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:

 

[darjr]

 

[Leatherhead]

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

By Makenzie De Armas, James Wyatt, Ben Petrisor, and Jeremy Crawford

May 23rd, 2022

It could be a typo, or maybe they simply didn't push the "make public" button until today.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

It says that the gods brought their adherents with them, among other statements that strongly imply that the mortal races are not native to the First World.

And I doubt the Discworld model making it into 5e canon more than I doubt pretty much anything anyone has ever posited on these forums about 5e.

 

[Undrave]

Awwww C'mon! No second try for the Giant Origin sorcerer?

I guess they are going for a Dragons vs Giants in a primeval world theme for their First World.

Put me in the camp of ''not super interested of Giants'', but I think they could be made interesting in a focused book ala Fizban's. Maybe going back to elemental titans and dwarven/gnome slaves from 4e?

Yeah, seemed like a good time to revive the Stone Sorcerer. What happened?

 

[Minigiant]

First impressions

Barbarian: Path of the Giant

Meh. It feels too outwardly magical and sorta of redundant in theme with the Rune Fighter. Frankly it feels like they missed a chance to do a more martial Barbarian that goes more raw Hulk that "I rage and become a little D&D Giantish".

Mechanically it's meh as well.

Druid: Circle of the Primeval

Storywise it's not bar. However mechanically it doesn't feel Primeval. It is the 3e Animal Companion druid with a paint job. And this kills the story

Wizard: Runecrafter Tradition

Nice. Although I feel it goes too soft because of the high base power of the wizard offers little space to expand.

Giant Feats.

This is why the Path of the Giant feels weird. The flavorful mechanics are here.

Rune Feats

Runes should be its own subsystem and have feats and subclasses tap into it. The "no new major variant subsystem" things really waters down subclasses and makes feats look like padding.

Just do it. Go at least 75% man. It's a UA try it out and see if we object. Betcha we won't. Do it. I double dog dare ya.

 

[kapars]

Couldn’t this be for the Magic the Gathering setting Ikoria? If I recall correctly, the last set was called Lair of Behemoths.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

First impressions

Barbarian: Path of the Giant

Meh. It feels too outwardly magical and sorta of redundant in theme with the Rune Fighter. Frankly it feels like they missed a chance to do a more martial Barbarian that goes more raw Hulk that "I rage and become a little D&D Giantish".

Mechanically it's meh as well.

Druid: Circle of the Primeval

Storywise it's not bar. However mechanically it doesn't feel Primeval. It is the 3e Animal Companion druid with a paint job. And this kills the story

Wizard: Runecrafter Tradition

Nice. Although I feel it goes too soft because of the high base power of the wizard offers little space to expand.

Giant Feats.

This is why the Path of the Giant feels weird. The flavorful mechanics are here.

Rune Feats

Runes should be its own subsystem and have feats and subclasses tap into it. The "no new major variant subsystem" things really waters down subclasses and makes feats look like padding.

Just do it. Go at least 75% man. It's a UA try it out and see if we object. Betcha we won't. Do it. I double dog dare ya.

Please no.

Major variant subsystems that core features like subclasses and feats tap into is a great way to split the market, make books that large chunks of the player base have no use for, and make a game that is a bit of a mess, leading to a much greater need for a new edition much sooner.

It's got nothing at all to do with going a certain percent, or not daring to do something big, or whatever nonsense. The majority of players want all their dnd books to work together seemlessly, for everything to work alongside only the core books, and to be able to play a PHB+1 character alongside a "all options" character without major balance or "how the game works" incontinuities.

 

[Kurotowa]

Titanic Bond
Your Dinosaur is now Large, and can Climb or Swim, making it better for a mount. Also when you hit with an attack or deal damage to a creature with a spell (can't that all just be compressed to “deal damage”? Why is that wording so clunky?) you can inflict fear on them.

The wording is chosen to maintain the action economy and prevent ambiguity. The intent is "When you use an action to deal damage" and they don't want passive or ongoing effects to count. So we get a slightly clumsy wording that achieves the goal of limiting what circumstances can trigger the effect.

 

[Leatherhead]

The wording is chosen to maintain the action economy and prevent ambiguity. The intent is "When you use an action to deal damage" and they don't want passive or ongoing effects to count. So we get a slightly clumsy wording that achieves the goal of limiting what circumstances can trigger the effect.

It also prevents any non-spell non-attack ability, like say a Dragonborn's Breath Weapon, from triggering the effect. Which seems like collateral damage rather than something intentional.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Please no.

Major variant subsystems that core features like subclasses and feats tap into is a great way to split the market, make books that large chunks of the player base have no use for, and make a game that is a bit of a mess, leading to a much greater need for a new edition much sooner.

It's got nothing at all to do with going a certain percent, or not daring to do something big, or whatever nonsense. The majority of players want all their dnd books to work together seemlessly, for everything to work alongside only the core books, and to be able to play a PHB+1 character alongside a "all options" character without major balance or "how the game works" incontinuities.

If you're basing that decision whether or not to innovate on what "most people want", then it is absolutely based on a certain percent. We just dont know what that percent is. The majority will never want to innovate, so using that as your sole metric leads to stagnation.