D&D 5E New Unearthed Arcana Today: Giant Themed Class Options and Feats

A new Unearthed Arcana dropped today, focusing on giant-themed player options. "In today’s Unearthed Arcana, we explore character options related to the magic and majesty of giants. This playtest document presents the Path of the Giant barbarian subclass, the Circle of the Primeval druid subclass, the Runecrafter wizard subclass, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons."

Giant Options | Unearthed Arcana | Dungeons & Dragons

Explore character options related to the magic and majesty of giants! This playtest document presents new subclasses for the barbarian, druid, and wizard, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons.

dnd.wizards.com

New Class options:

• Barbarian: Path of the Giant
• Druid: Circle of the Primeval
• Wizard: Runecrafter Tradition

New Feats:

• Elemental Touched
• Ember of the Fire Giant
• Fury of the Frost Giant
• Guile of the Cloud Giant
• Keeness of the Stone Giant
• Outsized Might
• Rune Carver Apprentice
• Rune Carvwr Adept
• Soul of the Storm Giant
• Vigor of the Hill Giant

WotC's Jeremy Crawford talks Barbarian Path of the Giant here:

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Those elemental touched feats look amazing for genasi!

There is only one, you can choose which ability to use after a long rest. They all look like mechanically weak "flavor" stuff to me.

Only the rune carver feats look interesting to me.

 

[Minigiant]

Really the Circle of the Primeval doesn't feel very Primeval. It feels like they had a "animal companion" subclass prepared and pasted "Primeval" "Old" and their synonyms all over it

To me a "Giants" or "Primeval" Druid would be a Caveman Warrior druid going "Ugh Me Smash", buffing their club and hide, and clubbing does with a suped up Shillelagh cantrip.

Like I love having Wild Shape being the reason for the companion and wish the base druid could choose between Wild Shape, Wild Companion, and Wild Strike "Aka Warrior Druid". Druid has the highest base complexity and it would have been awesome to introduce a simple "I club you with my magic stick" option as a base option for new or distracted players.

I fully expect the Circle of the Primeval druid to make it through UA and to a book. But it would be because druid players want a pet again and not because of the (very weak IMHO) flavor.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Only Eberron has a major rules variant in Artificers because it requires it.

The rest "Standard Ren-Medieval D&D Setting" with a theme, Base Rules, and a maybe a Gifts rule.

It won't be a Bone and Wood Weapon and Armor variant like the poster @Crimson Longinus suggested.

Ravnica is not at all a Medieval D&D setting. It's an Urban Fantasy Magic: the Gathering Faction War setting. Theros is pre-Medieval, taking place in fantasy Ancient Greece. Spelljammer is a fantasy space opera setting with rules for sailing to other planets and a ton of unique rulesets.

Is your definition of "not medieval" somehow "needs to have a unique class in the setting book"? Because that's a really weird definition.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I can see a number of ways to expand that count:
1. Troll variants and ogre variants (and possibly other creatures of the giant type, like oni).
2. More variants of core giants, like we got for duergar, drow, etc. in MOTM.
3. Giants from settings other than the Realms, reframed in a multiversal way: Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Eberron have assorted unique giants and giant-kin, for example.
4. And that.

Also keep in mind that if they dedicate as much room to the core giant lore generally as they did dragons in Fizban's, they could also dedicate additional special space to troll and ogre lore, which has yet to get any special attention in 5E. So they could cut back the bestiary in favor of more tabular lore options and such.

I doubt they'd just cut-and-paste the Volo's giant lore into the book, I'm sure they'd have a multiversal revision in mind. (You would upset some folks who liked the VGTM giant lore, but I don't think they care much about that anymore.) And if some of the reprinted monsters weren't in MOTM, there are also folks who'd appreciate the post-Tasha's update.

I certainly wouldn't complain about that; we are overdue for an undead-centric book for sure (unless they counted Van Richten's?). But this UA is the only monster-centric clue we've had, so...

Or they're just mashing together playtest options from different upcoming books, like they did last year, and we're going to get a giant-centric book and a prehistoric setting book...

Yeah, I just think that there are better ideas for monster books that focus on one creature type than Giants. Undead or Aberrations are way more obvious choices, IMO, and I think WotC would agree. The Druid has nothing to do with Giants or even Runes, the Wizard only has a slight lore-themed connection to Giants, and the Barbarian's theme screams "Dawn War with Elemental Giants" more than "Giantonomicon" to me.

 

[Minigiant]

Ravnica is not at all a Medieval D&D setting. It's an Urban Fantasy Magic: the Gathering Faction War setting. Theros is pre-Medieval, taking place in fantasy Ancient Greece. Spelljammer is a fantasy space opera setting with rules for sailing to other planets and a ton of unique rulesets.

Is your definition of "not medieval" somehow "needs to have a unique class in the setting book"? Because that's a really weird definition.

My point is that the settings lack a major rules variant.

And without a major rules variant, there are limits to how far into flavor you can go.

Ravnica and Theros are nor Ren-Medieval but your fighters there still use Plate Armor and Greatswords. You might be painted up like a hoplite but mechanically you aren't supported to be one. There are no mechanics to make a powerful spear and shield warrior because the base spear in 5e is inferior to all martial weapons and there are no benefits for going barechested or in cloth.

And that's what I mean here. Your fighters in your Primeval setting will likely still be donning heavy full plate armor and weilding forged longsword. Because getting a fighter who wears a beasthide and jabs with a spear in a Prehistoric setting can't be encouraged unless you make a rules variant outside of pretending your sword and plate is a spear and hide. Even barbarians have limited options as it too is designed to still wear armor and use forged/casted martial weapons.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I fully expect the Circle of the Primeval druid to make it through UA and to a book. But it would be because druid players want a pet again and not because of the (very weak IMHO) flavor.

Heh. This just made me chuckle a bit. People overall absolutely care more about the mechanical benefit of a subclass over its theme. The Hexblade has the worst theme of all of the Warlock subclasses, but is still a really popular choice for when people choose to play a Warlock.

If a subclass lets you have a Dino/Mammoth animal companion as a Druid, people won't care one bit about the flavor for it. They just want a cool animal companion that they can take into battle with them.

 

[Minigiant]

Heh. This just made me chuckle a bit. People overall absolutely care more about the mechanical benefit of a subclass over its theme. The Hexblade has the worst theme of all of the Warlock subclasses, but is still a really popular choice for when people choose to play a Warlock.

If a subclass lets you have a Dino/Mammoth animal companion as a Druid, people won't care one bit about the flavor for it. They just want a cool animal companion that they can take into battle with them.

I predict the majority of Primeval Companions created will be regular Normal beasts. Id be shocked... SHOCKED.. if over 30% of Primeval druids roleplay the prehistory and actually use dinos, mammoths, and saber toothed cats/dogs if the DM doesn't do a Prehistoric setting.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

My point is that the settings lack a major rules variant.

And without a major rules variant, there are limits to how far into flavor you can go.

Ravnica and Theros are nor Ren-Medieval but your fighters there still use Plate Armor and Greatswords. You might be painted up like a hoplite but mechanically you aren't supported to be one. There are no mechanics to make a powerful spear and shield warrior because the base spear in 5e is inferior to all martial weapons and there are no benefits for going barechested or in cloth.

And that's what I mean here. Your fighters in your Primeval setting will likely still be donning heavy full plate armor and weilding forged longsword. Because getting a fighter who wears a beasthide and jabs with a spear in a Prehistoric setting can't be encouraged unless you make a rules variant outside of pretending your sword and plate is a spear and hide. Even barbarians have limited options as it too is designed to still wear armor and use forged/casted martial weapons.

Yep. My current setting is stone age/early bronze age and I completely rewrote the armour rules and weapon chart to make it work. And of course there are still a loads of minor case-by-case weirdness with equipment and spell components etc that I have to ad-hoc change when we come across to them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Heh. This just made me chuckle a bit. People overall absolutely care more about the mechanical benefit of a subclass over its theme. The Hexblade has the worst theme of all of the Warlock subclasses, but is still a really popular choice for when people choose to play a Warlock.

If a subclass lets you have a Dino/Mammoth animal companion as a Druid, people won't care one bit about the flavor for it. They just want a cool animal companion that they can take into battle with them.

I'd care about dino and mammoth flavour. But the rules do not properly represent a dino or mammoth. It is pathetically weak compared to the MM versions.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So PCs should be able to summon Large creatures--indefinitely--at 2nd level?

Yes?

you're summoning a statblock and not a creature from the MM, I see no reason why you can't say that it can be Large at 2nd level

Good point, well-made, exactly.

What you're illustrating to me is WotC's needless and irrational design conservatism, which sadly continues to rear its unattractive head. But inconsistently, because it's not always a thing.

It's fun to have a Small creature get enlarged to Huge.

It's not, imho.

It's a cliche of a particularly unexciting kind. To me anyway. It's trite - dictionary-definition trite - "dull on account of overuse". I mean, every time a power comes up that can make a PC larger, people are saying "Oh I could use it on a really small PC and make them really big", and to me, that is just a really boring and repetitive cliche/trope. I do get that it is funny the first time it happens, but I think it tends to be something that gets very old very fast. YMMV and all that.