Can the extra die from Orcish Fury be re-rolled with Great Weapon Fighting?

Question

For things like Sneak Attack and Orcish Fury I know that they can be doubled on Crits per Crawford here.

We also know that only Weapon Damage dice can be rerolled with GWF. So, Sneak Attack or Smite would not get rerolled with GWF while standard weapon dice and the weapon's critical dice can be re-rolled. For Orcish Fury it seems to me that it uses the appropriate phrasing for weapon dice similarly to the half Orc racial feature or Barbarian's Brutal Critical and could thus be re-rolled with Great Weapon Fighting, no?

So, if we look at abilities like the Half-Orc racial feature which adds an extra weapon die on Crit and features like Barbarian’s Brutal Critical it seems to me that these could be rerolled with GWF since they use the phrasing of “adding another weapon dice” (normally Barb's couldn't get Great Weapon Fighting but now it's possible via Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and the Fighting Initiate feat).

For example:

You can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit

from the Half Orc feature and:

you can roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a melee Attack

for Brutal Critical.

This phrasing seems very similar to the Orcish Fury phrasing which says:

When you hit with an attack made with 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.

My bet would be yes you can reroll the Orcish Fury Die with Great Weapon Fighting since it reads like we’re adding another weapon die and the phrasing is very similar to the half Orc feature. Have I got that right?

Answer 1

You’ve got it right, the extra die from the “Orcish Fury” feat can be re-rolled with Great Weapon Fighting.

The relevant distinction as you point out for GWF is, does the ability/feature add weapon dice/use the phrasing weapon dice (such as Half Orcs Savage Attacks feature which can also be re-rolled with GWF).

Assuming you have GWF, Base weapon dice, Critical dice, Half Orcs Savage Attacks feature die, Barb’s Brutal Critical dice, and yes, the extra die from Orcish Fury can all be re-rolled with Great Weapon Fighting since they use the phrasing they do which specifies extra weapon damage dice. In the case of Orcish Fury it seems intended to act as mini “auto crit” of sorts where of course critical dice can also be rerolled with GWF.

Note, these features are differentiated from abilities like Smite and Sneak Attack since those do not add weapon dice, the dice they add use different phrasing from Half-Orc’s savage attacks feature for example and are a separate source of damage.

Good question mate, Crawford and Sage Advice have yet to clarify quite a few things at this point eh? I would just note as an aside that Orcish Fury is typically not as good as it may at first seem given the way Point Buy tends to work out for example — oftentimes one can get a +1 in another important stat instead and 1 extra weapon die per rest isn’t much to write home about and doesn’t scale very well into the late game either. Even the Reaction attack bullet runs into action economy limits if your character has Sentinel or Retaliation (etc) for example where you may not even get to make use of it if you’ve already taken a reaction that turn so just something like to consider. For my money, an additional point in Wisdom let’s say will typically outweigh the advantage of this feat in my estimation.

Anyhow, cheers mate.