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]

Coffee was in SE Europe during the medieval period. Within the Ottoman Empire coffeehouses of the era were legitimate "third places" where crossculture/crossclass/crosssect communications happened. There were beat poets, philosophers, writers, musicians who performed, usually solo, in what is modern Serbia, Bulgaria, Austria, etc.

I nearly wrote a thesis paper on how Starbucks is an outgrowth of the Ottoman coffee culture. Did a lot of the research, but then real work got in the way.

It's part of why I developed Coffee Gear.

Coffee only crossed the Red Sea to Arabia from Ethiopia in the 1400s, and didn't reach Constantinople until the mid 1500s. So, Early Modern Europe, yes, but not Medieval Europe...

 

[bedir than]

Coffee only crossed the Red Sea to Arabia from Ethiopia in the 1400s, and didn't reach Constantinople until the mid 1500s. So, Early Modern Europe, yes, but not Medieval Europe...

Counterpoint

You're wrong. Dramatically so. Coffeehouses and roasted coffee were in the Ottoman empire as early as the 13th century and were common in major ports along the eastern and southern Med.
The myths and legends you adhere to don't hold up to thesis level study.

 

[Maxperson]

Trivially, as @Maxperson and others have ably demonstrated (and they did not list the various kinds of titans AFAICS). Of course "possible" and "a good idea" are not synonyms.

Yeah. It's absolutely possible, and it can be done well if they make multiple stat blocks for the same creature like they do with dragons. They wouldn't have to reach deeply into the obscure trolls and such that way. However, I don't think that there would be anywhere near as much excitement for giants as there are for dragons.

They'd be better off making a new setting with some sort of Norse feel to it and add new giants, ogres and trolls there, as well as the rune/giant/elemental subclasses and feats.

 

[bedir than]

It's odd to have feats gated at 8th level, when Fighters would be on their 3rd or 4th feat at that point. Also odd to have these giant-based superpowers not manifest earlier in an adventurer's life.

 

[Minigiant]

Regarding the First World - I was under the impression that the First World is a world from which most or all of the main settings (Toril, Oerth, Krynn, Eberron) were descended - acting as an explanation of why so many settings have elves, and dwarves, and dragons, and orcs, and..., and..., etc.

Did I misunderstand?

Assuming I did not misunderstand, that does not imply that the FIrst World is necessarily a primeval setting. OTOH, a primeval setting would imply the FIrst World (or a separate setting, or a regression), since the similarities between the extant setting imply a divergance point later than that.

Exactly.

I think the First World is just regular D&D except

1. The dragons are numerous
   1. The dragon gods other than Bahamut, Tiamat,and Sardior are present.
   2. Io/Asgorath is still round
2. The Dinosaurs and other megafauna are notextinct
3. The Giants and the deities have not been pushed to the outskirts.
4. The elves are not in decline
   1. The drow may have just turned evil but not cursed
5. The dwarves are not in decline
   1. the duergar have dug deep but not into the Underdark yet
6. The elemental lords and genies still have holding on the Material Plane

Every setting isa play on the First World. Classic settings like Oerth, FR, and Msytara are "Late Stage" First World. Ravincais First World be the whole Material Plane is one massive city and the bigger monster disappear. Theros is First World but they cultural never leave the Classical Era. Etc Etc.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Counterpoint

You're wrong. Dramatically so. Coffeehouses and roasted coffee were in the Ottoman empire as early as the 13th century and were common in major ports along the eastern and southern Med.
The myths and legends you adhere to don't hold up to thesis level study.

The Ottomans existed as a state for a single year of the 13th century (1299, when Osman settled his kinfolk in Sögüt). And it was just a tiny beylik at that point, one of dozens popping up in the crumbling remains of the Seljuk Sultanate as the Ilkhanate was attempting a more centralized control of Anatolia (and failing; all that resulted were the Turkish beyliks becoming more independent and the final collapse of the Seljuks in only a few years, followed by the collapse of the Ilkhanate a few decades later in the 1340s, which left the Anatolian beyliks fully independent). There's very minimal information on the Ottomans (let alone anything like their coffee culture) in that year, even to the point it might be off by a year or two, and the Ottomans might have technically not existed at all in the 13th century.

 

[Remathilis]

There's no reason that I would ever take an ASI unless part of my concept was being the strongest, smartest, etc. and I was doing it for character concept and not mechanics.

You seem to be comparing feats with a lot of features against a pure damage increase, such as a Strength boost. There are plenty of times an ASI is more valuable than a feat.

Classes with abilities with uses keyed of an ability mod (such as bardic inspiration) get a far bigger boost with ASI. 4-5 per rest is better than 2-3 per rest. Monks and barbarians get defensive benefits for raising wisdom and constitution.

Likewise, prep casters (wizards, clerics, druids, artificers) can prep a number of spells based on level and spellcasting stat. An ASI basically gives these casters a free prepped spell of any level they want.

ASI in Dex, Con and Wis raise the most common saves. Dex also gives AC and initiative, Con more HP, and Wis passive perception.

Further, before Tasha's one-two punch of spellcasting DC raising items and feats that are valuable to casters, there were very few feats that were valuable to casters. Elemental Adept only was useful if you focused on a single common element (useful for dragon sorcerers, less so for clerics). Spell sniper again was only useful for flinging evocation spells. You were almost always better as a caster to get your spell DC as high as possible rather than go wide. Martial classes though had a lot more flexibility and it was wiser to look at feats like great weapon master or sentinel rather than an ASI.

I'm not saying feats are bad, but there were plenty of reasons why to take an asi over a feat, depending on your class and build.

 

[bedir than]

The Ottomans existed as a state for a single year of the 13th century (1299, when Osman settled his kinfolk in Sögüt). And it was just a tiny beylik at that point, one of dozens popping up in the crumbling remains of the Seljuk Sultanate as the Ilkhanate was attempting a more centralized control of Anatolia (and failing; all that resulted were the Turkish beyliks becoming more independent and the final collapse of the Seljuks in only a few years, followed by the collapse of the Ilkhanate a few decades later in the 1340s, which left the Anatolian beyliks fully independent). There's very minimal information on the Ottomans (let alone anything like their coffee culture) in that year, even to the point it might be off by a year or two, and the Ottomans might have technically not existed at all in the 13th century.

I inconveniently used Ottoman as an umbrella for various Turkic and Arab peoples who roasted and distributed coffee in the 13th century while trading and connecting with modern southern Italy and SE Europe.
You are correct there were disparate kingdoms. I regret that shorthand.
I remain confident that there are indications of coffeehouses existing at the time.
While France and England (their modern spaces) had people unaware of coffee, that's not true for all of Europe. Coffee culture itself did exist in parts of Europe.

 

[Maxperson]

You seem to be comparing feats with a lot of features against a pure damage increase, such as a Strength boost. There are plenty of times an ASI is more valuable than a feat.

But not nearly as often or in a noticeable way.

Classes with abilities with uses keyed of an ability mod (such as bardic inspiration) get a far bigger boost with ASI. 4-5 per rest is better than 2-3 per rest. Monks and barbarians get defensive benefits for raising wisdom and constitution.

I still wouldn't do it. With bounded accuracy, AC isn't that big of a deal. Things miss you a lot anyway. And as for Bardic inspiration, 3 per long rest with a 16 vs. 5 per long rest with a 20 isn't that big of a deal. I can give another creature two extra potential uses, or two extra potential wasted uses of a bonus to something. Or I can have a constant +5 to initiative, cannot ever be surprised while conscious, nothing invisible ever gets to have advantage against, me and I get 3 d20 extra rolls(lucky). Or some other really good things.

Likewise, prep casters (wizards, clerics, druids, artificers) can prep a number of spells based on level and spellcasting stat. An ASI basically gives these casters a free prepped spell of any level they want.

Having played a spellcaster, this isn't as big of a deal as you are making it out to be. Feats are generally going to be more useful than having one extra spell on hand that you might not cast for weeks of game time and multiple encounters.

I'm not saying feats are bad, but there were plenty of reasons why to take an asi over a feat, depending on your class and build.

If that's what you want, but I wouldn't do it. There are too many good feats that are just better than the ASI.

 

[vecna00]

Overall, I do like this UA. I do think that things can be tuned up a little bit, but we have a good start.

As far as what kind of book the contents will be in...a giant book or a new campaign setting are both good options at this point. A Kaldheim release isn't outside of the realm of possibility, though I would absolutely love a First World setting.

My first thought was Dark Sun just reading the title. Like, "Oh, this is how they'll do half-giants, just make a goliath barbarian with this path!" Circle of the Primeval could just be a druid channeling the Spirit of the Land into a companion. The Runecrafter Wizard I'm iffy on, but Dark Sun wizards have been known to use non-standard spellbooks. The elemental options will fit quite well too!

I doubt this leads to Dark Sun, but I wouldn't be surprised. Almost anything that gets there, I will be very pleased by!