D&D 5E was the giant book any good?

[Clint_L]

It's a B-. There's some cool new monsters, though the super-dinosaurs are weirdly underpowered.

 

[pukunui]

It's a B-. There's some cool new monsters, though the super-dinosaurs are weirdly underpowered.

All of 5e’s dinosaurs are pretty boring mechanically. I feel kind of like they just don’t know what to do with them.

The only exception would be the King of Feathers from Tomb of Annihilation. He’s hella cool.

 

[Sulicius]

I really enjoyed the monsters so far, great for reflavoring too.

The Barbarian subclass is strong, but in a way that keeps up with spellcasters at higher levels. Can't recommend it enough.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The enclaves are VERY NICE, in a sandboxy kind of way. They take a little bit of work to get up and running, but they're full of good inspiration and can accommodate a session or three. They're pretty easy to weave into ongoing adventures, too. It's an idea I'd love to see more of, since not every session is Giant Time for me, but it absolutely helps put some monsters into a context with some sites and adventures, and that's really nice.

 

[Hattly82]

When I got the D&D 5E giant book, I was pretty daunted. It’s huge! At first, it seemed like too much to take in. But diving into the rules and lore has been a game-changer for my campaigns. It’s similar to when I found an interesting article on the best assignment writing service uk, which made me rethink my approach to studying. Both the D&D book and the article showed me that diving deep can lead to great results.

 

[Shardstone]

just saw the new giant book in the wild and was wondering if it is worth anything or is it a meh book?

I think it is a great book. The lore made me like giants for the first time ever. The bosses are cinematic in idea, not so much in raw design, but the ideas are def there. The magical items, subclass, and what not are all good too. I recc.

 

[deadman1204]

It was interesting, but it didn't do what I hoped. When a 30 foot tall giant hits you with a sword, you should go flying 50ft back, no save. In fact, your should have alot of broken bones as a minimum. Giants should have a movement of like 400, not 30. Why can they only move as fast as a human? Adults can move faster than children. The entire "large is pitifully slow" is a wierd video game trope that doesn't have any basis in the animal world.

A conceit of dnd is that everything is built around human size, and anything large is just a little more powerful. For reference, the most dangerous animal for zookeepers is not a kodiak or tiger, its the elephant. They try to play with a human and accidentally squish and kill them. Elephants kill more zoo keepers than any other animal - purely on accident. Now imagine a 30 foot tall humanoid TRYING to kill you...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It was interesting, but it didn't do what I hoped. When a 30 foot tall giant hits you with a sword, you should go flying 50ft back, no save. In fact, your should have alot of broken bones as a minimum. Giants should have a movement of like 400, not 30. Why can they only move as fast as a human? Adults can move faster than children. The entire "large is pitifully slow" is a wierd video game trope that doesn't have any basis in the animal world.

A conceit of dnd is that everything is built around human size, and anything large is just a little more powerful. For reference, the most dangerous animal for zookeepers is not a kodiak or tiger, its the elephant. They try to play with a human and accidentally squish and kill them. Elephants kill more zoo keepers than any other animal - purely on accident. Now imagine a 30 foot tall humanoid TRYING to kill you...

Are there any pen-and-paper RPGs that actually work this way, though?

D&D has never worked that way, so I'm not sure why you'd expect this book to change that. I do think it's a bit of a pity that giants are so giant yet so relatively ineffectual, but it's just how it's been. Even in videogames there have been precious few which have really leaned into the sort of design you're proposing, like Dragon's Dogma kind of does, Soulslike sometimes sorta-kinda do (not really though in most cases), but about 99% of JRPGs/ARPGs/CRPGs just don't.

I think if D&D had taken a more "size matters" approach back in the 1970s we'd have a very different combat system, especially as regards larger-than-human opponents.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Are there any pen-and-paper RPGs that actually work this way, though?

Golden Heroes had knockback for every 5 points of HTC (damage) after the first 20.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Golden Heroes had knockback for every 5 points of HTC (damage) after the first 10.

Yeah a few games have done damage-related knockback (primarily superheroic ones), but I'm thinking more about a system that made larger creatures profoundly more powerful and difficult to deal with than human-sized ones.