Seeing as I heroimmed as Straklaw, before the whole ugliness of Graduate school did what the hordes of enemies couldn't, I'll try and give a few pointers.

First of all, I really believe the orc race is one of the best for getting into the FEEL for an orc. Think about the adjectives that best describe orcs. For a start, I think of cowardly, bullies, conniving, backstabbing, distrustworthy, etc. The berserker class is designed very much to take advantage of these traits. Don't take on odds that are not in your favor, but be brutal and swift when you see an opening. I found it great fun to actually play this character, as I could laugh at Straklaw's own stupidity and outright absurd claims, yet that's what an orc would do.

From a more numerical point of view...you have some of best HP gains of anyone in the game, but you also lose them very fast. Many of your skills are along the lines of "Hurt the enemy lots, but you'll get hurt too". Good str and semi-giant size allows you to wield a wide variety of weapons, though low intelligence and wisdom you'll find skills of course won't improve particularly well. However, this isn't so bad, as your skills ALWAYS have a decent chance of failure. Still, those that work, work nicely, and it's something of a trade-off. You could have skills that always work, and deal (as example) 50 damage every time, or you could have skills that work half the time, but do 100 points of damage each time. It comes out the same, just there's alot more chance involved.

I think the reason a lot of people don't care to play orcs is first, that you do get hurt. Alot. So you need a certain amount of healing/protections to compete. But, a degree of this is built into the class, so that's not bad. Also, you're very much designed to be a cowardly killer. Which some players don't care for as much. You can go around solo and do fine, which many orcs have done, but with a few of the right other people, you're very very nasty. Anyways, orcs are fun, they're just more of a race where you have to get into the character, expect a few deaths, and roll with the fun. And avoid paladins. Paladins are bad. *glare*