D&D 5E Goliaths WebDM Misses the Mark, but Sparks My Curiosity

[Charlaquin]

While they may not have a long tradition in fantasy, they do have strong mythological inspiration - Jotun.

 

[Beleriphon]

As described, the Goliaths always reminded me of the Capellans from Star Trek TOS.

View attachment 117057

Death by snu snu?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

While they may not have a long tradition in fantasy, they do have strong mythological inspiration - Jotun.

They aren't anywhere near sufficiently Jotun-like to tap that barrel IMO.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I do agree with the guys that they could use either a boost to Stone's Endurance, or maybe just an additional trait, and that their culture can come across as too harsh to really make sense. But to ditch all of it and just use them as half-ogres and the like is just a huge waste of a very interesting race, IMO.

I have homebrewed that when Goliaths wield a versatile weapon with one hand, they deal damage as if they were wielding it with two. I didn't word it exactly like that (so as to avoid one-handed GWM antics) but that's the gist.

I'm also considering reworking stone's endurance to grant resistance or immunity to the triggering attack. Rather than as written, to keep it relevant in all levels of play and also more reliable.

 

[Anoth]

So, WebDM put out a video on Christmas discussing one of my favorite races, the Goliath! I was very excited when I saw the title, as was my wife. We both have Goliath characters, and both just love the race.


Unfortunately, the episode kinda sucks. Pretty much Jim's first comment is that he has a hard time understanding the Goliath, and it goes downhill from there. I love these guys' videos, but damn this one disappoints.

Seriously, what's so hard to understand? They're big, athletic, strong, tough, reclusive, humanoids with no weird baggage or any overriding theme that being big and strong is completely secondary to. Every other +2 strength race is 90% thematically something other than strong, and being strong just serves that theme. Goliath are the only actual "big strong guy" race.

Beyond that, they're reclusive mountain dwellers who are hard to injure, are vaguely related to giants without being part of the ordning, love competition and games, hold themselves to high standards of performance and achievement, don't hold grudges or cheat, and can actually be put in many extreme environments due to their acclimation to both high altitude and extreme cold.

Athletics + acclimation means they can easily be nomadic whalers in an arctic region, actually swimming in the arctic waters, taming extreme cold creatures, etc.

I do agree with the guys that they could use either a boost to Stone's Endurance, or maybe just an additional trait, and that their culture can come across as too harsh to really make sense. But to ditch all of it and just use them as half-ogres and the like is just a huge waste of a very interesting race, IMO.

But how do you use Goliaths? ANyone around here share WebDM's view on the race?

I personally, in addition to the above, like to either give them Incan style mountain cities and hidden roads, relate them to firbolgs and add a little druidic magic, or use them mostly as is with the addition of a strong animist culture, a lot of rituals like singing a greeting to the dawn because they believe that if they don't the sun won't actually rise, take out the "ditch the weak and let them die or wander down the mountain" stuff, and add fun things like a sense of responsibility to finish what you start even if it takes you far from home.

And then I put them in semi-magical mountains because in real mountains nothing can grow at 20k+ feet up.

i hate Goliath’s. I don’t stop players from playing them or give them a hard time about it. But I use them for ogres. I like ogres in the game and they work well for that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I still don't understand. I'm not trying to be mean.

It's reading like you want to play one primarily so you can flex that sweet +2 str and Powerful Build. Everything else is just a side dish. Also you want to be different, but not so different it would cause a problem.

What would you think of playing as a Warforged Juggernaut (from back in UA when they still had Subraces)?

Very fun, doesn’t replace Goliath. If I’m playing a juggernaut, I’m playing a being created by humans for war. That is a big deal.

And no, it has nothing to do with wanting to be “not so different it causes problems”. It’s about having an option to play the giant, without having to also play the “XYZ other theme I’m not interested in for a given character”.

I’ve played nearly all the races, at some point. They tell different stories.

The... lack of anything interesting? Being big and strong is not very interesting on its own.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like Goliaths, but I also think there’s a lot more to them than just being “big strong guys” that is often overlooked. It seems like you’re saying you like them because there’s not much more to them than that. Please do correct me if I’m misunderstanding you.


That’s still pretty big, and definitely strong. They have built-in lore and cultural details (which, yes, have their roots in some ugly stereotypes, but it can be fun to recontextualize that) in addition to being big and strong, which is what makes them more interesting than goliaths for many players and DMS. They’re not just defined by physical attributes (which, again, I don’t think Goliaths are either, but that’s the perception).


Well, first of all, any anthropomorphic animal race has the potential to be interesting because animals are fascinating and complex creatures with myriad behavioral and social quirks that can be fun to translate into a more humanlike context. But also Minotaurs tie into Greek myth (or at least pop culture’s perception of it), so again, they have a lot more to them than size and strength.


Yeah, Bugbears are kinda one-note. I find them less interesting than Goliaths, myself.


Eh, most DMs who are going to have townsfolk react poorly to orcs and bugbears are not going to have them react much better to Goliaths, so I don’t think that’s as much of a selling point as you make it out to be here.


Yeah, I can definitely see the appeal of getting to play a big strong guy without a lot of extra baggage. But it also seems painfully obvious to me why a race that is (perceived to be) defined almost exclusively by their size and strength unappealing. For many people, the baggage is the fun part.


I get you, man. I think they’re cool too. I’m just saying, the reason you think they’re cool is exactly the reason Jim David thinks they’re kinda boring.

I never said that other races are just their baggage or other themes, I said that the appeal of Goliaths is that their main theme is being big, strong, athletic, and tough. You can explore stories with them that don’t get muddled with being a beast person or born from an evil god/demon, or from a race that eats people, or whatever.

There are plenty of fun stories to tell with all those races. I actually like bugbears. But there are stories that I won’t use them to tell, because Goliath just works better due to the lack of other baggage.

Just like sometimes I’ll play a Halfling rather than a gnome because gnomes have a bunch of other stuff going on other than being small and underestimated and that is the focus I want for my character’s race.

 

[Charlaquin]

Very fun, doesn’t replace Goliath. If I’m playing a juggernaut, I’m playing a being created by humans for war. That is a big deal.

And no, it has nothing to do with wanting to be “not so different it causes problems”. It’s about having an option to play the giant, without having to also play the “XYZ other theme I’m not interested in for a given character”.

I’ve played nearly all the races, at some point. They tell different stories.


I never said that other races are just their baggage or other themes, I said that the appeal of Goliaths is that their main theme is being big, strong, athletic, and tough. You can explore stories with them that don’t get muddled with being a beast person or born from an evil god/demon, or from a race that eats people, or whatever.

There are plenty of fun stories to tell with all those races. I actually like bugbears. But there are stories that I won’t use them to tell, because Goliath just works better due to the lack of other baggage.

Just like sometimes I’ll play a Halfling rather than a gnome because gnomes have a bunch of other stuff going on other than being small and underestimated and that is the focus I want for my character’s race.

But can you understand why to some people “big and strong without other baggage” is inherently less interesting than “big and strong and [inset additional lore here]”?

 

[SuperSam888]

Goliath seem to lack a cultural niche to me. Do they have their own empires? Do they worship their own gods, or weave strange tribal magicks? I actually found this episode very inspiring and continued to come up with ideas well after it is over.

The Goliaths could be a cultural group of humans. Maybe they were former slaves or maybe they were once the elite of a tyrannical empire but after being (freed for the former, overthrown for the latter), they made a home for themselves in the mountains. A combination of their people's past and the harsh terrain has forced them to adapt, both physically or culturally, to be tough as stone.

Maybe they were hewn from the same stone as Dwarves, by giant gods. Dwarves were made to be workers while Goliaths were made to be foot soldiers all in service to the Giant Empire. While the dwarves rebelled and became Giantslayers, the Goliath developed a reverence for the True Giants.

Maybe Goliaths are the result of mixing bloodlines between humans and ogres, and maybe even a bit of dwarf too.

Maybe they wield the magic of winter. Not ice magic, but rather they weave supernatural, primal energies of winter (read about the ogres and the everwinter from Warhammer). Maybe they are diviners who can see glimpses of the future by spilling blood on the stone shrines of their mountain homes and see omens in the patterns of the birds that fly amongst the peaks. Maybe a Goliath magic user must go through a trial by sitting alone on a mountain peak until the spirit of the mountain speaks to them.

Are they nomads traveling from peak to peak, or do they live in ancestral homes carved into the faces cliffs?

How well do they get along with Dwarves? Humans? Giants? Orcs?

The point is Goliaths as-is are a bit tall, have some giant blood, are pretty tough, and are pretty strong, but WotC doesnt give them enough beyond that. There is so much that can be done with them. So much flavor you can give them that exists beyond mechanics and min-maxing. Goliaths as they are, seem a bit bland. They can be fun to play, but they need a better niche.

Also, I saw minotaurs being mentioned as just bull people. But they have a rich history of being the devoted of baphomet, while some have strived to prove that not all minotaurs are demonic monsters. They may look like a bull but they are not mindless beasts. Also, what makes bull people, bull people? Are they just humans with Bull heads, bulls on two legs, or something much more complex. They could have some of the behaviour patterns of bulls/bovines, yet have the culture oh humans.

I just feel like any race can be made to be interesting and unique yet not every race is, at least in official lore.

The one complaint I had with the video was the intro wasn't as good as some of their others.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Okay, last time I’ll say it, hopefully.

Nowhere have I said, nor would I ever say, that any given race is just their most obvious theme. I did not say that Minotaur are just bull people.

I said that they are bull people who are born from a demon prince, and that that is unavoidable when viewing them. This is a wholly separate statement from “Minotaur are just bull people.”

But can you understand why to some people “big and strong without other baggage” is inherently less interesting than “big and strong and [inset additional lore here]”?

I mean, I can understand what it’s like to think a race is boring. Hobgoblins, IMO, add nothing to the game and are almost unsalvageably boring.

Meanwhile, I just find goblins less interesting than bugbears. Doesn’t mean their boring, they’re just not as interesting to me as bugbears.

I can understand how someone could see Goliaths like goblins, but I can’t see how anyone could see them like hobgoblins.

Idk, closest I can figure is that it’s the lore flavor equivalent of people who eat so much ultra hot food that they then claim that anything without a decent amount of hot pepper spice is “literally flavorless”.

Like, a race doesn’t need to be born from evil gods or demon princes to be interesting.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I'm also a fan of goliaths, for exactly the same reason. I don't tend to play them much, but I enjoy what they bring to the table. Personally, I'd take a goliath over a half-orc any day, for multiple reasons.
To extend the above analogy, goliaths are a subtle flavour in a sea of spicy dishes. Sure, nothing about them "pops", but sometimes it's nice playing a race that doesn't have over the top origins.
Humans are medium-normal, halflings are small-normal, and goliaths are large-normal.