Why can't Half-Orcs be Monks?
Noloir
Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 380
Browsing around through the Forgotten realm wikia there's some interesting information around various classes and races. Wizard Slayers and Totem "Druids" are associated with Barbarians.
Rangers are prevalent among Elves, some are humans, half-elves, yet some are of the Half-Orc variety particularly those who seek to escape the prejudices of society.
Now as with Rangers Half-Orcs are known to be among the ranks of Monks with the Shadow dancer archetype being associated with the Monk class. If Half-Orc can be Shadow Dancing Ninja assailants why are they restricted from the standard Monk class seeing as how they have so little going for them class and race wise in-game? Their 19Str can be replicated through items and potions early in the series & their Constitution max is shared by Dwarves who are arguably better with their shorty save bonuses.
Rangers are prevalent among Elves, some are humans, half-elves, yet some are of the Half-Orc variety particularly those who seek to escape the prejudices of society.
Now as with Rangers Half-Orcs are known to be among the ranks of Monks with the Shadow dancer archetype being associated with the Monk class. If Half-Orc can be Shadow Dancing Ninja assailants why are they restricted from the standard Monk class seeing as how they have so little going for them class and race wise in-game? Their 19Str can be replicated through items and potions early in the series & their Constitution max is shared by Dwarves who are arguably better with their shorty save bonuses.
0
Comments
I want the ability to have half-orc mages, now THAT would be cool.
In 2nd edition to be a paladin you had to be a part of a particular order. And this order (these orders) only accepted humans. So even if you were like Mazzy Fenton and met every other requirement for the class, you couldn't be a paladin just because of fantastic racism.
Same thing with the monks I think. The monastic orders only take humans. A half orc could theoretically train their body as a monk does, but they wouldn't be a monk, because they wouldn't have their membership card.
The attitude gets particularly silly when applied to Gorion's Ward, who realistically shouldn't be a part of any order at the start of their journey, having never left Candlekeep. But I'm sure Wizards had something in their contract about how you couldn't mess with that sort of stuff.
The concept of <charname> being anything besides a vanilla Fighter (Guards may have trained him/her), Thief (Spent too much time with Imoen), Cleric (Particular the Oghma sect as they're literally in the keep compared to say Talos), or a Mage (learned directly from Gorion. Cleric to a lesser extent would make sense too for this reason) iskind of a stretch. You're right.
How could charname be a full on Barbarian or Shaman if they were reared by a Harper? Rangers help see people through the wilderness to safety. If charname was rarely outside the keep until Gorion's death how would charname have the training without being apprenticed by an actual Ranger out of the city?
For those reasons although it's shorter I prefer IWD to BG. There's more creative agency arond the character's stories where BG is a bit restrictive.
2nd edition is very strict about what races can use different classes and multiclasses. Sometimes it just didn't make any sense.
Probably didn't help either that the monk wasn't one of the core classes in 2E.
Personally I lend a bit more leeway for stuff like the barbarian. As a level 1 of any class it's not like your training is really extensive. You mostly figure it all out as you go along through your journey.
But being a member of any particular order is like, where are these guys? Is it like when the army sends recruiters to do a presentation at your highschool, and then you sign up on the spot? Do you do work for this order? Just odd jobs around Candlekeep or something? Like what exactly does a membership to an order of holy knights or monks entail in this situation?
This is completely correct. You can't be a halforc monk because there aren't any monks. Or halforcs. Ok there was the monk kit in The Complete Priest's Handbook, but that is nothing like the BG monk.
I blame 1st edition silliness as BG took monks and halforcs from 1st edition.
3rd edition was coming out around the same time as BG2, and a lot of the BG2 additions were taken from it because it was the hot new thing.
Sorcerer for example was a new class introduced in 3e, and it was one of the new things for BG2.