No, not the half-orc, I love those guys.
Same goes for gnomes.
The Deva were a bit... off... to me, but they work well, and have a cool backstory, and I can work/live with that.
Whuh? (mugawump?) Goliaths? They weren't even taken seriously by players back in 3.5, why did they get inclusion over the venerable Half-Ogre???
Half-Ogres have been in D&D almost as long as the game has existed. Sure, during 1st ed AD&D and its predicessors, it was an DM-optional race that debuted in Dragon magazine's regular feature, The Sorcerer's Scroll (By Gygax himself), then expanded upon by Roger Moore in his article the Whole Half-Ogre. It became an official (if still optional) race in 2nd edition in both the Dragonlance Setting Boxed Set: Tales of the Lance and the Complete Book of Humanoids cemented them for the Realms as an official player character race, and thier final appearance in 2nd ed was Players Option: Skills & Powers.
In 3.0, Half-Ogres were PC'ed up in the 3rd party book Bastards and Bloodlines, by Green Ronin; a mixed bag, admittedly, but the write-up there was well done, and certainly the least broken race of some of the wild ideas thrown around by the Green Ronin folks..
In 3.5, he finally resurfaced in the Races of Destiny book, along side the Tiefling and the aforementioned Goliath. And the Goliath wasn't even as thought out or developed in DoD as the other entries, yet in 4E the Goliath gets inclusion first?
C'mon, Wizards, not all of us greybeards have abandoned the game with the rest of the grognards. Throw us a bone, please. PHB-3 is probably already in the can, so if not there, can fans of some of the old stand-bys not get a bone thrown to them? PHB-4, perhaps, or maybe even a Racial compendium. You could even put 4E Dragon content into it, like the Shadar-Kai and Revenant racial stuff.
Am I the only one out there who saw an old beloved pushed aside for 4E inclusion over something
that would be totally inappropriate for their campaign?
What about you guys out there, what races would you like to see touched upon, either in Dragon or in a Players Handbook release?
Why do we need three Half-Human Giantish races with no real differences outside of culture?
If we had a Half-Fomorian or Half-Firbolg or Half-Cyclops on the other hand…
Anyways. . . 3E and 4E have shy'd away from Ogres just in generally. So it only seems natural that they would shy away from half-ogres. A quick compendium search only comes up with gauntlets of ogre power and a pathetic 15 monster entries (Orcs and drow have 56 each)
Refluff your Half-Orc or Half-Giant Goliath as a Half-Ogre.
Why do we need three Half-Human Giantish races with no real differences outside of culture?
If we had a Half-Fomorian or Half-Firbolg or Half-Cyclops on the other hand…
Easy enough, except the Goliath racial power doesn't quite fit, and half-orcs are too short.
Plus, there's really no substitute for an official race with most of the gaming groups in the area.
(Which is another reason I also suggested a Dragon write-up, that way at least it would be in the DDI as official, even if WotC didn't see enough profit in the idea to merit inclusion in a hard-copy product.)
Drow don't have the right stats to play battleminds :p
Dude, you haven't seen my stats.
Anyways. . . 3E and 4E have shy'd away from Ogres just in generally. So it only seems natural that they would shy away from half-ogres. A quick compendium search only comes up with gauntlets of ogre power and a pathetic 15 monster entries (Orcs and drow have 56 each)
racism is a sad thing...
That said, i've never heard of a half-ogre character ever, except for the munchkin one in Order of the Stick. Their fluff would have been neerly identical to the Half-Orc, so i can see why they weren't included.
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! You'll attract its attention.
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
... What?
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
... What?
Shhhhhhh… He's already here, but didn't pick up on that. Let it rest.
i refute that WotC has it backwards...they are limiting our daily in campaign choices.. and expanding our base start of campaign choices
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
... What?
Trust me, you don't want to know. You might think you want to know. You might convince yourself you want to know. But you don't. Because if you did ... if you really knew ... you'd put on multi-colored long johns and come up with some twisted crime theme and get chased around by a man in a bat suit, because it would drive you that insane.
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
how?
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
how?
Shhhh, I say. Not a word now. You'll rouse a hornet's nest.
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
Buh?
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
Who the what with the wha wha? How are they similar?! (Still, not as bad as old 3.5 thread detailing a DM who insisted the soulknife was WAY overpowered. Ridiculous penalizing).
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
Who the what with the wha wha? How are they similar?! (Still, not as bad as old 3.5 thread detailing a DM who insisted the soulknife was WAY overpowered. Ridiculous penalizing).
SHHHHHHHHHHH
NOT A WORD NOW.
Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
I would have to agree with you on that point, they are. I think the dragonborn are better with the background and more accepted in the community, but Eberron has a good fix for them in the previous system and I expected them there instead of the actual PHB2, if they were to be brought back at all.
Wow, some of that back and forth is quite funny...
I already commented on your want for this race in another thread, here is a cut and paste...
So the question is out there...
Is the Half Breed race the only one you deem good enough to play?
Even in previous editions this one race is used sparingly, and isn't the usual choice given to players. You have a couple of races already that are interesting in the realm of strong man/slightly dark area, the Shadar-Kai in the Dragon Annual, the Half Orc is interesting in the PHB2 (Not one of my choices, though), the Goliath, as mentioned, is simular, the Minatuar coming up in the PHB3 is most likely the closest to your desired.
The main problem that your going to have with the Half Ogre is the size. Wizards has avoided Large races, the Minatuar most likely closing in on the max height of the Med race.
Races of Destiny, wasn't that rather late in the 3.5 run?
Regardless, thaX is right about this point, that you can refluff.
It's just somewhat of different issue from Dragonborn and Half-Orcs.
And thaX, I believe the Races series of books were about middle of the run of 3.5e. Around the same time as the first set of Complete books.
So when we did get the halforc (and the halfelf for that matter) their tragic origin has basically been wiped out, in favor of them being a possibly artificially created race that breeds true and shares the best qualities of human and orc. So rather than halfbreeds, they are a pure race that just reminds people of orcs, and orcs of humans.
If they included the halfogre, with basically the same new background, they really would look uncreative.
What gets me is why they couldn't just make it the orc. Honestly, Wow isn't the only universe to have orcs that are more unaligned (Elderscrolls for instance). We no longer play in a system where we have to make water-downed versions of races to avoid ECL or even out high bonuses and big penalties.
Do we really need more fuel to the '4e=WoW' fire? As pathetic as it is? :p
I'm guessing its more of a legacy thing? Plus we already got the Gnolls as designated savages.
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
You just had to do it, didn't you? *shakes fist*
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
You just had to do it, didn't you? *shakes fist*
I -tried- to put out the flames, but it was too late.
Granted this is only races they have already published, if you talk about races they haven't published the list goes on and on and on and on.
Actaully the races i find most neglected are shifter and changeling. Other races keep getting articials for them in the DDI but not these two.
Granted this is only races they have already published, if you talk about races they haven't published the list goes on and on and on and on.
Seconded. I also want more Changeling love....
Not to mention a certain someone thinking Half-orcs and Dragonborn were too similar…
You just had to do it, didn't you? *shakes fist*
I -tried- to put out the flames, but it was too late.
That's nice, but you started the fire. ;)
Actaully the races i find most neglected are shifter and changeling. Other races keep getting articials for them in the DDI but not these two.
Granted this is only races they have already published, if you talk about races they haven't published the list goes on and on and on and on.
Seconded. I also want more Changeling love....
The changeling especially lacks a wide range of racial feats.
Isn't there a song... "I didn't start the fire..."
We didn't start the fire, thaX. We.
It was always burning since the world's been turning.
I brought it up because I thought that thaX's argument about the Half-orcs existing as a Str-based race, and the Dragonborn overlapping in that space, however different their fluff is, was actually relevant for this thread because Half-orcs overlaps far more conceptual space with Half-ogres than they do with Dragonborn. So if just "a very strong race" is too much of an overlap for some, then how do we justify two races that are virtually identical, especially when we have a third much the same?
Goliaths and Half-orcs should provide ample enough crunch to fluff a Half-ogre. DMs shouldn't be so restrictive on the fluff – the game is founded on alternate interpretations and fluff calls.