Get ready to take on the biggest challenges of your adventuring career with Pathfinder Player Companion: Giant Hunter’s Handbook! Whether you’re facing ogres in the untamed mountains or risking the wrath of the rune giants in ancient ruins, this volume gives you everything you need to even the odds against giants of every type!
Giant Hunter’s Handbook contains player-focused, in-depth discussions preparing you to face, negotiate with, and ultimately lay low some of the Pathfinder RPG’s most intimidating foes. Each Pathfinder Player Companion includes new options and tools for every Pathfinder RPG player. Inside this book you’ll find:
Traits and advice for characters with backgrounds impacted by the ravages of monstrous giant clans.
Details on Golarion’s most famous giant-hunting organizations, as well as teamwork feats to help your own giant-hunting team achieve victory and glory.
New archetypes that help characters take on giants on an equal footing, including the goliath druid, who can grow to giant size, and the titan fighter, who can wield oversized weapons.
A preview of the upcoming Giantslayer Adventure Path,as well as campaign traits and suggestions guaranteed to aid you throughout this titanic campaign.
New equipment, feats, magic items, spells, methods for shrinking oversized giant treasure down to a useful scale, and much, much more!
This Pathfinder Player Companion is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder campaign setting, but can easily be incorporated into any fantasy world.
Written by Alexander Augunas, Luis Loza, Ron Lundeen, and David Ross.
Cover Art by Jason Engle.
Each monthly 32-page Pathfinder Player Companion contains several player-focused articles exploring the volume’s theme as well as short articles with innovative new rules for all types of characters, as well as traits to better anchor the player to the campaign.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-712-3
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
Overall, I really like the balance Giant Hunter’s Handbook strikes between mechanics and setting information. The new character options don’t overwhelm with their sheer quantity. Instead, they support the flavour of the setting. And the setting information provides you with a basic, but good understanding of how the people of Golarion interact with giants. After reading the book, I felt like I actually learned something about the world rather than just be presented with a bunch of character options that I would rapidly forget about. I wish the Player Companion books would reach this balance more often.
This product is worth the money for the Titan Fighter archetype alone and I bought it for that reason. I was not disappointed. It fixes what the Titan Mauler barbarian archetype was supposed to do and finally lets you do what you probably wanted to do with that class, only to find out you couldn't. The catch is, this is a Fighter archetype not a Barbarian one, but just take a dip into a class that grants Rage if it means that much to you and problem solved.
I don't play Druids so I can't speak to the power of the new Druid archetype presented, but it looks pretty potent based on what I've seen.
Another great feature is having a handy reference guide to all the various giants published so far. Very good for a GM who doesn't want to waste time poring through Bestiaries to find just the giant he or she needs. Now you can find what you're after and where to find it easily.
Overall, a very good book for anyone wanting to tangle with giants, be they GM's or players.
What is really great about this book is that the size of looted equipment is mentioned.
It states, that wondrous items and rings mostly adjust to the wearers size, but arms and armor don´t.
And there are spells and other solutions for this.
Also there are feats that enable you to fight with larger arms and very useful teamwork feats like the good ones from Dragon Slayer´s Handbook, but unlike the lame ones from Demon Hunter´s Handbook) against ALL creatures which are larger than you -
NOT ONLY AGAINST GIANTS!
I really love the artwork from the center spreads lately, they are gorgeous and really show in this case how big the different giants are in relation to a human and each other.
One thing is WRONG in this book:
The damage from small and medium sized weapons is switched and needs to be switched back.
Reading though, a lot of the material just seems out of place. Maybe not out of place as much as maybe they couldn't find a more fitting book to stick it in?
A new Druid archtype that's exactly what everyone needed <sarcasm>, a new way for Druids to stand head and shoulders over just about everyone else, but literally and steal the reach Cleric's thunder. A Fighter stepping on the Barbarian's toes. A two-page spread showing the OGL giants kind of like the 3.0 size categories. I'd almost say this might be the Giantslayer PG, but nope, that takes up the last few pages of the book (again!!!). Not sure what the deal is with the weapons? Are they reintroducing the old school weapons deal less damage against larger creatures rules? Printing error? I don't know, too much of this book just screams, well, something other than "giants/vs giants".
Two things did stand out though which where kind of cool. Skill tricks (and unlike that god-awful Tech Guide, doesn't require a Feat to be able to use what you already have), and they are not terrible either, and then there is the Rogue Archtype, which is just cool, (and I don't even like Rogues).
Yai-Mimic Metamagic has some potential (drop the setting flavor). Very Salubri. :)
I honestly had very, very low expectations on this book and that is probably why it is a 4 and not a 3 star book. This book has lots of interesting items, nifty feats, traits, and two of my favorite archetypes in a long time (for base classes). The only thing I wish is that there had been 1 ACG archetype (either slayer or HUNTER) in the book. This has firmed my opinion that I can't ever put this subscription on hold. Every time I consider it, this happens.
Books about the orc land and giant-slaying. December looks like a good month indeed. Giants are some of my favorite enemies. *absently wonders about magic beans... >.>*
Can't recall offhand if there is a giantslayer ranger archetype (in the vein of the 1E ranger) in Pathfinder or if I'm just thinking of the 3E and 2E versions of same, but if not, this would be a likely place for such an archetype to surface.
This is interesting, if only from the perspective that there is a tendency to have these products relate to the concurrent AP. So this and the Orcs book makes me wonder what the next story line is going to look like.
Aberrations make sense to me. Though I would also like to see magical beast, fey, other evil outsiders(oni, azura, qlippoths), plant creatures, and proteans.
Meh...I am kinda of meh on the X Hunter Handbook in general. Though I don't usually run or play in game where there is only ever one type of foe...and the lore in the books are useful at times.
Wish I had this when we were running Rise of the Runelords. We had a shoanti ranger whose tribal name was "giant hunter" and he was focused on fighting giants: this would have been awesome! In general, I do appreciate the X Hunter Handbooks, but I feel like they always come a bit too late (using rules and archetypes from Undead Slayer's Handbook in Carrion Crown would also have been wonderful).
Wonder if this will tie in with the next AP? Perhaps we're headed to an Orc and giant themed adventure in Belzken.
It could be that the Orcs of Belkzen companion ties in with the module line, and that the AP itself will be giant related. They did say they were going to go the traditional route, and what's more traditional than the Against the Giants series?
Maybe it will deal with the Rune Giants deciding to take control of other giant tribes and try to wipe out humanity or something.
Aberrations make sense to me. Though I would also like to see magical beast, fey, other evil outsiders(oni, azura, qlippoths), plant creatures, and proteans.
It's worth pointing out, for the purposes of this product thread, that many oni have the giant subtype.
I wonder, what types of archetypes can we expect to see? Perhaps a better version of the Titan Mauler, that would be awesome I'd think. I'd love to have more information on spells, items, and giants in general. Don't get me wrong, I love giants revisited, especially that blurb about the Cyclops peoples and Rune Giants. I just wish there was more.
So if that new fighter archetype can wield oversized weapons, as in actually use a large Greatsword... are we going to see a fix to the Titan-Mauler archetype that makes it not suck. Because it's supposed to do that already.
So if that new fighter archetype can wield oversized weapons, as in actually use a large Greatsword... are we going to see a fix to the Titan-Mauler archetype that makes it not suck. Because it's supposed to do that already.
At this point the FAQ on the titan mauler is pretty clear about what it can and can't do, and I wouldn't expect that to change. The titan fighter was designed to allow a specific build not available to other classes (and in many cases not available to them for a good reason), and I talked with members of the design team about it to make sure it was a fair and balanced archetype. I would't expect it to represent a trend in what can be done with oversized weapons.
Looking good, of course the cover features the iconic dwarven ranger and I am glad for it. I will be looking forward to seeing what options come out here for rangers. After all, Jack the Giant Killer is one of the inspirations for the class.
The ranger is a hunter and woodsman who lives by not only his sword, but also his wits. Robin Hood, Orion, Jack the giant killer, and the huntresses of Diana are examples of rangers from history and legend. The abilities of the ranger make him particularly good at tracking, woodcraft, and spying.
This was the explanatory sidebar that each class got in the 2nd Ed. PHB to help new players get a handle on the concept.
The ranger is a hunter and woodsman who lives by not only his sword, but also his wits. Robin Hood, Orion, Jack the giant killer, and the huntresses of Diana are examples of rangers from history and legend. The abilities of the ranger make him particularly good at tracking, woodcraft, and spying.
This was the explanatory sidebar that each class got in the 2nd Ed. PHB to help new players get a handle on the concept.
Thank you, I got into this crazy hobby of ours during 2E and this was my introduction to the Ranger class. After I actually played one, it became my favorite and I still keep this as part of my understanding of the class.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Gnick Gnak PaddyWack wrote:
Any idea when the player guide will be available?
the giantslayer players handbook actually is released in the same month as the first ap volume. It was only recently that the player companion line created a section for them in the volume a month or two prior. But the official players guide for giantslayer will still only be released as the first volume, February.
I'm going to be extremely irritated if this book doesn't contain some Warhammer Fighting Styles and a Dwarf (Not class specific) Archtype for slaying Giants with thrown hammers.
Um, don't we already have a Fighter Archtype for Oversized Weapons, and can't everyone already wield them?
No, that's a barbarian archetype you're thinking of.
And what the build is promising and what everyone else can do are very different. People want the ability to wield a Large greatsword, for example, which the existing rules don't allow for. The titan mauler barbarian can wield a Large longsword at a reduced penalty, but not anything that a character couldn't normally use.
The goliath druid gains special access to the enlarge person spell (with some restrictions and some advantages), has a specific choice of domains & subdomains if she goes that route, and must select a dinosaur or megafauna as a companion if she goes THAT route. Her wild shape is altered to add giant form, and her summon nature's ally lists has been expanded with additional dinos, giants, and megafauna.
The goliath druid gains special access to the enlarge person spell (with some restrictions and some advantages), has a specific choice of domains & subdomains if she goes that route, and must select a dinosaur or megafauna as a companion if she goes THAT route. Her wild shape is altered to add giant form, and her summon nature's ally lists has been expanded with additional dinos, giants, and megafauna.
Many thanks....don't care for dinos and megafauna, but being able to use wild shape for Giant Form is exactly what I was looking for ;)