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:

 

[Kurotowa]

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.)

For sheer quantity it got beat by a feature in the same UA. Primeval Druid at 14th level can burn a spell to give their companion temp HP equal to the spell level x10. Of course, that's only for your companion, and it burns the spell instead of being a bonus rider. But if you just want it to be even super tankier, there you go.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

• 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."

As a note, Engraved Enmity causes the target to suffer all three effects. You don't have to pick one.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Are these the first level-locked feats we've seen in 5e? I wonder if feats will expand into a warlock style invocations abilities for each class in 5.5e.

No they appeared in the Dragonlance stuff too.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

There is not playtesting about new PC races. Why not the reptilians shifters? These were canon in Eberron.

A "Wild Land" sounds as a perfect setting for a survival videogame as Ark Envolved. Dinosaurs are cool, but we should allow space for some underground secret alien bunker.

"First World" as a new-brand setting? Surprised. It would be the first new no-linked-to-M:tG setting since Nentir Vale. I imagine a mixture of Conan the barbarian with Jurasic Park. I imagine the goal is to be adapted into a movie because audience wants to watch fights against kaiju monsters.

If my memory doesn't fail Jakandor had got "runic mechas", giant constructs. I wonder how would be savage halflings riding animated status to defend the town against giant predators (the loser is eaten by the winner).

 

[Amrûnril]

Looking at the Primeval Druid, it seems like the name and background description are a lot narrower than the mechanics. While the prehistoric theme certainly has a lot of potential, most of the abilities would be appropriate for any sort of animal companion focused Druid. Personally, I'd rather see this published with this more open-ended presentation, treating the prehistoric flavor as one of several suggested interpretations.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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

First, I am very excited about more giant stuff in 5e. It's an untapped resource, and frankly I think this UA could stand to have about 4-5 more subclasses, from a giant-slayer ranger to a Rune Marked sorcerer who is born with the power of runes inside them, or a Rune Chanter Bard, and some sort of warlock "patron" based on the Odinic sacrifice of oneself to oneself in a sacred place to gain the secrets of cosmic knowledge.

New Class options:

• Barbarian: Path of the Giant

Love it. It's great. Some of the names are bad, though.

• Druid: Circle of the Primeval

Every time they do this, I just wish they'd rewrite the Beastmaster Ranger from the ground up and call it errata. Mostly to make shared spells a lower level thing, and to put more of the basic functionality into the companion directly so there's more freedom in the other features.
ETA: THis also makes me wish that there wasn't the size limit on Ranger companions.
It's insane to me that there still isn't a ranger subclass that has a special mount from level 3.

• Wizard: Runecrafter Tradition

Why is this a wizard, rather than an Artificer? Other than that, it's fine.

New Feats:

• Elemental Touched

I'd personally much rather have a bigger impact, but it's within the ballpark. I'd use it. I'd houserule in the EE elemental cantrips as options, but otherwise yeah, it's fine.

• Ember of the Fire Giant
• Fury of the Frost Giant
• Guile of the Cloud Giant
• Keeness of the Stone Giant

I don't love any of these, tbh. They're cool, but I'd want another pass on them before publication.

• Outsized Might

Hell yeah. Remember Brawny? Well this is that but better written.

• Rune Carver Apprentice

They're overvaluing versatility, here. It should either be 2 spells per day, or 2 uses, or both. This is just less than other, similar feats, and the followup feat is nowhere near good enough to make up for the lack.

• Rune Carvwr Adept

I can't imagine anyone ever taking these two feats. I'd rather take Linguist.
Combine them into one feat, and it would sit alongside the other spell granting feats. As it is, neither feat is worth it. Just take Magic Initiate.

• Soul of the Storm Giant

This, I'm excited about. My wife has a half stormgiant/half triton (modifiied goliath) storm herald barbarian in a friend's campaign, and she'd love this.

• Vigor of the Hill Giant

Pretty good. I'd take it on a tanky brick wall type character. Seems maybe weaker than they think it is, considering the level requirement?

Overall, I hope whatever this is for is not coming this year lol. It needs a solid second pass, for sure.

 

[Weiley31]

As a note, Engraved Enmity causes the target to suffer all three effects. You don't have to pick one.

Yeah: watch the Published Version, if it makes it that far, make you choose ONLY one effect.

 

[Parmandur]

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.)

A 9th Level Spell should cause or heal 15d10 of damage, so that's on the low end. 45 temp HP are nice when you have 9th Level Slots available, but hardly shocking.

 

[Parmandur]

First, I am very excited about more giant stuff in 5e. It's an untapped resource, and frankly I think this UA could stand to have about 4-5 more subclasses, from a giant-slayer ranger to a Rune Marked sorcerer who is born with the power of runes inside them, or a Rune Chanter Bard, and some sort of warlock "patron" based on the Odinic sacrifice of oneself to oneself in a sacred place to gain the secrets of cosmic knowledge.

Operating on the assumption that this may be for a book similar to what James Wyatt did in Fizban's, but with Giants, Primordials and Dinosaurs instead...I would expect that a lot of Giantish PC ideas will be put forward as refluffs in something like the Draconic Character Ties table on page 17 of Fizban's. At least there might be more actually new material here.

Overall, I hope whatever this is for is not coming this year lol. It needs a solid second pass, for sure.

Probably end of Fall this year, or Winter early next year: Strixhaven Subclasses (which got axed) were tested in early June last year, so the timing works out between that and Wyatt turning the next 13 months after Fizban's was finished to a new project.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

• une 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.

I think this is more just 'get spells' feats that we already have. However if they are playtesting multiclass through feats I am 100% backing that