Giants in the new Monster Manual prove once and for all: the bigger they are the harder they hit. Especially with elemental damage.
Giants are at the heart f a new video preview of the 5.5E Monster Manual from WotC. These big, bad big bads are a mythic part of the D&D multiverse, a real-world mythological archetype, and one of the natural progressions of higher level gameplay. Because once you’re past a certain level, you stop fighting orcs. You start fighting giants.
So getting giants right in the 5.5E Monster Manual is important. Especially since, throughout the lifespan of 5E, giants have changed in their role in D&D. They went from being big bags of hit points to having a whole sort of caste system. And then later, with Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, they sort of stepped up into this “elemental acolyte” role.
It’s not just that they are big guys, they also embody some of the elements and terrain/biomes in the world. So how does that figure into the 5.5E Monster Manual? Let’s take a look.
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Right away in the video, the designers, Jerey Crawford and Wesley Schneider make it clear that giants are moving more in the direction of Glory of the Giants. They fill the role of long-lost peoples who once had expansive empires, mythic and capable of fighting dragons, but also reclusive.
But it’s not just the big six giants that get some love and attention in the new Monster Manual. Creatures like ettins and ogres and cyclops get rolled up into the mix as well. And one of the big things that WotC has done is revisit the CR balance of each of these creatures. That way, no matter what a giant of any type is doing, they are fighting at the peak of their capabilities.
Giant Upgrades in the New Monster Manual
One of the biggest changes overall seems to be to the ranged options of most of these creatures. After all, throwing boulders is fine and all. But if you’re supposed to be CR 11, you should actually hit like a CR 11 creature.
To that end, the elemental aspects of the giants have been enhanced as well. Storm giants are stormier, cloud giants have more cloud power, frost giants will freeze you solid. You get the idea. But one of my favorites is the rundown of the new hill giants.
Hill giants have been redesigned to be a little more distinct from ogres. They’re bigger, for one, but can use the battlefield against you. They can snatch up trees to swing around like clubs (hopefully creating a new patch of difficult terrain), and can hurl “trash” at you that deals poison damage.
Smaller Giants
Finally some of the “smaller” creatures, like Ogres and Trolls and Fomorians, who are still giants, also got rebalanced. In the video, the designers talk about gres having a better damage output overall. Cyclops come with a spellcasting variant that plays with the mythological cyclops being able to see the future. Fomorians have more curses that give them enhanced gross capabilities in combat. And trolls can have their severed limbs take up arms, literally, and join in the fight (or crawl away, eventually growing into a whole troll).
Check out the new giants in the 5.5E Monster Manual, February 18th!
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