Agreed. I like the weapon skills adjustment most. As-is they're too much like trolls, but with less troll flavour.

Orcs do generally start with very nice starting gear, which a lot of people underrate, IMHO. Lots of orc characters can easily have 5-10 starting PV. Not quite as good as dwarves, usually, but better than the other races, I think.

I do agree that they could probably benefit from a small boost though.

Maybe a 15% boost on weap/shield skills. Nice, stable middle ground.

Orc improvements?

- They could get less penalties for fighting in swamps
- Comparatively somewhat milder increase in the hunger rate for being either Burdened or (very)Strained.
- Perhaps warrior classes could have also more damage while berserking with 'heavy' weapons. (Say +5 or so and +10 for true berserking)


I agree with the melee weapon marks improvements, especially with two-handed weapons. (Great axes, Two-handed swords, etc.)

I'm a bit of a fan of orcs, and play them a lot. Despite them not being my *favourite* race (I like humans best), or a particularly powerful race (drakelings and dark elves for me, depending on class), I still probably play about 35% of my adom games as orcs...

I can't really get behind the notion that they need a buff or more identity. I think find weakness already makes the hugely different to dwarfs and trolls.
However, if one were necessary, how about giving them an increased crit chance or damage based on their missing hitpoints?
(An even more fun mechanic would be for them to get a 'bloodlust' damage bonus based on monsters killed, divided by time played(turns, gametime, real time, whatever). That, provided the damage boost was never outrageous, would make them a VERY interesting race to play)

Frankly I have never played an orc. I always thought of them as a mix of dwarf and troll - pretty strong fighters and all-rounders but short lived and with low learning score.
I don't mind seeing tweaks to the race if players that prefer it consider them to be inferior, I just always felt they don't offer anything that I don't already get with other races and right class combination.
The worst thing of all though would have to be the lifespan, hence, much like humans and ratlings, I will skip orcs in favor of my all time favorite gray elves.

This is so strange a complaint to me. To me orcs are simply the slightly smaller, but playable version of trolls. They level almost at normal speed, are still great physically and Find Weakness is a major perk, especially for the martial classes that don't have it. Orcish barbarian to me is the single most powerful melee r/c combo you can get. (Ignoring duelists for the moment for lack of experience playing them.)

To be honest, to this day I don't get why people play trolls at all while orcs are available. Everyone has their preferences.

Melee weapon skill bonus sounds all right, though it should probably only apply to appropriate weapon types, not staves or daggers. Maybe Axes, Clubs/hammers, Maces/flails and (orcish spear) Polearms, allowing orcish farmers to make Grandmaster by level 12. That actually sounds hella sweet.

In hindsight, yeah, I kind of have to agree with Silfir. Orcs are arguably a top pick for several classes (barbs, beasties, paladins, rangers), and are a good choice for several of the weak classes (thieves, etc.) because they're tough enough to get through the early game. This is a somewhat different situation from humans, say, who were widely considered to be a weak race under pretty much all circumstances (especially compared to drakelings).

I'd say ratlings are probably the race that is most desperately in need of a boost at this point, followed maybe by gnomes.

I don't think they need a boost. I'd rather play an orc than an elf. The low Le and Ma stats are easily corrected by eating Keethrax. :-)

I think the last time I played an orc was when I discovered that orc paladins started the game with an everburning torch and proceeded to raid the gremlin cave until level 12 (which was years ago).

With that said, I am voting yes. I don't know to what specifically, but something to make orcs more viable and enjoyable. I would love to see them have a racial bonus for two handed weapons. Maybe begin the game with poison resistance from their alrady rough and tough lifestyle?