D&D 5E Goliaths WebDM Misses the Mark, but Sparks My Curiosity

[Garthanos]

My game world has always had room for "giants" they were known as builders ie engineers and their strength was dependent on drawing energy from the ground.... they could be suspended in midair they would go into a hybernation and they didnt age.

 

[Fenris-77]

A big part of this discussion is the extent to which personal likes and dislikes differ. Personally, I like Goliaths. I like that they are a big/strong race that doesn't come out of a peasant's nightmares, I like the subtle fluff, etc etc. I just like it. That doesn't mean anyone else has to. I generally dislike monster PC races, quite a lot in most cases, because they don't fit my mental heuristic for character design. I want to play a hero, not a monster. I'd never foist that set of design principles on anyone else though.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I’m curious, those who play/played and ran 4e, how common were/are Goliaths at your table?

Not uncommon, occassionally re-skinned as a more generic sort of half-giant, the way dragonborne might be as draconian or half-dragons.

Deva were popular didnt have any Goliath here.

Devas struck a chord with some players, it seemed, yes - they were like maiar, and made good wizards. And, again, might be used for something more like an aasimar or half-celestial.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Deva were popular didnt have any Goliath here. @Manbearcat is a big play high end game fan Tony should be able to give info on a broader set of 4e gamers though mines pretty narrow ie statistically meaningless.

Deva were one of the most popular phb2 races that I saw. They’re just really cool and unique.
I saw a lot of wilden, too.

A big part of this discussion is the extent to which personal likes and dislikes differ. Personally, I like Goliaths. I like that they are a big/strong race that doesn't come out of a peasant's nightmares, I like the subtle fluff, etc etc. I just like it. That doesn't mean anyone else has to. I generally dislike monster PC races, quite a lot in most cases, because they don't fit my mental heuristic for character design. I want to play a hero, not a monster. I'd never foist that set of design principles on anyone else though.

That’s a good way to put it. They’re the big/strong race that doesn’t come from nightmare. They’re just folks, like any of the core races. Different from humans, but no one is gonna argue that commoners are afraid of them unless the DM give them a setting history of reading towns or inexplicable warmaking or something.

Not uncommon, occassionally re-skinned as a more generic sort of half-giant, the way dragonborne might be as draconian or half-dragons.
Devas struck a chord with some players, it seemed, yes - they were like maiar, and made good wizards. And, again, might be used for something more like an aasimar or half-celestial.

Yeah I saw quite a few Deva. I wish there at least a Deva subclass for Aasimar or something in 5e, it was a very cool concept.

If it ever becomes possible via ogl or dmsguild, is probably make a Nentir Vale guide that converts all the fun 4e stuff that is missing from 5e.

 

[Charlaquin]

I genuinely think I’m just not gonna really ever grok this. It’s just...alien, to me.

It just doesn’t make sense to me that how much has been written about a race would impact how broadly interesting it is.

Like, there’s either appeal in playing and telling stories about the race, or not.
The fact that people have so many ideas for using the Goliath race to tell really interesting stories like the suggestions and player stories we’ve seen here and in the comments on the video tells me that the Goliath race is very interesting to a lot more people than my little group.

They absolutely are interesting to a lot more people than just you and your group, myself included. But they are also boring to a lot of people, such as Jim Davis. And a big part of this is the lack of lore. Most of the video was Jim and Pruitt brainstorming lore that DMs might add to Goliaths to make them more interesting. Some people just don’t find a set of physical attributes interesting on its own, they want culture, history, mythical connections, all that Jazz. Now some people are more than happy to make that up on their own, but many don’t have the time or inclination and would rather just use the built-in lore of a setting like Forgotten Realms, or Eberron, or whatever. And if a race doesn’t have much built-in lore, those people might not find anything in the race that interests them.

Maybe think of it this way: Everyone finds different things interesting, right? What interests you might not necessarily interest Suzy, and vice versa. The more is written about a race, the more likely Suzy will be able to find something in that that interests her.

 

[Garthanos]

Deva were one of the most popular phb2 races that I saw. They’re just really cool and unique.
I saw a lot of wilden, too.

Long Tooth Shifters too (it could be reflavored a bunch of ways too)

 

[Don Durito]

I’m curious, those who play/played and ran 4e, how common were/are Goliaths at your table? @Tony Vargas @Garthanos

Can’t recall who else around here has a lot of 4e experience.

They seemed more common. There are probably several reasons for this.

1) They were more mechanically appealing. (Ability Scores were more important and for a while I think they were the only way to get bonuses to Str and Con which were important for certain types of Fighter or Barbarians)
2) They were more front and centre. They appeared in Players Handbook 2 alongside classic races like Half-Orcs and Gnomes and classes like Barbarians and Druids.
3) The default setting was the Nentir Vale so everything was new. There was no long history of the setting without Goliaths.

 

[Chaosmancer]

When I re-did Goliaths for my world I changed a few things.

1) I moved them from the Mountains to the Desert. Mostly because I had an over-abundance of races in the mountains and nobody in the desert. And, all it took was a flipping of their acclimatization ability.

2) I started building a religion around a few different vague deities and made their tatoos highly important. Sort of a "prediction of your life" type of thing. It is one of their defining traits in the imagery, and I wanted to make it important.

3) I got rid of the "leave people behind" part and focused their love of competition into a love of betting and gambling. I don't remember my specifics, but I think there were community goods and then items of importance like weapons or jewelry were bet in competitions of strength, speed, endurance, ect.

But, I do agree that you need some lore and idea of how they fit into the world to help make them more than a set of mechanics.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’ve used them as seafarers in one world, but I never thought of the desert. That’s interesting. They could live in cities like Petra, and live off the dangerous desert fauna of a dnd world.

Rather than cold and altitude, they need less water, and are unbothered by the sun (unless you want them covered in flowing layers) or extreme heat.

It might help flesh out the cultures of my desert along with the subterranean semi-nomadic nocturnal drow.

 

[gyor]

They seemed more common. There are probably several reasons for this.

1) They were more mechanically appealing. (Ability Scores were more important and for a while I think they were the only way to get bonuses to Str and Con which were important for certain types of Fighter or Barbarians)
2) They were more front and centre. They appeared in Players Handbook 2 alongside classic races like Half-Orcs and Gnomes and classes like Barbarians and Druids.
3) The default setting was the Nentir Vale so everything was new. There was no long history of the setting without Goliaths.

Interesting to note, as far as I can tell the first actual setting where Goliaths appear is Eberron in 3.5e, Goliaths are mentioned in the first core Eberron book, and the first Eberron players guide, but the last time I checked, Goliaths are not a AL Eberron legal race which is goofy. Raptorians and Illumians also appear in that book.