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Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Vary Orc Traits by Mini?

So I have a lot of orcs minis. We've been over that before.

I have orcs from Wargames Factory, TSR, Reaper (Dark Heaven Legends and Warlord-style Bones), Copplestone, Games Workshop, Dark Ages (I think that's the name), and three kinds from Black Tree Designs (one being old Harbringer orcs, I think). Plus some others, probably.

That doesn't count the goblins, hobgoblins, and whatever else I thought was sufficiently orc-like to convert to orcs.

So my orcs are sometimes pig-faced, sometimes flat-faced. Sometimes they have fangs. Some have big heads. Some have smallish heads. Some have thick bodies. Some narrow. Some I got too heavy-handed with the black wash.

So how about some variations?

All of these are just random ideas.

Pig-Faced Orcs

Traits: Add Acute Taste and Smell 3, Overweight, and increase HP by 2.

Fanged Orcs

Traits: Add the Ravenous trait (GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1, p. 38).

Big Orcs

Traits: Raise SM to +1. Add +3 to ST and HP.

Little Orcs

Traits: Lower SM to -1. Reduce ST and HP by 2; add Striking ST 2 so you don't have to change their damage lines on the writeup.

Barbaric Orcs:

Traits: Add DR 3 (Tough Skin, Does Not Stack With Armor). Remove encumbrance from armor.

Dark Orcs:

Traits: Add +1 to IQ and DX and add Magery 0 to traits.

Two-Weapon Orcs:

Traits: Add Ambidexterity, Special Training (Two-Weapon Fighting without TBAM or WM), and Two-Weapon Fighting (Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level, p. 41).


The only weird one up there is the Dark Orcs thing. But in some games I played, "black orcs" were the smarter, nastier orcs. So, that's one way to deal with my overabundance of black wash - I'm making them smarter and nimbler, not a color and wash error.

These all stack except that you can't have Small Big Orcs. But Big Fanged Orcs? Yep. Small Barbaric Dark Orcs? Big Dark Fanged Pig-Faced Two-Weapon Orcs? Sure!

4 comments:

  1. I like it. WYSIWYG is always nice from a GM perspective, because you've got less record keeping to do. Better for the players, because it helps them track threat assessments without asking the same dumb questions over and over.

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    1. Thanks. I think it can be oddly simpler than "all of these minis are just placeholders." Guy has no armor? He's got natural DR and he's Barbaric. Has two weapons? Then he's a skilled two-weapon fighter. Etc. Want to make sure they can't track you by scent? Shoot down the pig-faced dudes. It makes life easier for the GM and the players alike.

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    2. These are great ideas--I really do like the WYSIWYG minis, and like the idea of differentiating them accordingly. Question: what kind of orcs did the party employ in the past (or was that hobgoblins)?

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    3. They dragooned some hobgoblins into service at one point. The orcs, just generic ones using whatever mini I felt like using.

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