Fire Giant Dreadnoughts in VOLO's GUIDE TO MONSTERS

WotC posted this image a couple of days ago, along with a brief note that that Volo's Guide to Monsters has "quite an extensive entry" on Fire Giant Dreadnoughts. Spiky! Also check out yesterday's Giant Lore preview, and the preface - there's a bit of a giant-based focus o the previews, which is likely because Storm King's Thunder is the current storyline. The book hits stores on November 15th (November 4th in preferred stores).

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[Shasarak]

Well Ok, that certainly was not the Dreadnaught that I was expecting.

I was hoping for some kind of massive Fire Giant machine.

 

[flametitan]

With Storm King's thunder's Rune magic as a specifically a "giant" thing, I wouldn't be surprised if the shields had some runes under them to reduce weight. Giants in the Forgotten Realms do apparently seem to use magic in their craft.

As for the armour, I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a lighter material and it's just there for the intimidation factor, rather than actual armour. The AC therefore comes from being a giant, rather than the armour.

 

[Umbran]

Seriously there are so many stick in the muds here, who don't have an ounce of imagination.

Hey, don't be insulting.

If, in order to make your point look valid, you have to lay some personal fault on the other guy, your point isn't very good at all.

 

[Mercule]

This dreadnought is not anime.

Agreed. But, it was held out as part of the trend.

 

[Gorath99]

Hmm. Have to say I'm in the camp that likes their D&D a bit more grounded. (I'd be perfectly happy with this Dreadnought in World of Warcraft, or most anything anime-based, though.)

On the plus side, I do appreciate that there is some acknowledgement that giants in a D&D world would not use the same weapons as humans. Swords and regular sized shields aren't ideal if many of your opponents are significantly smaller than you. It certainly wouldn't be my equipment of choice if I risked being attacked by a band of armored baboons. Though I'd go for a Lucerne hammer over 2 huge spikey shields.

 

[Henry]

Well Ok, that certainly was not the Dreadnaught that I was expecting.

I was hoping for some kind of massive Fire Giant machine.

That's darn near what this is. Honestly, the plausibility angle wasn't what came to my mind. Instead, it was, "how the heck would I ever HURT such a thing? It's like attacking a 20 ft tall anvil with legs!"

 

[Shasarak]

That's darn near what this is. Honestly, the plausibility angle wasn't what came to my mind. Instead, it was, "how the heck would I ever HURT such a thing? It's like attacking a 20 ft tall anvil with legs!"

I dun known man. I would love for my Juggernaut to be able to have a crack at one of those Dreadnaughts.

I may even let him have three shields just to make it fair.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Wow... My brain is full. Obviously the art is evocative - got a lot of response 8/

Anyway, could the armor be chitin?

Who cares anyway, really. This is basically a moving shield wall. Pretty sure its not going to stand there like that in a fight for the dwarf to poke in the gonads.

This guy is a corridor cleaner with the stabby guys to follow or chucker guys to launch over.

 

[Cleon]

If I saw this picture without a name for the beastie I'd think "that's a cool variant iron golem".

It just doesn't feel like a living, breathing creature to me. I think it's the way the face seems to be part of the helmet.

Well at least the dreadnaught doesn't have dinky little legs with fragile-looking ankles like the fire giant illustration in the 5E Monster Manual.

Concept wise I guess it'd depend on what sort of game I was running at the time. For a more outré adventure it'd be fine but I tend to prefer more grounded scenarios.

Most likely I'd mod it so the dreadnaught has a single oversized shield plus some auxiliary weapon so it's a bit more versatile (long-handled axe? spear? quiver of darts? box of rocks?).

Then again, maybe it does carry auxiliary weapons - that waist belt presumably supports something.

Probably less than what it has, but I guarantee that question was never asked. From the drawing, each shield weighs about 8000lb. Heavy load for a fire giant is something like 5000lb. It's carrying two shields AND wearing thick bulky armor. Forget realism. Under the game rules, that giant ought not be able to even budge itself from its place, and would require aid just to free itself from the prison of armor its been placed in.

Hmm, fire giants are 18-footers in 5E I believe, so let's see...

Two shields each about 18' by 6', approximate them as being, say, 1-inch thick steel. That's a total of 9 cubic feet of steel and steel has a density of 7.8-8.0 or so which comes to around 4,500 pounds per shield.

I guess they could weight 8,000 apiece if they were thicker metal, but I'd assume they'd be made of something considerably lighter faced with metal since, well, that's how shields are made. Presumable something fireproof (red dragon bone? wood from fire elemental trees?).

A real-world tower shield is what, 30 to 50 pounds? Scale that up by the cube of 3 and you get somewhere around 1,000 pounds a shield. That seems more practical weightwise but doesn't match the visual very well.

 

[Celebrim]

Hmm, fire giants are 18-footers in 5E I believe, so let's see...

Why does everything have to get bigger in every edition that goes by? Do peoples imaginations get more and more crippled, or do developers fall into the temptation of trying to outdo the prior edition?

Two shields each about 18' by 6', approximate them as being, say, 1-inch thick steel.

Except the picture gives us no reason to think of the shields as hollow, and if you'll look at that 'plow' portion of the lower shield and indeed all of the shield except perhaps the top edge, it seems implied that the shield is much thicker than just 1". Given the width of the edges displayed in the picture, the shield could even conservatively be 4" thick. So that goes up to 18,000 pounds per shield. If the plow is as solid as it appears to be, that could be light. My estimate of 8000lbs now seems low.

I guess they could weight 8,000 apiece if they were thicker metal, but I'd assume they'd be made of something considerably lighter faced with metal since, well, that's how shields are made. Presumable something fireproof (red dragon bone? wood from fire elemental trees?).

My assumption was that they were intended to represent solid metal on the basis of that's how they were drawn and that they seemed to be glowing red hot. But yes, normally shields are made of a lighter material and then faced with metal. Without seeing a write up for the shields, it's hard to be absolutely certain what the designer was thinking or what they communicated to the artist, but if I had to guess absolutely no thought was put into it at all. The painting reeks of artwork that had to be finished under tight deadlines by an overworked artist.

A single 1,000lb shield is something I would put in the realm of believability for a giant of that size, granting first that giants of that scale are believable (and at 18', only just, and we are starting to need to make them out of something other than real world materials, which is fine being Fire Giants and all). It's not at all clear to me why you'd ever need twos shields.