Orc (starting race)

This article is about the playable race in NetHack and its variants. For other uses of the term, see orc.

Orcs are one of the five playable races available to a hero in NetHack. An orcish hero will appear as o if the showrace option is set on, and is part of the orc monster class. According to the guidebook:

Orcs are a cruel and barbaric race that hate every living thing (including other orcs). Above all others, Orcs hate Elves with a passion unequalled, and will go out of their way to kill one at any opportunity. The armor and weapons fashioned by the Orcs are typically of inferior quality.

Orcs are always chaotic, and can be played as Barbarians, Rogues, Rangers, or Wizards.

Racial benefits and restrictions

Orcish heroes have intrinsic infravision and poison resistance, and gain +1 to-hit when throwing or shooting at elves, due to orcs' hatred of them. Similar to Cavepeople, they take no penalties for cannibalism, which includes eating the corpses or tins of little dogs, kittens or either monster's growth stages, as well as the corpses of other orcish monsters; they will also never become nauseous from eating tripe rations (and in fact enjoy the taste). Their attributes caps favor physical stats, but not nearly to the extent of the most physically capable races, while their mental attribute caps are on the lower end.

All monsters with the orcish monster attribute are considered the same race as an orcish hero for purposes such as cannibalism and same-race sacrifice. While no monsters are mostly peaceful towards orcish heroes, other orcs have a chance of generating as peaceful, while humans, elves and dwarves that are not undead will always generate as hostile towards a human hero. Orcish heroes that die and leave bones where they arise from the dead will resurrect as orc mummies and orc zombies, depending on their killer—in practice, there is no means of killing any hero that causes them to rise as a zombie.

The following information pertains to an upcoming version (NetHack 3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that the information below is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate it.

Per commit aeb0ea65, if the hero is killed by a zombie or a lich, they will rise from the grave as a zombie of their race's type, and will be present as a zombie if a bones file is created. Per commit 3c421da7, the zombie will have the same intrinsics as the former hero.

Attributes

Attribute	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma
Minimum	3	3	3	3	3	3
Maximum	18/50	18	18	16	16	16

Level bonuses	Starting	Pre-cutoff	Post-cutoff
HP gain	1	d1	0
Energy gain	1	1	1

Orcish heroes have generally lackluster attributes: their strength is surpassed by that of humans and dwarves, and even gnomes can match their cap in strength, with only elves being weaker on that front. Their dexterity and constitution caps are the same as other non-dwarven races, while their intelligence, wisdom and charisma are tied for the lowest with dwarves at 16 each.

Orcish heroes also have less-than-impressive HP and energy growth: they only gain +1 to starting HP, +1 for each level gained while they are below their role's "cutoff" level, and no HP for each level gained while at or above the "cutoff". For energy, orcish heroes have the second-lowest growth after dwarves (whose energy growth is nonexistent), with +1 to their role's starting energy, +1 for each level gained while below their role's "cutoff" level, and +1 for each level gained while at or above the "cutoff" level.

Racial items

Orcish heroes start the game with knowledge of all orcish items. Orcish items are usually made of iron and are among the lowest-quality items, with the weakest base damage and AC compared to similar equipment.

There are several racial substitutions applied for orcish heroes:

Regular item	Substitute	Affected roles
dagger	orcish dagger	Rogue, Ranger
spear	orcish spear	none
short sword	orcish short sword	Rogue
bow	orcish bow	Ranger
arrow	orcish arrow
helmet	orcish helm	None
small shield	orcish shield
ring mail	orcish ring mail	Barbarian
chain mail	orcish chain mail	none
cram ration	tripe ration	Ranger
lembas wafer		none

As a result of the above, orcish heroes generally have inferior equipment to other heroes when starting each game. To compensate for this, orcish heroes are given two stacks of 1-2 random food items, with the exception of Wizards (who are not subject to armor or weapon replacements from any race). The replacement of lembas wafers and cram rations with tripe applies to those random food items as well as the hero's initial inventory. Of note is that orcish Wizards cannot receive a ring of poison resistance as either of the two random rings in their starting inventory, as their innate poison resistance makes it redundant.

Orcish heroes gain a +1 multishot bonus when shooting orcish arrows from an orcish bow.

Strategy

At a glance, orcs seem to have the worst of all worlds for a prospective hero—their attributes are unimpressive, their starting equipment is worse than that of their peers, they have below-average HP and energy growth, and many of the dungeon's denizens that are not other orcs will be hostile by default, including the highly-dangerous elves. This typically makes for one of the most dangerous early games for any particular race in NetHack.

However, poison resistance and extra food are both very meaningful advantages: orcish heroes can safely eat a wider variety of corpses such as kobolds or giant spiders in the early game, and do not have to fear poisoned projectiles or spiked pits among other hazards, though nasty monsters with strong poison attacks (e.g. soldier ants) are still threats. Their ability to stomach tripe also makes it safe to consume and useful for nutrition in a pinch (though it does also preclude them from using it as a source of confusion). Furthermore, the extra food is invaluable for roles like the Rogue and Wizard, ensuring they can maintain nutrition and even tame or pacify domestic animals to either avoid combat or obtain pets. Though their strength cap is lackluster compared to other races, it is more than sufficient for melee-focused builds, and their intelligence cap of 16 is also enough for orcish Wizards to benefit from reduced-hunger casting and play the role more than competently.

As an always-chaotic race, orcish heroes also have the easiest means of performing same-race sacrifice, since other orcish monsters such as goblins and hill orcs can be used to automatically convert cross-aligned altars and summon peaceful demon lords—subsequent sacrifices will summon peaceful foocubi, giving orcs an easy way to power up in the mid-to-late game. Additionally, said orcish monsters may still generate as hostile, reducing the need to risk the hero's alignment record in the early game, and they generate much earlier compared to same-race monsters for other races of chaotic hero.

History

The orc starting race is introduced along with the other playable races in NetHack 3.3.0. In this version, orcish heroes that are not Wizards can start the game with cram rations and lembas wafers among their random extra food items—later versions added the code intended to give orcish heroes tripe rations in place of cram and lembas for this extra food, but that code did not function properly. This is fixed in NetHack 3.6.2.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, an orcish hero can be played as a Barbarian, Flame Mage, Ice Mage, Necromancer, Ranger, Rogue, Undead Slayer, or Wizard.

Orcish heroes do not unlock any techniques from gaining experience levels, a trait shared with human heroes. In addition to a lack of cannibalism penalties, orcish heroes gain +1 to alignment record for cannibalism if they are chaotic, or take a -1 penalty if they are lawful. (You feel evil and fiendish!)

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, orcish heroes have significant differences from NetHack.

Orcish heroes remain always-chaotic, and can be played as Barbarians, Binders, Convicts, Madpeople, Rogues, Rangers, Troubadours (Bards), Undead Hunters, and Wizards.

Orcish heroes exchange their infravision from NetHack for second-level low-light vision, and similar to SLASH'EM they gain an alignment bonus for eating the tins and corpses of orcish monsters. Orcish heroes also obtain intrinsic magic resistance at experience level 15. An orcish hero gains an AC bonus equal to (2*XL)/3, topping out at -10 AC for an orcish hero without armor at experience level 30—combined with the -7 AC bonus from 25 dexterity (which orcs can attain, with details below), a level 30 orcish hero can reach a maximum of -17 AC before factoring in any armor. Orcs also gain to-hit and damage bonuses equal to (XL+2)/3, as well as a carrying capacity bonus equal to (XL/3)*10.

Orcish heroes have 55 points to distribute among their starting attributes, which is lowered to 50 if they have an inheritance. Orcish heroes have their initial strength cap lowered to 18, the same as elven heroes, while their other attribute caps are unchanged from NetHack—this is because they gain a full point to their strength, dexterity and constitution caps for every three experience levels they have. Their HP bonuses are changed as well:

Attribute	Strength	Dexterity	Constitution	Intelligence	Wisdom	Charisma
Minimum	3	3	3	3	3	3
Level 1, maximum stats	18	18	18	16	16	16
Level 30, maximum stats	25	25	25	16	16	16

Level bonuses	Starting	Pre-cutoff	Post-cutoff
HP gain	1	d1	d8
Energy gain	1	1	1

By gaining experience levels, orcs can exceed the racial maximums of physical attributes for other races, reaching a total of 25 in each one at experience level 21 or higher. While their energy growth is still quite poor, they have some of the best post-cutoff HP growth among races along with gnomes.

Orcish heroes that are not Madpeople start with knowledge of all orcish items, which are retained from NetHack. There are several racial substitutions made for orcish heroes as well:

Standard item(s)	Replacement item(s)	Affected roles
athame	orcish dagger	Wizard
dagger		Ranger, Rogue
knife		Binder
spear	orcish spear	none
short sword	orcish short sword	Rogue
bow	orcish bow	Ranger
arrow	orcish arrow
helmet	orcish helm	none
buckler	orcish shield	Priest
kite shield		none currently
ring mail	orcish ring mail	Barbarian
chain mail	orcish chain mail	none

Similar to NetHack, orcish heroes that are not Convicts, Madpeople or Wizards are given two stacks of 1-2 random food items to compensate for inferior starting equipment.

Encyclopedia entry

Orcs, bipeds with a humanoid appearance, are related to the
goblins, but much bigger and more dangerous. The average orc
is only moderately intelligent, has broad, muscled shoulders,
a short neck, a sloping forehead and a thick, dark fur.
Their lower eye-teeth are pointing forward, like a boar's.
Female orcs are more lightly built and bare-chested. Not
needing any clothing, they do like to dress in variegated
apparels. Suspicious by nature, orcs live in tribes or
hordes. They tend to live underground as well as above
ground (but they dislike sunlight). Orcs can use all weapons,
tools and armors that are used by men. Since they don't have
the talent to fashion these themselves, they are constantly
hunting for them. There is nothing a horde of orcs cannot
use.

[ het Boek van de Regels; Het Oog des Meesters ]