Okay, the Giant Soul Sorcerer bloodline has me jazzed about playing a sorcerer. Why didn't they bring this out when Storm King's Thunder debuted! It would have made for some great thematic PCs, and NPCs!
At the moment I'm leaning towards Storm or Frost. What does everyone else like?
Getting additional known spells is sooooooo very appealing for a sorcerer. And I feel like it's a perfectly adequate amount; not so many that you'd ask anyone why they'd ever pick any other sorcerer type, but not so few as to not be enticing.
I'm also digging the really modular nature. So many options for one subclass.
I think it has its flavor, but I do not care for the bonus to damage based on CON instead of CHA. Now I know that sorcerer gets CON saves but this just feels like to much for abilities for spells. I mean for Fire giant three spells get the bonus to damage, where a Dragon Sorcerer gets it for how many spells based on Dragon type.
Interesting selection of different abilities, and I like how the first and second subclass benefits synergize. Pretty cool. Extra spells are nice. The big thing I find, though, is how each giant has a different theme and different style of play.
Cloud giants are stealth-sorcerers. Set up some fog, use minor illusion to teleport through guards. That's spamming a half-misty step for free. Each of the bonus spells are also utility spells that will always be useful.
Fire giants are standard blasters, along with storm giants. Well, frost giants have some defensive THP generation and Hold Person, so its not quite blasty, but still nice set up for control options while keeping your butt alive. Always good. I'm unsure if Aggy's Armor is good long term, however, compared to Shield, Mage Armor, Mirror Image, etc. I tend to prefer evasion over tanking on a sorcerer.
Hill giant is... interesting. Its a good positioning ability - start off shoving your allies closer if you need the speed, or shoving enemies back. Great to combo with a Polearm Master. Great for a buffing bard play. Stone giant comes with some good abilities, some bad ones. Resistance isn't too great a spell, but the others are good, and free AC is always nice. I love druid terrain control.
The Bad -
The fire giant option feels worse off than a red dragon soul. At level 6, when you get the ability, you could cast fireball with +CHA damage to it, or if you get your hands on a Staff of Fire, that's adding Wall of Fire as well. No bonus to scorching rays, a favorite of mine. Sure, you get two new spells and one extra cantrip, as opposed to free mage armor (one free spell AND saved spell slot per day), but I'm not sure if its worth the trade off.
Storm Giant is likewise blasty, but focusing on three spells. A melee range cantrip (usually bad idea to get into melee), thunderwave (okay spell with poor damage scaling), and gust of wind. ironically, there's a good chance that your Gust of Wind will push your enemies outside of your reach of the CON lightning damage. All in all, lackluster imho. I'd suggest Storm Sorcerer rather than this, to be honest.
Level 14 ability ... its Tenser's Transformation in a subclass that can't fight. At best, we have the Hill Giant using Shillegeah. Just.. no for the rest. Most of the other giant options don't even want to be anywhere towards melee. The level 18 feature is just doubling down on the level 14 ability, something that I can't seem to want to do in the first place. Also, more CON, but we don't need to charge into melee with a faux-barbarian that should be hanging back and casting spells. Well, I mainly play levels 1-10, so that last paragraph doesn't bother me too much, I just can't see a use for it even if I'd gotten it at lower levels. Probably end up like the advice for bladesinger - use it to enhance suitability while doing normal sorcerer magic.
I love the idea of this subclass first off. Giving the Goliath a reason to become a sorcerer and use that Con bonus. Same can be said for races like Dwarves, half orcs and other races typically used for melee classes. The idea of a Goliath starting of as a fighter or barbarian in his tribe, then as he adventures, he starts to learn how to channel that inner giant is a really cool character dynamic.
As interesting and exciting as the class is. It's not without its faults. The first one that I thought of the issue of size class. With the enlarge / reduce spell in effect and once you use the "Fall of Osteria" ability twice due to the "All father's blessing" feature, you can quickly climb a ladder. In this edition, there are 3 size classes above the race average of Medium: Large, huge and gargantuan. With these series of enhancements and only two levels into fighter, maybe learning spells that are only buffs, a gargantuan pc is terrifying. Ancient Dragons can be grappled, but without a powerful magic item, like a belt of giants strength, we got a gargantuan creature with a max strength of 20. Although, each attack with a melee weapon would gain a huge bonus of a potential +5(con mod) +5(con mod again) +5 (strength) + 1d4(enlarge) to damage. Mixed with a great sword it's 2d6 + 1d4 + 15. That's a max damage output of 31slashing on a swing. Which dispite the fantastic bonuses, you only get one swing as a sorcerer. The kind of high level play that you would be dealing with at this point makes that damage pretty insignificant.
It's also a subclass that could rely on high stats. If we're trying to make a melee-able sorcerer, it's going to need to desperately have 3 high stats, the CHA and CON that the class already needs, and now STR or Dex. The skill point economy is pretty steep on this one. As said by a few other people here the appeal of the sorcerer is that you gain these bloodline abilities through yourself. Dragons are high con creatures, celestial are high wis or cha creatures. We let them be expressed through the person and their CHA stat. So there's no need to change that.
In conclusion, I like the idea, but it needs tweaking. If you want it to stand on its own, it needs bonus proficiencies with light armor and some simple weapons at least. There should probably be a cap on the size class scale, although in the time I wrote this, I'm thinking of how this can be a cool ant man build. Give it extra attacks, it can be with the "RoFO" feature. It would make the idea of a rage bearing giant pc who only gets one decent attack a lot less tragic. And lastly, loose the con mod dependency, to get the full use out of the class it currently needs 3 high stats; while the average class needs 2. Just letting the cha mod do amazing physical and magical things is what I love about sorcerer. That's about all I have on this right now. I'm excited to see future and updated versions!
Definitely think the Hill giant would be the one I would lean towards the most. Seems almost ironic as they are the lowliest of the primary giant-kin.
This is an option to give a little more resilience to a Sorcerer which sounds to me like a lot of fun. The Ant-Man reference was the very first thing that came to mind with the level 14 ability, going from medium size to huge could be just waaaaaaay too much fun. Even if you only use it for a few rounds to bully around some other equally large creature it would be highly entertaining. I wonder how far you could realistically throw a team member, or stand as a bulwark against a flood poised to sweep the party away. These things just get me thinking in really interesting ways to deal with situations. I just one round you could go from mild mannered Bruce Banner into a Huge version with a Shillelagh weapon ready to mete out punishment on your enemies while your team forms an attack.
Time to play around with some things.
Got some time to play around with ideas. Thus Hulkulkan came into Being. Lizardfolk For some extra constitution and the bite attack for a little fun if enemies get in close (probably just for the lifesteal effect anything else will likely be shillelagh with a quarterstaff). For flavor I think the staff will the bone of some large dinosaur (or maybe giant) and yes I know shillelagh is for wooden items but its still a material that once was alive. I really like the Hill giant variant of the subclass which is where the shillelagh comes from. I have him set up as a Deception and intimidation type of negotiator, background of gladiator to put forth some of his showmanship and performance, Actor Feat to bolster a little charisma and make him excellent at disguise and throw in Alter Self for him to be an excellent infiltrator. If things go sideways he can always make himself larger and kinda hulk smash his way back out while simultaneously giving warning that things went poorly. Leaning towards twinned spell and extend spell for metamagic, either one could be used with enlarge/reduce making a tagteam of enlarged front line fighter and sorcerer. Some flashy single target spells like Ice knife and Chromatic orb to twin for 'crowd pleasers'. He may not be the smartest fellow but he is cunning and has a strong personality.
Is this the most awesome sorcerer subclass, perhaps not but I think it has some really fun gameplay potential. Hulkulkan will rise up from his life as an arena fighter and embrace the strength that his giant ancestor has granted him. Might try and look at some interesting concepts for the other sub-subclasses.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
The fire giant option feels worse off than a red dragon soul. At level 6, when you get the ability, you could cast fireball with +CHA damage to it, or if you get your hands on a Staff of Fire, that's adding Wall of Fire as well. No bonus to scorching rays, a favorite of mine. Sure, you get two new spells and one extra cantrip, as opposed to free mage armor (one free spell AND saved spell slot per day), but I'm not sure if its worth the trade off.
I do think the Fire Giant option feels the most... meh. I feel like setting enemies on fire or something with their spells would be preferable (maybe modify the save dc based on constitution). Storm feels like it gets 3x more damage from its Ostoria ability since only one of the fire giant ordning spells can hit multiple enemies in a single round (unless a monster runs into the orb).
Ordning spells set the enemies on fire, damage = Con mod (min 1) save dc to put out the flames is equal to 10+Con mod (min 1). Still feels "unspecial" but something should be changed about it.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Looking at the Stone Giant right meow, trying to decide which would be of more interest, a Hill Dwarf or a Mountain Dwarf.
Plus for Hill dwarf is another extra tick of hp per level to go along with the giant soul feature.
Plus for Mountain Dwarf is a significantly increased AC (in conjunction with the Stone Giant perk could lead to some massive spikes in AC). Not to mention a little more Melee potential with the strength.
Currently leaning towards Mountain Dwarf.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Looking at the Stone Giant right meow, trying to decide which would be of more interest, a Hill Dwarf or a Mountain Dwarf.
Plus for Hill dwarf is another extra tick of hp per level to go along with the giant soul feature.
Plus for Mountain Dwarf is a significantly increased AC (in conjunction with the Stone Giant perk could lead to some massive spikes in AC). Not to mention a little more Melee potential with the strength.
Currently leaning towards Mountain Dwarf.
Hill Dwarf, Giant soul Sorcerer with Tough feat and 5 con. d6+9 HP per level, lol
Done and done. I hope I put enough emphasis on the fact that the Fire Giant option is very "unspecial" "meh" "boring" "not fun". I think I may have snuck another phrase in there as well but I cannot recall.
What were other peoples main opinions they shared in the feedback?
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I suggested that as a Fire Giant when you cast one of your Ordning Spells you would set the targets on fire. They would then need to take an action to attempt a CON save against your Spell DC to put themselves out or take your CON modifier as damage. Adds some utility as they are forced to use an action on their turn to put themselves out. Might be a bit OP as you could have the entire field on fire at once but they would hit the save eventually and CON saves get easier for creatures as you go up the levels.
Maybe even a boost to their strength = to their constitution bonus for the Fire Giant. The fire giants blood burns like a forge in their heart increasing their strength after they tap into the fire ordning magic. Since most of the effects are instant (Stone giant AC boost) perhaps a flat +2 (or+4) bonus to strength for a number of rounds equal to their con mod.
Might fit well amongst the other options, Movement (Cloud), Health (Frost), Forced movement (Hill), AC (Stone), Damage (Storm), Strength (Fire).
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Dunno how much I like it. I like the modular nature of it, since I think having those kind of options is fitting for a class like the sorcerer. The extra spells are great, but...I'm not too happy with some features being activated when you have to cast one of the said spells.
Level 14 ability ... its Tenser's Transformation in a subclass that can't fight.
This is my biggest problem with the subclass. It tries to come off as a Gish option that the Sorcerer has been lacking for a long time now, but isn't built around the idea like Blade Singers and Eldritch Knights are. I mean, this is level 14 we're talking about here, that's a long way into the game for next to no reward. The class, save maybe the Stone option isn't going to go anywhere into melee for any reason unless its a multiclass to begin with.
I actually really like the whole concept of the giant-soul sorcerer. I tried to think of the least likely race to pair with this subclass and come up with a way to make it work, and I decided to go with a Kenku! I used the Cloud Giant paradigm, and play-tested the character when a friend DM'd us through the Banquet of the Damned one-shot. It was a lot of fun and worked really well. For those interested in my character's backstory, see below...
SCRATCH-STEP, THE KENKU:
Ages ago, before the fabled giant realm of Ostoria fell, one of Scratch-Step's distant ancestors made his way to the sky-high mountain castle of a Cloud Giant named Solvulfur, thinking that if any beings might possess the knowledge of how to break the Kenku curse that deprived his people of flight, it would be these mighty, magical beings who lived among the clouds. Although Solvufur could not break the curse, he was a good-hearted giant, and he took this Kenku into his service as the keeper of his menagerie of fantastic beasts; through mimicry of their various grunts, growls, and squawks, this Kenku ancestor endeared himself to all the beasts, and the beasts thrived under his care. When Ostoria fell and the giants became scattered and broken, Solvulfur granted a shard of giant power to this Kenku servant in thanks for his years of faithful service. With nowhere else to go, the Kenku and his descendants settled in the region of fallen Ostoria. Thousands of years later, Scratch-Step and his family still lived in the frozen wastes of Sossol (far to the north of Faerûn), the region which had once been Ostoria. When he reached adulthood, Scratch-Step suddenly manifested sorcerous magic whose source was the millennia-old gift imparted by Solvulfur. The gift only manifested once every several generations in his family, so Scratch-Step knew it was not something to be wasted. He decided to leave the familiar comforts of Sossol and travel the world in the hope that he might learn to master his emerging magic, find a way to fly, and perhaps even uncover the secret of breaking the curse for all of his people.
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Author of Fellozial's Ultimate Guide to Poison, The Primal Gith, and other forthcoming titles at DMs Guild
I hope they bring this one back. It wouldn't be a power gamer build by any means, but I'd love to make a bear totem Goliath barbarian that stopped at level 6 and did frost giant soul the rest of the way. Wouldn't need more than 13 charisma, because the main goal would be armor of agathys + rage while wrecklessly extra attacking. Then utility/buff spells mainly.
Aye, would like to do a similar thing but with rune knight instead of barbarian. Downsides are getting resistances only once a short rest and no unarmoured defence for flavour. On the upsides unarmed attacks, can get to size huge without concentration, and can have spells with resistances so if you want to be really nasty you grapple someone with armour of agathys while sticking their head a cloud of daggers blender.
Would love to do it in gestalt game, just so you can still have a decent number of attacks for grappling and level 9 spells for psychic scream, so after getting huge you can let off a mighty bellow that pops heads.
Okay, the Giant Soul Sorcerer bloodline has me jazzed about playing a sorcerer. Why didn't they bring this out when Storm King's Thunder debuted! It would have made for some great thematic PCs, and NPCs!
At the moment I'm leaning towards Storm or Frost. What does everyone else like?
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/giant-soul-sorcerer
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Getting additional known spells is sooooooo very appealing for a sorcerer. And I feel like it's a perfectly adequate amount; not so many that you'd ask anyone why they'd ever pick any other sorcerer type, but not so few as to not be enticing.
I'm also digging the really modular nature. So many options for one subclass.
I think it has its flavor, but I do not care for the bonus to damage based on CON instead of CHA. Now I know that sorcerer gets CON saves but this just feels like to much for abilities for spells. I mean for Fire giant three spells get the bonus to damage, where a Dragon Sorcerer gets it for how many spells based on Dragon type.
The Good -
Interesting selection of different abilities, and I like how the first and second subclass benefits synergize. Pretty cool. Extra spells are nice. The big thing I find, though, is how each giant has a different theme and different style of play.
Cloud giants are stealth-sorcerers. Set up some fog, use minor illusion to teleport through guards. That's spamming a half-misty step for free. Each of the bonus spells are also utility spells that will always be useful.
Fire giants are standard blasters, along with storm giants. Well, frost giants have some defensive THP generation and Hold Person, so its not quite blasty, but still nice set up for control options while keeping your butt alive. Always good. I'm unsure if Aggy's Armor is good long term, however, compared to Shield, Mage Armor, Mirror Image, etc. I tend to prefer evasion over tanking on a sorcerer.
Hill giant is... interesting. Its a good positioning ability - start off shoving your allies closer if you need the speed, or shoving enemies back. Great to combo with a Polearm Master. Great for a buffing bard play. Stone giant comes with some good abilities, some bad ones. Resistance isn't too great a spell, but the others are good, and free AC is always nice. I love druid terrain control.
The Bad -
The fire giant option feels worse off than a red dragon soul. At level 6, when you get the ability, you could cast fireball with +CHA damage to it, or if you get your hands on a Staff of Fire, that's adding Wall of Fire as well. No bonus to scorching rays, a favorite of mine. Sure, you get two new spells and one extra cantrip, as opposed to free mage armor (one free spell AND saved spell slot per day), but I'm not sure if its worth the trade off.
Storm Giant is likewise blasty, but focusing on three spells. A melee range cantrip (usually bad idea to get into melee), thunderwave (okay spell with poor damage scaling), and gust of wind. ironically, there's a good chance that your Gust of Wind will push your enemies outside of your reach of the CON lightning damage. All in all, lackluster imho. I'd suggest Storm Sorcerer rather than this, to be honest.
Level 14 ability ... its Tenser's Transformation in a subclass that can't fight. At best, we have the Hill Giant using Shillegeah. Just.. no for the rest. Most of the other giant options don't even want to be anywhere towards melee. The level 18 feature is just doubling down on the level 14 ability, something that I can't seem to want to do in the first place. Also, more CON, but we don't need to charge into melee with a faux-barbarian that should be hanging back and casting spells. Well, I mainly play levels 1-10, so that last paragraph doesn't bother me too much, I just can't see a use for it even if I'd gotten it at lower levels. Probably end up like the advice for bladesinger - use it to enhance suitability while doing normal sorcerer magic.
I love the idea of this subclass first off. Giving the Goliath a reason to become a sorcerer and use that Con bonus. Same can be said for races like Dwarves, half orcs and other races typically used for melee classes. The idea of a Goliath starting of as a fighter or barbarian in his tribe, then as he adventures, he starts to learn how to channel that inner giant is a really cool character dynamic.
As interesting and exciting as the class is. It's not without its faults. The first one that I thought of the issue of size class. With the enlarge / reduce spell in effect and once you use the "Fall of Osteria" ability twice due to the "All father's blessing" feature, you can quickly climb a ladder. In this edition, there are 3 size classes above the race average of Medium: Large, huge and gargantuan. With these series of enhancements and only two levels into fighter, maybe learning spells that are only buffs, a gargantuan pc is terrifying. Ancient Dragons can be grappled, but without a powerful magic item, like a belt of giants strength, we got a gargantuan creature with a max strength of 20. Although, each attack with a melee weapon would gain a huge bonus of a potential +5(con mod) +5(con mod again) +5 (strength) + 1d4(enlarge) to damage. Mixed with a great sword it's 2d6 + 1d4 + 15. That's a max damage output of 31slashing on a swing. Which dispite the fantastic bonuses, you only get one swing as a sorcerer. The kind of high level play that you would be dealing with at this point makes that damage pretty insignificant.
It's also a subclass that could rely on high stats. If we're trying to make a melee-able sorcerer, it's going to need to desperately have 3 high stats, the CHA and CON that the class already needs, and now STR or Dex. The skill point economy is pretty steep on this one. As said by a few other people here the appeal of the sorcerer is that you gain these bloodline abilities through yourself. Dragons are high con creatures, celestial are high wis or cha creatures. We let them be expressed through the person and their CHA stat. So there's no need to change that.
In conclusion, I like the idea, but it needs tweaking. If you want it to stand on its own, it needs bonus proficiencies with light armor and some simple weapons at least. There should probably be a cap on the size class scale, although in the time I wrote this, I'm thinking of how this can be a cool ant man build. Give it extra attacks, it can be with the "RoFO" feature. It would make the idea of a rage bearing giant pc who only gets one decent attack a lot less tragic. And lastly, loose the con mod dependency, to get the full use out of the class it currently needs 3 high stats; while the average class needs 2. Just letting the cha mod do amazing physical and magical things is what I love about sorcerer. That's about all I have on this right now. I'm excited to see future and updated versions!
Definitely think the Hill giant would be the one I would lean towards the most. Seems almost ironic as they are the lowliest of the primary giant-kin.
This is an option to give a little more resilience to a Sorcerer which sounds to me like a lot of fun. The Ant-Man reference was the very first thing that came to mind with the level 14 ability, going from medium size to huge could be just waaaaaaay too much fun. Even if you only use it for a few rounds to bully around some other equally large creature it would be highly entertaining. I wonder how far you could realistically throw a team member, or stand as a bulwark against a flood poised to sweep the party away. These things just get me thinking in really interesting ways to deal with situations. I just one round you could go from mild mannered Bruce Banner into a Huge version with a Shillelagh weapon ready to mete out punishment on your enemies while your team forms an attack.
Time to play around with some things.
Got some time to play around with ideas. Thus Hulkulkan came into Being. Lizardfolk For some extra constitution and the bite attack for a little fun if enemies get in close (probably just for the lifesteal effect anything else will likely be shillelagh with a quarterstaff). For flavor I think the staff will the bone of some large dinosaur (or maybe giant) and yes I know shillelagh is for wooden items but its still a material that once was alive. I really like the Hill giant variant of the subclass which is where the shillelagh comes from. I have him set up as a Deception and intimidation type of negotiator, background of gladiator to put forth some of his showmanship and performance, Actor Feat to bolster a little charisma and make him excellent at disguise and throw in Alter Self for him to be an excellent infiltrator. If things go sideways he can always make himself larger and kinda hulk smash his way back out while simultaneously giving warning that things went poorly. Leaning towards twinned spell and extend spell for metamagic, either one could be used with enlarge/reduce making a tagteam of enlarged front line fighter and sorcerer. Some flashy single target spells like Ice knife and Chromatic orb to twin for 'crowd pleasers'. He may not be the smartest fellow but he is cunning and has a strong personality.
Is this the most awesome sorcerer subclass, perhaps not but I think it has some really fun gameplay potential. Hulkulkan will rise up from his life as an arena fighter and embrace the strength that his giant ancestor has granted him. Might try and look at some interesting concepts for the other sub-subclasses.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I do think the Fire Giant option feels the most... meh. I feel like setting enemies on fire or something with their spells would be preferable (maybe modify the save dc based on constitution). Storm feels like it gets 3x more damage from its Ostoria ability since only one of the fire giant ordning spells can hit multiple enemies in a single round (unless a monster runs into the orb).
Ordning spells set the enemies on fire, damage = Con mod (min 1) save dc to put out the flames is equal to 10+Con mod (min 1). Still feels "unspecial" but something should be changed about it.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Looking at the Stone Giant right meow, trying to decide which would be of more interest, a Hill Dwarf or a Mountain Dwarf.
Plus for Hill dwarf is another extra tick of hp per level to go along with the giant soul feature.
Plus for Mountain Dwarf is a significantly increased AC (in conjunction with the Stone Giant perk could lead to some massive spikes in AC). Not to mention a little more Melee potential with the strength.
Currently leaning towards Mountain Dwarf.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Hill Dwarf, Giant soul Sorcerer with Tough feat and 5 con. d6+9 HP per level, lol
The survey is up. Give feedback while you can.
Done and done. I hope I put enough emphasis on the fact that the Fire Giant option is very "unspecial" "meh" "boring" "not fun". I think I may have snuck another phrase in there as well but I cannot recall.
What were other peoples main opinions they shared in the feedback?
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I shared my thoughts on this as well...
I suggested that as a Fire Giant when you cast one of your Ordning Spells you would set the targets on fire. They would then need to take an action to attempt a CON save against your Spell DC to put themselves out or take your CON modifier as damage. Adds some utility as they are forced to use an action on their turn to put themselves out. Might be a bit OP as you could have the entire field on fire at once but they would hit the save eventually and CON saves get easier for creatures as you go up the levels.
Maybe even a boost to their strength = to their constitution bonus for the Fire Giant. The fire giants blood burns like a forge in their heart increasing their strength after they tap into the fire ordning magic. Since most of the effects are instant (Stone giant AC boost) perhaps a flat +2 (or+4) bonus to strength for a number of rounds equal to their con mod.
Might fit well amongst the other options, Movement (Cloud), Health (Frost), Forced movement (Hill), AC (Stone), Damage (Storm), Strength (Fire).
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Dunno how much I like it. I like the modular nature of it, since I think having those kind of options is fitting for a class like the sorcerer. The extra spells are great, but...I'm not too happy with some features being activated when you have to cast one of the said spells.
This is my biggest problem with the subclass. It tries to come off as a Gish option that the Sorcerer has been lacking for a long time now, but isn't built around the idea like Blade Singers and Eldritch Knights are. I mean, this is level 14 we're talking about here, that's a long way into the game for next to no reward. The class, save maybe the Stone option isn't going to go anywhere into melee for any reason unless its a multiclass to begin with.
Well, it is a playtest, and the D&D team is not bashful to mix things up to see what tests well, and what doesn't.
I actually really like the whole concept of the giant-soul sorcerer. I tried to think of the least likely race to pair with this subclass and come up with a way to make it work, and I decided to go with a Kenku! I used the Cloud Giant paradigm, and play-tested the character when a friend DM'd us through the Banquet of the Damned one-shot. It was a lot of fun and worked really well. For those interested in my character's backstory, see below...
SCRATCH-STEP, THE KENKU:
Ages ago, before the fabled giant realm of Ostoria fell, one of Scratch-Step's distant ancestors made his way to the sky-high mountain castle of a Cloud Giant named Solvulfur, thinking that if any beings might possess the knowledge of how to break the Kenku curse that deprived his people of flight, it would be these mighty, magical beings who lived among the clouds. Although Solvufur could not break the curse, he was a good-hearted giant, and he took this Kenku into his service as the keeper of his menagerie of fantastic beasts; through mimicry of their various grunts, growls, and squawks, this Kenku ancestor endeared himself to all the beasts, and the beasts thrived under his care. When Ostoria fell and the giants became scattered and broken, Solvulfur granted a shard of giant power to this Kenku servant in thanks for his years of faithful service. With nowhere else to go, the Kenku and his descendants settled in the region of fallen Ostoria. Thousands of years later, Scratch-Step and his family still lived in the frozen wastes of Sossol (far to the north of Faerûn), the region which had once been Ostoria. When he reached adulthood, Scratch-Step suddenly manifested sorcerous magic whose source was the millennia-old gift imparted by Solvulfur. The gift only manifested once every several generations in his family, so Scratch-Step knew it was not something to be wasted. He decided to leave the familiar comforts of Sossol and travel the world in the hope that he might learn to master his emerging magic, find a way to fly, and perhaps even uncover the secret of breaking the curse for all of his people.
Author of Fellozial's Ultimate Guide to Poison, The Primal Gith, and other forthcoming titles at DMs Guild
Take at least a couple Monk levels with the Hill Giant option and you basically have Ultraman...
I really hope they roll this into whatever book they are planning on putting the Astral Self and Wild Soul in because I want it so bad to be official.
I hope they bring this one back. It wouldn't be a power gamer build by any means, but I'd love to make a bear totem Goliath barbarian that stopped at level 6 and did frost giant soul the rest of the way. Wouldn't need more than 13 charisma, because the main goal would be armor of agathys + rage while wrecklessly extra attacking. Then utility/buff spells mainly.
Aye, would like to do a similar thing but with rune knight instead of barbarian. Downsides are getting resistances only once a short rest and no unarmoured defence for flavour. On the upsides unarmed attacks, can get to size huge without concentration, and can have spells with resistances so if you want to be really nasty you grapple someone with armour of agathys while sticking their head a cloud of daggers blender.
Would love to do it in gestalt game, just so you can still have a decent number of attacks for grappling and level 9 spells for psychic scream, so after getting huge you can let off a mighty bellow that pops heads.