Species Proposal: Blood Orc

[Klown]

The ferocious big brother of the Hill Orc. Blood Orcs are infused at birth with Blood Magic. They shed life to take life. Each attack takes health but adds unstoppable damage to all attacks, melee, ranged, or magic. 8 STR, 8 INT, 3 DEX.

Innate Abilities

  Code:

Saprovore 1
Orc gear bonus
Can worship Beogh when encountering an Orc Priest
Sanguine Strength 1: Each attack, shot, evocation, invocation, or casted spell costs 2 HP, but adds an unavoidable 4 damage, can not be weakened by AC/MR. If a non-damage dealing spell is cast, you simply lose HP with no gain.


Level Bonuses

  Code:

+1 STR or INT every 3 levels
20% more HP than average.
10% more MP than average.
+5 magic resistance per level.
Sanguine Strength 2: Gained at level 9. Each attack costs 4 HP, but deals 8 damage more.
Sanguine Strength 3: Gained at level 18. Each attack costs 8 HP, but deals 16 more damage.


Skill Aptitudes

  Code:

Fighting: 2
Short Blades: -1
Long Blades: 1
Axes: 2
Maces & Flails: 2
Polearms: 0
Staves: 0
Unarmed Combat: 1
Throwing: 1
Slings: -2
Bows: 0
Crossbows: -1
Armour: 2
Dodging: -3
Stealth: -2
Shields: 2
Fire Magic: 2
Ice Magic: -1
Air Magic: -2
Earth Magic: -1
Poison Magic: 0
Spellcasting: -1
Conjurations: 1
Hexes: -1
Charms: -2
Summonings: -1
Necromancy: 1
Translocations: -3
Transmutation: -4
Invocations: 2
Evocations: 2
Experience: 0


[epsilon]

And of course it must be an orc.

[Maynot]

Sanguine Strength would have to be an activated ability or you would very likely end up killing yourself. The play style would be chop, chop, chop, run away, heal, repeat. Plus if misses were counted, you could die with a swing and a miss. Striking out on this aspect.

If it were to be considered a bit more, either HP cost would have to be reduced (and damage bonus reduced in conjunction), make it a HP cost activate ability, or you could in some way give it an essence system like what was tried with Djinn.

After that just think how powerful a Blood Orc Berserker could be.

[duvessa]

This guy really enjoys fighting deep dwarf death knights apparently.

[XuaXua]

Of course BlOrk would have his species changed...

[tompliss]

I think he Sanguine Strength would bring something more gameplay-wise if it were a "loose 10 HP now, gain 2 damage per attack for 10 turns" kind of thing. But then it may be too barbarian-like :/

[Lasty]

At very low levels, the irresistible extra damage would be very strong against the sorts of enemies that one encounters, but as written, this proposal would make fighting trivial enemies an increasingly large mistake for higher level blood orcs. If you had to pay 8 hp every time you wanted to swing at a newt, it would probably get irritating pretty fast.

This species will mash 5 after every single encounter with a monster. Sources of regeneration would be significantly more powerful for this species. Charms other than Regeneration and Haste would be significantly worse.

Would the additional damage process only if the spell/invocation/evocation/weapon actually did damage? If so, then it would strongly encourage taking actions with ensured payoffs and discourage inaccurate or deferred-damage attacks (rod of inaccuracy, Tornado, cloud spells, low-power conjurations, low-skill weapon attacks, etc). If not, then focusing on raising your health pool and spamming fast attacks (quickblade or anything of speed) would be very powerful.

[TeshiAlair]

This feels awesome for a god concept actually.

1. Make this proposal an active ability
2. Give either invocable vampirism, or a once per game vamp brand.
3. Give the ability "blood boil" to do damage to all choppable-corpse creatures.

[Roderic]

This feels awesome for a god concept actually.

1. Make this proposal an active ability
2. Give either invocable vampirism, or a once per game vamp brand.
3. Give the ability "blood boil" to do damage to all choppable-corpse creatures.

I would complement this idea with:

4. Exchange HP for MP (active ability), useful for spell-casting chars, like a reverse Ellyvilon
5. Gain resistances with low levels of HP

[Hirsch I]

make this not an orc. we have enough orcs.

[Klown]

make this not an orc. we have enough orcs.

Stable release has the Hill Orc.

[epsilon]

Stable release has the Hill Orc.

And that is enough.

[johlstei]

Rename Hill Orc to Orc. No one proposes Frost Trolls.

EDIT: This doesn't mean I don't want to see Friggans

[dck]

they're like trolls but with af_cold claws

[Igxfl]

Rename Hill Orc to Orc. No one proposes Frost Trolls.

EDIT: This doesn't mean I don't want to see Friggans

Frost Trolls? Where do those Friggan proposals even come from?

---------------

Maybe Blood Orcs could get a low-percentage constant vamp effect or a tiny heal-on-kills?

It seems, though, that either Sanguine Strength comes with sufficient healing and is broken, or comes with insufficient healing and is suicidal.
Maybe they could get the bleed effect? Then it's at least a percentage of their life rather than a flat amount, and it's extremely thematic.

[Klown]

In theory, it should only be suicidal if you bite off more than you can chew, which goes for any species regardless, just more amplified here.

[Igxfl]

In theory, it should only be suicidal if you bite off more than you can chew, which goes for any species regardless, just more amplified here.

The species sounds interesting if this is actually the case, but the mechanics might need some revision to get there. Currently run/rest/run/rest is going to be a big problem, as mentioned above.

[Brannock]

I'm in favor of Hill Orc -> Orc and Lava Orc -> Salamander. But this is off topic.

A bloodsucking race seems at odds with Vampire, even if they do rely on different mechanics. And if we're talking different mechanics here, Blood Orc (as they stand) overlap a little bit with Vine Stalker.

[IronJelly]

Hmm...

what if it was a 1 for 1 exchange and used a permanent HP instead. the species gains the ability to rip further into their own flesh to cause more pain to others, and can at any time sacrifice one permanent HP for one permanent additional damage. stackable, if you want to sacrifice all your HP.

If this is too powerful, it can probably be more HP per point, or even increase exponentially as you lose blood (eg, 1 PermaHP lost = 1 damage gained. next time, 2 permaHP lost = 1 damage gained, then 4 for 1, then 16 for 1, 32 for 1, 64 for 1, etc. This likely means that even max fighting Blood Orcs won't add a lot, likely capping around 8 damage as your original suggestion, but it makes an interesting risk vs reward strategy. Further, this won't add the complication that killing your food can kill you even if the enemy can't hit you.


Did anybody play Rogue Legacy? the idea reminds me of the advanced Vampire ability in that game. you could at any time halve your total max health, but you gained it in max mana. Awesomely powerful if you used it right, but easily a death sentence if you hit the button accidentally or something.

[johlstei]

Hmm...

what if it was a 1 for 1 exchange and used a permanent HP instead. the species gains the ability to rip further into their own flesh to cause more pain to others, and can at any time sacrifice one permanent HP for one permanent additional damage. stackable, if you want to sacrifice all your HP.

I actually have a partially written post with a similar idea at home. I was thinking something like 10 max hp for +1/+1 slaying or 30 max hp for a single school enhancer(are half-strength enhancers possible?). I was going to post it about this race too but I think it might be better as a "blood altar" that any character could find and use once. The problem there is how no-brainer it would be for high hp races but I like the idea of making bets on how strong your character is that have ramifications on how you play the rest of the game. I think it would be pretty hard to balance but fun if done right.