The Bigger They Come . . .

Wizards of the Coast · Sep 25, 2012

They come in several forms in D&D, and James describes quite a few of them in this weekâ??s Wandering Monsters. Come take a peek at which ones he covered and give us your opinion about these descriptions!

Read The Bigger They Come . . . on D&D Insider here!

Blackwarder · Sep 25, 2012

I really like this one, my only nitpick is that hill giants hate magic so much, that they are resistant to it to a lesser degree...

Warder

Chris_Nightwing · Sep 25, 2012

Natural selection! They're always deliberately fighting magic-users, and only the resistant ones survive to reproduce.

Generally I like giants. I'd like to know a bit more about their societies though.

Kinak · Sep 25, 2012

Nothing terribly surprising. Honestly, the best part was the Forgotten Realms lore. I'm not a Realms fan, so at least that was new to me and I wouldn't terribly mind some of that being included in the MM.

Cheers!
Kinak

Dausuul · Sep 25, 2012

Eh. I'm not a fan of putting giants in a rigid hierarchy. For a primordial, elemental race, it's way too organized. And what does it even mean to be "higher" or "lower" in that hierarchy? On average, a cloud giant can beat a fire giant in a one-on-one duel, but that doesn't imply that fire giants are subservient to cloud giants any more than humans are subservient to bears.

With regard to the specifics of the races, I like the cloud and fire giant writeups (aside from the hierarchy bits). I could really do without the emo storm giants. The others are okay, nothing spectacular IMO.

tlantl · Sep 25, 2012

In the fire giant section there was mention of subdued dragons. I'm wondering if this was a figure of speech or if the rules for subduing dragons will be resurrected.

gweinel · Sep 25, 2012

Although i like the quantity of the infos i found the infos a bit boring. I think they could make the giants a bit more interesting being ofc true to their dnd history.

I'm A Banana · Sep 25, 2012

Pretty positive. I certainly recognize the giants in that. Not nearly as controversial as the Minotaur.

These line up about with what I expect, and they also have a nice tether. I like the idea of "ancient giants" as a unified culture, and it goes well with the mythological link to Titans. It also makes it easy for them to work together: rather than have six disperate kinds of monsters, you might have a Cloud Giant who lives at the top of a volcanic mountain with a glacier, and marshals Fire and Frost giants under her reign, while Stone giants might be mercenary recruits and Hill Giants serve as the front-line brutes and a reclusive Storm Giant in the clouds above the peak may be a potential ally for the party. So you can use a lot of different giants, rather than using six different flavors of Fire Giant.

I'm a little eyebrow-raising about the link to FR. The more I see those words dropped, the more I'm thinking 5e's "example setting" might be FR. Which I guess is fine, since FR IS pretty generic D&D (leaving Greyhawk for the more pulpy Sword-and-Sorcery sandbox style, and Dragonlance for the more story-oriented "Fantasy Opera" style), but if that is the case, it's something I'd be a little peery of. Not a bad idea, just keeps me a little suspicious.

frankthedm · Sep 25, 2012

Maybe it was exaggeration or maybe the author has never been to a farm, but anyone else how BIG hill giants are being described as?

"A hill giant can eat a pig in one bite or a cow in two"

No way that isn't huge size class unless they have mouths like a Tsuburu No Oni.

And that is the weakest of the giants. So it sound like giants are going to be notably bigger than 3E.

I'm A Banana · Sep 25, 2012

Big giants is a Good Thing.

It helps distinguish them from Ogres and other Large beasts. And it makes fighting them MOAR EPIC.

They could all be Huge, with maybe Storm giants bumping up to Gargantuan, without any problems on my end!