Orcs D&D 2024: Species/Race Optimisation Guide

Learn how to optimise this tough species with our guide to the updated Orcs for D&D 2024.

What are Orcs?

Built for brawn, Orcs are naturally muscular, standing a little taller than the average Human (though still shorter than a Goliath). Orcs are fairly imposing beings; especially with their tusks and a fairly combative culture.

Stereotypically, Orcs have been viewed as savage and aggressive creatures, slaughtering and plundering with a reckless apathy towards the wellbeing of others. This can still be true, but more recent iterations of Orcs paint them more as passionate and tribal beings rather than savage and evil. Even so, it’s not unusual to see Orcs solved problems and questions of leadership and hierarchy through physical contests. Words are the way other species solve their differences.

Orcs weren’t a playable race in the 2014 Player’s Handbook, but they’ve been upgraded in D&D 2024. This may be partly due to the removal of half species as distinct entries from the latest revision of D&D. This means that there’s no longer an entry for Half-Orcs (instead, you can take the traits of either an Orc or the other species you’re related to) offering more of a flavour of half species rather than specific mechanics that only covered Orcs and Elves.

The updated version of Orcs comes with some changes. My guide takes you through these as well as advice on how to optimise and play as an Orc in D&D 2024.

Is an Orc the right species for me?

Choose an Orc if you like…

Being tough as nails
To charge into danger recklessly
Seeing in the dark

An Orc might not be for you if…

You prefer to stay far from the action
Want to play a dedicated spellcaster
Prefer playing with more refinement and sophistication

What’s changed for the 2024 Orc?

Orcs have evolved a little from the version found in Monsters of the Multiverse:

They can now regain uses of adrenaline rush after a short or long rest (previously it was just after a long rest)
Darkvision now has an improved range from 60ft to 120ft
They’ve also lost the powerful build trait

For a full breakdown, check out my article on all the species changes coming to D&D 2024.

Orc 2024 traits

Creature Type	Humanoid
Size	Medium
Speed	30ft
Traits	Adrenaline rush, darkvision, relentless endurance
Resistances	None
Proficiencies	None
Darkvision	Yes
Innate spellcasting	No
Book found in	Player’s Handbook 2024

Adrenaline rush: You can dash as a bonus action and gain a few temporary hit points when you do so.

Darkvision: You have darkvision with a range of 120ft.

Relentless endurance: Once a day, if knocked to 0 hit points, you’re instead reduced to 1 hit point.

Where are the ability score increases?

You may have noticed that there are no ability score increases associated with your species any more. This is because these increases are now linked to your background. This gives you more flexibility to play the species you want and optimise more easily for a broader range of classes.

Check out our guide to backgrounds in D&D 2024 to find out more.

Tactics

Don’t stop me now: Orcs are harder to knock down than other species. This makes them ideal for playing as tanks. Pick a tanky class like a barbarian or a paladin and enjoy some extra resilience.

Charge into the fray: Adrenaline rush is great for getting you into the fray as quickly as possible. Great for a tank wanting to absorb lots of attacks and land some blows quickly. Sadly the temporary hit points don’t scale much making them almost meaningless at higher levels. Though you do get repeat uses of you need to dash a lot.

Choosing a class for your Orc

Below I’ve scored how well each class works with an Orc:

Artificer⭐⭐⭐⭐

Barbarian ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bard ⭐⭐⭐

Cleric ⭐⭐⭐

Druid ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Fighter ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Monk ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Paladin ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ranger ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rogue ⭐⭐

Sorcerer ⭐

Warlock ⭐⭐

Wizard ⭐

*Star ratings scored out of 5

Best classes for Orcs

Orcs are an endurance species. Great for charging into combat and taking a bit more punishment than others. This means they’re geared heavily towards martial classes, and particularly tanks that want to be in combat first.

I’d recommend the following classes as your best options

Barbarian – Barbarians are really hard to knock down and can survive being knocked to 0 hit points already. But relentless endurance does stack with this giving you an extra opportunity to survive being knocked down allowing you to fight even more recklessly. Barbarians are quick the turn they switch on their rage (which you’ll likely want to use in your first turn). But adrenaline rush can be used to move to other parts of the battlefield after the first turn instead so this isn’t a wasted trait on a barbarian.
Fighter – Not quite as tough as a barbarian, but still capable of tanking it. Relentless endurance helps close the endurance gap between a fighter and barbarian a little.
Paladin – Again, you’re mainly here to enhance your durability.

Special mention should be made for monks who will benefit a lot from some extra durability, but may struggle to take up their bonus action with something like adrenaline rush (and are fast anyway with a bonus action dash option too).

The artificer subclasses of battle smiths and armorers find themselves in a similar boat here too, as might Valor and dance bards. All these are built for melee combat and have frequent uses for their bonus action, but lack in the durability department and can benefit from these Orcish traits.

Worst classes for Orcs

Sorcerers and wizards make poor options for an Orc’s durability traits. Enhanced durability is never terrible, but if you’re playing right, they should be keeping out of harms way as much as possible anyway.

Rogues wouldn’t be a terrible option, but already can dash as a bonus action anyway so some Orcish traits end up a bit wasted on them.

About Orcs

Appearance

Orcs are humanoids, standing a bit taller than humans at over 6ft tall and weighing about 250 pounds. They typically have grey or green skin and large, tusk-like teeth. Their skin is tougher than that of humans and they tend to build muscle more naturally than most species too giving them a frightening appearance.

Personality

With such natural strength, Orcs stereotypically tend to deal with their problems physically, shying away from diplomacy. Their tribal nature can also be at odds with the more civilised races like Humans, Dwarves and Elves. Orcs themselves tend to create little in the way of civilisations but will work together in large communities, tribes or warbands. Either way, they’re more at home in nature with basic shelters than beings like Humans are.

Orcs worship Gruumsh, their one-eyed deity and creator. Gruumsh is a powerful warrior and leader and inspires Orcs towards similar qualities. For the Orcs of the Forgotten Realms, this often manifests in bringing glory through war and combat. In other settings like Eberron, this manifests through an intense passion and desire to protect the nature around them. For either of these groups though, Orcs respect a powerful warrior and often select their leaders from among their greatest warriors.

Orcs are naturally religious which also fuels some amount of superstition. Many Orcs will shun magic for this reason and even destroy magical artefacts being suspicious of such things. Some Orcs though, especially those with a greater connection to nature, find themselves at home with natural magics. Orcs can still be spellcasters, but it’s frowned upon in some Orcish cultures.

Roleplaying an Orc

If you choose to play as an Orc, consider some of the approaches below when roleplaying them:

How do you bring honour to Gruumsh? Many Orcs choose to bring honour to Gruumsh through acts of violence, especially war. Others choose to use their strength for heroism. Others may not even worship Gruumsh or display the typical qualities of Orc kind. Some Orcs may have abandoned Gruumsh altogether. It’s worth considering your relationship with Gruumsh and how that affects your actions.

Stereotypical bad guy: If you’re playing as an Orc, especially in the Forgotten Realms, you may need to be prepared for how others perceive your character. Many will assume that you are evil or untrustworthy. How do you react to this? Do you embrace this, stay quiet or get angry at the quick judgements of others.

Why have you left the tribe? Most Orcs stick together as they often aren’t welcome among the other civilisations (and often for good reason). Why have you left your tribe and chosen to join an adventuring party? And what drives you on this mission.