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:

 

[DeviousQuail]

I'm not so sure you aren't on to something, though. I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the 'major' changes to the 2024 rule book will be presenting Feats as the standard and ASIs as the optional rule, with multiclassing remaining optional. Going one step further, the 'class-dip' feats could be presented as the 'preferred' way to multi-class. Feat's being the standard instead of ASI would also make including these feat chains easier, since there would be no worry about having to decide between a Feat and and ASI at 4/8/12/16/19. Perhaps Rogues and Fighters would still get the option for an ASI at their bonus levels.

Bottom line, I think PHB'24 will be strongly encouraging the use of Feats in games moving forward, and IMO, that makes some good sense, since the game math for higher CR creatures is really based on a an assumed +3 attack stat, and the ASI bonuses that exist now work as first a +1 and then a +2 magic weapon, intentionally giving players an advantage over the math (not to mention how good that additional +2 makes certain feats like GWM and SS). I already strongly encourage my players to choose feats over ASI bumps, but haven't yet implemented it as a requirement.

The class feats in Tasha's are probably the best indicator of this and I'd welcome the change. ASIs are boring, multiclassing is weird due to how much needs to be packed into 1st level, and feats don't slow class progression. All good things imo.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Yeah, seemed like a good time to revive the Stone Sorcerer. What happened?

Like the Phoenix and the Sea sorcerers: they were cool, so they trashed it.

In WotC's mind, the cool magic themes are for Warlock, the new 2008 hotness. Better not waste good design ideas for an afterthought class.

 

[Minigiant]

Please no.

Major variant subsystems that core features like subclasses and feats tap into is a great way to split the market, make books that large chunks of the player base have no use for, and make a game that is a bit of a mess, leading to a much greater need for a new edition much sooner.

It's got nothing at all to do with going a certain percent, or not daring to do something big, or whatever nonsense. The majority of players want all their dnd books to work together seemlessly, for everything to work alongside only the core books, and to be able to play a PHB+1 character alongside a "all options" character without major balance or "how the game works" incontinuities.

You can make major subsystems that work seemlessly with the base game system. The reason it wasn't before was due to the restrictive and complex rules of past editions and as a way to sell more books.

But you could easily have A Rune List section then allow Runecrafter Wizards learn a rune on level up in place of a spell or have a Giant Barbarian invoke the spell of a Hill, Stone, Frost, Fire, Cloud, or Storm rune during a rage.

What about the people who want to use Rune but not Feats? On the DMs and players who already have other ideas for their very few feats but want to have runes?

Seperating it out into it's own system could allow for Tasha's like trade and class trades. A dwarf could trade out a martial weapon proficency or rogue trade a Skill profieciency for knowledge of a rune.

 

[Weiley31]

• Rune Carver Apprentice: This is secretly WotC trying to see if they can replace multiclassing with feats. They may talk about runes but this is just a replacement for dipping Artificers.
• Rune Carver Adept: 100% Artificer replacement package.

The feats let you imbue non-magical items with magic, which is pretty similar to what the Infuse Item ability does for Artificers. The feats being a secret test of alternate multiclassing was just me being facetious.

No go in whole hog: Give both Rune Carver feats to Artificers!

 

[Urriak Uruk]

All four Subclasses are related to the Primordials, the real underlying theme across the Feats and Subclasses. Dawn War stuff: Giants are related to Dinosaurs and the Elemental Planes in the 4E Lore...which James Wyatt was the leader in writing. Just like the First World myth seems to tie into Dawn War themes in the Mythic Realm.

That's my point! They're all tied to the Dawn War, which is being reframed into the First World, so this UA is for the First World: Adventures in Prehistory book.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It says that the gods brought their adherents with them, among other statements that strongly imply that the mortal races are not native to the First World.

And I doubt the Discworld model making it into 5e canon more than I doubt pretty much anything anyone has ever posited on these forums about 5e.

Not really how I interpreted it. Even if that is true, one could easily set the book during the period of the war between Gods & Mortals vs. Dragons & Giants.

I don't really know why Discworld matters here, never said the world should be on the back of four elephants standing on a turtle.

 

[Blue]

I'm enjoying the subclasses, but really down on the feats.

First, feat chains. Boo.

Second. level locked feats hurt multiclass characters out-of-proportion. "Oh, I got my first feat at 7th and won't get my next until 11th - too bad, so sad, campaign will likely end before I can get that 8th level requisite feat."

Third, for the most part they are so lackluster. Here, have this passive background bonus, and then have a feature that you can't use enough to be worth spending a feat getting it without falling behind.

Sorry, a feat needs to compete with an always on math bonus that affects your primary abilities every single time, skills, saves, and other things. A "I get a few times a day to do something neat but not hugely more powerful than what I can do normally" is not up there.

On the other hand, the subclasses as I said I am looking forward to. Especially the Barbarian. And a nice pet druid with flavor. Yum.

 

[Weiley31]

Ah, I remember the runes from last time.

Rune Magic - DND 5th Edition

dnd5e.wikidot.com

And yes: the first 5E prestige class.

Rune Scribe - DND 5th Edition

dnd5e.wikidot.com

 

[Seramus]

Mighty Impel
Tossing people around, while amazingly fun and a great tactical option, comes online FAR too late at level 10. This is the “Fun Bit” of this class that everyone is going to want, it should be level 6 at the latest. Unfortunately that means something else would have to go into the level 10 slot, as the current level 6 power also feels like it wouldn’t be powerful enough at this level.

It bears mentioning this is 3d6 damage + prone as a bonus action for the entire rage, as long as you have a high enough ceiling above you.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You say that like having a pleistocene megafauna or being a Huge kobold isn't totally amazing in and of itself.

It isn't totally amazing, no, that's my point.

It's mediocre. It's not particularly special or clever to have a size M Brontothere or whatever (which is literally all a Primeval Druid can summon at lower levels - size M things). Yeah you too can have a slightly undersized saber-toothed tiger or a correctly scaled (i.e. smaller than the movie) velociraptor! Maybe you could have an oversized Eohippus? Woooo the excitement!

And a Huge Kobold being exciting to people is one of those things that makes me worry about D&D players a bit.

"Ohhhh a character is a different size from expected! Wow!!! MIND = BLOWN". I think I rolled my eyes so hard I just hurt myself. It was I admit funny like, the first time I saw that, in the early 1990s. It's 2022 people.

I actually think this is a hint to an entirely new setting, one that was heavily hinted in Fizban's.... the "First World."

That does actually seem quite likely and would be a lot more interesting than a giant-centric book. Presumably one of the rumoured two new settings. If done well it could be extremely exciting but given its WotC, I suspect conceptual conservatism and avoidance of anything too clever may win out. Then again, they did publish Eberron, which doesn't fit that at all, so maybe I'm being too damn cynical.

It bears mentioning this is an 3d6 damage + prone as a bonus action for the entire rage, as long as you have a high enough ceiling above you.

Yeah given you can throw people into spaces that don't have floor or anything, it does seem like that is RAW/RAI for that. It's not crazy damage but the prone is nice and the bonus action isn't conditional unlike Shield Bash (unless I'm forgetting something). It'll probably get nerfed though.