5E Orcish Fury Racial Feat Guide

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Orcish Fury is a 5E racial feat with an admittedly great name, and one that tells you right off the bat what its deal is. Known as incredible fighters, barbarians, and for martial prowess because of their Orc heritage, Half-Orcs can tap into that fury bubbling just below the surface making them great friends to have in a pinch…and terrifying enemies.

Orcish fury is a 5E half feat from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything that grants a +1 to either Strength or Constitution, allows the rolling of an additional damage die on a melee attack once per rest, and use a reaction to make one weapon attack when Relentless Endurance kicks in.

Does this racial feat do a great job of hyping up your next Half-Orc martial build, or does it sputter in comparison to Savage Attacker, Sentinel, Great Weapon Master, and the many other great feats out there for the melee classes?

Let’s break this one down in-depth and have a look!

The rage of the Half Orcs is well known, and Orcish Fur is an apt name for a Half-Orc only feat. Original Picture Art from HERE.

Breaking Down the Orcish Fury Racial Feat

Let’s take a look at the exact wording of the 5E Orcish Fury feat.

Directly from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything:

Prerequisite: Half-Orc

Your inner fury burns tirelessly. You gain the following benefits:

  • Increase your Strength or Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
  • When you hit with an attack using a simple or martial weapon, you can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice an additional time and add it as extra damage of the weapon’s damage type. Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
  • Immediately after you use your Relentless Endurance trait, you can use your reaction to make one weapon attack.

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, p.75

Let’s break down these benefits one by one to do a full dep dive of the Relentless Endurance feat.

Benefit #1: Increase your Strength or Constitution by +1 up to a maximum of 20.

Strength and Constitution are the ability scores that make the most sense for most Half-Orc marital builds, and having your choice between one or the other is a nice little bonus. Still that makes this a half-feat, so it’s up to the other benefits to pick up the slack.

Benefit #2: When you hit with a simple or martial weapon you can roll a damage die an additional time and add that damage. This can be used once before needing a rest to recharge.

Adding an extra die of damage to an especially vicious smite or critical strike can be a great way to really finish off the job, or even during a regular fight just getting that huge hit to turn the tide when things go badly can be huge.

Benefit #3: Immediately after using the Relentless Endurance trait you can use a reaction to make one weapon attack.

An enemy drops you to zero, but Relentless Endurance allows you to tank the hit and stand at 1 HP. This means you also get to strike back, out of turn order, a last little “F U” to the enemy as the blood fury takes over.

Thematically this is really neat and fits right in with the canon of Half-Orcs but it’s gatekept by having to be falling to near unconsciousness to unlock it and it can only be used once per rest since Relentless Endurance can only used once per rest.

How Good Is Orcish Fury?

While I love the theming, if we’re being honest it’s not a good feat. Is having one reaction melee attack per long rest (assuming you’re about to go unconscious, otherwise void this benefit) and one extra damage die on a landed attack per long rest really worth the +1 STR or +1 CON you’d give up just from taking the full ability score increase?

Do those traits hold up to the many other martial feats you could also choose from?

Unfortunately the easy answer is that no, it does not. While Orcish Fury is a great name, the main fury is that Half-Orcs couldn’t get a better racial feat made just for them. As far as Half-Orc racial feats go, it’s Prodigy or nothing.

Pros:

  • The +1 to STR/CON is probably useful
  • A little extra damage at the right time can be important in very close fights.

Cons:

  • Adding an extra die of damage once per rest means this extra damage doesn’t come up often at all
  • At high levels you shouldn’t be losing enough hit points to set off the Relentless Endurance trait that often, and when you do, you’re teetering on unconsciousness thus limiting the number of times you can use a reaction attack
  • The additional benefits are pretty underwhelming for a half feat

Who Should Take The Orcish Fury Feat?

  • Martial Half-Orc characters can consider it, but there are likely much better options

Honestly this is one of the few racial feats that, in my opinion, completely falls on its face. While designed for classes like barbarians, fighters, paladins, even monks, at the end of the day this is a feat that while thematically on point just does not deliver nearly enough on the mechanic benefits to be worth taking.

While capturing that feel of being a very race-specific boon is captured quite well, this feat doesn’t do anything else well and therefore will not be especially useful.

Final Thoughts for 5E Orcish Fury Racial Feat

While the thematic side of things is still alive and well with the Orcish Fury feat, this is one of those half feats that tends to really fall flat. Unless you are perpetually in a low level campaign with a DM intent on taking you out, there just aren’t going to be a lot of times the benefits of this feat come into play.

Go with one of the more popular martial feats that are available in The Player’s Handbook or Tasha’s – they will take you a lot further.

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