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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 7881519" data-attributes="member: 6704184">So, WebDM put out a video on Christmas discussing one of my favorite races, the Goliath! I was very excited when I saw the title, as was my wife. We both have Goliath characters, and both just love the race.[MEDIA=youtube]RnYmvXQIhl8[/MEDIA]Unfortunately, the episode kinda sucks. Pretty much Jim's first comment is that he has a hard time understanding the Goliath, and it goes downhill from there. I love these guys' videos, but damn this one disappoints. Seriously, what's so hard to understand? They're big, athletic, strong, tough, reclusive, humanoids with no weird baggage or any overriding theme that being big and strong is completely secondary to. Every other +2 strength race is 90% thematically something other than strong, and being strong just serves that theme. Goliath are the only actual "big strong guy" race. Beyond that, they're reclusive mountain dwellers who are hard to injure, are vaguely related to giants without being part of the ordning, love competition and games, hold themselves to high standards of performance and achievement, don't hold grudges or cheat, and can actually be put in many extreme environments due to their acclimation to both high altitude and extreme cold. Athletics + acclimation means they can easily be nomadic whalers in an arctic region, actually swimming in the arctic waters, taming extreme cold creatures, etc. I do agree with the guys that they could use either a boost to Stone's Endurance, or maybe just an additional trait, and that their culture can come across as too harsh to really make sense. But to ditch all of it and just use them as half-ogres and the like is just a huge waste of a very interesting race, IMO.But how do you use Goliaths? ANyone around here share WebDM's view on the race? I personally, in addition to the above, like to either give them Incan style mountain cities and hidden roads, relate them to firbolgs and add a little druidic magic, or use them mostly as is with the addition of a strong animist culture, a lot of rituals like singing a greeting to the dawn because they believe that if they don't the sun won't actually rise, take out the "ditch the weak and let them die or wander down the mountain" stuff, and add fun things like a sense of responsibility to finish what you start even if it takes you far from home. And then I put them in semi-magical mountains because in real mountains nothing can grow at 20k+ feet up.</blockquote>

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