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:

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

When we find out which way this goes, Setting or Supplement, the winner chooses the Avatar for the other poster.

How long is the loser required to have the avatar chosen by the winner?

If it's a Prehistoric campaign setting (whether it's actually the First World or not), I win. If it's a Giant or Giant/Elemental-centric Monster book, you win. If it's neither, we both lose and no one chooses the avatar. We on?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Oh yeah, You can put me down for a giant themed monster book, definitely not a setting book. The druid fits the theme because it's pet is a giant beast, not because of any other fluff.

If it's a Prehistoric campaign setting (whether it's actually the First World or not), I win

The First World is a prototype setting, not a prehistoric setting. It would be full of rough draughts of all the things that make up core rules D&D settings, not dinosaurs and cavemen. So no, you can't have both.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The First World is a prototype setting, not a prehistoric setting. It would be full of rough draughts of all the things that make up core rules D&D settings, not dinosaurs and cavemen. So no, you can't have both.

Yeah, it could be both. A lot of the stuff that was mentioned in the Elegy of the First World is similar to the Dawn War from 4e, which was a prehistoric war between the Gods (including the Dragons) and Primordials (including the Giants).

It could take place in the Dawn War on the First World. It could be both. I'm not necessarily saying that it is both, I just think it is possible and could be cool.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Neanderthals were a 3.5. PC race in "Frostburn". They would be right for this sourcebook.

Why not "dinobots"? They would be as large living constructs created by runic magic. Perfect to sell toys.

* Any new about Ilkoria, the plane from "Magic: the Gathering" with kaijus?


Other point is if this setting could be used for a D&D version of "tamer of monster pets", but then this would need a new class, something like the summoner from Pathfinder (and I would add some touchs from the incarnum totemist shaman). Hasbro would be willing to create something like this at least to sell some mobile videogame about breeding-training-collecting monster pets.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

TvTropes disagrees. It says "Urban Fantasy almost always takes place on Earth (or an Alternate History Earth)", but admits that not all Urban Fantasy has to take place on Earth. "Urban Fantasy" is just fantasy that combines a modern-ish setting with fantasy. Which Ravnica definitely is. It has coffee, a lot of modern technology, and giant cities where most things are owned by megacorporations/factions.

TVTropes does not disagree with me at all when we do not paraphrase and instead quote.

Urban Fantasies almost always take place on Earth, rather than a Constructed World, or if not on Earth then in a place so close as to make little difference.

Ravnica is absolutely not "a place so close to Earth as to make little difference". It's also closer to a sci-fi cyberpunk setting than an Urban Fantasy setting. It is absolutely a "constructed world" and not a particularly plausible one.

Look, I get that you're annoyed that I called you out on misusing a term, but misusing a term like this is really unhelpful to communication. You're not "expanding the meaning" or something, you're just going to confuse people, and annoy them. I'm not even sure why you'd want it to be Urban Fantasy.

I did laugh at the coffee point - an awful lot of fantasy settings have coffee in it nowadays, as people just can't face the idea of living without it (he said, having walked into the room with a cappuccino he made...). The FR has kaeth, for example. Aha TVTropes has a page:

Uncoffee - TV Tropes

Every single Speculative Fiction setting comes with a hot, mildly stimulant beverage that can take the place of coffee, and more often than not has a name that sounds very much like "coffee". Apparently coffee itself is too mundane to talk about …

tvtropes.org

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not really. They are introducing background bonus feats(two of them), and since you can create your own background, I'm certain you will be able to put into place the bonus feat of choice into a created background.

In 3e you got 7 feats over 20 levels. In 5e you get 5 feats over 20 levels, with 2 soon to be bonus feats for background, for a total of 7 feats over 20 levels. If you decide to turn some of those into ASIs, that's your choice. Regardless, though, a 2 feat chain isn't going to be the equivalent(roughly or not) of a 4-5 feat 3e chain. Even without the 2 bonus background feats, it would be roughly equal to 3 feat chain in 3e, since 5 feats in 5e vs. 7 in 3e is pretty darn close.

Nope. This is extremely wrong. Every Feat in 5E is competing directly against ASIs. Ignoring that part of the equation just making a pointless and untrue statement. The competition via ASIs means the level 4 and level 8 Feats are almost always spent on ASIs, especially by players who don't want mechanically ineffective PCs.

If you're using rolled stats things change a bit.

 

[Maxperson]

Nope. This is extremely wrong. Every Feat in 5E is competing directly against ASIs. Ignoring that part of the equation just making a pointless and untrue statement. The competition via ASIs means the level 4 and level 8 Feats are almost always spent on ASIs, especially by players who don't want mechanically ineffective PCs.

If you're using rolled stats things change a bit.

For people who understand just how trivial increased bonuses are, the feats are almost always better. For those stuck in the rut of past editions where they did matter, they waste their ASIs on stat bonuses.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Your average druid wears animal skins, caries a wooden club and worships animistic nature spirits. Primeval is part of the core class. As with all 5e, you can fluff it differently if you like.

It would make no sense for a primeval character to be proficient in technologically advanced weapons, or to be better at concentrating on spells than the most advanced wizard.

Rules aren't meant to provide the theme, they are meant to cover many different themes. The DM provides the theme.

True, but rules can help express the theme. That's what supplements are for.

 

[Micah Sweet]

How long is the loser required to have the avatar chosen by the winner?

If it's a Prehistoric campaign setting (whether it's actually the First World or not), I win. If it's a Giant or Giant/Elemental-centric Monster book, you win. If it's neither, we both lose and no one chooses the avatar. We on?

That sounds fun. I vote prehistoric. It seems unlikely based on WotC's history, but way more interesting than a giant book.

 

[Micah Sweet]

For people who understand just how trivial increased bonuses are, the feats are almost always better. For those stuck in the rut of past editions where they did matter, they waste their ASIs on stat bonuses.

In that case, I'd have to say in my experience most gamers are stuck in the rut of past editions where they did matter, because ASIs are still quite popular.