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:

 

[Maxperson]

Rolling really was for 0e and 1e where rolls didn't matter besides 8- and 16+.

And in 5e where bonuses don't matter much. A PC with a 16 in the main stat can fight side by side nearly equally with a PC that has a 20. The difference outside of white room math is negligible.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Why do you need extinction for something to be prehistoric? Maybe I'm confused about what some thing being before history means

Serious answer? There is no need to have a special setting where PCs fight dinosaurs since they can do that in standard D&D settings.

 

[Maxperson]

Serious answer? There is no need to have a special setting where PCs fight dinosaurs since they can do that in standard D&D settings.

Dinosaurs exist in standard D&D settings, but generally not just wandering around. They tend to live in isolated areas of the world(Chult, Isle of Dread, inside the Hollow World, etc.), which are ripe for a separate setting.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Dinosaurs exist in standard D&D settings, but generally not just wandering around. They tend to live in isolated areas of the world(Chult, Isle of Dread, inside the Hollow World, etc.), which are ripe for a separate setting.

Chult has been done. Hollow World is a much better and more likely idea than "First World" that doesn't come with a bunch of problems, or rely entirely on dinosaurs, which are frankly rather dull opponents.

Not that I think the UA relates to Hollow World, because it has nothing to do with any setting book.

 

[Parmandur]

Without having any familiarity with "Dennys" I cannot say for certain, but that sounds about right. Except generally indpenendant rather than part of a chain.

_
glass.

Bad coffee, bad breakfast food, but open 24 hours and often in the middle of nowhere with no options if you are, say, a trucker.

 

[Parmandur]

I would make The Isle of Dread such a mini-setting.

Another good example of the primordial elements (see the Isle of Dread in the DMG) being tied to dinos.

 

[James Gasik]

Although I still remember when I played the Isle of Dread, and there was a random encounter with a dragon. "Dragons?! How can dinosaurs stand up to dragons!?"

Even in Caspak, you can't get away from those pesky dragons.

 

[Parmandur]

The argument is that it is actually you who does not like fun, because the argument, which tends to be quite elaborate and often gets heated, is that rolled stats overall decrease fun, rather than increase it.

The is unquestionably the majoritarian view at this point, I'd suggest. By a large margin too. I have to admit, I feel like, whilst it's narrower than people admit in terms of fun, but the way D&D handles randomized stats is at best, fun-neutral.

The only info I could find was thst it is half and half on D&D Beyond, with rolling actuslly having a plurality between the three methods in the book. And indeed, I would expect rolling to be underrepresented on Beyond versus the broader player base. So I don't see any real reason not to suspect that at least a plurality are rolling, maybe even a majority.

I mean, you say that but there's a reason clearly the vast majority of people use fixed HP gain and use stat array and point-buy. Every survey with a reasonable number of recipients I've seen in the last decade concurs on this, as did all the evidence from DNDBeyond. Going back to earlier editions, huge numbers of people who did roll stats or HP had house-rules or simply traditions allowing re-rolls of poor rolls, too. At this point truly random stats and HP are basically confined to the OSR and unpopular or optional approaches in more mainstream games.

Even serious 5E fans like you may have to admit some of your preferences are somewhat idiosyncratic.

Do moar people not roll, though? Critical Role rolls for stats and hit points, and they seem to be the main point of reference for people.

We use point-buy so players can create characters outside of game time. Even for the best of us, the probability of rolling six 18s rises dramatically when the roller is unobserved.

We use fixed hp because players make mathematical errors or erase their max hp and then forget what they were. With fixed hp it's always possible to work out what they should be.

Yup those are other factors that also factor in. The creating characters out of game time thing is particularly big. A side-benefit is that I've found that players come up with more interesting and less repetitive characters if you let them create them outside game time, because they have as long as they like to consider their options.

We've always rolled at home, and not had any issues or statistical funny business.

 

[James Gasik]

Honestly, I don't see how the game could be broken if you just said "ok folks, you start with all 15's" and called it a day.

 

[Parmandur]

Dinosaurs exist in standard D&D settings, but generally not just wandering around. They tend to live in isolated areas of the world(Chult, Isle of Dread, inside the Hollow World, etc.), which are ripe for a separate setting.

I think thst Wyatt might want to provide a more throughgoing explanation of "but why dinosaurs, though?" by tying them to Giants. It would also make Giants more distinct if a Fire Giant has a pet Raptor.