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:

 

[Parmandur]

Only being left behind by D&D Beyond, and primarily because there are now competing statblocks for the same monster. Beyond that, the old books are still being printed and I don't see why that would change.

Roll20 and Fantasy Groujd have also pulled Volo's and Fizban's. They are actively repudiating the lore in both books, the only part Multiverse didn't reprint.

 

[jmartkdr2]

... being a Huge kobold...

Dragonborn?

 

[deganawida]

Bit surprised no one has brought up Morrus’ dinosaur thread looks suspiciously at Morrus

 

[Micah Sweet]

I a

It doesn't seem to read like that at all to me;

The elegy suggests that before the myriad worlds of the Material Plane came into being, before Oerth and Toril and Eberron and Krynn existed, the primordial dragons—Bahamut and Tiamat—worked together to create the Material Plane in the form of a single First World. All the worlds that now constitute the plane are, in the words of the poem, "seedling realities" formed when the First World was sundered in some unexplained catastrophe.

This sounds much more like an actual place. It doesn't exist anymore, but I don't think that particularly matters... in fact, a good chunk of the book could be about how the First World will eventually end and be split into multitudes of worlds.

Now, this elegy doesn't mention giants, but I see no reason why the First World can't also contain giants who share (and compete) with dragons for control of the world.

We already know that the D&D Team is working on entirely new settings, and they love to tease their books in earlier releases. If I were to write this, I'd also make it a lot like the Ravenloft book (which is essentially a "how to run horror D&D" book) where it is "how to run prehistoric D&D" book. So yes it's a primer on the First World, but a lot of material can be used for your own game to run a "sent back through time" adventure in a normal game, or just to add a prehistoric period to your own homebrew world.

I personally just don't find a "Fizban's but Giants" as something particularly interesting... we've gotten a lot of giant content already, and although there is room for more I'd suspect a book like this would include a lot of reprinted material from Volo's, goliath, firbolg etc, and I hope the D&D team doesn't bother with that.

I am very much not a fan of a new setting designed to rewrite the origins of all previous settings (likely as an attempt to strengthen branding).

 

[jmartkdr2]

Roll20 and Fantasy Groujd have also pulled Volo's and Fizban's. They are actively repudiating the lore in both books, the only part Multiverse didn't reprint.

Pulling Fizban's already? Has it been out a whole year yet?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Roll20 and Fantasy Groujd have also pulled Volo's and Fizban's. They are actively repudiating the lore in both books, the only part Multiverse didn't reprint.

Typically, companies announce when they're doing final printings (helps sell the books if people think they may miss out). Hasn't happened yet, so it seems very much to me a rules update rather than a lore one. Not that they'll revisit much of that lore (some is pretty bad), just see no reason why that's evidence for a new giant book.

I'll add, one of the three subclasses really has nothing to do with giants at all... The Circle of the Primeval is pretty firmly prehistoric theming, not giants. I could see how that sort-of could work in a giant book, but it's honestly way easier for me to fit these three subclasses in a prehistoric book.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I think the main question that would make that difficult to do would be, how do you play any of the normally playable races in such a world?

Doesn't say anywhere they don't exist. The gods are the ones entering the world, and I bet they'll go with the "Gods are formed by mortal belief" thing.

 

[Parmandur]

Pulling Fizban's already? Has it been out a whole year yet?

No, no, Volo's has been pulled. So I don't see Volo's being a significant barrier to a new Giants book.

 

[Parmandur]

Typically, companies announce when they're doing final printings (helps sell the books if people think they may miss out). Hasn't happened yet, so it seems very much to me a rules update rather than a lore one. Not that they'll revisit much of that lore (some is pretty bad), just see no reason why that's evidence for a new giant book.

I'll add, one of the three subclasses really has nothing to do with giants at all... The Circle of the Primeval is pretty firmly prehistoric theming, not giants. I could see how that sort-of could work in a giant book, but it's honestly way easier for me to fit these three subclasses in a prehistoric book.

All four Subclasses are related to the Primordials, the real underlying theme across the Feats and Subclasses. Dawn War stuff: Giants are related to Dinosaurs and the Elemental Planes in the 4E Lore...which James Wyatt was the leader in writing. Just like the First World myth seems to tie into Dawn War themes in the Mythic Realm.

 

[darjr]

The article was published on Monday? According to Nerd Immersion. Huh ?