D&D (2024) How's the adoption of the new Goliath types going?

[Kobold Avenger]

It hasn't been a year yet for the 2024 PHB, but it's been more than a year since they've been included in the playtests and almost a year since we've seen some art for them from the PHB previews? We've definitely had the classic Stone Goliaths as the vision of what Goliaths were since 3.5e, but what about the others like Hill, Frost, Fire, Cloud and Storm Goliaths? Have they been fully embraced yet, in games, your campaign settings or visions of what Goliaths look like now?

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

I've seen someone play a fire Goliath but they weren't really leaning into a lot of the giant stuff and it seemed to me like they were mostly using it as a proxy for the fire genasi; this player was new to the game and only had access to the new player's handbook so they might not have even been aware that there were elemental people and fire giant people were the closest that they could get

 

[Dire Bare]

I haven't played one of the new goliath options yet, but the idea leaves me cold for some reason. I'm okay with dragonborn mirroring their possible metallic and chromatic ancestry, but making goliaths mimic their giantish ancestry . . . I don't like it. I prefer thinking about goliaths as more distantly related to giants and their own race, not "giants-lite".

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

I haven't played one of the new goliath options yet, but the idea leaves me cold for some reason. I'm okay with dragonborn mirroring their possible metallic and chromatic ancestry, but making goliaths mimic their giantish ancestry . . . I don't like it. I prefer thinking about goliaths as more distantly related to giants and their own race, not "giants-lite".

I'm of the opinion that it should be easy for players to have a species that resembles an iconic monster or monster type from the game. We've already got fiends and celestials and dragons and elementals covered, and you could kind of see elves as a proxy for the fey, so to me it makes sense that Goliath exists to kind of fill in space in the long tradition of player races in D&D existing, not because of narrative but because of the internal logic of the game system.

Unless we're counting the gith, we really do need a playable aberration race, and probably also a playable plant race.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I'm of the opinion that it should be easy for players to have a species that resembles an iconic monster or monster type from the game. We've already got fiends and celestials and dragons and elementals covered, and you could kind of see elves as a proxy for the fey, so to me it makes sense that Goliath exists to kind of fill in space in the long tradition of player races in D&D existing, not because of narrative but because of the internal logic of the game system.

Unless we're counting the gith, we really do need a playable aberration race, and probably also a playable plant race.

We don't have playable Illithid or Beholders lite species yet. Sure the Gith are related to Illithids, but I think they'd be more embraced because of Lae'zel (or Dak'kon for those older players).

 

[Dire Bare]

We don't have playable Illithid or Beholders lite species yet. Sure the Gith are related to Illithids, but I think they'd be more embraced because of Lae'zel (or Dak'kon for those older players).

The gith's story is related to the illithids, the gith themselves are not "illithid-lite".

We got a lot of this late in the 3E cycle, with "lite" versions of quite a few monsters as PC's . . . for the most part, I really didn't like it. A few hit, but most left me cold, like the new goliath options.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Unless we're counting the gith, we really do need a playable aberration race, and probably also a playable plant race.

I wish they tried to bring back the Elan, they sort of have a picture of an Elan in the 2024 PHB as the Psi Warrior looks a lot like an Elan from 3.5e. Though bringing back the Elan they might need to work more on why they're Aberrations for having a psionic physiology.

For plants, they tried in 4e with the Wildren. I guess they could just try pushing Dryads again as a playable species.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We haven't made any new PCs yet, but the Habitual Goliath Player in my group (who basically has only played humans or goliaths since 4E came out, like, what, jesus 17 years) was seemingly quite offended (!!!) by the new goliath types, rather than pleased, because he thought of goliaths as their own specific thing (as was the lore in 4E and 5E 2014), not like "mini-giants" in the way dragonborn are arguably "mini-dragons".

 

[Neonchameleon]

In my experience people who want to play goliaths play stone or hill, people who want to play genasi play the others. The two most popular races that weren't previously in the PHB.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I've seen someone play a fire Goliath but they weren't really leaning into a lot of the giant stuff and it seemed to me like they were mostly using it as a proxy for the fire genasi; this player was new to the game and only had access to the new player's handbook so they might not have even been aware that there were elemental people and fire giant people were the closest that they could get

Even though Monsters of the Multiverse where the Genasi last appeared is more 2024 compatible than other books, I think the Genasi are going to need more of a reformatting. They'd probably be written as just 1 species with lineage options, like Elves, Gnomes, Tieflings and Goliaths have been written. But I think that would leave room for more than the 4 core types of Genasi, though I'm still very 2e-biased in my view of things with Quasi-elements, but it could be the 4 elements + necrotic and radiant, with the idea that Lightning, Salt, Ash, Dust and others just fit into 6 general types.