Hill Orc

Template:Obsolete This page is about the player species. For the monster, see Orc. Template:Flavour

Innate Abilities

• Hill Orcs are the only species capable of worshipping Beogh. Hill Orcs that can see a conscious orc priest or orc high priest are offered the chance to convert to Beogh on the spot.

Hill Orcs have a base Strength of 10, Intelligence of 8 and Dexterity of 6 (before Background modifiers) and have normal base magic points.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter, Monk
• Zealots: Berserker, Abyssal Knight, Cinder Acolyte
• Mages: Fire Elementalist

Level Bonuses

• +1 strength every 5th level.
• 10% more hit points than average.
• +3 willpower per level.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Hill Orcs receive all the skills and equipment listed for their background.

Difficulty of Play

Hill Orcs are easy to play, due to their high HP and good aptitudes for melee skills. They have excellent skill in Invocations, making them better at using certain gods' abilities. Also, Hill Orcs are alright at magic, with decent aptitudes in a variety of spell schools.

Compared to Minotaur

Melee Hill Orcs are very similar to Minotaurs. Their differences are listed below:

• Minotaurs deal somewhat more damage in combat, due to having Horns. This can make a difference, especially in the early Dungeon.
• Minotaurs have better defensive aptitudes (Armour, Dodging, Shields). Hill Orcs are better at Invocations.
• Minotaurs are worse at Axes, but better at other weapon skills.
• Minotaurs are terrible at all magic schools.

Overall, the differences are slight. For a "pure" melee build, Minotaur edges out. But they are both strong species; games are rarely lost because you picked one over the other. (It's worth noting that Trog, one of the most popular 'melee gods', doesn't rely on the Invocations skill at all.)

History

• Hill orcs were removed in 0.32. In their place, Mountain Dwarves were reinstated as a playable species, and Beogh was made available to worship for all species.
• Prior to the changes to rations in 0.21, Hill Orcs would always start with meat rations instead of bread rations.
• Prior to 0.15, Hill Orcs had the innate Saprovore 1 mutation.
• In 0.10, Hill Orcs received several aptitude changes to accommodate the removal of Mountain Dwarves. It is this version where they gained the +3 Invocations aptitude (+2 before the global Invocations buff was removed), a positive Fire Magic aptitude, and marginally better spellcasting stats.
• Prior to 0.8, Hill Orcs received only +2 MR per level.
• Prior to 0.6, Hill Orcs received +3 magic resistance points per level.