-range planning. Coping with bizarre new events.

I think the direction the discussion is going now is a constructive one, so if I could just ask a question, is the reason orcs should not have the racial int penalty because it's simply too severe a handicap for the way spellcasting works in D&D? Are penalties to other stats okay because the combat classes don't care as much, or something? If, for some reason, darkvision were really important to spellcasters in D&D, would we say that if the system allows humans to be wizards, human PCs should have natural darkvision?

How would this work:

Orcish Magic: The reason that orcs are generally bad at magic is that they have physiological difficulties with casting spells like the other races do (maybe their voice box cannot reproduce sounds the same way that elves, humans, dwarves do, who cares really) which has caused them to devise a system of casting which is not compatible with the other races.
Therefore Orcs are unable to learn spells from sources created by other races. It has to be an orc scroll or spellbook to learn or cast the spell and vice versa(or its at a severe penalty?). Learning from orc sources is as normal and the spells aren't any different in effect.
The upside is that orc magic is so obscure that other races have a hard time identifying it and are subject to a penalty spellcraft penalty to recognize what spell is being cast.
Now the nature of orcish culture has resulted in a small pool of orcish wizards so it is harder to find source material to learn from beyond your 2 free spells per level (which represent you figuring them out on your own in down time).

Elennsar wrote: Not "must be". "Is". Since most of you don't want it existing, your arguements that "its really cultural (in 3e)" have not been...very noticable.

If you think the only mechanical differences between orcs and humans are cultural, though, I'd like to know what "orc blood" and the fact some things work for (or against) "orcs" means to you, then.

Honestly, a -2 penalty to intelligence is a game mechanic meant to represent the stereotype that most orcs are dumb. That's all it is. A mechanic. And no it isn't "must be" or "is", because the whole point of the discussion is that racial modifiers should be tossed out, in which case the -2 intelligence is no longer part of "being an orc".

You're doing nothing but using the argument that being an orc is having the modifiers the rulebook says you should have, even when the whole argument is about getting rid of those very modifiers. Yet you're using what the rulebook says to justify a position that says you shouldn't change the rules.

It's just a bunch of circular logic and it's bullshit. It's like me saying "I think weapon focus should be better. I want it to give a +2 to hit and damage." and then you saying "The book says it gives a +1 to hit and no damage bonus, if it starts increasing damage and gives more than a +1 bonus to hit, then it's no longer weapon focus!"

Seriously, it's just nonsensical.

Seriously forget the D&D rules and what they say. Lets just talk flavor text here. Why is it impossible for a single orc wizard to be as smart as a human, while the majority of orc population is dumber than the average human?

Why can't you achieve that?

You can. Is that how I'd do orcs? No.

If you think orcs should be just as capable of Int 9001 as humans, that's entirely different than represent orcs who aren't just as capable.

So you want orcs who don't have "naturally prone to being stupid, nurture be damned", and I do.

How is this any different than arguing on any other preference?

I don't -want- to change the rules here, so "But I do." is as meaningless as my "But I don't want to." is to those who -do- want the rules changed to represent orcs differently.

So flavor text time.

Okay, I can think of three things.

1) Orcs are naturally prone to stupidity.

2) Orcs who appear too smart are killed by other orcs before they become "too dangerous".

3) Orcs who would have the potential to fully develop smarts don't have the opportunity within orc culture due to a cultural lack of support for the things that nurture the mind.

If 1, then there are no orcs that smart.

But if 2 or 3, an orc raised outside orc culture could develop fully.

Naturally, whether or not any nonorc would raise an orc is another story to be addressed as part of other things having to do with orcs and other races, and entirely unrelated to anything having to do with orc bonuses or penalties.

Gelare wrote:I think the direction the discussion is going now is a constructive one, so if I could just ask a question, is the reason orcs should not have the racial int penalty because it's simply too severe a handicap for the way spellcasting works in D&D? Are penalties to other stats okay because the combat classes don't care as much, or something? If, for some reason, darkvision were really important to spellcasters in D&D, would we say that if the system allows humans to be wizards, human PCs should have natural darkvision?

I'd say that any +0LA race can't have anything that messes with the RNG. We don't have a lot of room on a d20 as it is. Letting race eat into it just isn't acceptable. Races should be designed such that the fluff and abilities match each other without just giving bonuses/abilities.

Yes that does mean all racial designs that require RNG affecting stuff are wrong.

How much room do we have on a d20?

No, seriously.

A non-zero number of orcs have wings, for that matter. It's just a bad example. Racial determinism exists to some extent in D&D, but saying that because your mother was X that you can't personally have Y for your character is just dumb. D&D doesn't work that way.



-Username17

Elennsar wrote:.
There are plenty of nonblonde Scandinavians, so being a redhaired Dane won't hurt anything. But if your Viking is a pacifist, I'm starting to wonder what "Norseman." meant other than eight letters on the character sheet.

Okay. It must be said. I'm mildly in favor of some mechanical differentiation between races, but it's really, really not necessary. The fluff can and should stand on its own.

Once mechanical optimization is gone, people will choose the race they *want* to roleplay, which means the point of elves can be to be patient and arrogant, and the point of halfligns can be to have a complex about height, and so on.

Also, the above comment? Seriously racist. Like, in the real-world way.

Elennsar wrote:

There are plenty of nonblonde Scandinavians, so being a redhaired Dane won't hurt anything. But if your Viking is a pacifist, I'm starting to wonder what "Norseman." meant other than eight letters on the character sheet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norsemen

You don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

Gelare wrote:I think the direction the discussion is going now is a constructive one, so if I could just ask a question, is the reason orcs should not have the racial int penalty because it's simply too severe a handicap for the way spellcasting works in D&D? Are penalties to other stats okay because the combat classes don't care as much, or something? If, for some reason, darkvision were really important to spellcasters in D&D, would we say that if the system allows humans to be wizards, human PCs should have natural darkvision?

See, a -2 mental ability penalty isn't a severe handicap, even compared to the appropriate elven subrace. But it is a handicap. One that you can't ever avoid. One that in most race designs, isn't compensated for anything that'd be especially useful for the harmed classes. Good design'd warrant that all allowed race/class choices be equal, so a good start would be to either banish racial ability modifiers, or couple every single one of them with something that pushes the race in the opposite direction (e.g. Int-penalized orcs could have abilities of special benefit from wizards, in theory, and thus generate equally playable wizards). I favor just getting rid of the damn modifiers because of a) despite often being obvious imbalances, they're small enough to actually not matter (i.e. that +-2 isn't shaping your character in any more meaningful way than just the ability score array you could've chosen anyway, much less as much as actual racial abilities), and b) the RNG looks big, but it's actually pretty damn cramped (in part because only succeeding with 18+ is nearly as craptastical as not suceeding, and should be avoided except in entirely lopsided situations).

ckafrica wrote:How would this work:

Orcish Magic: The reason that orcs are generally bad at magic is that they have physiological difficulties with casting spells like the other races do (maybe their voice box cannot reproduce sounds the same way that elves, humans, dwarves do, who cares really) which has caused them to devise a system of casting which is not compatible with the other races.
Therefore Orcs are unable to learn spells from sources created by other races. It has to be an orc scroll or spellbook to learn or cast the spell and vice versa(or its at a severe penalty?). Learning from orc sources is as normal and the spells aren't any different in effect.
The upside is that orc magic is so obscure that other races have a hard time identifying it and are subject to a penalty spellcraft penalty to recognize what spell is being cast.
Now the nature of orcish culture has resulted in a small pool of orcish wizards so it is harder to find source material to learn from beyond your 2 free spells per level (which represent you figuring them out on your own in down time).

Congratulations. You did the best job ever of making orcs objectively worse wizards than everyone else. Much better than the 4-point difference between orc and gray elf, for sure.

Leress wrote:

Elennsar wrote:

There are plenty of nonblonde Scandinavians, so being a redhaired Dane won't hurt anything. But if your Viking is a pacifist, I'm starting to wonder what "Norseman." meant other than eight letters on the character sheet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norsemen

You don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

As always. See my point now?

Essentially, what we have here is a clash between fluff, mechanics, and setting. If your setting has crappy orc wizards, then orc wizards should suck. If you want to have good orc wizards, then orc wizards shouldn't suck.

It all depends on whether or not you're playing in a system in which the setting is pre-determined/implied. Elennsar seems to want that to be the case. I'm okay with that. I just want to know what I'm walking into, so I know that orcs will suck as wizards before rolling one up.

Psychic Robot wrote:Essentially, what we have here is a clash between fluff, mechanics, and setting. If your setting has crappy orc wizards, then orc wizards should suck. If you want to have good orc wizards, then orc wizards shouldn't suck.

That doesn't mean MY orc wizard has to suck. It could be that there are fewer of them, that some of them have NPC classes, that there is a cap on the level of an orc wizard who is not a named character, or even just that orc wizards don't have any institutional support and only know two spells per level without special backstory.

If the DM is playing by the setting and orc wizards suck, then orc wizards suck. Your orc wizard will suck because orc wizards suck. You might be one of the few orc wizards who suck less because you're not retarded, but you'll still suck more than a non-orc wizard because orc wizards suck.

Sure, you can have your DM houserule it, but that doesn't change the fact that orc wizards suck.

In which case the should not be allowed as PCs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norsemen

You don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

I do know that a warrior culture is going to at the very least scorn anyone who refuses to fight under any circumstances whatsoever unless there is some specific aspect that would justify that...healers, for instance, being under a vow of nonviolence at all times.

And the Norsemen (defined primarily as Danes, Norweigans, Swedes, Rus, and Varangians) were from a warrior culture.

So yes, I do know what I'm talkling about.

Talisman: Why in the name of all that's holy and decent should "orcs are prohibited from being wizards" be put in the rules any more than "decent but not great Intelligence wizards"?

If it is acceptable for my human to have Strength 14 and Int 16, then an orc who's stats work out to build the same kind of wizard is just as playable.

Because an Int penalty hurts wizards more than a Strength hit hurts warriors.

There are ways around a Strength hit (a +1 weapon entirely neutralizes it for most purposes), and presumably those points went into Dex or Con to keep you alive longer.

There are no effective ways around an Int hit for a wizard.

Also, if a player chooses to build a subpar character, that's up to them. But a player should not be forced to build a subpar character because Race X sucks at Class Y, yet is presented as a viable option.

Fluff should not punish mechanics.

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I personally believe an Int 16 wizard is perfectly playable...his DCs will be 1 point lower and he'll have a couple fewer bonus spells; so the hell what? But that's not the point.

A human can have Int 16, and an orc can have Int 16, but that Int represents a much larger investment on the part of the orc than the human. Using the DMG's point buy system the human has spent 10 points to go from Int 8 to Int 16, while the orc had to spend 16 points to get to Int 18, then have it cut back down to 16. That's a difference of 6 points, which is enough to get a stat from 8 to 14.

And the Strength boost in no way compensates...it might be viable for a gish, but for a straight wizard, no.

The point is, if I built a human with 14/16 and an orc with 14/16...both should be equally playable.

As for the "costs more to do the orc"...that needs to die.

I'm fine with "it costs more to get a 18 when you're starting from a 6 rather than a 8"...but not "more to get 15 than 14."

Assuming orcs are -2 Int, +2 Strength...

So let's see. Orc spends 10 points to get Intelligence 16.
Orc spends 4 points to get Strength 14.

Human spends 8 points to get to Intelligence 16.
Human spends 6 points to get to Strength 14.

Both spent 14 points. Voila. Excellent. The numbers are the same.

As for fluff punishing mechanics:

Fluff should determine what mechanics do.

If "elves are good at fighting in the forest" is in elven fluff, elven abilities should reflect that.

If elves "are uncomfortable underground", abilities should reflect that if it is severe enough to really be worth noting.

So assuming the 14/16 is viable, the fact orcs don't have "8/18" as viable is okay if 14/16 works.