Fire Giant Dreadnoughts in VOLO's GUIDE TO MONSTERS

WotC posted this image a couple of days ago, along with a brief note that that Volo's Guide to Monsters has "quite an extensive entry" on Fire Giant Dreadnoughts. Spiky! Also check out yesterday's Giant Lore preview, and the preface - there's a bit of a giant-based focus o the previews, which is likely because Storm King's Thunder is the current storyline. The book hits stores on November 15th (November 4th in preferred stores).

WotC posted this image a couple of days ago, along with a brief note that that Volo's Guide to Monsters has "quite an extensive entry" on Fire Giant Dreadnoughts. Spiky! Also check out yesterday's Giant Lore preview, and the preface - there's a bit of a giant-based focus o the previews, which is likely because Storm King's Thunder is the current storyline. The book hits stores on November 15th (November 4th in preferred stores).
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Arrgggg, they're not for two weapon fighting like swords, hammers, or axes. They're meant to acts as a plow, look at the scoop at the bottoms of the shields, they literally plow through enemies, look I work in the snow removal business and its obvious what a Red Giant Dreadnaught would be on the battle field. She don't dual weild them, you hold them both in front of you, and bull rush through enemies forces, while her allies follow her after, mopping up the now confused enemy who has holes in his lines thanks to the Fire Giant Dreadnaught.

^ This.


I wonder how many giant variants we'll be getting? I'm hoping 2 or 3 for each subtype - say a chief type, a magic-using type or types, and some interesting oddballs like this one....
 


barrowwight

Explorer
The armor reminds me of a Bulette's hide for some reason. The shields could be adamantium plated wood or bone. I like the idea of them being crafted from carved then enchanted bone from a some sort of magma dragon.
 

Mavkatzer

Explorer
I like the concept of a giant (or giants) plowing though groups of enemies. I can envision many glorious scenes and RPG scenarios with that! I LOVE GIANTS!!!!!

But I agree with the criticisms of the art, in that it evokes all that I did not like in 3E and 4E art: no background; lost perspective; wildly over developed, inconsistent, and impractical armor style; non communicating face and posture; and an odd and un-engaging color scheme.

I want to be clear that I am not criticizing the talent of the artist. I respect the artist's skill very much. I am expressing a personal preference for style, in that this does not inspire ME in creating or running an adventure. And since I LOVE GIANTS SO MUCH, I felt obligated to chime in by my heathen gods. May they or you forgive me if I go too far...
 

Dualazi

First Post
Guess I'll be one of the dissenting parties and say that this actually increases my interest in Volo's, since it appears that there will be some actual creativity in the monster presentation. Hopefully this guy has some cool mechanical concepts in play and isn't just amped up AC/HP.

I find most of the realism arguments to be frankly disingenuous. Realism has never been particularly important in a magical setting with magical creatures and magical substances. The armor could be strengthened glass or obsidian, the giant could be supernaturally strong, the rules printed for carry capacity could be in relation to medium humanoids and not giants, the list goes on and on and on. I would rather have fantastic, evocative and outlandish armor and weapon designs any day over droll attempts at historical accuracy (which baseline D&D fails at innately), especially in light of how high-magic all the settings are by virtue of the caster classes. I will, however, agree that some backgrounds and environments wouldn't go amiss.

More in relation to the giant specifically, I can totally see this guy being used mainly in subterranean tunnels, where he can create impassable choke points or march down the tunnels himself and grind opponents to death. He's basically crushing walls in monster form.
 

Probably less than what it has, but I guarantee that question was never asked. From the drawing, each shield weighs about 8000lb. Heavy load for a fire giant is something like 5000lb. It's carrying two shields AND wearing thick bulky armor. Forget realism. Under the game rules, that giant ought not be able to even budge itself from its place, and would require aid just to free itself from the prison of armor its been placed in.

The problem with this argument is that it presupposes that fire giants themselves are inherently physically and biologically plausible, which they aren't. A fire giant, or any giant for that matter, even without armor, should have their own legs shatter under the stress of their own weight (they obviously have human-type leg bones and not the elephant-like leg bones they would need to carry their own weight). Moreover, any large warm-blooded creature has to deal with the surface area/volume problem, wherein, as a creature gets larger in size, its surface area grows by units squared while its volume grows by units cubed. This means that heat radiation becomes more inefficient with size, getting to a point where a large warm-blooded creature fries its own biological processes since it can't get rid of the heat it's producing fast enough. And, given that fire giants are fire-based creatures, this problem would be massively exacerbated, meaning that any reality-based fire giant would rapidly overheat and die. For a fire giant to even exist we would have to presuppose a non-standard biology, and, once that becomes a given, any questions on physical limitations goes out the window. So, until we have a detailed examination of fire giant biology that would contradict it, we have to assume that fire giants are able to carry the weight of that armor and those shields...
 
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dave2008

Legend
Because I'm a highly critical curmudgeon that demands things be made to a high standard.

I'm not actually hating anyone, I just would have, as an editor, product owner, or art director sent that back as unacceptable poorly thought out work. I don't mean to seem hateful about it, but criticism is a part of the refining process. You put out your stuff. It gets kicked around. You get angry. Then you sit down and you try again until you get something that has passed through the fire so many times it's pure gold or at least brass-plated and bulletproof.

However, if you want to defend the artistry, feel free to stand up for what you believe in. I might argue with you. I might think you are full of crap. I might end up thinking you have no taste. But I'm not going to respect you less for disagreeing, and I'm certainly not going to hate you for it.

Let me put it too you this way. Suppose you wrote a fantasy novel, and knowing as you do that people will judge a book by its cover, would you want that image to in any way represent your book? Suppose you were writing for an audience that you know spanned everything from 12 year olds, to 60 year old HEMA experts. Would you want your work represented to that audience by that? Hitherto, a lot of the 5e aesthetic harkened back to the better elements of 2e art - which I consider the high point for D&D (though I like the old school ink drawings as well). This however looks like it escaped from the worst of the 3e/4e era: all the sloppiness of 3e art, combined with all the unreality of 4e art. And that's not even to get into the fact that the art is representing something in the fictional world that is just plain silly.

That was a long winded answer to say " I don't like the style." Perhaps you should pass your comments through your editor ;)
 


dave2008

Legend
I can't speak for Celebrim, but I do share the same sentiment. I don't like the fact that based on the depiction, it looks like the giant would be crushed beneath the weight of all that metal armor. For me, "it's magic" doesn't cut it as an answer for why the giant isn't straining under all that weight.

Why is "magic" not a sufficient answer? It explains why dragons fly (even more ridiculous than this image), Thor can wield Mjolnir, and giants can stand, among a great many other things in D&D.
 

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