Orcish Fury 5e

Published on August 14, 2023

Unleash the primal rage of your orcish bloodline and strike fear into the hearts of your enemies with the Orcish Fury feat!

A half-orc winds up for a strike with their warhammer

Anton Solovianchyk - Wizards of the Coast - Orcish Siegemaster

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What Is Orcish Fury 5e?

For those characters with orcish heritage who wish to tap into their ancestral power, the Orcish Fury feat is a perfect choice. This feat not only allows you to channel your inner rage to deal extra damage but also grants you the ability to retaliate when you’re at your most vulnerable. Embrace the fury, and let your foes feel the wrath of the orcs!

How Does Orcish Fury Work?

On top of an ASI to Strength or Constitution, Orcish Fury provides the following benefits:

When you hit with an attack made with a simple or martial weapon, you can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice an additional time and add it as extra damage. Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
When you get dropped to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can use your Relentless Endurance trait and gain the ability to make one weapon attack as a reaction.

Let’s delve deeper into these benefits:

Rolling an extra damage die once per short rest is a decent boost to damage. The most important thing to note here is that the higher the damage die, the more effective this will be. It’s also nice because you’re able to activate this after you hit, ensuring the resource won’t ever be wasted.
Obviously, you’d rather not have to use Relentless Endurance. But, being able to take a weapon attack as a reaction when you do makes it a bit better.

Is Orcish Fury Good?

In our 5e Feats Tier List, Orcish Fury was given a B Tier rating, making it a niche feat that can improve some builds in D&D 5e.

This is a solid half-feat that can benefit any half-orc melee character. The +1 to STR and CON is a good boost and so is the weapon attack after using Relentless Endurance, but the main benefit comes in the extra damage dice.

The efficiency of adding one of the weapon’s damage dice will really depend on what weapon you’re using. If you take this feat you should really consider a greataxe because a greatsword will only add 1d6 (instead of 2d6).

It is also suggested that you leave this ability for when you land a critical hit because you can use this ability “when you hit” and double the dice, much like a paladin’s smite.

Orcish Fury 5e Interactions

Not Limited to Melee Attacks

While this feat seems built for melee characters, nothing in the feat specifies a “melee weapon attack.” This means that ranged builds can pick up the feat, boost their Constitution, and have the ability to boost the damage of one of their attacks every short rest. Unfortunately, this feat isn’t particularly synergistic with half-orcs because their racial bonus is +2 Strength, +1 Constitution. So, unless you are using Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything’s Customize Your Origin rules, you won’t be building a ranged half-orc any time soon.

Which 5e Classes Make the Most of Orcish Fury?

The color code below has been implemented to help you identify, at a glance, how good the Orcish Fury 5e feat is for a specific class/subclass.

Red isn’t going to contribute to the effectiveness of your character build at all
Orange Situationally good, but a below-average option otherwise
Green is a good option
Blue is a great option, you should strongly consider this option for your character
Sky Blue is an amazing option. If you do not take this option your character would not be optimized

Given the nature of the Orcish Fury feat, it’s most beneficial for frontline martial builds. To make this most of this ability, you’ll want to be attacking with Strength and using a heavy weapon, preferably a greataxe (1d12), lance (1d12), glaive (1d10), halberd (1d10), or pike (1d10).

Artificer: Nothing here for an artificer.

Barbarian: Half-Orcs are a very synergistic race for barbarians and this feat adds additional utility to martial builds. It's a half-feat so it provides an STR or CON bonus, provides additional damage once per rest, and provides an extra attack when you use your Relentless Endurance feature.

Bard: Nothing here for a bard.

Cleric: Nothing here for a cleric.

Druid: Nothing here for a druid.

Fighter: Half-Orcs are a very synergistic race for fighters and this feat adds additional utility to martial builds. It's a half-feat so it provides an STR or CON bonus, provides additional damage once per rest, and provides an extra attack when you use your Relentless Endurance feature.

Monk: Nothing here for a monk.

Paladin: Half-Orcs are a very synergistic race for paladins and this feat adds additional utility to martial builds. It's a half-feat so it provides an STR or CON bonus, provides additional damage once per rest, and provides an extra attack when you use your Relentless Endurance feature.

Ranger: Nothing here for a ranger.

Rogue: Nothing here for a rogue.

Sorcerer: Nothing here for a sorcerer.

Warlock: Nothing here for a warlock.

Wizard: Nothing here for a wizard.

Mike Bernier

Mike Bernier is the lead content writer and founder of Arcane Eye. He is a Mithral best-selling author of Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery on DMs Guild and is a contributing author at D&D Beyond. Follow Mike on Twitter.