Bigby Presents: Glory of Giants (Dungeons & Dragons Expansion Book)

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Chapter 2: Giants in Play: This chapter is intended for Dungeon Masters and features a section on how to roleplay giant NPCs, a description of the hierarchy of giants (known as the Ordning), as well as their various gods, social structures and organizations. The only issue I see with most of this information is giants will have to be a huge part of your campaign for you to start worrying about how many giants live together in a settlement versus a steading. Bigby the Great recounts his journeys into the history, myth, and society of giants in this guide to their realms in the worlds of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS®. Here Bigby and the demigod Diancastra, child of the giants’ All-Father, Annam, unveil the secrets of Annam’s mighty descendants.

There’s a lot to love with Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. Yet the book isn’t without a few issues, especially when you compare it to Fizbans’ Treasury of Dragons. Below we break out what works and what doesn’t when it comes the materials. Pros As a giant foundling, you gain proficiency in the language of giants, symbolizing your learned ability to communicate with your adoptive families and neighbors. You also gain proficiency in a second language, perhaps reflecting the region you grew up in or the people you and the giants frequentlytraded with or even fought.

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As with previous D&D sourcebooks, there is also both a standard cover version and an alt cover version of the book. Who is Bigby? Your choice here also limits which other feat in the tree you can take. Since Strike of the Giants can’t be taken more than once, you’ll typically select your type of giant based on which of the 4th-level feats you want to take. Cloud Giants. Attuned to the magic of their airy domains, cloud giants can turn into mist and create clouds of fog.

At the end of the day, Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giantsis quite comparable to Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons,which is a solid book full of useful information when wanting to incorporate a certain monster type into your campaign. Fire Giants. Skilled artisans and warriors, fire giants are forged in their volcanic fortresses as much as in combat. While giant foundlings are said to grow abnormally large for their species, this isn’t reflected in a change to your creature size. As for encounter tables, they aren’t separated by CR, meaning they’re not particularly useful for preparing a combat encounter. They also have an arbitrary “Attitude” mechanic thrown in that would be hard to account for if you were simply rolling to generate an encounter.Some giants decide to shun their peers’ gods and turn to deities outside of societal norms, seeking power to defy their position in the ordning, a grave transgression against the ordning that results in social ostracism. Fee-fi-fo-fum! Giants are some of the oldest creatures to have walked the world. These primeval, mighty beings come in a variety of subspecies that are each tied to a natural force:

Mountain Giants: Incredibly strong and known for their cruelty, these creatures dwell in the remote depths of the mountains.

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The “enclaves” are short, easily digestible adventures that will be easy to slot into campaigns, especially when combined with the encounter tables in the previous chapter. But while Treasury of Dragons was narrated by the eccentric wizard Fizban the Fabulous (of Dragonlance fame), Glory of the Giants is narrated by the legendary D&D wizard Bigby, who was previously a human from the world of Greyhawk, but in this book has killed by a giant and later reincarnated as a gnome. The section ends with a light-touch description of how this lore applies to Forgotten Realms (it all applies, it’s mainly from the Realms!), Greyhawk (use all of this lore except Annam specifically), Dragonlance (you’ve got to squint a lot, so mostly no), and Eberron (0%, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 gp). So it’s not particularly universal lore, but it’s a good starting point with a lot of ideas on different ways to go with things if you’re creating your own setting. I’m not sure, but I think it would work well for 4e’s Nentir Vale? Character Creation Rogues and monks usuallyprioritizeDexterity, which more or less limits their weapon options to those with the finesse property. The dart is a simple ranged weapon that can be thrown using Dexterity instead of Strength, giving Dexterity builds options to activate Strike of the Giants from a distance.