Ooooh, changes are great, don't get me wrong
The problem is that when you log in with orc just to find out you have five new skills all of a sudden with 2 practices left, it is a bit... disappointing.

Yes, I know the universal answer is to gain training edge. The problem is I did already . To practice previous bunch of new skills (slice, thrust, evade etc.).

5 new skills = 15 practices needed for orc.

May be a bit of love for older orcs, I don't know? May be throw in some practices for us or just set these new skills to 60+? I mean it is cool to have new skills, but what use of them you can have if you can't practice them?

And, in general, orcs now have a way too many skills with very limited number of practices and very low int. May be make practicing a bit easier for orcs?

Personally I didn't use 3 pracs on orc skills unless I considered them particularly important or hard to improve (say defenses).

Oh, come on. No one who plays orc spends three practices on all their skills. That would be silly.

I only spent 1 on butcher and 1 one hide. I thought about only spending 1 on exsanguinate, but I don't know if that skill gets better with higher skill %. Elbow seems inordinately difficult to improve for a one round skill, so I spent 3 there. I did the same with knee and kick because I'm stupid and would rather not have to work that much harder to get brawling. Of course, I don't know if brawling affects anything other than elb/knee/kick damage, so those practices might be completely wasted. Does it affect cheap shot? HtH? Spinebreaker? I don't know. I practiced scavenging 3 times, which was probably a mistake, but hey, I wasn't sure if the effects were cool or not. All the armor skills? I don't know how % affects them, so sure I'll throw three at them. Anything to help me stay alive.

All that said, I'm sure it looks silly to practice quite a few of these things 3 times, but then you have a bit more information available than I. For instance, I thought scavenging would be auto-feed. Turns out I have to pick up and eat the parts myself... It seems... less useful than I thought it would be.

There has been some low level wow factor skills added lately that I can't figure out if they are in fact useful forever, or just a flash in the pants thing for lowbies that I (generally not having difficulty getting through the low level) should ignore.

I'd appreciate any additional information that might help me decide which skills I do want to practice, and which I do not. Obviously something like slice/thrust I can decide on my own (Am I going to use polearms?), but something like aim is considerably more difficult (Is it cumulative with precise aim, what about opportunity strike?) for me to determine given limited information.

I do most things twice, and only a couple things that I know from experience are reasonably important and difficult to improve a third time. Defenses maybe, evade probably, toughness probably because I like hit points, cheap shot for sure. Maybe also toss in a couple skills that go in the 'If I'm trying to use this and fail I might just be dead' category like spinebreaker.

I've done the 2 practice thing, but it seemed like I sucked more than normal when I did so. Not that I'm good with orcs or anything that doesn't have long lasting fights, but 2 practices = 63% on stuff seemed to hurt bad for a long time. My patience for skill spamming has gone down inversely with my time available to play. When I only get 20 hours a weak to play, spending that time spamming up weapons just isn't very fun. Guess that's the price I pay.

Sounds like lots of gain revert!

Hell, even me playing orc does a lot of gain revert. It's not the end of the world.

I mind the grapple weapon != grapple offhand, and scavenging != exsanguinate and toughness != fast healing bonus for orcs (notaskill) and all the other near duplicates in the orc skill set that give you one more thing that may or may not succeed when you want/need it to. It would be nice if some skills were rolled together for orcs, but I'll count this as a lost cause because it's not so bad that it is worth arguing about.

- The fetish slowly charges up with the killing of PCs and of mobs which are suitably challenging to the level of the Orc doing the slaying.
- Once charged the Fetish can be invoked to give a single short duration boost to the Orc from the following list:
1) Temporarily treat all combat skills as if they were perfected.
2) Increase the berserking benefits so that it has a greater bonus to hit/dam and also gives a HP bonus that can temporarily take the Orc above maximum HPs.
3) Increased resistant to spells and a reduction to the level of vulnerability.
4) Enhanced combat ability of followers of the Orc are increased.
5) Enhanced potency of bloodsteeping for the duration.
etc etc

Let the Clan Fetish be securable like a Cabal item. Also killing the Shaman mob that has it and then sacrificing the Fetish could reset the charges to zero. Would be nice if the Shaman wandered the Orc village and be able to enlist those in the same room to aid in his defense.

The powers could even be scaled depending on the current charge on the Fetish making it something to shoot for.

Just an idea, not necessarily a good one but one that would be fun to roleplay.

Especially in the Makes Clan More Like A Cabal department. I'm sure the imms can come up with good ideas for what the fetish does.

>And, in general, orcs now have a way too many skills with very
>limited number of practices and very low int. May be make
>practicing a bit easier for orcs?

This is a serious concern of mine.

As it stands, orc get 70 skills (counting adapts and not counting chief skills which would make it 73). By contrast, a warrior gets 64 counting 2 specs. Now that may not seem like a huge difference, but you can be a smart/wis warrior, but you can't be a smart or wise orc. I didn't bother to go through and count all classes, but just as a guestimate, I'd say healer's might be the only class that actually gets more skills/spells than an orc.

Looks like all the "smart" classes get more (mages/healers/druids) and all the dumber classes get fewer. I still think orcs get far too many though.

Seriously, I can't believe anyone would complain about having too many options, seems ridiculous, EVERY skill is optional. If you feel the need to have all skills at 100% then just reside yourself to the fact that you will need to spam skills with putting a lot fewer practices into them initially. Besides orcs are in a much better position then many other low int races that can't max their stats so easily.

Imm's please ignore these complaints and give us more options! Some of us like having a different playing experience each time we roll something up.

Yes, I know the universal answer is to gain training edge. The problem is I did already .

It's re-pickable!

And, in general, orcs now have a way too many skills with very limited number of practices and very low int. May be make practicing a bit easier for orcs?

But that's a lot of what INT does. What would be the point of giving them a very low INT then letting them practice easily?

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

1) It MIGHT be re-pickable but it must cost to hell lot of edge points. I picked it once, I can't pick it anymore (while all the other edges are still there). Getting even more edge points with heroed orc might be a problem. You know, the wonders of heroed orc PK and stuff

Answer 'Suck it up, princess' is fine in my list. But, in general, these changes are pretty unfair to those who didn't expect that having 30 practices is a must to be on par with newer chars.

2) What's the point in giving 70+ skills to class that just can't afford to practice them all? New skills are nice, yes, but spending 200+ practices on them might be unaffordable for orc. And it is without taking into accout possible exploration/commerce skills!
I can't say orcs are very popular and overpowered, honestly. Why not throw them a bone at least in the area of being able to PRACTICE what they have?

"Suck it up, princess", I assume?

Classes that have 70+ new skills and no efficient way to practice them all... don't need to practice them all.

Remember that alot of orc skills can be filed into the 'low utility' area. If you find that you'll forget you have a skill, gosh darnit don't practice it.

However if you're looking for new toys to play with, then by all means, blow all your edge points on the training edge. (Which gets more expensive each time.)

Suck it up, princess.

But, in general, these changes are pretty unfair to those who didn't expect that having 30 practices is a must to be on par with newer chars.

And older characters have the advantage of skills that have seen a lot of use, a higher skill improvement rate, etc. They'll survive. All the exaggeration and drama isn't appealing.

2) What's the point in giving 70+ skills to class that just can't afford to practice them all? New skills are nice, yes, but spending 200+ practices on them might be unaffordable for orc. And it is without taking into accout possible exploration/commerce skills!

You might wish to consider practicing some skills 0, 1, or 2 times. It's fully intentional that the low Intelligence of an orc puts a strain on those resources. Invest more heavily in offense, defense, or whatever suits your approach. It doesn't bother me that all orcs will not look the same.

This is especially true for commerce skills, exploration skills, etc. It's not written in stone that every character must have them. Is it easy for an elf or gnome to grab them without a second thought? Sure. But low INT and WIS means taking a pass sometimes, and that doesn't bother me in the slightest.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com