Science Fiction, Science Fantasy, and High Fantasy in Space: Spelljammer

 So, I'm very excited about Spelljammer, but I'll confess that I have some differences in opinion about how to approach fantasy in space. I grew up on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and when I was eight or nine, I discovered Star Wars and became totally obsessed with it (I had a few blessed years before the prequels came out, each of which I convinced myself I liked and then that opinion changed upon reflection).

Spelljammer's approach to space-faring, at least historically (and, given the ship that just straight up looks like a sailing ship in the reveal trailer, probably in 5th Edition as well) is very much based on the idea that this is a fantastical version of space travel. The original creators of the setting were concerned with how to justify people fighting with swords and shields and wearing wizard robes in a sci-fi setting and basically said "well, it's not sci fi. It's just fantasy in space."

For me, though, I really love the idea of combining the technological elements of science fiction with the magic and forces of fate, destiny, gods, and such of fantasy.

Star Wars is obviously the most popular and well-known example of this type of science-fantasy. There are starships that have to be airtight, technological explanations for things like faster-than-light travel (something that, if you read about the physics of hypothetical FTL is way more complicated than it seems intuitively, given the relationship between the speed of light and the nature of time and causality), along with robots and laser blasters. But Star Wars also has a deeply mystical aspect - the Force is this sort of non-anthropomorphic god and even as the average person has no access to anything supernatural, the fate of the galaxy is fundamentally shaped by the supernatural conflict at play and the individuals who stand as representatives of those supernatural forces.

Still, I think a lot of people file Star Wars away as simply science fiction. It's not at all "hard" sci-fi like The Martian or The Expanse, but the mere presence of modern or futuristic technologies disqualifies it from those who define fantasy as an inherently pre-industrial, pre-scientific revolution environment.

And to be fair, the line's blurry - actually I'd argue it's a spectrum rather than discrete categories. Consider Dune, which is one of the biggest classics of science fiction. This one, too, has a sense of broader forces at work steering humanity - but the means are, in theory, not mystical but the result of sociological and technological development. Those prophecies that Paul seems to fulfill on Arrakis were planted in that culture over ten thousand years ago by people who were planning to produce someone like Paul through their deeply creepy breeding programs. But if he (or his son) winds up effectively being that same messianic figure that the Fremen were hoping for, what difference does it make?

In the event (eventuality?) that I run a Spelljammer game, I would want to lean in more toward the sci-fi look and feel. I have a deep love of that genre, but I also have a deep comfort and familiarity with D&D.

And, in all honesty, I think the genre blend that Paizo went for with Starfinder is actually much closer to how I would want to run such a campaign. Starfinder has their default Pathfinder setting, which even in its fantasy RPG involves a bit of planetary romance (the old-school genre of space-faring sci fi like John Carter of Mars,) and imagines a far future in which there's a big historical gap in everyone's memory and the main "Earth"-like planet that serves as Pathfinder's central setting has disappeared and been replaced with a massive mega-city space station.

Starfinder still has magic. The Technomancer is sort of the equivalent of a Wizard while the Mystic is sort of the equivalent of a Cleric (with a bit of Druid thrown in). But most classes instead rely on technology - weapons are more complex, with the upgrading of weapons a major part of player progression (your starting dagger might only do 1d4 damage, but by higher level you'll easily be able to buy a non-magical dagger that deals 4d4 or more). There's a huge variety of guns to choose from, though also plenty of melee weapons (some of which do elemental damage, like a "flame doshko" which is somewhat like a spiked axe whose blades are actually superheated plasma pumped through jets on the hilt).

Starfinder, of course, is not the same system as Pathfinder. They had to rebuild a lot of the game from the ground up to support this more sci-fi setting. There are different classes. There is a conversion guide to transform Pathfinder characters into Starfinder ones (and even if they push for more sci-fi appropriate playable races, there are instructions on how to use fantasy races like elves and dwarves in it).

Spelljammer, by contrast, is still fundamentally part of the same game system as 5th Edition D&D. There's no "computers" skill in Spelljammer, because they want you to be able to use the same character sheet that you have in D&D games.

Honestly, I can see this being an easier way to get people into a game. At least in my game groups, I'm skeptical I'll be able to get people to play Starfinder simply because it require learning a new game system (one that, while similar to D&D, has, for example, a pretty different action economy in combat).

Still, there is a part of me that want WotC to take a page out of Paizo's book and create some alternate rules to handle a truly sci-fi conversion of D&D.

Down By the Darkmoon

 So, I went back to my original character in Elden Ring and beat the ending. While I had gone with the Age of Stars ending on the wretched character (who wound up with a strength/faith build dual-wielding greatswords) and I might have gone with a different one, the truth is that this character was always supposed to be the one that went with that ending.

Indeed, I decided to redo his cosmetic appearance to suggest that as he aligned more with Ranni, his skin turned blue like her doll. He'd always been an Int character, but rather than focusing so much on sorceries, I ultimately had him use the Darkmoon Greatsword and its weapon art, which causes your R2 attacks to toss a pretty massive arc of icy magic damage at the foe.

Unlike on the first character, I did die to Radagon once, and then I died I think twice to the Elden Beast, but it was pretty quick. Malikith took three attempts (though one was purely from me not realizing that when you first enter his arena there's actually a gap between the wall and the floor, and you're just on a little narrow bridge at first, so to dodge an attack I just rolled right off the world.)

Ofnir and Godfrey only took me the one try. Honestly, if you can down Malenia, you're ready to finish the game.

I can't actually remember if other Soulsborne games let you stick to the original playthrough after seeing the ending - I've held off on beating the Soul of Cinder because I wanted to finish the Ringed City, but if I could do so without having to get back through the DLC in New Game +, I'd probably go for it. I went for it in Bloodborne because I had beaten the whole Old Hunters DLC before I went to Gherman and the Moon Presence.

I must say that with Elden Ring they took the weapon arts from Dark Souls III and really made them feel worth it. Really, overall I think Elden Ring is such a fantastic evolution of the Soulsborne formula. I love that the co-op items are easily farmable, rather than being practically finite, and not needing them for NPC allies is great.

I will say though that I would love to see one of these games with NPC quest chains that you don't fail simply for playing too far forward. On this intelligence-based, magic-damage character, I wasn't able to get the Magic Scorpion Charm because I progressed too far in the Ranni quest chain before dealing with the creepy roofie potion he gives you.

As I see it, there's nothing really added to the game by cutting off these quest chains if you get too far ahead of them. I'm totally fine with quests where you need to make a choice - do you give Nepheli Loux the potion? Do you help Sellen or help take her down? (I have no idea why, story-wise, you'd attack Milicent at the end of her quest chain, but it's a choice).

Naturally, one of the refreshing things about Elden Ring in the open world genre is that you don't have a million quest trackers and completion meters to fill up. This isn't like finding all the eagle feathers in Assassin's Creed II. And I think it's fine that things are out of the way and in really obscure locations. I'm just not a fan of "well, you've screwed up this save file" especially in a game where you can't load an older save (not that being able to do so would be an ideal solution).

Given the game's success, I do really wonder if and when we'll get an Elden Ring II - if this is to be the big franchise that takes over now that the Dark Souls trilogy is done. There's a similar level of richness to this setting, and I think tons of potential to explore various mythological phenomena. Like, why the hell is Godwyn's body taking on piscine features? Zullie the Witch has a video that suggests it might tie him to the idea of a Ningyo. These games have always had this sort of interesting cultural lensing - taking a lot of Western imagery and traditions and filtering them through a Japanese cultural context.

Simultaneously, there's a fair amount of Cosmic horror in most of them (obviously Bloodborne most of all) and given George R. R. Martin's role in generating the broad mythos of Elden Ring, Godwyn seems to be transforming into something perhaps akin to his "Drowned God" in A Song of Ice and Fire, which the Iron Islanders worship instead of the Seven or the Old Gods. The Drowned God is, of course, very reminiscent of Cthulhu (or possibly Dagon... which was also a... oh hold on.)

Ok, so Dagon was a patriarchal deity worshipped in ancient Syria. In the early 20th century, archaeologists (likely erroneously) scholars thought that he was linked to a mer-man-like being called Kulullû... which, damn if that doesn't sound like Cthulhu.

Anyway, the form that Godwyn's body takes in the roots of the Erdtree in Deeproot Depths actually looks a lot like these depictions of Kulullû that were erroneously thought to depict Dagon. Godwyn's head has transformed in a far weirder way, seeming to become kind of clam-like in shape.

Godwyn's soul was killed while Ranni's body was - meaning Ranni retains her soul but has to live in that doll (which is not actually based on her appearance, but on Renna the witch. Not to go down the rabbit hole, but I actually think that when we first meet Ranni "masquerading" as Renna at the Church of Elleh, it might actually be Renna, as I feel like Ranni doesn't seem to recognize us when we show up at her tower later).

Anyway, while there is water (oddly white, milky water) in Deeproot Depths, there's not much you'd initially link between Godwyn, Those Who Live in Death (which seem to be undead thanks to Godwyn's soul-dead curse,) and the sort of oceanic motif that he's growing into.

But, in some ways, Godwyn's state brings to mind a certain rhyming couplet from Lovecraft: "That which is dead may eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."

Godwyn sure seems to be lying in a deathly state (though again, his body is not dead - it's his soul that is dead.) The couplet from Lovecraft refers to Cthulhu, and meanwhile Godwyn looks a whole lot like the real-world mythological figure of Kulullû.

So...

Yeah, this is what I love about these games. We don't have any real answers, sure, but we have some really interesting questions.

Stat Generation and Feats in D&D

 Let's talk about the two games I'm currently playing in.

The one that has played far more consistently is set in Exandria. I'm playing a young Triton wizard who, fearing he was too meek and overhearing his beloved step-grandfather describing him that way, ran away with a magic, sentient book that used to be a powerful human archmage in the Age of Arcanum, technically stealing the book from the Cobalt Soul. Vodalos, the wizard, rolled pretty damn well on stats. I got a 17 and a 16, and so, using Tasha's rules to reassign his Triton ability score increases (and since then converting to the updated version of the race from Monsters of the Multiverse) he started off at +4 to Intelligence, +3 to Constitution, +2 to Dexterity and Charisma, +1 to Strength, and -1 to Wisdom (while my metagamey instincts think dumping Wisdom is a terrible idea, I wanted to reflect his naiveté and lack of worldliness - I also almost never roll insight against NPCs.)

The other game I'm in is a Spelljammer campaign - we've only had a handful of sessions in several months, so we're not even level 3 yet. But in this, I play a somewhat gruff artificer who works at the spaceport at Leira Trading Center (a city on the dark side of Toril's moon). By contrast, our DM had us use deterministic ability scores - we could do either point buy or standard array (I used point buy but just wound up with the standard array anyway,) so he's started off with +3 to Int, +2 to Dex and Con, +1 to Wisdom, +0 to Strength, and -1 to Charisma.

So, which way is better?

On my Wizard, it's been very freeing. We're level 4 at this point, and so he's got 20 Intelligence. With that squared away, I'm planning on taking Resilient: Constitution at level 8 - this will give him a +4 to Con and probably free up any future ASIs (at level 12, 16, and 19, should we get there) for feats, as I think +4 is probably plenty of Constitution for a ranged character.

However, there's also an element to it that doesn't feel quite fair - the party has two paladins, who each rolled poorly. We do have a house rule that if your rolled stats are worse than the standard array, you can just take the standard array instead, but this means that these two characters are forced to balance strength, charisma, and constitution (the tiefling seems to have taken the standard racial bonus, and then took Tavern Brawler at level 4, so they still only have a +2 to Strength). Thus, sometimes when I talk about the fun feats I'll take when we get into higher levels, I sometimes get a bit of wistfulness from other party members.

By contrast, while the Spelljammer campaign has barely gotten off the ground so far (we're supposed to play tonight, but I think the last three or four sessions have been canceled day of, so I'm trying to manage expectations) everyone is starting from the same point. The only reason I have a feat is that I'm the variant human in the party - we have two astral elves, a rock gnome, and a plasmoid. But I'm likely to just stick to ASIs as we level up - as I plan on being the group tank, I'm going to want to get my Intelligence and Constitution maxed out, which I could do by level 19. (Though I've been toying with the idea of instead making an Amulet of Health at level 14 and just grabbing feats at levels 12, 16, and 19, which would probably include Tough to make up for the lack of HP - only downside being that I'd be using up one of my infusions).

See, I think feats are more fun than ASIs, but I also have a sort of OCD compulsion to try to get at least my primary stats raised to 20.

As I often do, I'll compare this to the way that Starfinder does feats - it's the only other major, complex, class-based RPG I have the rules for. In Starfinder, feats are ubiquitous. Everyone gets a feat every other level, and several class features grant you feats. Whereas in 5th Edition D&D feats are an optional rule, in Starfinder they're pretty central to the game.

To be fair, though, some feats in Starfinder are very basic elements of the game. For example, every class in that gets a feat that lets them add their level to damage they do in any of the weapons the class is proficient in (numbers in Starfinder get a lot higher than in D&D - having an AC in the 30s is not that unusual). The action economy in Starfinder works quite differently, but you could imagine this as turning any feature that multiple classes get into a feat - essentially, it would be like making it so that all Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Rangers, and Paladins would get the "Extra Attack" feat at level 5, rather than simply making those class features. It does open it up to other classes if they wanted to pick up the feature, though - so your Spores Druid might pick it up so that they could really focus on dealing poison damage with their Shillelagh.

Anyway, the reason I bring up feats is that I think that in D&D, it's a lot easier to consider feats if you roll high stats - because you're trading ASIs to get feats, you'll naturally feel a lot better about spending them if your main stat is already at 20.

With the Standard Array or Point Buy, you can't get any stat higher than 17 (+3) at level 1, which includes your racial (or really now "starting") ability score bonuses, which means that you'll need to spend at least two ASIs if you want to max it out. To get two of these maxed out, you'll need to spend three (or two if you used Point Buy to get two 15s at a severe cost to the rest of your ability scores).

That means five ASIs, which is all of them unless you're a Fighter or Rogue.

So, rolling stats, with the potential to get much higher, makes it less punishing to take feats. But it also creates inequality at the table.

Lots of people have come up with alternate ways to roll stats - adding flat amounts to a 2d6 roll, just simply rolling 3d6 (which is going to generally be lower than what you get in the PHB method,) or the like. But for the purposes of this, I'm going to instead look at a way to make this fair for the whole group.

On Critical Role, the rule they apparently use is that if you roll stats and you get less than a total of 70, you can re-roll. This means that your average ability score should be 11 2/3 or higher. This does ensure that no one gets totally screwed, but it's not going to do better than the standard array, and there's still potential for inequality. Indeed, while you might have a very well-rounded character, if you have 13s in all your ability scores, that's still going to mean a lot of catch-up on the stats that matter most to you.

Ideally, I'd want all the players to have the same average score.

Now, one way to do this is to give players a sort of point buy system, but change the way that the points work and how many they get. In D&D, point buy has diminishing returns for point investment - you need more points to get a higher score. This pushes players to have a more evenly distributed set of scores. But again, if we look at Starfinder, things are done a little differently.

There, I believe everything starts at 10 (though most races have negative score adjustments) and then you spend points in a linear fashion - if you're an android (who gets +2 to Dexterity) and you want to max out your Dex, you can put six more points in with the racial bonus to get to 18. In Starfinder, 18 is the highest you can start any stat out with, but it's actually very useful to start with something at 18 because later ASIs slow down starting at 17. (Like in D&D, the modifier is determined in the same way).

So, let's take the Standard Array and imagine this done in a linear fashion. 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8 translates to a total of 12 points to spend - with the ability to gain up to two extra points by taking a negative 2 to one of your abilities. If we were to say we cap out what you can get with a single stat to 18, that would allow us to make, say, a Barbarian with 18 Strength and 14 Con and 10s in everything else. Or maybe we would take a -2 to Int and get 12 Dexterity.

If we then take our free +2 and +1, we could get a full 20 in Strength from the word go, and maybe give ourselves the +1 to Con so that we can get a +3 at level 4.

Clearly, some classes are going to have an easier time than others. If you're a Rogue, Sorcerer, or Wizard, you can probably stand to just max out your primary stat and then get some decent Constitution and leave most things at 10.

But, then, that's true of any of these systems.

Essentially, this system should allow you to re-create the Standard array, but it makes things more flexible if you want to specialize in certain abilities, at the cost of being less powerful in others. It will also allow a player who is willing to start with +3s to, for example, go for 15s in three stats (say, a Paladin with Strength, Con, and Charisma) and then use the racial/starting bonuses to put those to 16, with three left over to, say, make Strength 18 (or take a minus to something like Intelligence so they can get 18 in Charisma or Constitution as well).

If you want things a bit more randomized, but still fair, you could also do the following:

Everyone in the party rolls stats. Then, you simply take the best stats (determined by who rolls the highest total) and give everyone those values. Alternatively, you could take a hybrid approach to these two methods: everyone rolls, and you see who rolled the highest total. Then, you determine how many flat points that would be and everyone can spend those points as they wish. For example, my Paladin in Curse of Strahd rolled a 10, 7, 10, 17, 16, and 14, meaning she got to start with +4 to Strength and +3 to both Charisma and Constitution (with Scourge Aasimar bonuses). So, this would total out to 14 points to spend. A Rogue might then give themselves 18 in Dexterity and then 14 in Constitution and Wisdom while taking a -2 to, say, Strength (and then maybe max out Dex at level 1 with a +2 and then take +1 to Wisdom so they can grab observant and have amazing passive Perception at level 4). A Ranger could go for 16 Dexterity and 16 Constitution, and then 14 Wisdom, and maybe take a starting bonus of +2 to Wisdom and +1 to Dexterity, perhaps taking Gunner at level 4.

This gives the players the excitement of potentially having highly powerful characters, but doesn't leave anyone behind. And much as the 4d6 drop the lower skews things more powerful than the old school 3d6, but you'll also be selecting the very luckiest roller in the group to set the standard. Of course, this does mean the DM is potentially going to need to throw tougher fights at the party, but they can potentially balance things around that.

Now, this is all operating on the assumption that we want players to feel like they can take feats and have the chance to max out their ability scores. That sort of implies that we think that 5th Edition D&D characters are not powerful enough, which... I don't think is true.

So, there's another change we could make that makes feats more attractive by, instead, making ASIs less appealing.

Again, we're going to borrow an idea from Pathfinder. In Pathfinder, you get ability score improvements at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. But rather than just raising one score by 2 or two by 1, you actually get to raise several scores at once. The key, though, is that if a score is 16 or lower, you get to increase it by 2 (unless it's 15... I don't have the book with me right now). Increasing a score beyond that point, you only raise the score by 1.

The result is that characters will naturally be more well-rounded, with plenty of decent scores, while raising a score to exceptional levels is much harder.

In D&D, we could implement a rule instead where once an ability score is 16, an ASI will only increase it by 1. Thus, to max out a score, you would need to put four full ASIs into it (or I guess 3 if you start with a 17). We'd also, naturally, remove the +1 to ability scores from feats that give those, or perhaps have them only grant that bonus if your score is lower than 16.

Thus, feats by comparison become a lot more appealing. Rather than rawly increasing the modifiers of our rolls, we're now getting more nuanced abilities. We might have a harder time succeeding on a Stealth check, but we might then consider something like Skulker to make those successes more impactful.

Feats are one of those "optional" rules that I've never seen anyone not use, but I also understand how they can make character builds that much more complicated. I'm very curious to see how they're treated in the 2024 PHB - given what we're seeing around the Giant UA and the revised Heroes of Krynn one, I think we might see them implemented as something to make character backgrounds a more impactful decision at character creation.

Giants Need a Mythological Niche in D&D

 Dragons are the most iconic fantasy monster, but between all the outer planes, the legacies of the mind flayers, the influence of the Shadowfell and the Feywild, and all the liches and beholders out there, you'd be forgiven for wondering where all the dragons are in Dungeons & Dragons.

Fizban's Treasury of Dragons actually did something very cool to address that - it gave dragons a really important role in the cosmos of D&D. Bahamut and Tiamat are now credited as the creators of the Prime Material Plane - and dragons are beings most closely tied to the plane. Humanoids are explained as creations of the gods who colonized the prime material.

This addition to the lore works on many levels - it explains why dragons are obsessed with hoarding material goods, even making that a key part of their essential nature, and it also makes the dragons' arrogance make that much more sense as well. Turns out we are, in fact, on their turf. It also creates some explanations for dragons to have a spiritually different experience, marking them as separate from simple monstrosities. Indeed, I've decided that in my games, dragons never go on to the outer planes, but are simply reincarnated on the Prime Material (extending the concept of Dragonsight not only to versions of themselves on other worlds, but also with past incarnations). Bahamut and Tiamat residing in the Outer Planes could thus be explained as a kind of compromise with the gods - and perhaps even create a potential agenda for the dragons operating in the outer planes - indeed, Fizban's even portrays Bahamut and Tiamat being not quite so antagonistic with each other as we might have suspected.

Giants are, arguably, the most prevalent myth in all of human civilization. Dragons are a widespread myth but basically every culture has thought of "people, but bigger." Giants also exist in D&D in a similar manner to dragons - there's a big variety of them.

D&D Giants are clearly inspired primarily by Norse myth. In Norse myth, two of the Nine Realms are populated by giants - Jotunheim has the frost giants, while Muspelheim has the fire giants. Generally I think of Hill Giants as being your classic fairy tale giants - kind of dumb and strong, always trying to eat you or your livestock. Of course, cloud giants fit a bit closer to the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, at least in their choice of home. And then Stone Giants and Storm Giants have somewhat less easily identifiable origins - though for some reason I always imagine Storm Giants having more of a Grecian vibe to them.

What we know about the giants is that they are sort of mystically ordered in a system called the Ordning - there's a clear hierarchy of giants that is part of their culture. Each type of giant has its own god, but there's also Annam, who is god to all the giants.

Giant alignment seems to vary considerably - typically Hill and Frost giants are chaotic evil, while Fire giants are lawful evil. Stone giants are typically True Neutral. Cloud giants are 50/50 neutral good and neutral evil, while Storm giants are typically chaotic good.

Now, first things first: I fully expect these alignments to be less strict in the future. WotC's official policy these days is that stat blocks representing individuals will have a set alignment, but even beings that are born of a particular alignment, like Devils, will be labeled as "typically lawful evil" or the like. This does seem to apply to creatures of free will, such as a Crystal Dragon (typically chaotic neutral). Still, I suspect that giants will be lent a certain flexibility, similarly to how dragons were portrayed in Fizban's (I love the idea of a chaotic good black dragon archaeologist who helps the party uncover a plot by a nagpa to orchestrate the downfall of a nation).

Volo's Guide to Monsters gave us a variant of each of the major giants, though how useful these are and how much they add to the lore varies. The Frost Giant Everlasting One is more of a freak mix of frost giant and dire troll.

I'd love to see a deep dive into the cultures of the different kinds of giants, but I think I'd find it even more exciting to see how they are linked to the cosmic forces of D&D.

It does appear in the recent UA that they're drawing a connection between the elemental forces and the giants. Naturally, fire giants, stone giants, cloud giants, and storm giants all seem deeply connected to one of the four classical elements. The elemental planes are also sort of an interesting contrast to the Outer Planes and the Feywild and Shadowfell. While those ones are largely composed of thoughts, values, and emotions, the Elemental planes are concerned with the physical.

If giants are connected to the elements in a primordial way, that could give them a solid connection to the prime material - indeed, what if dragons were born out of the elements (which would explain their various breath weapons) and that, before the Prime Material Plane, Bahamut and Tiamat came from the Elemental Planes? (This would even work with the 4th Edition World Axis cosmology).

Now, of course, this would fit a lot more neatly if there were four primary giant types, rather than six.

Perhaps the giants are also a key part of the Prime Material Plane - their rivalry with dragons dates back before most can remember, and thus it feels like they should have real stakes.

I'd also be curious to get an explanation for lesser giants like Trolls and Ogres. Were they at one point part of the Ordning?

The giants in the Monster Manual leave a little to be desired. They hit hard, but that's about it. If this Giant UA is hinting at a Fizban's-like book about giants, I'd love to get a greater variety of each of the types of giants. For example, Storm Giants are supposed to be seers and prophets, but don't have any sort of divination magic beyond detect magic. I think it would be cool if we could get maybe a Storm Giant warrior similar to what's in the Monster Manual but also some kind of seer that uses divination in cool ways.

Giants are begging to be fleshed out as a class of creatures, and while this is just one UA, the implications behind it are exciting.

New Giant-themed Unearthed Arcana Brings Subclasses and Feats

 So, last year we got Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, which I thought was a great book with a ton of resources that really made me want to run a dragon-themed campaign. If this UA indicates anything, it seems possible we might get a similar giant-themed book some time in the future.

Giants are, I think after dragons, the most classic fantasy creature. Indeed, basically every culture on earth has giants - which, to be fair, might be because it's not that hard to come up with the idea. What's scarier than a hostile person? How about one who is bigger than your house?

In D&D, of course, the giant creature type covers not only the classical giants (Hill, Frost, Stone, Fire, Cloud, Storm) but also things like Ogres and Trolls. It's a broad and varied type.

Anyway, let's get to the good stuff:

The UA brings us subclasses for three classes, as well as a number of feats. I'm not going to fully transcribe them (here's a link) but I'll sum up and add my thoughts.

    The Barbarians get Path of the Giant, which is pretty straightforward. This is actually my favorite of the subclasses they present, though I'll note that it bears a striking similarity to the Fighter's Rune Knight. Here, when you rage, you grow to Large size (and later Huge) and get an extended reach (first 5 extra feet, and then 10.) Immediately, my mind went to making a Bugbear Polearm Master here to have a melee range of eventually 20 feet.

The subclass also has a cool theme of using thrown weapons - at level 3 you get to add your rage bonus to thrown weapon attacks, and then at 6 you can turn any melee weapon into a sort of elemental weapon that returns to your hand immediately after throwing it, in addition to doing your choice of acid, cold, fire, thunder, or lightning rather than its normal damage.

The most hilariously silly and awesome part of the class is that you can pick up and throw other creatures. They make a Strength save against a DC based on your Strength (or, if it's an ally, they can just let it happen) and you move them to a space within 30 feet. And yes, that can mean off a cliff.

    Druids get Circle of the Primeval. Here, the theme is based more around ancient behemoths like dinosaurs, or potentially wooly mammoths and other megafauna. Mechanically, the primary theme here is that you get a pet you can summon using your Wild Shape charges. The pet is fairly tanky. At higher levels, you can sink spell slots into summoning the companion to super-charge it, giving it extra damage, temp hit points, and a faster speed.

The notion of a druid summoning a giant beast is totally in-flavor, but I feel like this one is a little underbaked. Sure, Druids have plenty going on anyway, so maybe a subclass doesn't need to be all that complex, but I guess for me I'm just not quite as excited about this one.

    Wizards, then, get Rune Crafter. This subclass allows them to empower spells they cast with different runic effects. The effects here are things that I feel I'd have to see in play to really be able to get a sense of their worth.

Essentially, you're getting to add effects onto your leveled spells based on the level of the slot you expend. One nice alternate use you get for your rune charges is at level 6, when you can expend runes to turn a failed Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution saving throw into a success. The fact that this isn't just a chance to reroll but full-on makes it a success is pretty great - you could use this a bit like an Artificer's Mind Sharpener to make sure you never drop concentration on an important spell.

    Moving on, we have Feats.

Several of these feats are themed around the various True Giants. I particularly like Ember of the Fire Giant, which gives you fire resistance and allows you to replace one of your attacks with a burst of fire damage to creatures around you.

Runecarver Apprentice allows you to carve runes on items that give you a particular spell you can cast for a day. This is also a prerequisite for Runecarver Adept, which gives you more uses of these spells.

It does look like we're getting some iteration on feats - giving feats level requirements and sometimes having "feat trees" with prerequisites.

I'm very curious to see how feats are treated in the 2024 PHB - as 5th edition stands, feats are very costly to take, so I think it's unusual for a player to take more than one or two. On the other hand, this also makes building a character a less difficult thing to do.

Some of the lore text found in this document hints at some interesting things: beyond giants, there's discussion of titans and behemoths. I really feel like this could be a hint that we're getting some book in the future that's all about big, big things.

Mors Exponential Tokens

 Ok, I wrote earlier about a theoretical deck I wanted to make. Well, now I have. This deck takes advantage of the power of exponential growth, building up a small army of tokens that gets very, very big very, very fast.

It doesn't actually use Scute Swarm anymore, because while that's a great option in a ramp-heavy landfall deck, it doesn't play as synergistically with our other options.

The MVP of this deck is Rabble Rousing. This white enchantment for 4W gives you a white and green 1/1 citizen token for each creature you control that attacks. So, say you have two tokens out - now you get two more when those two attack. This includes any creatures you have that are attacking, so it could be your Prosperous Innkeeper or, most importantly, the very citizens that the enchantment created. If the opponent isn't killing the tokens, you've got a re-doubling army every turn, which can get out of hand very quickly.

Given how many creatures we're summoning, Prosperous Innkeeper is a very useful part of our deck. Even though it focuses on small creatures, this deck does take a little while to get set up. When all that exponentially-growing mob is coming into play each turn, we're getting a lot of life back from our Innkeeper, which helps us sustain. However, the treasure token the Innkeeper brings shouldn't be ignored - that will help us get the five mana we need without necessarily having to get to turn 5 (and get land drops on all of them).

Devilish Valet here is, I think, usually icing on the cake. If we get a token army and Rabble Rousing out, this guy is an utter menace - exponential upon exponential. If we have five tokens and we swing in with this thing, that means six more tokens, which means doubling the Valet's power six times, or 64 power if we're just starting at 1. Still, the Valet can potentially win the game for us even if the opponent has gone wide, thanks to his trample.

Jetmir, Nexus of Revels is actually a pretty strong part of the deck. While he doesn't really get insanely powerful until you have ten guys on the board, which even this deck only sometimes gets, getting up to six is not that difficult, and that means everyone getting +2/+0 along with vigilance and, importantly, trample. (Ten adds one more power and then double strike, and at that point you're basically winning immediately.) Jetmir is actually a great option for the Hideaway feature of Rabble Rousing, because when it triggers, you'll be getting Jetmir at his full power (the only downside is that you potentially warn your opponent - though if you have five creatures on the board when you plunk down Rabble Rousing with a Hideaway Jetmir, you can get it all in one turn. Even if they're only 1/1 tokens, with that play, you'll have five 4/1 double-strikers, which is 40 trampling damage that the opponent will have to deal with. And while an opponent should be nervous to see five creatures of any sort on the opponent's side of the board, they might not expect this massive of a threat.)

Wedding Invitation is naturally pretty useful here, pumping out tokens or potentially drawing you cards, and then paying off with an anthem effect that is always very good in go-wide decks.

We're actually going to get use of all three of the options of Cabaretti Charm - the direct damage can be crucial to destroy big threats, the creature pump (and again, importantly, giving them all trample) is great as a finishing move, and the token generation can be useful either to recover from a board wipe or to help enable Jetmir or the Devilish Valet.

So, lets talk about the deck's weaknesses.

The first is that it is extremely vulnerable to board wipes. Meathook Massacre usually doesn't have to be cast at a particularly high value for X to take out everything we have. Farewell (which, honestly, I think is a BS card) is a nightmare here, as it can also take out Rabble Rousing (there's another wiper from I want to say Strixhaven that takes out all nonland permanents that totally screw us).

This is also a bit of a feast or famine deck (which, to be fair, might just be the nature of the game). Ideally you'll be able to grow a big army and then swarm them down. But super-fast aggro decks might be hard to defend against, while permission decks will keep any of your best cards from ever actually hitting the table. The deck is a bit reliant on Rabble Rousing, and that enchantment is only useful if you also have some things in play.

Still, the strengths I think are that you can sometimes pull a victory from the jaws of defeat. Even without the crazy exponential possibilities of Rabble Rousing and Devilish Valet, you can catch a cocky foe off guard with cards like Jetmir and the group-pump of Cabaretti Charm.

Some of the cards in the deck that are kind of just filling slots here are Felidar Retreat (which might be a holdover from when we were doing more of a landfall thing) or Gala Greeters, which certainly benefit from all the creatures coming into play but might be too limited to really benefit from the huge number of tokens we're making. I'm also considering playing a bit with the lands - right now I have the Cabaretti "triome" lands and the pathways, but I might throw in some of the Innistrad dual lands as well to smooth things a bit.

Nuances and Considerations for the Monsters of the Multiverse Changes

 Monsters of the Multiverse, originally packaged with the Rules Expansion Box Set (which includes Xanathar's and Tasha's) is now available for individual purchase. The book is basically a revision and consolidation of the playable races and monster stat blocks from Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, along with a few races brought in from campaign setting books.

Some of the changes simply bring the races in line with new design philosophies - both in de-coupling ability score bonuses from race as well as presenting more nuanced race identities that are not bound to any particular moral alignment.

Monsters in the book have also been given revisions, the intent to make them more easily run in combat by DMs (particularly spellcasters) and also to bring the monsters better in line with their challenge ratings - many monsters have gotten more damage per round or have more hit points.

There are two broad changes that I've seen pointed out that will certainly make these monsters harder, and in ways that might seem to nerf certain player options.

First, let's address spellcasting.

Spellcasting NPC and monster stat blocks have been changed to give them a simpler means of dealing damage. Rather than having a whole array of spell slots and spells prepared or known that they can cast, most of these blocks primarily use a certain repeatable ability, often as a sort of multiattack spell attack.

As an example, the Archdruid, rather than simply having a lot of classic druid spells prepared and spell slots up to 9th level with which to cast them, now gets three attacks with either the "Wildfire" spell attack or a Staff weapon attack, and the option to cast one of their spells in place of an attack. Wildfire does 26 fire damage to a target it hits and blinds them for a round, and the staff does its normal bludgeoning but also adds 21 poison damage. These attacks are thus going to be the archdruid's main source of damage rather than spending spell slots on things like firestorm, sunbeam, or wall of fire.

From a DM's perspective, this is very appealing - these attacks do enough damage to make this CR 12 NPC feel like a real threat (or powerful ally for the party) but you won't have to keep a running tally of how many spell slots you've spent and whether to upcast something while you're running several other monsters at the same time.

Where I think this skews things, though, is on the player side.

First off, the obvious issue is Counterspell. While Wildfire and similar abilities are Spell Attacks, I don't believe this counts as "casting a spell." If the party Wizard has picked up counterspell as a major means of helping to protect the party, that spell just got a lot less powerful. Now, I'll concede that that might be intentional - counterspell can be a very frustrating spell, especially if you're running some spellcaster big bad and every turn they basically can't do anything because the party is countering everything. A lich ought to feel really scary and not someone who can get punked by a nearby sorcerer who's always keeping their reaction ready.

However, the odder consequence is how this shifts the power of AC versus saving throws. If (as our example) the Archdruid is using Wildfire in place of Firestorm or Sunbeam, this suddenly makes heavily-armored players a lot stronger. My poor 7-dexterity paladin is going to repeatedly get fried by Firestorm (good thing she has aura of protection!) but if she gets full plate (which, if we ever continue that campaign and get back from the Amber Temple, she should have the gold to buy it) she's going to be in much more decent shape.

Not everything has been made into an attack, mind you, but it does look like most spellcasters really have leaned that way. My Eldritch Knight, who can cast Shield to put his AC at 27, would be even more of a terror.

Another odd consequence of this plays into a subtle change with a lot of playable races - many "magic resistance" traits now specifically only apply to spells, rather than "spells and other magical effects." Your Yuan-Ti Pureblood, now simply a Yuan-Ti (which... yeah, that's probably for the best) now only gets advantage on saves against spells. Thus, if hit by an NPC Bard's "Cacophony" ability, they would not have advantage, even though the ability is identical to the spell Thunderwave, against which they would have advantage.

There are some of these caster stat blocks that do still use damaging spells, but typically their "spellcasting" action is focused more on utility.

The upshot of all of this is that I, as a DM, feel way more comfortable putting spellcasters into combat encounters I design. But it does change the landscape a bit, and takes some of the tools player characters use to defend against spellcasters away.

The other change of note is something of a nerf to non-Bear Totem Barbarians.

Many powerful monsters, rather than having weapons that do magical slashing, bludgeoning, or piercing damage, a lot of them instead simply do force damage.

As an example, a Green Abishai's Claw attack did slashing damage in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, but with a trait that explains that the weapon attacks are magical (in case the Abishai is attacking some other creature or maybe your party has Stoneskin or something up). Now, however, the attack does Force damage. This means that the whole magic/non-magic distinction is irrelevant, but it also means that your Barbarian won't be able to tank that damage as effectively - it'll be going fully through.

I recently ran a boss that used Zuggtmoy's stat block, using the new one, and the Barbarian was taking full damage on all those pseudopod hits (well, not fully full because the party had a Heroes' Feast, so the poison damage was ignored).

Ironically, this makes the Brooch of Shielding a very powerful item at high levels.

I'm very curious to see how these philosophical shifts will be reflected moving forward - and indeed, if we'll see some iteration on them. We're still two years away from the updated core books, and who knows what new nuances might be introduced in those? Perhaps all Barbarian rages will give the Bear Totem effect, and this damage type change won't mean much. We'll have to wait and see.