BG3 Half-Orc Handbook

Introduction

The Half-Orc presenst simple, reliable traits which appeal primarily to martial characters. In the tabletop rules, the Half-Orc sees very little play because Savage Attacks has so little impact. However, the abundance of options to increase your critical hit range offers some exciting options in BG3.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses a color coding scheme to rate individual character options.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

RPGBOT is fan content published under Larian’s Fan Content Policy. This is not official content, and RPGBOT has no official relationship with Larian.

Half-Orc Traits

Savage Attacks and Relentless Endurance are great for martial characters, but have much less appeal for spellcasters, which singificantly limits the Half-Orc’s appealing class options.

  • Base Racial Speed: You can move 9 m / 30 ft per turn.
    : Standard.
  • Darkvision: Helpful, but actual darkness isn’t common in the game, and you can also get the Darkvision spell via Camp Casting, so this won’t be unique beyond low levels.
  • Relentless Endurance: Nice insurance if you’re prone to dying a lot. This may be especially valuable if you’re playing on Honor Mode.
  • Savage Attacks: Without investment in critical hits, Savage Attacks is a fun surprise that will occasionally give you a little bit of extra damage with your weapon attacks.

    In Baldur’s Gate 3 there are a bunch of magic items that can increase your critical hit rate by lowering your >Critical Hit Threshold. By default, your Critical Hit Threshold is 20, so you’ll only score a critical hit 5% of the time. Magic items and other effects can reduce this threshold significantly, and most of them stack. If I’m doing my math right, and if I understand the stacking correctly, you can reduce the threshold by 7, but you need to be the Dark Urge, you need very specific items, and you need to be obscured (darkness, fog, etc.). Class features from the Champion Fighter can lower this even further.

    Note that this only applies to weapon attacks. Spell attacks do not benefit.

In addition, you must select a subrace which grants additional traits.

Classes

Barbarian

Reckless Attack gives you easy Advantage, which improves your chances to score a critical hit, making Savage Attacks more impactful. Relentless Endurance also makes it much safer to dive into melee with Reckless Attack running.

Bard

Relentless Endurance is great, and Savage Attacks might be useful for College of Swords, but that’s the only appeal here.

Cleric

Relentless endurance is nice, but that’s the only appeal.

Druid

Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks don’t work while in Wild Shape. They might be appealing for Circle of Spores, but they’re not especially strong.

Fighter

A Half-Orc Champion Fighter is among the simplest builds in the game. Relentless Endurance is fantastic for a front-line martial character, and no one will get more value out of Savage Attacks than a Champion Fighter.

If you’re building around critical hits, the Champion Fighter is a natural choice. The 3rd-level Improved Critical subclass feature stacks with most other improvements to your Critical Hit Threshold. Be sure to take the Great Weapon Master feat so that you can get an additional attack as a Bonus Action when you score a critical hit.

Monk

Relentless Endurance is fantastic on the Monk since Monks are notoriously frail early in the game. Save Attacks also applies to Unarmed Strikes.

Paladin

Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks are helpful. Oath of Vengeance can get Advantage on their attacks easily, which makes critical hits more likely. Combining Divine Smite and Savage Attacks on a critical hit feels really nice.

Ranger

Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks are helpful.

Rogue

Relentless Endurance is fine, but Savage Attacks isn’t much help when you’re making at most 2 attacks per turn with weapons that use small damage dice.

Sorcerer

Relentless Endurance is nice for a frail spellcaster, but that’s the only appeal.

Warlock

Relentless Endurance is nice for a frail spellcaster, but that’s the only appeal.

Wizard

Relentless Endurance is nice for a frail spellcaster, but that’s the only appeal.