Players will find a wealth of giant-themed character options: a subclass for barbarians, two backgrounds related to giants and their runic magic, and feat options that evoke the strength and primal magic of the giants. The ability to cast comprehend languages without a spell slot once a day gives Rune Shapers the potential to easily interact with people or creatures that can speak any language, a tool of enormous advantage for solving mysteries and resolving disputes. Chapter 3: Giant Adventures: This section will offer a variety of options and advice for DMs when it comes to running giant-themed encounters, adventures and DnD 5e campaigns. Following in footsteps of Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons is Bigby Presents Glory of the Giants, although I suppose that given their ancient rivalry the giants might prefer to think of themselves as making even bigger footsteps over the footsteps of the dragons. The 2024 rules revisions are designed to be fully compatible with everything you’re playing today in fifth edition.

As noted previously, in May 2022, Wizards of the Coast also released the “Giant Options” Unearthed Arcana article, which introduced the giant subclass to 5th edition. No matter what strikes the fancy of players or dungeon masters among the subclass, background, and feat options in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, the new sourcebook offers plenty of new ways to bring variety to the game table. There’s also a lot of effort to expand on the giant’s larger cultural structure, pushing them towards something a bit more than being big plus one obsession per giant type. Path of the Giant barbarians can also fool around out of combat, with the third-level ability to learn the druidcraft or thaumaturgy cantrip opening up creative possibilities that other DnD barbarians might not be able to access. Chapter 6: Bestiary: The final chapter of the book features over 70 new monster stat blocks, including death giants, gargantua, ettin variants, elemental hulks, undead giants and even kaiju.Strike of the Giants comes in a number of types, allowing players to inflict damage correlating with their chosen variety once per turn when hitting a target with a weapon attack. Here Bigby and the demigod Diancastra, child of the giants’ All-Father, Annam, unveil the secrets of Annam’s mighty descendants. The book offers advice on how to connect a character using any of these options to the lore of the giants, whether to draw a direct line of ancestry, draw power from an artifact, or worship the gods of the giants. Instead, he’s been reincarnated as a gnome after being crushed by a giant (something which will be covered in greater detail in the book).

In total, the new material in Glory of the Giants that directly contributes to choices for character building amounts to one subclass, two backgrounds, and eight feats. Perhaps the most fun feature that Path of the Giant barbarians can employ on the battlefield is Mighty Impel, which allows them to hurl smaller creatures to other spaces within range. Adds giant-themed player character options where adventurers can evoke the glory of giants with new subclasses, backgrounds and feats. It’s a fun book with a lot of cool lore and some exciting new character options, so we started by digging into the new backgrounds and feats.

Over the years, Bigby has appeared in countless game supplements, trading cards and novels, but is perhaps best known for the spell Bigby’s Hand, which allows the summoner to create a massive glowing hand made of pure energy that can be used to attack enemies. No matter what angle is taken to integrate the new DnD character options, the additions add a solid amount of flavor and potential to any build.

As you might guess from the length, these enclaves are presented as sources of ideas, rather than complete encounters. Eventually Gygax folded Bigby into the larger Greyhawk lore, making him a founding member of the Circle of Eight, a group of powerful archmages dedicated to safeguarding the inhabitants of the world of Oerth. Bigby, who is originally from the world of Greyhawk, is best known for his eponymous ‘hand’ spells, which in 5E are condensed into a single Bigby’s Hand spell with several modes (forceful hand, grasping hand, interposing hand, clenched fist). Here Bigby and the demigod Diancastra, child of the giants' All-Father, Annam, unveil the secrets of Annam's mighty descendants.Mountain Giants: Incredibly strong and known for their cruelty, these creatures dwell in the remote depths of the mountains.