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:

 

[Demetrios1453]

Might be worth closely scrutinizing the MOTM versions of the variant giants, and see if there are any clues to potential retcons...

Just checked MotM, and it looks basically the same as before (I don't have my copy of Volo's to directly compare though). References to the giant deities and the Ordning are still all in there, so it doesn't seem that the lore will be moving much.

 

[Parmandur]

Just checked MotM, and it looks basically the same as before (I don't have my copy of Volo's to directly compare though). References to the giant deities and the Ordning are still all in there, so it doesn't seem that the lore will be moving much.

I don't think the Orduning is going anywhere, but I would wager they want to make the Giant types a little less essentialist, as Wyatt did with the Dragons in Fizban's.

It's notable, again, thst all Orc statblocks were cut in the transition: Orcs are a core enough aspect of D&D Heroic Fantasy that I would expect theybwill wqnt to reinvent then somewhere, sometime.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't think the Orduning is going anywhere

Tell that to Storm King's Thunder. According to that adventure, it's already been repealed by Annam.

 

[Parmandur]

Tell that to Storm King's Thunder. According to that adventure, it's already been repealed by Annam.

That's the plot of that one Adventure that exists in potentia, not "canon" in the cosmos. The Monster Manual is canon for the games metasetting.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The issues isn't that Ravnica is or isn't Urban fantasy.
The point is tha Ravnica was still Ren-Medieval Fantasy. It's just ONLY the Urban parts. It's still fighters in plate wielding greatswords, clerics in plate wielding maces, bards in poofy clothing, fireballing mages, and leather demon culties.

That has nothing to do with the the post you're quoting. I wasn't addressing your post, I was very specifically talking about the person that was saying Ravnica isn't Urban Fantasy.

And I reject the notion that because a setting uses the same basic system and mechanics as D&D 5e that that setting is automatically "ren-medieval fantasy". Ravnica overhauls the Renown system from the DMG, changes backgrounds significantly, and completely dumps most of the PHB's races in favor for others specific to the world. Theros has the Piety system, a lot of supernatural gifts, also doesn't use most of the PHB races, and gives advice for how to fit the different classes to its world's theme. Just because the book doesn't specifically forbid plate armor does not mean it's actually still a medieval setting. Most settings don't specifically forbid the firearms or alien weapons from the DMG, but none of them suddenly become "Industrial-era/sci-fi/magitek D&D settings" due to that fact.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Dinosaurs and prehistoric Critters are part of D&D,

Sure. So are antimatter rifles, cannons, and the Teleporation Circle spell. That doesn't mean that they're a major part of the game or its settings. There are specific settings that focus on those more (Spelljammer for more advanced technology, Eberron for Magitek, etc).

There's definitely a place in D&D for a prehistoric style setting. Whether or not they can exist in parts of other D&D worlds (Chult on Toril, the Talenta Plains on Eberron, the Isle of Dread for Mystara) is as irrelevant as the other stuff in the core of D&D that only a few settings focus on.

and tying them to Primordials is logical.

Again, how? There is literally no connection in D&D 5e. And, from what I've seen, the only connection in previous editions is that dinosaurs/mammoths are "natural" and thus are connected to the defunct "Primal" power source of Druids/Barbarians/Rangers, which used to have some connection to Primordials. That really is not a logical connection. That's a bigger leap to conclusions than the speculation that the Prehistoric Druid (which literally calls one of its features "prehistoric") is connected to a Prehistoric D&D setting.

Prehistoric D&D is a popular setting concept. There have been multiple 3rd party examples from the past few years taking a shot at this idea. It's one of the places that D&D has never officially gone before, and would fit the "two completely new D&D settings" that Ray Winninger told us were in development awhile back. They've said before that they want to publish settings that push the envelope of what D&D is. Prehistoric D&D is an obvious possible setting. A lot of people have been speculating that this kind of thing might be coming for awhile now. There have been whole threads about it. And a lot of that speculation matches this (a Prehistoric Druid is a really common suggestion, as is a "primitive" Wizard that uses a more rudimentary form of magic than most wizard subclasses). Tying giants to Prehistoric D&D makes a lot of sense, too (they had a major part in the prehistoric Dawn War from 4e).

 

[JEB]

The Monster Manual is canon for the games metasetting.

Until 2024, anyway. Expecting some significant lore overhaul at that point.

 

[Parmandur]

Until 2024, anyway. Expecting some significant lore overhaul at that point.

Yes, and an intermediary step.seems likely.

 

[Parmandur]

Sure. So are antimatter rifles, cannons, and the Teleporation Circle spell. That doesn't mean that they're a major part of the game or its settings. There are specific settings that focus on those more (Spelljammer for more advanced technology, Eberron for Magitek, etc).

There's definitely a place in D&D for a prehistoric style setting. Whether or not they can exist in parts of other D&D worlds (Chult on Toril, the Talenta Plains on Eberron, the Isle of Dread for Mystara) is as irrelevant as the other stuff in the core of D&D that only a few settings focus on.

Again, how? There is literally no connection in D&D 5e. And, from what I've seen, the only connection in previous editions is that dinosaurs/mammoths are "natural" and thus are connected to the defunct "Primal" power source of Druids/Barbarians/Rangers, which used to have some connection to Primordials. That really is not a logical connection. That's a bigger leap to conclusions than the speculation that the Prehistoric Druid (which literally calls one of its features "prehistoric") is connected to a Prehistoric D&D setting.

Prehistoric D&D is a popular setting concept. There have been multiple 3rd party examples from the past few years taking a shot at this idea. It's one of the places that D&D has never officially gone before, and would fit the "two completely new D&D settings" that Ray Winninger told us were in development awhile back. They've said before that they want to publish settings that push the envelope of what D&D is. Prehistoric D&D is an obvious possible setting. A lot of people have been speculating that this kind of thing might be coming for awhile now. There have been whole threads about it. And a lot of that speculation matches this (a Prehistoric Druid is a really common suggestion, as is a "primitive" Wizard that uses a more rudimentary form of magic than most wizard subclasses). Tying giants to Prehistoric D&D makes a lot of sense, too (they had a major part in the prehistoric Dawn War from 4e).

Yes, thst is one possibility.

Interested in making an Avatar bet?

 

[Faolyn]

Or why not both...?

Yep. For all we know, whatever this book is going to be will have race and class options.