If you've only played with the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons 2014 Player's Handbook, you might ꧅not be familiar at all with goliaths. That's because they weren't introduced until the sourcebook Volo's Guide To Monsters was launched two whole years later.

Thanks to the 2024 Player's Handbook, a lot more people are going to be intro🔴duced to goliaths. But, of course, that leads to the questions of what a goliath even is, and how do you build one to be your character. Tಞhis guide will answer these questions as well as give some ideas for what direction to take these larger-than-life humanoids in.

What Is A Goliath?

The ancestry of a goliath is very important, and is a major focus in the 2024 Player's handbook. It's not just important for backstory, but also a crucial decision you need to make when making a goliath.

Goliaths are the descendants of various types of giants. There are six of these ancestries in total that are referenced in the 2024 Player's Handbook.

• Cloud
• Fire
• Frost
• Hill
• Stone
• Storm

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Each of these giants has their own appearance, their own strengths and weaknesses, and they have passed down impressive portions of themselves to all of the giants and goliaths that have come after. However, it is worth noting that while they have inherited a great deal from their powerful family lines, they do not feel bound to carry the same grudges and disagreements that their giant-kin had or still have.

Goliath Traits

Goliaths have three unique traits. Which does mean that they suffer the same 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:vision difficulties as humans and some other species when it comes to traversing in dim light and darkness as, unfortunately, they don't receive Darkvision. However, if you were playing a goliath using Volo's Guide To Monsters or Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse, that's not a new development.

Matching the different types of giants your character can be descended from, you choose from those six options and that becomes your ancestry. When you do pick one, you are given a boon that you can use a number of times eq✃ual to your🙈 proficiency bonus.

The options are:

Once you pick one of these options, while you can use that boon multiple times, you do not change the boon, or your ancestry, again. So you'll want to think about the type of character you want to play before making your choice.

For instance, if you know that you will be functioning as a tank, protecting a party of characters that have fewer hit points and a lower Armor Class (AC), then Stone's Endurance might be a good path for you.

Or, you can also pay less attention to what these options are if you want to pick based on your backstory instead. Perhaps you already know that your family is descended from fire giants, you can now use your family's boon to deal extra fire damage.

Once you have that picked and settled, you will also gain your Powerful Build trait right away. It says that you can roll with advantage to end a grapple effect. However, it doesn't say this is to stop a grapple from happening in the first place. You can check with your Dungeon Master (DM) to see how they interpret the ruliܫng.

Anytime you are unclear on a rule or option, consult your DM. They will make the final determination or may ꦿwork with you to bend or stray away from cꦉertain rules altogether.

Powerful Build also has you count as being a size larger when it comes to your carrying capacity. If your DM uses over-encumbrance, this will be very helpful when traveling without any storage or safe-keeping options. Not to mention if you have to carry a party member around for any reason.

Then, when your character reaches their fifth level, they gain access to the Large Form trait. As long as you're in a big enough space to accommodate it, you will grow 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a size larger. This gives you advantage on any of your Strength checks as well as ten additional feet of movement. This transformation lasts for ten minutes or until you decide to end the effect as a free action. Once you do this, you can't do it again until you finish a long rest.

Without any spells affecting these stats, you start as a medium humanoid with 35 feet of movement. This trait would let you become a large humanoid with 45 feet of movement. There are a number of reasons for wanting to chꦫange your size, such as trying to grapple a large creature. And tꦇhere's rarely ever a time being faster won't be more beneficial.

Want to be even bigger? Either cast on yourself or have an ally cast Enlarge/Reduce on you. Want to be faster? Cast Longstrider on yourself or have an ally cast it on you. If Longstrider isn't available, consider Haste instead.

Which Class Should You Consider?

Goliaths are built to be offensive threats and defensive walls thanks to the combination of all of their traits. You won't go wrong with a martial class, such as a barbarian or a fighter.

However, there are some classes that can have their weaknesses smoothed over if you decide to play as a goliath. A wizard is a good example. One of a wizards greatest weaknesses is their health pool. You've probably seen a meme or two joking about a wizard dying from a rat bite. We🎀ll, it's a reality when w꧑izards are at low levels.

But a wizard that gets to use Stone's Endurance to reduce their damage taken? Well, now you are less of a glass cannon and more like a cardstock cannon. You'd still have to be careful as you can only use one reaction per turn (without any abilities or items), but this would give you a lot more in terms of survivability.

A ranger with Hill's Tumble can set up for your martial teammates to just batter a prone enemy, giving them advantage on their attacks while the target stays prone.

There are really two ways to go about picking a class after you've decided you want to play a goliath. How can your boon help you best? That is the example of the wizard, now able to reduce some of the damage coming their way. The other is, how can your boon help your party? Which is the example of the ranger.

Differences In The 2024 Player's Handbook

Goliaths were not featured in the 2014 Player's Handbook, and so are now a base species you can pick, without any supplemental sourcebooks. However, goliaths were featured in other official Fifth Edition books which were mentioned above.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:In Volo's Guide To Monsters, goliaths had 30 feet of movement instead of 35 and had four traits. Powerful Build and Stone's Endurance were among them. The reason that you'd get Stone's Endurance is because there was no picking your ancestry; all goliaths got the same thing.

The other two were Natural Athlete, which gave you advantage on all Athletics checks, and Mountain Born, which...didn't do a whole lot at the time outside of situational settings. You were acclimated to altitudes of 20,000 feet or higher as well as cold weather.

In Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse, Mountain Born at least gave you resistance to cold damage while maintaining the whole altitude thing. And, sticking with Mordendainen's book, the other change was that Natural Athlete and Powerful Build were combined into a trait called Little Giant.

Flash forward to the 2024 Player's Handbook and Little Giant was dismantled. Powerful Build returned in name, but now with that ability to gain advantage to end grapples as well as be considered a size larger for carrying purposes.