Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Half-Orc Racial - Savage Attacks

Can the half-orc racial trait Savage Attacks get expanded out? Currently how it works is if half-orcs get a crit *on a melee weapon hit* they do an extra dice of damage.

Now my issue with this is DnD has been moving away from X race being only good at Y class since Tasha's and BG3 adopted that philosophy with the optional racial stats. However, the Half-Orc's major racial trait currently only benefits melee classes. Half-orcs will always benefit more from being a Barbarian than being a Sorcerer or a Ranger.

Two handed melee classes will still benefit the most from this racial if it applies to all attacks, so I can't see it being a balance issue. Barbarians can swing a battleaxe multiple times per turn for extra D12's of damage on a crit, whereas most cantrips are D8 or D10 and they rarely get more than one cast per turn. Even warlock would get a number of Eldritch Blasts roughly equivalent to a Barbarian gets melee attacks but on D10's as opposed to D12's. Does anyone have an issue with Half-Orcs being strong Warlocks if not quite as strong as being Barbarians?

Please change the racial trait to affect all attack types so orcs aren't bound to being melee muscle.

Umm... Ranger is a melee class. You can literally play it as full 2 handed melee. Nothing precludes you from doing so.


Keep in mind that "All attacks" includes more than just weapons and cantrips.

It will also affect unarmed attacks - So Monks spamming a dozen d8 punches a turn.

Divine Smite will benefit making Half-Orc Paladins significantly stronger.

Not to mention spells too, where you have multi-hit spells like Scorching Ray and Magic Missile which while not the biggest dice, their multi-attack rolls increases the chance of crits and benefits from the passive.

With of course AoE spells, especially high damage ones like Call Lightning, Ice Storm, Flame Strike and Destructive Wave which while they only hit once per turn, can hit multiple targets with individual rolls each and provide significant damage increases with some of their dice (For example, Ice Storm would get an extra D8 + D6, Flame Strike/Destructive Wave both get 2 additional D8's)

It might not be the biggest of deals, but it's worth keeping in mind that such a suggestion isn't just "Well at best you get Eldritch Blast for 3 D10's!"

So while I think it could be considered opening up Savage Attacks to affect more things, the effect it could have would need to be looked into to ensure it doesn't simply go from Orc = Barb/Fighter into Orc = Some other class that gets mad benefit from the extra dice on crits.

I feel like opening up savage attack to apply to every kind of attack would also make half-orcs too good as a racial choice. Personally my preference would be to do away with savage attacker all together and change it so half-orcs get benefits more similar to Half-elves, but with a more orcish flavor.

I'm just nit picking to pass the time:


In the TTRPG version there are cantrips which call for a melee weapon attack in place of a spell attack. These are called Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade and they add riders + additional effect to your weapon attacks. Just way for Larian to introduce these as DLC or wait for Larian to move on to a new project so that the mods will be stable enough to warrant over 9000 play throughs.


Lack of good melee support spells like Zephyr Strike comes to mind here.

Just the ability to instantly stand up after taking a lethal hit is good enough imo. Savage attacks is just a cherry on top.
My current character is smart and wise half orc cleric/ranger centered around bonking enemies with shillelagh. Uses wisdom for both weapon attacks and control spells like command.

LOL! My Tav is similar - Cleric/Bard, the party's primary caster, if necessary bonking enemies with Shillelagh enhanced Salami.

I almost forgot about Shillelagh. Thank you for the kind reminder.