Demihumans In Hardcore Mode

The basic superiority of demihuman player characters bedeviled the first and second editions of AD&D and haunted later versions of the game. In AD&D you got a raftload of benefits for being an elf or a dwarf - languages, dark vision, special defenses. Also, there were stat bonuses and penalties you could optimize to your class so the bonuses really helped and the penalties didn't hurt, especially with the generous "4d6 drop lowest" method of generating scores.

Simply put, there were few reasons to take a human over an elf magic-user, a human over a dwarf or half-orc fighter, a human over a demi-human thief. Most campaigns wouldn't live long enough to push up against level limits, and multiclassing could soften their sting by packing as many levels as allowed into a more slowly-advancing, super-skilled character. Then there was that other curious drawback of elves, again only really relevant at high levels: the raise dead spell wouldn't work on them because they didn't have souls.

Usually (certainly, in D&D from 2000 on) the solution is to give humans extra skills, feats, ability scores to compensate. But the raise dead peculiarity suggests another solution. Most house rules I know have some way to mitigate death at zero HP, whether it be AD&D's "bleeding out" or the kind of "death and dismemberment" rules I use in my game. Why not have these options available only to humans, or at least give humans a greater chance of surviving at 0 hit points and below?

In effect, the benefits of being a demi-human would be balanced by making them like computer games' hardcore mode, where there are no saves and death is permanent. At the very least, for example, they would bleed out at -5 instead of -10 HP, or suffer a -2 penalty to a 2d6 dismemberment table. Most harshly, they would die at -1 HP, with just the tiniest saving grace at 0.

The setting rationale could go as follows:

• Elves: Have no souls, their spirits once loosed from flesh are quick to return to the great beyond.
• Half-orcs: Likewise a bit light in the soul department. If a DM really is serious about making their social stigma count in the campaign, then they can compensate by giving only 50% of the penalty, and likewise for half-elves.
• Dwarves: Are tough, but when seriously injured, have a tendency to return to the native stone; dead dwarves turn to stone statues and can be stone-fleshed back to a point where healing can work for a little while.
• Gnomes and halflings: Have really sweet afterlives full of rollercoasters and second breakfast, and don't bother sticking around in this vale of tears.
• Humans: Are uncertain about their final destination, so cling tenaciously to life against the odds.

Really, if you play by-the-book AD&D, PCs have to be handed huge amounts of loot in order to level up, so buying raise dead spells eventually fulfils a safety-net niche similar to death and dismemberment - a risk you take with the system shock roll, but by no means the automatic end of the character. In that case, the elf drawback starts kicking in around third level or so when it becomes economically feasible to buy clerical services. But my new idea is more in line with how a lot of new-old-school DMs run games, and extends to all the demihuman races.

The Half-Stork Brings Half-Orcs

Ah yes, the eternal conversation on the sexual background of Half-Orcs.

The sexual background of Halford is a far better topic.

Why is this even an issue? Why was it seen as such an inevitability, that 2nd edition D&D purged half-orcs altogether from the core game? Why does Pathfinder leave this one aspect of sexuality in canon, rather than take the much wiser approach that the individual group should be free to turn the dial on this particular topic?

To reduce it to absurdity ...

DM: All right, this setting is a fantasy version of medieval Europe. You can choose your national background, or roll.
Player 1: I'll roll ... hey, I'm Irish ... and with Viking ancestry! The blood of the Lochlannach flows in my veins!
Player 2: Yeah, you know that means a Viking raped your mom, right?
Player 1: Excuse me?
Player 2: What do you think, they asked for her hand in marriage? I'm sorry, but it's just a fact of medieval life. Your character is a bastard conceived by force.
DM: That's not necessarily true. The Viking blood could have come from an earlier generation ...
Player 2: Who still got raped. I don't know why you're acting so shocked at these natural facts that are necessarily part of the setting.
Player 1: I dunno. Do I have to ...
Player 2: Yes. It's historical canon!
DM: Player 2, what kind of GM did you play under before that gave you the impression it was OK to act this way?
Player 2: Someone who didn't knuckle under to the political correctness brigade. Hey, my own character was a product of rape due to the setting and I handled it all right.
DM: Do tell ...
Player 2: You see, logic demands that evil creatures can only reproduce through the most evil kind of sex there is. My backstory called for my father to be a necromancer and my mother an anti-paladin. They had no alternative but to rape each other.
All: They what?
Player 2: It happens. Charm spells were involved in this case. You see ...
DM: Okay, okay, let's move on.

For those completely bereft of imagination, and who don't want to make a stand on a dubious setting detail that's about as productive as random ass-boils, here are six other ways half-orcs can come into being while keeping orcs evil.

1. Humans sometimes seek out orcish partners out of decadence and perversity.
2. The orc is the most evil race there is. Those who actively promote evil willingly breed with orcs on ideological grounds.
3. Humans are not born orcs, but become that way through mutation or evil deeds. A half-orc is one who has willingly or otherwise arrested his or her orcish development.
4. Half-orcs are artificially bred by test-tube wizards.
5. Inbreeding leads to half-orcism. Inbred half-orcs in the past produced full-orcs.
6. Half-orcs are part of the normal genetic variation of orcs - they happen  to look sufficiently human, if ugly, to "pass" in human communities. Likewise, there are very ugly humans who can "pass" as half-orcs.

Brute Characters

Half-orcs. Half-ogres. Half-giants. Nephilim. Lizardmen. Minotaurs. There's always the impulse in fantasy roleplaying games to let the players take on that role so familiar from the superhero comics ... the big, dumb, straightforward aggro machine.

There's a mechanical problem, though, and a balance problem. The mechanical problem exists in games like D&D through 2nd edition, where monsters follow different rules than player characters. It's alluded to in the AD&D material on playing monsters as characters; how do you make a centaur or a lizardman with their multiple hit dice realistically start off on the same footing as a 1st level party of player characters?

This leads into the balance problem. The brute kind of character is strong in combat ability and resilience, but weak in subtlety, strategy, restraint and charm. (And in intelligence, wisdom and charisma, but to be fair, those are pretty much dump stats for this kind of character.)

Ultimately, to be true to the character type, the player has to play dumb, impulsive, and crude. Restraining a mechanical advantage with a roleplaying restriction doesn't work for paladins, and it doesn't work for this type. And like with paladins, when the player does take on the brute's roleplaying burden it's often to the detriment of the party (see below):

So although I'm not sold on allowing the brute type character class in my race-as-class world, this did get me thinking on how I'd implement him. First, I'd make the brute rare. For example, you'd have to score below 12 on INT, WIS and CHA, and below 9 (penalty territory) on at least two of those stats; and I allow 3d6 in order with only one switch. Then you would get +2 on STR, hit dice d6+1 (1 less bonus point than a standard fighter), and an extra hit die on character generation. Its hide would count as leather armor but would have to have custom armor fashioned for it to get any more protection. The class would have no special powers, no feats, unable to even handle a bow, nothing but a pure tank. Oh yeah, and you could choose among a variety of options; basically any bipedal creature without special abilities and 2-3 HD in the wild; lizardmen, gnolls, ogrillons for Pete's sake.

The good grace of the Old School approach is that you can play this guy like a Machiavelli, or Beast from X-Men, because his powers and stats ultimately don't circumscribe the guile and problem-solving the player brings to the table. Might be something to try, anyway.