Under construction, don't bother looking

[Quoxis]

Hulking 101: How to build a Half-Orc Character

https://media-waterdeep.cursecdn.com/avatars/thumbnails/6/466/420/618/636274570630462055.png

This is an attempt to make sort of a race guide in the style of the popular class guides (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?377491), and in this first case, a guide to half-orcs.
I have no idea how this will turn out; there have been people trying this before, most recently the_brazenburn (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?546880-Homo-Diabolicus-A-Tiefling-s-Guide) with Tieflings, and now i have to try it too.

This guide will work as a guideline how you could build and play a half-orc of any class to its maximum of usefulness in and/or out of combat. I'll include multiclassing for a bit, but for an in-depth guide to that you'd better look at Petenutbutter's multiclassing guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?502248-Ultimate-Optimizer-s-Multiclassing-Guide).
Notice that all i'm listing here are suggestions, not demands. 5e has the tendency to not punish you too harshly for building a suboptimal character, so you can still be the half-orc sorcerer with low cha if you want. I'll try to base as much of this guide as possible on crunch instead of fluff, that's the players' job.
I'll steal the usual color scheme everybody should already be used to:


Excellent, definitely take this
Good and useful in most cases
Ok, but not ideal
Meh... situationally good, but generally not
plain bad, better avoid this

[Quoxis]

Basics discussion

Just in case anyone doesn't specifically remember what half-orcs have to offer:


a bonus of +2 to strength and +1 to constitution
darkvision
the feature "Relentless Endurance": once per long rest, you may drop to 1hp instead of 0hp
the feature "savage attacks", which lets you add bonus damage on a critical hit
free proficiency in intimidation


Their ability scores make them natural picks for strength-based characters, in theory you could also use the str bonus to round out a particularly badly rolled stat, as str saving throws aren't that uncommon, but usually they're not deadly if failed. I see that a bad athletics roll could mean you fall to your death or drown, but you could also take proficiency if you're paranoid about these things. Con is a stat you simply can't go wrong with.

Darkvision is key for sneaky characters, which you'll probably not portray as a standard half-orc, but it's also great to be independant of torches or wizards casting light. Campaigns that don't lead into ancient ruins or caves may not even need this, but it's still good to have in case of nightly ambushes. Almost every race gets this, which makes it less important when choosing a race.

Relentless endurance is a great panic button that'll keep you running for a while - if an opponent has multiattack or you're fighting multiple opponents some of which can attack before your turn it's less useful, but if you're lucky or a great strategist, this can decide battles. It also makes you less dependant on other party members healing you mid-combat. Pairs well with other features that let you cheat death like long death monk or zealot barbarian.

Savage attacks means you'll want to look for opportunities to get critical hits - advantage on attacks or the champion archetype of the fighter class come to mind, but more on that will follow soon.

Intimidation is usually a charisma-related skill, and in most classes you won't have the ASI to spare for that. If you can talk your GM into allowing strength or another appropriate stat for it (as is encouraged by the phb, iirc) this is much better, yet bound to situations.

[Quoxis]

Classes

Oooh boy, with Xanathar's guide to everything out this is a real piece of work. I'll discuss every base class the official material offers (no artificers or mystics, sorry) and mention all the subclasses, focusing on the ones that work well with orcs. For deeper analysis of the classes, look at the class guides listed in the thread i linked in the first post.

Some classes aren't natural fits, but can still be taken and played if you're willing to break the mold - strength rogues, just as an example. I'll try to go deeply into detail about what you win and lose by applying those changes to fit your half-orc.

Multiclassing will not be specifically discussed, but i'll add comments like "you might want to add 1-x levels of fighter/warlock/whatever for benefits like...". For a guide on multiclassing ask Petenutbutter or use the link in the first post.

As this is still under construction feel free to add ideas or tell me what i've missed - i like to think i'm perfect, but history has proven otherwise.


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Barbarians are what half-orcs were made for. Everything aligns with their race: barbarians are generally played as tanks with strength weapons - the strength and con boni are perfect for this, con also raises your AC, and the "drop to one hp" feature makes tanking easier. By lvl 2, barbarians get the "reckless attack" feature for auto-advantage on all their attacks in that turn, making criticals for the extra damage by "savage attacks" twice as likely. It's a cliché, but justifiably so.
Class features on higher levels that complement your race are extra attack, another crit bonus called "brutal critical" (just saying: after that, each crit on a one die weapon like a maul does 4 dice worth of damage instead of 2!), another chance to drop to 1 instead of 0 hp (use the free racial feature first, then this!), and eventually you break the rules by getting up to 24 str and con.
Subclasses:
Frenzy = additional attack = additional damage and additional chance for a critical hit per turn; no more math needed to see this is a good way to deal damage. The exhaustion can be deadly (not only if you get 6 levels of it), so have countermeasures or don't overuse your frenzy. On higher levels you're immune to charm and fear while raging, can intimidate foes in combat (but why is this a save against your cha instead of a skill check?! You're proficient in intimidation, it'd fit perfectly, but like this it's garbage) and eventually a reactionary attack upon recieving damage. Good if used wisely.
This is worth its own strategy guide with its 5 (including scag) different totem choices at 3 different stages in the subclass; let's just say at 3r levelbear makes you tankier and wolf makes your melee teammates love you and call it a day. What jumps right in my face is that at 14th level, wolf barbarians can knock large or smaller foes prone (save-free) with an attack - if it didn't come that late, it'd be an ideal way to avoid reckless attack and still get advantage on your attack to crit, but eh...
By RAW, this is dwarf only - check with your GM if you don't want to crouch, wear a fake beard and avoid questions about your green skin. This too adds a bonus action attack, but with 1d4 damage... even if you crit, you do 3d4 added damage at best, so this is meh. At level 6 you get temp hp on a reckless attack, later you can bonus action dash (a 10th level feature you could also just dip 2 levels of rogue for... only useful if you plan to get to that sweet lvl 20 capstone) and eventually "spiked retribution" lets you deal minor damage when getting hit in melee, which is neglegible at level 14. Meh. Leave it to the beardo, take anything else.
THIS focuses on you being the tank of the party, expect to get hit and smile while doing so.
You give disadvantage on attacks against anyone but yourself, but you've got the relentless endurance to take more beatings than any other race to even it out - half-orcs are made for this. Later on you can reduce damage against others, cast flavor spells out of combat, and later damage opponents from far away for hurting your team. Everything here screams "tank" and "protector", so if you want to put your racial superiority to good use, this might be your subclass.
Depending on the chosen climate, you're either a teamplayer or damage everything close to you,
but this - like totem warrior - has too many different uses to explain them all. Most effects key off of your con stat, so it's even better to have it be a racial bonus stat, but other than that there's nothing particularly synergetic with half-orcs here.
Liked the "drop to 1 hp" feature? You'll love this subclass. First you get 1d6 additional damage on your first hit per turn (not sure about that, but i assume on a critical this gets rolled twice too, just in case you needed more motivation to roll a 20), can get resurrected for free (except you still need someone to do the magic) - if you really need to, you're hardier than the other races anyway. On higher levels you can reroll one failed save per long rest, can give up to 10 allies advantage on all their attacks and saves until your next turn. Yes. Really. Borderline broken. And the best thing is still to come: at 14, you can fight on even after dropping to 0hp (which, if you remember, you can avoid once with your race and probably at least once more with your standard barbarian kit), making you simply unstoppable - if you don't fail your death saves. Those still kill you, and each hit you take equals one fail. At this point, you're a glass cannon, but again: this won't happen often, you're already hard to get to 0.



Finished Barbarians, and if you play anything else as a half-orc you're wrong - jokes aside, next is probably going to be something less obvious like monk or rogue, but that'll be later today. Stay tuned!

[Quoxis]

Reserved for later, the third

[Beelzebubba]

Reserved for later, first snarky quip

[Vaz]

Reserved for later, first snarky quip

You hope, anyway.

[JellyPooga]

Curiosity got the better of me; I looked. :smalltongue:

Glad I did; I'm interested to see what you come up with. I love Half-orcs as a race and it'll be a nice change of pace to read a Race guide instead of another Class guide or char-op thread.

[Quoxis]

Reserved for later, first snarky quip

Reserved for apology about mistakes the snarky quip will be about


Curiosity got the better of me; I looked. :smalltongue:

Glad I did; I'm interested to see what you come up with. I love Half-orcs as a race and it'll be a nice change of pace to read a Race guide instead of another Class guide or char-op thread.

You broke the rules! Guys, can he do that?!

I've seen a similar thread by the_brazenburn about Tieflings, and i just wanted to try the same with my own thoughts and improvements to it. I'm also stealing suggestions made by other readers of that thread, because i'm evil :smalltongue:
Half-orcs are a natural start in my eyes, as they have no pesky subraces and are pretty straight-forward in their racial features. If this guide is broadly accepted i might make more for the other races, but i imagine it'll take at least a week to finish this one; reallife's a b*tch.

[the_brazenburn]

Thank you!

This is what I had really hoped for when I made my (subpar) tiefling guide. Thank you so much for getting the racial guides going!

[Quoxis]

Thank you!

This is what I had really hoped for when I made my (subpar) tiefling guide. Thank you so much for getting the racial guides going!

Thank me when (if) this behemoth gets finished... Xanathar's 20+ new subclasses don't make it easy!

[Alpharn_999]

Isn't it usually better to use the Barbarian's 'Drop to 1 HP instead of 0' first until you fail that and then use the racial?

[KorvinStarmast]

As I am playing a Fighter/Champion half orc (Sword and board) and currently at 12th level, I"ll be interested to see how your guide stacks up against my experience.

[Quoxis]

Isn't it usually better to use the Barbarian's 'Drop to 1 HP instead of 0' first until you fail that and then use the racial?

I'm not quite sure if pressing another panic button after the first one doesn't work is conform with the rules, aside from being kind of cheesy. That aside: Does it matter, statistically? I'm no mathematician, but the chance to fail the barbarian save is the same whether before or after the racial in my eyes.