Note, if your DM approves you can take the Giant Foundling Background to get access to the Strike of the Giant's feat at level 1. We chose to gain the feat through Custom Lineage instead, as we know some DMs will not approve of the Giant Foundling Background. We believe the build is still incredibly fun and viable without the background and hope you enjoy!
What race would you recommend if take the background? Would you take custom lineage and get the second feat to start or would there be a better option?
We were TPKd so we got to build new 9th Lvl PCs. I built the following Race: Hexblood (Annis Hag/ Goliath) Class: 6 Lvl Rune Knight/ 3 Lvl of Beast Barbarian I took the Superior Technique fighting style for Menacing And i took the Rune Carver Background. My Rune Style is the metal needle for tattoos And I gained the Rune Shaper feat with the background as well. Even though I dumped INT amd WIS there are still some spells that I can invoke And I took the Eldritch Claw tattoo
This is non-optimal, but I would take additional feats with the next two ASI levels 1- Magic Initiate (Warlock) for Armor of Agathys, Frostbite, and (personally) Prestidigitation (so I can chill things that I touch) 2- Eldritch Adept: Tomb of Levistus Just a couple of feats to really lean into some additional cold
I definitely agree with picking up Armor of Agathys. It's a staple for this type of character concept, though I'd personally pair it with a spellcasting class of some kind since it loses a lot of punch if you can't upcast it. Any Warlock, Conquest Paladin, or Clockwork Soul Sorcerer (they can swap out one of their first level Clockwork Magic spells for Armor of Agathys upon leveling up) are good ones. Or any kind of caster with the Mark of Warding Dwarf lineage if you are in an Eberron campaign. Also, as a side note, you can't take Tomb of Levistus with the Eldritch Adept feat without multiclassing into Warlock. The feat specifies that if the invocation has a prerequisite of any kind, you need to be a Warlock who meets the prerequisite. Granted, Tomb of Levistus has a prerequisite of being level 5, but it doesn't specify that all of those levels have to be Warlock, so you can pick up the invocation with Eldritch Adept so long as you are at least level 5 and at least one of those levels is Warlock.
@@CivilWarManunfortunately the section where warlock class talks about invocations, it does say that prerequisite levels refer to your level in the class. Only a character with 5 or more levels in warlock could take tomb of levistus.
@@Sedr1s I stand corrected on that last part. I remembered the part of Eldritch Adept where any prerequisite meant you needed to be a Warlock who meets it, but I forgot about the clause under invocations that specified that a level prerequisite was for Warlock levels and not total levels.
A cool backstory trait that can allow you to make this build even better is to go with the Wildspacer background. Not only does it give you Tough for free, but it can be flavored as your character unconsciously floating through the cold vacuum of space until eventually encountering a giant deity who was enraged at your presence and sent you collapsing into the world of your campaign.
With the frosty feats. My brain is saying Armor of Agathys. You could almost pull a Loki theme. Where instead of the tricks and mischief. You lean into the giant side. And get real frosty. Lol ☕️ ☕️
There's another feat from glory of giants that gives you armor of agathys on any spellcaster. It can also get you sanctuary, I was thinking an abjuration wizard would be interested with that.
Would be really cool to ad a Gift if Chromatic Dragon feat, so he could add 1d6 more cold damage. + Resistance to the rest of elemental damage incredible for a barb!(non-bear totem). I feel like Storm Herald Tundra would be more in theme, but i guess there will be overlaps. Cool video! Try to make a true-detective inquisitive rogue!
I would go at least 1 level into Marid Genie Warlock so every turn one of the attacks deals proficiency bonus in extra cold damage. With Armor of Agathys, just getting hit will deal cold damage to your attacker. My Mark of Warding Dwarf Armorer Abjuration tank already does this with Agathys and Arcane Ward, while adding Giant Foundling and a single lvl dip into Marid Genie Lock would ratchet up the cold damage, for 4d8 (+4d8 if the target moves) Thunder plus 1d6+Pro Cold at level 17, with another 40 Cold if they get hit.
Curious? Why did you go Fighter/Barb instead of the more obvious Fighter/Warlock? Did you want to specifically get a magical flavor without any casting, or some other reason?
The reasoning we were going with is a feature that limits movement pairs well with a tanking feature, like the ancestral guardians barbarian. Warlock would be right up there too, and also perfectly viable, just a design choice 👍
The build I'd go with is a Paladin 7 or 8 with the rest in Pact of the Blade Fathomless Warlock. Primary is Strength and Charisma, with a secondary focus on Constitution. Paladin 8/Warlock 12 for the final level breakdown if I need the additional ASI, Paladin 7/Warlock 13 if I have my feats and ASIs covered for the 7th level Mystic Arcanum. Lineage is really flexible. Custom Lineage or Variant Human if you can't take the Giant Foundling Background, pretty much anything else if you can take it. For my concept, I'm going with Duergar with the Giant Foundling Background, since Duergar's innate ability to cast Enlarge gives them the most Giant-themed energy in my view without its features also overlapping with what I'm picking up through classes. Plus Poison Resistance and better Darkvision is really useful. Paladin Oath is also really flexible. I went with Oath of Conquest since they automatically get Armor of Agathys prepared, which is almost a must-have for a heavily armored cold-themed character. Their ability to stop enemies' movement through fear also feels appropriate alongside the Frost Giant feats' ability to stop enemies' movement through cold. Barring that, I'd suggest Watchers as an alternate Oath for anyone who doesn't want to go Conquest. Fathomless Warlock is the real lynchpin that brings the cold theme from the Frost Giant feats together, though. The Tentacle of the Deeps does Cold damage, Warlocks get Armor of Agathys if a Paladin Oath other than Conquest is picked, Fathomless also gets resistance to Cold damage, and the Tentacle gains the ability to intercept damage through Guardian Coil, which will help Armor of Agathys last longer. Fathomless Warlocks also get Sleet Storm and Cone of Cold in their spell list, and Warlocks as a baseline also get access to Hunger of Hadar and Spirit Shroud for more Cold-themed stuff on top of Armor of Agathys.
Would a Swashbuckler Rougue and a Hexblade warlock multicalss be good? I've been looking at it for my next campaign, but I'm unsure how to implement each aspect of their respective kits. A comment back or even a video about this multiclass would be awesome. Have any thoughts?
Would be great to have a couple of thematic ice spells for when the enemy is beyond reach [and you're not raging obvs]. you could keep your stats the same and either take Magic Initiate-Druid, 1+ level of druid, or 2+ levels of ranger w/ the druidic warrior fighting style for ray of frost and shape water. Alternatively, Levistus tiefling would get you both Ray of frost and a 2nd level casting of Armor of Agathys, as well as fire resistance because you are that cold. You may want to switch your wisdom for cha though in that case since that's its casting stat. If you want to get some more ice features with a cha investment, fathomless warlock 5 gets you a bonus action cold attack, sleet storm, gust of wind, and at 5 tome of levistus reaction for when you're about to be hit way too hard. You could go tome pact for ray of frost and shape water and select a different species than levistus tiefling as well.
Levistus trifling would work great, especially if your DM allows the Giant Foundling background to pick up the Strike of the Giants feature at level 1 without Custom Lineage
TAZER FACE! The ultimate crowd control build. Tazer Breath weapon and so much more. Dex and Wis build, middling Int for Mystic dip. Str, Con, and Cha are irrelevant. Start with Ranger to maximize weapon skills and minimalize multiclass requirements. Bugbear Long Limbed, Stealthy, Suprise Attack Ranger/Hunter 3 Tunnel Fighter, Horde Breaker, Deft Explorer Mystic/Immortal 1 Storm Mastery, Giant Growth, Beastial Form Cleric/Tempest 6 Thunderbolt Strike Monk/ Ascendent Dragon 10 Breath of The Dragon, Draconic Disciple All lightning damage causes a Tazer like effect. Thunderbolt Strike, all lightning damage pushes target 10 feet away(up is away), resulting in falling prone and taking 1d6 bludgeoning damage. Draconic Discipline gives all unarmed attacks Lightning damage. Breath weapon attacks are all Lightning Damage.(upto 17 of them between rests) Find/make a spear with lightning damage. The Spear is a monk weapon that counts as a polearm. Tunnel Fighter and Polearm Master permit use of the Spear for more attacks on incoming targets. Sentinel causes all targets of opportunity attacks to have 0 movement, on top of being knocked prone by Thunderbolt Strike. Horde Breaker provides an extra base attack when facing multiple opponents. Mystic with Giant Growth gives +5 reach passive, and upto 2 mins of Ogre Form for an additional +5 reach. Beastial Form could alternatively provide upto 2 hours of Beast Hide for +2AC. Storm Mastery is a little more lightning flavor. If Mystic isn't allowed go with level 4 Ranger/Primeval Guardian instead of Hunter, for the +5 reach, but no Horde Breaker extra attack. Call Lightning to chase around little clusters of enemies? Tunnel Fighter and Sentinel to hold back the waves of enemies? Toe to toe with the big guy and landing lots of hits? Blasting away with upto 17 breath weapon attacks in a day? Watching a squad of enemies get tazed 17 times in a row would be fucking hilarious.
CHALLENGE Mortarion from warhammer 40k, or some other primarch if you don't like him. New giants book seems ok to me but not interesting at all; reading Fizban or Tasha i could feel that new stuff was necessary and cool and added something that was missing in the game, honestly Bigby seems to me some random stuff that i prefer to just ignore because makes the game just more dispersive, seems to me like a boring hombrew, maybe i'll change my mind in time.
Note, if your DM approves you can take the Giant Foundling Background to get access to the Strike of the Giant's feat at level 1. We chose to gain the feat through Custom Lineage instead, as we know some DMs will not approve of the Giant Foundling Background. We believe the build is still incredibly fun and viable without the background and hope you enjoy!
What race would you recommend if take the background? Would you take custom lineage and get the second feat to start or would there be a better option?
We were TPKd so we got to build new 9th Lvl PCs. I built the following
Race: Hexblood (Annis Hag/ Goliath)
Class: 6 Lvl Rune Knight/ 3 Lvl of Beast Barbarian
I took the Superior Technique fighting style for Menacing
And i took the Rune Carver Background. My Rune Style is the metal needle for tattoos
And I gained the Rune Shaper feat with the background as well.
Even though I dumped INT amd WIS there are still some spells that I can invoke
And I took the Eldritch Claw tattoo
This is non-optimal, but I would take additional feats with the next two ASI levels
1- Magic Initiate (Warlock) for Armor of Agathys, Frostbite, and (personally) Prestidigitation (so I can chill things that I touch)
2- Eldritch Adept: Tomb of Levistus
Just a couple of feats to really lean into some additional cold
I definitely agree with picking up Armor of Agathys. It's a staple for this type of character concept, though I'd personally pair it with a spellcasting class of some kind since it loses a lot of punch if you can't upcast it. Any Warlock, Conquest Paladin, or Clockwork Soul Sorcerer (they can swap out one of their first level Clockwork Magic spells for Armor of Agathys upon leveling up) are good ones. Or any kind of caster with the Mark of Warding Dwarf lineage if you are in an Eberron campaign.
Also, as a side note, you can't take Tomb of Levistus with the Eldritch Adept feat without multiclassing into Warlock. The feat specifies that if the invocation has a prerequisite of any kind, you need to be a Warlock who meets the prerequisite. Granted, Tomb of Levistus has a prerequisite of being level 5, but it doesn't specify that all of those levels have to be Warlock, so you can pick up the invocation with Eldritch Adept so long as you are at least level 5 and at least one of those levels is Warlock.
@@CivilWarManunfortunately the section where warlock class talks about invocations, it does say that prerequisite levels refer to your level in the class. Only a character with 5 or more levels in warlock could take tomb of levistus.
@@Sedr1s I stand corrected on that last part. I remembered the part of Eldritch Adept where any prerequisite meant you needed to be a Warlock who meets it, but I forgot about the clause under invocations that specified that a level prerequisite was for Warlock levels and not total levels.
Or maybe just multiclass Fighter or Barbarian and Warlock?
A cool backstory trait that can allow you to make this build even better is to go with the Wildspacer background. Not only does it give you Tough for free, but it can be flavored as your character unconsciously floating through the cold vacuum of space until eventually encountering a giant deity who was enraged at your presence and sent you collapsing into the world of your campaign.
This build feels so much like Sentinel/Polearm master at home, I love it!!!
Awesome build! What about a pyro knight? It would be cool to see a different build for each type of giant, all with different playstyles.
could you try to make a build that revolves around the pseudodragon?
We'll add it to our list!
With the frosty feats. My brain is saying Armor of Agathys.
You could almost pull a Loki theme. Where instead of the tricks and mischief. You lean into the giant side. And get real frosty. Lol
☕️ ☕️
There's another feat from glory of giants that gives you armor of agathys on any spellcaster. It can also get you sanctuary, I was thinking an abjuration wizard would be interested with that.
Oh we're working on it 👍
This is also a sick boss build for an ancient ice dungeon / temple
Would be really cool to ad a Gift if Chromatic Dragon feat, so he could add 1d6 more cold damage. + Resistance to the rest of elemental damage incredible for a barb!(non-bear totem). I feel like Storm Herald Tundra would be more in theme, but i guess there will be overlaps. Cool video! Try to make a true-detective inquisitive rogue!
Glory of the Giants flew over my head....
But it sounds like a great fit to my Oath of the Frostguard Paladin 👀👀
I would go at least 1 level into Marid Genie Warlock so every turn one of the attacks deals proficiency bonus in extra cold damage. With Armor of Agathys, just getting hit will deal cold damage to your attacker. My Mark of Warding Dwarf Armorer Abjuration tank already does this with Agathys and Arcane Ward, while adding Giant Foundling and a single lvl dip into Marid Genie Lock would ratchet up the cold damage, for 4d8 (+4d8 if the target moves) Thunder plus 1d6+Pro Cold at level 17, with another 40 Cold if they get hit.
Curious? Why did you go Fighter/Barb instead of the more obvious Fighter/Warlock? Did you want to specifically get a magical flavor without any casting, or some other reason?
The reasoning we were going with is a feature that limits movement pairs well with a tanking feature, like the ancestral guardians barbarian. Warlock would be right up there too, and also perfectly viable, just a design choice 👍
The build I'd go with is a Paladin 7 or 8 with the rest in Pact of the Blade Fathomless Warlock. Primary is Strength and Charisma, with a secondary focus on Constitution. Paladin 8/Warlock 12 for the final level breakdown if I need the additional ASI, Paladin 7/Warlock 13 if I have my feats and ASIs covered for the 7th level Mystic Arcanum.
Lineage is really flexible. Custom Lineage or Variant Human if you can't take the Giant Foundling Background, pretty much anything else if you can take it. For my concept, I'm going with Duergar with the Giant Foundling Background, since Duergar's innate ability to cast Enlarge gives them the most Giant-themed energy in my view without its features also overlapping with what I'm picking up through classes. Plus Poison Resistance and better Darkvision is really useful.
Paladin Oath is also really flexible. I went with Oath of Conquest since they automatically get Armor of Agathys prepared, which is almost a must-have for a heavily armored cold-themed character. Their ability to stop enemies' movement through fear also feels appropriate alongside the Frost Giant feats' ability to stop enemies' movement through cold. Barring that, I'd suggest Watchers as an alternate Oath for anyone who doesn't want to go Conquest.
Fathomless Warlock is the real lynchpin that brings the cold theme from the Frost Giant feats together, though. The Tentacle of the Deeps does Cold damage, Warlocks get Armor of Agathys if a Paladin Oath other than Conquest is picked, Fathomless also gets resistance to Cold damage, and the Tentacle gains the ability to intercept damage through Guardian Coil, which will help Armor of Agathys last longer. Fathomless Warlocks also get Sleet Storm and Cone of Cold in their spell list, and Warlocks as a baseline also get access to Hunger of Hadar and Spirit Shroud for more Cold-themed stuff on top of Armor of Agathys.
Please do a D&D 5e build of a lore friendly "Valkyrie" from Norse Mythology.
Would a Swashbuckler Rougue and a Hexblade warlock multicalss be good? I've been looking at it for my next campaign, but I'm unsure how to implement each aspect of their respective kits. A comment back or even a video about this multiclass would be awesome. Have any thoughts?
WHAT A COOL BUILD! That one was too easy
Would be great to have a couple of thematic ice spells for when the enemy is beyond reach [and you're not raging obvs]. you could keep your stats the same and either take Magic Initiate-Druid, 1+ level of druid, or 2+ levels of ranger w/ the druidic warrior fighting style for ray of frost and shape water.
Alternatively, Levistus tiefling would get you both Ray of frost and a 2nd level casting of Armor of Agathys, as well as fire resistance because you are that cold. You may want to switch your wisdom for cha though in that case since that's its casting stat. If you want to get some more ice features with a cha investment, fathomless warlock 5 gets you a bonus action cold attack, sleet storm, gust of wind, and at 5 tome of levistus reaction for when you're about to be hit way too hard. You could go tome pact for ray of frost and shape water and select a different species than levistus tiefling as well.
Levistus trifling would work great, especially if your DM allows the Giant Foundling background to pick up the Strike of the Giants feature at level 1 without Custom Lineage
TAZER FACE!
The ultimate crowd control build. Tazer Breath weapon and so much more.
Dex and Wis build, middling Int for Mystic dip. Str, Con, and Cha are irrelevant.
Start with Ranger to maximize weapon skills and minimalize multiclass requirements.
Bugbear
Long Limbed, Stealthy, Suprise Attack
Ranger/Hunter 3
Tunnel Fighter, Horde Breaker, Deft Explorer
Mystic/Immortal 1
Storm Mastery, Giant Growth, Beastial Form
Cleric/Tempest 6
Thunderbolt Strike
Monk/ Ascendent Dragon 10
Breath of The Dragon, Draconic Disciple
All lightning damage causes a Tazer like effect.
Thunderbolt Strike, all lightning damage pushes target 10 feet away(up is away), resulting in falling prone and taking 1d6 bludgeoning damage.
Draconic Discipline gives all unarmed attacks Lightning damage.
Breath weapon attacks are all Lightning Damage.(upto 17 of them between rests)
Find/make a spear with lightning damage.
The Spear is a monk weapon that counts as a polearm. Tunnel Fighter and Polearm Master permit use of the Spear for more attacks on incoming targets.
Sentinel causes all targets of opportunity attacks to have 0 movement, on top of being knocked prone by Thunderbolt Strike.
Horde Breaker provides an extra base attack when facing multiple opponents.
Mystic with Giant Growth gives +5 reach passive, and upto 2 mins of Ogre Form for an additional +5 reach. Beastial Form could alternatively provide upto 2 hours of Beast Hide for +2AC. Storm Mastery is a little more lightning flavor.
If Mystic isn't allowed go with level 4 Ranger/Primeval Guardian instead of Hunter, for the +5 reach, but no Horde Breaker extra attack.
Call Lightning to chase around little clusters of enemies?
Tunnel Fighter and Sentinel to hold back the waves of enemies?
Toe to toe with the big guy and landing lots of hits?
Blasting away with upto 17 breath weapon attacks in a day?
Watching a squad of enemies get tazed 17 times in a row would be fucking hilarious.
Hey there, could you make a man-eater lizardfolk build? That would be realy cool
CHALLENGE Mortarion from warhammer 40k, or some other primarch if you don't like him. New giants book seems ok to me but not interesting at all; reading Fizban or Tasha i could feel that new stuff was necessary and cool and added something that was missing in the game, honestly Bigby seems to me some random stuff that i prefer to just ignore because makes the game just more dispersive, seems to me like a boring hombrew, maybe i'll change my mind in time.
Mobile would be a good feat for this build, stopping them from moving and walking 40 feet away without proc-ing an opportunity attack
It is definitely a fun flavor. What about picking up slasher so that you can reduce speed even when you have used your giants strikes?
Sounds like an awesome addition!
Did you delete my comment try after I put it?