D&D: Bigby’s New Feats are a Giant Leap in the Right Direction
The new feats in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants are some of the best things the book has to offer. An exciting leap into new territory.
One of the best things players will find in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants is the handful of new feats. It’s a rare treat for both spellcasters and characters who rely on weapons. But what makes these feats feel so exciting is the new territory they leap wholeheartedly into.
Because each of these feats adds an extra dimension to the character taking them. These feats, on both sides, feel like the kind of custom expansion feats should be doing. It’s not just that they add an extra bit of damage, they all do something interesting.
Strikes of the Giants
Let’s start with the feats available to characters with Martial Weapon Proficiency. This feat tree starts with Strike of the Giants, a feat that lets you imbue an extra effect into a melee or thrown weapon attack once per turn. Right away, this is a great idea.
Unlike, say, a Dragonborn’s Breath Weapon, these are always added on to doing the thing that you’ll already be doing. A Fighter isn’t giving up potentially two or three attacks to use Strike of the Giants. And that structure permeates throughout the rest of the feat tree. Strike of the Giants starts with a choice of Giant type:
- Cloud
- Fire
- Frost
- Hill
- Stone
- Storm
And each adds an extra 1d4, 1d6, or 1d10 damage and, in the case of the lesser damage dice, another effect like, throwing an enemy back ten feet, or reducing their speed to 0 until the start of your next turn.
But it builds from there. As early as 4th level, which isn’t very far off at all, players with Strike of the Giants can take a feat to deepen their connection to whatever Giant Strike they took previously. Each one of these is a “half-feat” meaning they let you increase one ability score by 1, to a maximum of 20, in addition to granting you extra capabilities.
And again, we see that these feats don’t compete for your primary Action. Ember of the Fire Giant, for instance, lets you replace an attack in your Attack action with a magical burst of flame that deals explosive damage to creatures of your choice in a 15-foot radius sphere. Soul of the Storm Giant lets you surround yourself with a protective aura as a bonus action.
They’re fantastic ways to add unexpected abilities to your character.
Rune Shaper
Meanwhile, spellcasters get the Rune Shaper feat. This grants you the Comprehend Languages spell which you can cast for free once per long rest, which is about as often as you’d ever cast that spell. But you also learn a number of runes (half your proficiency bonus rounded down, to be exact).
At the end of every long rest, you can inscribe each rune you know onto a nonmagical piece of gear, and temporarily gain access to 1st-level spells associated with that rune. For instance, the Dragon Rune gives you access to Chromatic Orb. You can cast that spell once per long rest for free, using a spellcasting ability of your choice, and you can also cast that spell with your own spell slot.
It’s nothing super fancy, but having the ability to create a custom list of bonus spells that grow with your character is a cool way to add to an existing character.
What do you think of Bigby’s new feats?
