I haven't played Mundunugu high enough to comment, but I was highly disappointed with my Skruggra.

I didn't feel like cower was a significant boost to my defensive capabilities except at the very extremes of hurtness, at which point you'll be wimpying out anyway.

I found improved flee to be at least as likely to get me killed as save me from death. Namely, if blind, fleeing two rooms means it takes that much longer to figure out where you are which can easily give someone the chance to catch up and start the process all over again. Even 0 tick dirt kick can seriously fuck your ability to get away with improved flee. On the other hand, against say pounce, it will save your ass. Be careful in any chief challenge though, cause you will flee right through that door and lose if you don't stay in one of the 3 rooms that are more than 2 steps from outside the temple.

Take Cover was completely useless for me. Not only did it not work, but it also didn't improve when it didn't work. I can count that number of times it fired on holy word on two fingers, and the number of times I got brought out of hiding by holy word was in the dozens.

Staff defense is equally useless in that, for the most part, any warrior type will be ripping you a new one with whatever weapons they spec'd in. They don't need a staff to beat parry, you already tank like a brick (cower included). The only time this helped me was in surviving a few extra rounds against transmuters. Of course, it didn't keep me alive it just meant I sat stunned for an extra disrupt or spell because I parry'd a couple of their staff attacks.

Dirty fighting was a severe dissapointment for me. The amount of damage done by the moves just didn't make enough difference for me, and it only fires off of dodge (orc dodge) and possibly cower (which sucks). The parting blow thing it does is the only part I found useful, but it never sealed a kill for me. Alot of the moves (like spitting) seemed to do absolutely nothing, though I was told they blind (I could still dirt kick right after).

I didn't have enough con once I got chieftan to play with overrun, so I'll have to take Daurwyn's word on it, but I don't see why it would be better for a Skruggra than for any other adaptation.

I will say that Srithra tanked noticably better than my orc counterparts in the village at the time, but I think that is at least as much because of skill % than any bonus from being a Skruggra. One thing to keep in mind when you go anything other than Maumlak is that you will have zero maledicts. That means if a warrior is beating you to death with a cursed weapon, you're fucked. If an mage is outdamaging you with spells, you're probably fucked because you don't have a big damage move to counter. Honestly, I think that if orcs were given 2 adaptations (second at 50) choosing anything other than Mamlauk/whatever would be a terrible terrible mistake on the order of like going spear staff dagger as a giant warrior. Sure you can do it, but picking swords and something else is going to be better 9 times out of 10 regardless of who your enemy is.