Please..Please..Please ditch the orc clan buisiness? I would love to play an orc in the old implementation where they could be caballed ;). If there is no desire to ditch the orc village, perhaps give orcs an option to leave the village? Leaving the clan, and removing their adapations. then allow them to join cabals?

-S

Orcs already have a huge advocate in Thror and now they gain another in me. Trust that in the coming weeks I will be sitting down with Thror and others and we will hash out Orc issues and if necessary make changes.

Upfront I will say I am a huge fan of the clan system. In an ideal world there would be more than 1 clan, however cf population doesn't really make that feasible right now.

I think it would be sweet just to have other orc villages and clans. Give orcs one more thing to do. Maybe they even have items of power too that grant orcs some small benefits when taken. Plus sweet ass orc only gear. Maybe one is an elite orc clan that's a mini-area explore type area (not necessarily actually flagged explore) kinda like the new dragon areas.

Dunno, just some thoughts. Orc ho!

Though the orc population might not, at the moment, be up to par to make something like that noticable, it'd still be a nice thing that would encourage orc players.

Adding any since of variety to the current orc bit would really help make things more colorful, Religion included. :)

When you go to make a change and you think, "Oh, maybe this shouldn't be this strong, it seems a little overpowered this way, maybe we should tweak it down..."

Don't!

After years of being everybody's whipping boys, it wouldn't hurt for Orcs to be "overpowered" for a few months. Seriously.

Also, make sure that all your changes impact hero range the most, orcs don't really need the help until 35+ and especially at 45+

On last thing, don't nuke the clan idea it really is awesome.

Yup, I can confidently say the Clan system is not going anywhere anytime soon.

And I agree with the rest.

They wouldn't be overpowered if they could get sanc potions from tremblefist. As it is, they get trounced except when taking advantage of the already weak, or generally not good at melee. That's cool form an rp view point but it makes raiding with defenders and things impossible. Orcs big hp means zilch without dam redux, and their skills have high failure rates, long lag and a lot of drawbacks to their useage (often more damage). Imho, a hero orc needs that big damage reduction option - nothing that is long lasting or can be kept up perma-style (orcs are vuln stealth, even hidden) just something they can throw on before jumping on that dwarf fortie with prayer beads to make it an epic battle.

If you would consider tremblefist giving out 100 hour 1/3 dam redux for downing a cabal item and walking past him then that'd be awesome too. Encourages orcs to raid (and with changes like this, there'd actually be more than one hero orc) and do so often. Not only that but it encourages raiding the relatively undefended (weak) cabals as per their rp for some hoard benefits. Making all kinds of crazy enemies for them, and opening up the chance to make political points of interest in placating the Hoard - or just plain eradicating it.

Just guesses, I can see flaws in the above ideas, but something along these lines would really add colour to what i consider the most colourful race/class choice. Orcs are a crazy fun niche to RP but there just isn't the holding power at hero level.

Thanks for reading!

Yhorian

For what it's worth, there have been some discussions around this and the overall meatshield that Orcs are. My personal opinion would be to keep Orcs as a non-caballed entity with the idea that a great role/RP opens up other possibilities.

Most of the discussions are just brainstorming but this has been a topic of discussion in the past.

Hope that helps!

Seems like a clan chief with horde is decently powerful, depending on adaptation. He's not comparable to a juiced anti-paladin, three-virtued paladin or a/b/s invoker, but how many characters are?

Do orcs get a way of attacking a spine-broken person such that the orc is guaranteed next command?

If so, then they should own most people they can spine-break.

(Though, if they don't have that ability then its a moot point.)

Your horde can suck and hardly pull any good mobs to you. The timer for it is RIDICULOUS!

And, assuming you die after you assemble the horde(let's say assassination, wrath spam, WHATEVER) the timer stays. Enjoy your 100+hours before you can horde again.



Spinebreak can be nice, sure. Trample is a nice way to wake someone from spinebreak, but I'm not convinced it assures you the next command.


On multiple characters, though, I've seen a chief with the horde assembled getting his ass handed to him by, say, a single Paladin, single warrior, single OFFENSE shifter, etc.


It's just not as good as it seems. Does it work beautifully in some situations? Damn right it does. But they have to be totally unprepped for it to really land well. Not to mention, with as many dexy warriors as there are, many of your little horde-mobs won't do #### to enemies unless they're tanking with their face.

>And, assuming you die after you assemble the horde(let's say
>assassination, wrath spam, WHATEVER) the timer stays. Enjoy
>your 100+hours before you can horde again.

If you die to wrath spam or assassination, then its probably not just because you're an orc.

>Spinebreak can be nice, sure. Trample is a nice way to wake
>someone from spinebreak, but I'm not convinced it assures you
>the next command.

Probably doesn't. But it does give you time to heal, potentially call over someone to help you gang, or to let the guy's sanc and/or protective shield wear off. Or to just get the heck outa dodge.

>On multiple characters, though, I've seen a chief with the
>horde assembled getting his ass handed to him by, say, a
>single Paladin, single warrior, single OFFENSE shifter, etc.

I don't doubt it. But then, lots of characters can potentially get their ass kicked by a single paladin, single warrior, single offense shifter, etc. (Wands anyone?)

>with as many dexy warriors as there are, many of your little
>horde-mobs won't do #### to enemies unless they're tanking
>with their face.

I was mostly thinking of the horde for throwing in random bashes and trips. And cheapshots, if they do that too.

I agree with the point that even chief is difficult. Not sure I agree some of your more specific points though.

>Your horde can suck and hardly pull any good mobs to you. The
>timer for it is RIDICULOUS!
>

I found hordes were generally good for me. Usually I avoided the REALLY tough fights until I would be able to call another horde though.

>And, assuming you die after you assemble the horde(let's say
>assassination, wrath spam, WHATEVER) the timer stays. Enjoy
>your 100+hours before you can horde again.
>

You sure about this? I seem to remember the timer DOES disappear. And of course, you have a handy orc banner.

>
>
>Spinebreak can be nice, sure. Trample is a nice way to wake
>someone from spinebreak, but I'm not convinced it assures you
>the next command.
>

It never does in my experience. Might be wrong, and enlarge might change stuff, but I always found trample like trip (but with more damage, and potentially crunchy stuff).

>
>On multiple characters, though, I've seen a chief with the
>horde assembled getting his ass handed to him by, say, a
>single Paladin, single warrior, single OFFENSE shifter, etc.
>

I found overrun helped a little with this. Though it did require me to use ridiculous amounts of preppage first as Wazglarg. Shield, aura, protection, stoneskin, wraithform.

>
>It's just not as good as it seems. Does it work beautifully in
>some situations? Damn right it does. But they have to be
>totally unprepped for it to really land well. Not to mention,
>with as many dexy warriors as there are, many of your little
>horde-mobs won't do #### to enemies unless they're tanking
>with their face.

Agreed. Again, overrun might be the way to go though. It is a high level skill and when it works, it is nice. Problem is it is hard to stay alive long enough for it to work, especially if shield riposte is landing a guaranteed hit on every member of your horde each round (thus wiping out the weaker members right away, and they can be useful for overrun).

In addition to the concept of tremblefist making basic potions but taking it a step further, maybe there is a "chief's tent" thats guarded by decently strong guard(s) with decent hp 1500? and weak offensive abilities where the orc can have slaves that forge basic potions like a short timer sanc/stone skin/variousprots/healing, that would have lag similar to forge and a timer of 50-75 hours.


It could be something like
call 'brew' enslaved gnome
With a swift kick and a jerk of the chain two orcs descend upon the hapless gnome inciting him to concoct a crude potion of <insert random creation>.

Trembling violently the gnome adjusts his glasses and begins to pour various liquids into the container, as it bubbles and boils it turns a bright white (sanc) an icy blue (prot from cold) a dark gray (stone skin) a fiery red (prot from heat) so on and so forth.

An orc's got a lot of incentives to park in the village.

I'm not sure more is a good idea.

Low int + not healer at your recall pretty much means you're dead if you get slept by a bard.

By a comedy bard.

Then give something extra special to the actual chief. They'd still be meat shields but I think more people would play orcs which would give them more allies.

It would mean more hero Orcs would raid defenseless places. I'm in sales and incentives are very cool. Having three cabal items at the horde would mean the Orcs are SUPER tough because they have 3 items and some extra dam redux, but 3 cabals want to kill Tremblefist because if any of them kill him all three items are returned. When I raided village for instance, they brought some outlanders with them because they knew they wanted me dead and the villager had little to nothing to fear from me because Orcs can't take down two people. Anyways just some thoughts on this idea of making the ORC CABAL valid.

dam redux for every item they hold would be pretty sick. :D

This post


Has so much truth.



You bastard.

>>If you would consider tremblefist giving out 100 hour 1/3 dam redux for downing a cabal item and walking past him then that'd be awesome too. Encourages orcs to raid (and with changes like this, there'd actually be more than one hero orc) and do so often. Not only that but it encourages raiding the relatively undefended (weak) cabals as per their rp for some hoard benefits. Making all kinds of crazy enemies for them, and opening up the chance to make political points of interest in placating the Hoard - or just plain eradicating it.

I support something along these lines.

If this ever happened, they'd need to have some sort of "hunted by the clan" tag.

Also I can't see orcs ever joining battle, empire, tribunal, fort, nexus or outlander, just based on the description of orcs and the ideals of those cabals.

So that leaves...Herald and Scion. I'm not entirely sure that nightfist and nightwalkers are worth giving up your adaptation.

nt

Yeah, but it seems like a stretch. Orcs are written so as to be cowardly and weaselly. Not exactly "best and bravest warriors in thera" material, imho.

A few of the current village play more like a cowardly weaselly orc than a best/brave warrior.

-----Abernyte

Any Orc Herald presumably...
1) gave up the security of the village
2) changed alignments
3) learned to appreciate...
a) elves, or at least their sense of beauty
b) cooking
c) community (the warm fuzzy kind)
d) history

Actually, that sounds like it would be fun if you could start in media res.

What is a fair trade for violating core assumptions of the world from the very start of the game? Maybe lifespan could be halved for each exception, in addition to accumulating negative edge points.

.

I can see viable Orc Tribunal and Empire roles. I can't imagine an Orc getting beyond citizen, though, and probably shouldn't ever hold a leadership position in Tribunal. They'd be okay mercenaries, but never leaders.

Orcs can't be orderly.

I guess I just supposed that since we're talking about adding a feature that disables adaptations, kicks Orcs out of the Clan, and allows them to be inducted into other cabals, it's not too much of a stretch to work out alignment changes for an induct into Empire or Tribunal. I'm not sure, but doesn't the bloodoath already turn you Orderly? A similar special case could be made for neutral ethos Orcs going into Tribunal. Certainly not chaotic Orcs, though; they're likely beyond redemption.