D&D 5E Considering Bigby's Big Book of Giants: How much use did you get out of Fizban's Big Book of Dragons?

[Demetrios1453]

You were my primary suspect, but I wasn't sure!

I think Orcs are another strong possibility: they are historically linked to Giants in D&D, and Ettins particularly, so this seems an opportunity to give them a new story.

Playable Large Races would be cool, but we'll see...

Honestly, I expect that if we do get a book that covers orcs, I imagine that it will be more along the lines of the humanoids like orcs, goblinoids, kobolds, and so on. The once-traditional, but no longer, humanoid "monsters". Sort of like Volo's, but more focused.

 

[Demetrios1453]

If Bigby's has the Path of the Giant, Circle of the Primeval, and the Runecaster subclasses from the most recent Unearthed Arcana, I'm going to get tons of use out of it. I've been playtesting these subclasses, and I've already added these subclasses to my upcoming campaign.

That's almost a certainty. We had pretty much guessed here after that UA that a giant book was likely in the offing.

I'm guessing we'll get goliath and firbolg stuff as well, like Fizban's had with dragonborn.

 

[Voadam]

I am genuinely curious how they could make a full book solely about giants. Are there that many giants that haven't been brought forward yet? Is there a bunch of giant lore that I'm missing?

FOR7 Giantcraft from 2e had 128 pages on giant lore in the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Teemu]

I've used the dragonborn race option, many of the spells, some magic items, and several monsters from Fizban's. Quite a few monsters actually, either straight as is or re-skinned, or I've taken abilities and added them to other creatures. It's been a very useful book for me.

 

[Parmandur]

Mercane would be interesting to add, to say the least. Getting them into the established giant lore will take a bit of work. I doubt they'll mess with giant lore too much, other than linking in the First World story from Fizban's. No doubt that will go, in short, "dragons bad, giants good"...

If you look at the lore for Doomspace in Light of Xaryxis, that system was one dominated by the Prionordials who won the Dawn War locally and the Mercane Giants are a dominant faction in the outer planets. Braxat and B'rohg are also in the Spelljammer bestiary as Giants: it seems that Athas adjacent material for the variant Giants there would make sense, given the 4E Primordial lore...

 

[Parmandur]

Honestly, I expect that if we do get a book that covers orcs, I imagine that it will be more along the lines of the humanoids like orcs, goblinoids, kobolds, and so on. The once-traditional, but no longer, humanoid "monsters". Sort of like Volo's, but more focused.

I'd expect Goblinoids would be covered in a Fey book.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I am genuinely curious how they could make a full book solely about giants. Are there that many giants that haven't been brought forward yet? Is there a bunch of giant lore that I'm missing?

At least one of the interview mentioned "and primal creatures". It won't be only humanoid giants.

 

[Parmandur]

At least one of the interview mentioned "and primal creatures". It won't be only humanoid giants.

Based on the UA Druid, it seems thst mayne they are going tontie Dinosaurs to the Primordials, too. I thinknwe might get a lot about all things Primordial.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And with the humanoid giants you have giant+class.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Based on the UA Druid, it seems thst mayne they are going tontie Dinosaurs to the Primordials, too. I thinknwe might get a lot about all things Primordial.

They said "primal" rather than "primordial", and dinosaurs are pretty dull monsters as it stands. The UA druid was "has a giant pet" there was nothing mechanically primordial about it.