D&D 5E New Unearthed Arcana Today: Giant Themed Class Options and Feats

A new Unearthed Arcana dropped today, focusing on giant-themed player options. "In today’s Unearthed Arcana, we explore character options related to the magic and majesty of giants. This playtest document presents the Path of the Giant barbarian subclass, the Circle of the Primeval druid subclass, the Runecrafter wizard subclass, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons."

Giant Options | Unearthed Arcana | Dungeons & Dragons

Explore character options related to the magic and majesty of giants! This playtest document presents new subclasses for the barbarian, druid, and wizard, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons.

dnd.wizards.com

New Class options:

• Barbarian: Path of the Giant
• Druid: Circle of the Primeval
• Wizard: Runecrafter Tradition

New Feats:

• Elemental Touched
• Ember of the Fire Giant
• Fury of the Frost Giant
• Guile of the Cloud Giant
• Keeness of the Stone Giant
• Outsized Might
• Rune Carver Apprentice
• Rune Carvwr Adept
• Soul of the Storm Giant
• Vigor of the Hill Giant

WotC's Jeremy Crawford talks Barbarian Path of the Giant here:

 

[Helena Real]

Surprised by this UA, but definitely in a good way. I love Giants, especially when considered as the mythical builders of great, primeval things on our world—eald enta geweorc, as the poems (correctly IMO) point out.

I know that this is probably for a Fizban-type book on Giants, but boy would I LOVE if we got a Kaldheim campaign setting book. It was one of the coolest and most underdeveloped world in MTG in recent times, and I'm sure that Wyatt could deliver on a dedicated book (as he did, again and again, on the now sadly defunct line of MTG art books).

 

[Laurefindel]

Not a fan of these abilities

Yeah, they really stink...

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Yea, not a fan of level-gated feats, or the potential for feat chains. I thought that was an improvement 5e made from previous editions, so I personally am unlikely to adopt that change in any future edition or revision.

 

[Weiley31]

Also: When the Path of the Giant Barbarian chooses to throw members of their party at enemies, what is the damage done? Just the Rage Bonus damage, or would it count as improvised/1D4+Rage Bonus damage? (oh wow, hey look, an actual use for Spiked Armor/Battlerager!!!!)

 

[DeviousQuail]

Path of the Giant: very offensive focused subclass for the barbarian. I'm not a fan of the Elemental Cleaver. Considering the rest of the UA I would prefer to see the elemental stuff tied to a Path of the Primordial subclass. Just make it a rune that let's you turn a weapon into Mjolnir for a hot minute and we're good. The double rage damage is nice but the additional 1d6 on all hits (2d6 at 14th) seems too powerful to me.

Circle of the Primeval: My first impression is that this is a very strong sublcass. It's not flashy but adding another body to the field that brings some tankiness is a great combo to a druid that wants to stand back and control/blast.

Runecrafter: I was most intrigued by this subclass so bit more of a breakdown.

• Runes of Understanding: Move over Eyes of the Rune Keeper Warlocks, there's a new language expert in town.
• Runic Empowerment: All three rune options are strong, scale well, and have no cost in terms of action economy. Potentially too good.
• Sigils of Warding: Pretty much what the Fighter's Indomitable ability should have always been. It only covers physical saves but there are a lot of nasty Con saves out there and being able to legendarily resist them is good.
• Rune Maven: A recharge of your subclasses main schtick and at an appropriate level no less. Someone at WotC saw my post about the Monk, Bard, and Sorcerors capstone abilities being way too late.
• Engraved Enmity: We get a bonus action to potentially either give a creature disadvantage on all saves against my spells (so good), make an invisible creature stop being invisible but you have to be able to see them to do it (um... okay), or a Hunter's Mark that's worse in every way (pain). This ability looked at Runic Empowerment and said, "Those three options are balanced pretty well between each other, are useful, and you can easily see yourself using different ones depending on the situation instead of just favoring one option. Better not do that again." ETA - it was pointed out to me by @Veltharis ap Rylix that you don't choose between these abilities, they all apply. I take back my snark.

The Feats: I'm not against level gating some feats. A feat that lets you cast fireball once a day is not going to make other feats worthless. But it would mesh horribly with low level play. So you level gate it and everyone wins. Onto the actual feats.

• Elemental Touched: I like this one. Very cool visuals and decent versatility balanced against only preparing one at a time each day. The only downside is that this should have been what Four Element Monks got instead of Elemental Attunement. I will never not be mad that they put that class in the PHB when it would have been way better in Xanathar's.
• Ember of the Fire Giant: Make it 4th instead of 8th level as the prereq and scale back the damage a bit. Not a fan as is.
• Fury of the Frost Giant: Not as useful against enemies that don't have multi-attack but it's an okay feat.
• Guile of the Cloud Giant: Gish! Gish! Gish! I don't think it deserves an 8th level prereq but it is quite powerful. I wish this had been around for my melee war wizard to take.
• Keenness of the Stone Giant: Unless you really need darkvision I think you'd be better off with one of the Tasha spell feats.
• Outsized Might: No one tell the Goliaths. I can see this being a staple pick for rogues and fighters.
• Rune Carver Apprentice: This is secretly WotC trying to see if they can replace multiclassing with feats. They may talk about runes but this is just a replacement for dipping Artificers.
• Rune Carver Adept: 100% Artificer replacement package.
• Soul of the Storm Giant: Again, 8th level seems high. I know Divination is a 4th level spell but we all know there's a difference between the potential game breaking possibilities of polymorph and Divination.
• Vigor of the Hill Giant: No complaints. It is decent without invalidating other feats.

 

[Weiley31]

Surprised by this UA, but definitely in a good way. I love Giants, especially when considered as the mythical builders of great, primeval things on our world—eald enta geweorc, as the poems (correctly IMO) point out.

I know that this is probably for a Fizban-type book on Giants, but boy would I LOVE if we got a Kaldheim campaign setting book. It was one of the coolest and most underdeveloped world in MTG in recent times, and I'm sure that Wyatt could deliver on a dedicated book (as he did, again and again, on the now sadly defunct line of MTG art books).

Goodness, I wish they never stopped making those. Yeah I'm all for the MtG crossover books, but I still wish we got the occasional Plane Shift articles to cover the non major MtG/DND crossover books that didn't happen. Kaldheim and Throne of Eldraine would be awesome using those formats.

 

[Weiley31]

Also: Rune Empowerment: Life Rune is capable of giving a PC 45(!!!) temporary HP if you use it with 9th level Spell Slot. That's like the highest amount ever in 5E I think. (since most of the time, 25 seems to be the highest Temporary HP ever seems to go up to.)

 

[Ath-kethin]

Not a fan of these abilities

Philistine.

That is . . . Oops.

 

[Reynard]

It's actually for the 5E adaptation of Rise of the Runelords.

/probably not

 

[Weiley31]

Also, is it just me or is Vigor of The Hill Giant's Hearty Health pretty much how healing used to work in 4E originally? You got healed and you healing surged or something?