Is this Orc and Hobgoblin hybrid well balanced?

Question

I've been thinking on creating a very specific NPC for the E6 game I'm running. This NPC would be a male barbarian, a hybrid between an Orc and a Hobgoblin, perhaps with advanced age. There is no official rules for a Half-Hobgoblin race, though there are several homebrews. I came up with this, and would like feedback on its balance. My idea is to get to something that has a +1 level adjustment. When I compared with the gnoll race, which has some racial hit dices (not the case for my race) and a level adjustment of +1, it didn't seem so powerful. Take a look:

Orc-Hobgoblin Hybrid

• +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom -2 Charisma
• Humanoid (Goblinoid)
• Medium size
• Half-hobgoblin base land speed is 30 feet
• Darkvision out to 60 feet
• +2 racial bonus on Move Silently checks
• Hybrid Blood: for all purposes related to race, the character is considered a hobgoblin and a orc
• Automatic Languages: Common and Goblin. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Dwarven, Infernal, Giant, Orc.
• Favored Class: Fighter.
• Level Adjustment: +0

When you look at it, it is basically a half-orc with +2 Move Silently and +2 Cons/-2 Wisdom. Is this too far beyond a LA +0 race? I'm not comfortable with the -2 Wisdom. I could add something like having a penalty to Charisma skills whenever dealing with Hobgoblins and Orcs due to prejudice. Is this balanced at +0 or +1, and what would I need to change to make it a solid +1 LA?

Answer 1

Officially, this is likely a Level Adjustment +0 race

The creature's ability scores are balanced according to the Dungeon Master's Guide on Ability Score Equivalencies (173 and not in the SRD). There, the DM is told that a bonus to Strength can be offset by a like penalty to either Intelligence and Charisma or Intelligence and Wisdom or Wisdom and Charisma, and that a bonus to Constitution can be offset by a like penalty to either Intelligence or Wisdom or Charisma. This hoborclin exactly follows these guidelines. (Note that whether these guidelines are good isn't the issue here; the game skews toward balancing low-level characters and believes Strength the most valuable ability score.)

Although that +2 racial bonus on Move Silently skill checks may give some folks pause because half-orcs don't have a racial bonus like that, even Savage Species—the most conservative source for computing level adjustment—says, "A base creature with three or more racial bonuses on skill checks gets a +1 level adjustment" (12). The game just doesn't think a lone racial bonus is worth a whole +1 level adjustment.

The race seems officially balanced. In a campaign with lots of orc-specific and hobgoblin-specific stuff available, the hybrid blood racial trait may be valuable, but while there are several published orc-specific feats, magic items, and prestige classes, there are darn few that are hobgoblin-specific, so in most campaigns this won't even be a factor.

Answer 2

As has been said, the race matches Wizards’ precedent and statements.

It’s still imbalanced. Specifically, it is very underpowered.

Wizards believed, at first, that Strength was an anomalously-important ability score. It is not; in fact, Constitution is the most broadly-important ability score, and after that is either Dexterity or Wisdom. Strength is actually below-average in its general-purpose importance.

Thus, Wizards’ decision to make Strength count double in racial ability score modifications was a mistake, and a bad one; the half-orc is widely considered the worst Player’s Handbook race as a result. The orc is generally considered superior, despite also being having a net-negative ability score adjustment, because at least the +4 Strength means you’re getting something special for it.

Considering the strengths of the respective races, giving +2 to all physical scores while −2 to all mental scores seems like a more reasonable action. This is clearly superior to the half-orc, but the half-orc is a terrible race. Meanwhile, the orc remains superior for someone focusing hard on Strength – a dungeoncrasher, perhaps.

Finally, regardless of ability scores, the other racial features are really minimal. There are relatively few features that are restricted to hobgoblins or orcs, and a tiny bonus to a single skill is not terribly impressive. The source races, unfortunately, give nothing to work with.

Answer 3

The worry with stat modifications is that people will start min-maxing: they'll throw out stats and abilities that don't matter to their class, in exchange for stats and abilities that do matter. The half-orc is already kind of min-maxy, in that it gets a +2 bonus to STR (very important for melee types) in exchange for -2 to INT and CHA (basically irrelevant for melee types). This class makes the problem worse, because you're adding +2 CON (very important) in exchange for -2 WIS (basically irrelevant) or a penalty to CHA checks (also basically irrelevant).

We have a definition of "overpowered", and I think it applies here: anyone who wanted to play a melee type would choose your half-orc-half-hobgoblin race over the basic half-orc, because they would care a lot about +2 CON and barely at all about the -2 WIS.

Having said that, this is still much closer to LA+0 than LA+1. If you're a DM and this is an NPC, feel free to run it as LA+0 and nobody will mind. If you're a DM and a player comes to you with this template, I recommend asking them to use the half-orc racial stats and just narrate that it's also half-hobgoblin.

Answer 4

The Goblinorc already exists as a 3^rd party published hybrid.

You can find it within:

You can find all of their Half Orc variations on the Grand OGL Wiki. They give theirs a +1 LA. But your home-brew is not "overpowered" in my opinion - but that is just my opinion. You would only find out that answer in play-testing.

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Let's compare your hybrid to another published creature, the Neanderthal (WotC).

• It has a +2 to Strength. Yours has a +2 to Strength.
• It has a -2 to Dexterity. Yours has no penalty to Dexterity.
• It has a +2 to Constitution. Yours has a +2 to Constitution.
• It has a -2 to Intelligence. Yours has a -2 to Intelligence.
• It has no penalty to Wisdom. Yours has a -2 to Wisdom.
• It has no penalty to Charisma. Yours has a -2 to Charisma.
• It is medium sized. Yours is medium sized.
• It moves 30 feet. Yours moves 30 feet.
• It is Humanoid. Yours is Humanoid.
• It has a +2 to Listen, Spot, and Survival. Yours has a +2 to Move Silently.
• It has human blood. Yours has hybrid blood.
• It has Climate Tolerance. Yours has Darkvision.
• It has Barbarian as a favored class. Yours has Fighter as a favored class.
• It has a LA of 0. Yours has a LA of 0.

There are a couple of things that the Neanderthal has, that your hybrid, does not, including Primitive Weapon Mastery. Comparing the two, point for point makes yours seem a little "weaker" than the Neanderthal. So, once again, I restate my opinion, "Your home-brew is not overpowered."

The Neanderthal is rarely considered in many of the min/max 'handbooks.' The Neanderthal, physically, is more powerful than many other LA 0 races, but is steeped in the illiterate primitive human - and setting specific. The setting, in the Neanderthal's case, is the Frostfell. So in the arid plains, or swampy marshlands, as far as WotC is concerned - shouldn't be many, if any at all, Neanderthals running around.

Should the Neanderthal have a +1 LA? I believe it should. It's mental stats do not compensate for it's physical stats - despite a -2 to Dexterity, which a Barbarian is rarely if ever worried about.

Your hybrid race, specifically, should have a similar LA +1 - especially considering the Hobgoblin also has a LA +1. I believe Mongoose Publishing took that LA +1 from the Hobgoblin in consideration when they made their hybrid.