For those that don’t know, Storm King’s Thunder is a fifth edition D&D adventure that pits the party against various giants. The first chapter is meant to bring characters from 1st level up to 5th level by its conclusion. This is what we’re focusing in on today. Mostly because it has received criticism for its quality, but also because my DM is running the rest of the adventure later and I don’t want to be spoiled. Speaking of spoilers, if you plan on playing through the adventure yourself, then this post will spoil portions of it. It will also attempt to address the perceived issues it has, so read at your discretion.

The town of Nightstone is in the aftermath of an attack by giants. Cloud giants, to be precise, have swooped in to take the town’s namesake, the Nightstone. The townsfolk fled and stumbled upon goblin caves. The goblins have taken the opportunity to capture (and occasionally eat) the townsfolk and rob their homes of valuables. The party stumbles upon this by chance as they travel and it begs investigation. So what’s wrong with it? It has nothing directly to do with the giants themselves. In a more generic adventure, this would be fine, but this is the start of a mad grab among giant-kind for a new hierarchy. It should be a little more than tangentially related to the main story. So what to do?

In short, swap the goblins for an NPC with the same challenge rating, only make the NPCs all goliaths (Volo’s Guide to Monsters, page 108).

Let me elaborate. Goliaths, while being mostly lawful neutral mountain dwellers, are not usually inclined to inflict harm on others. They do, however, speak Giant, are often close to being large sized, and have an intense sense of competition. Put that in an adventure where the giants themselves are all competing for rank and it’s easy to say a number of goliath tribes have been swept up in this scramble to be the best giant. Perhaps some tribes think they might become true giants themselves if they can force their way in? Perhaps they’re only in it for the competition of a lifetime? Or maybe they’re just bored! Whatever the reason, it is far more interesting for a group of goliaths to try and get in on the action instead of goblins. My personal recommendation is to have them serving the cloud giants who raided Nightstone to begin with. Have them believe that their aid will be remembered when the cloud giants ascend to the top and their reward will be a place among giant-kind. Now, whether or not that’s true will be up to you. And here’s how you’ll do it…

First, swap each regular goblin with either one acolyte (Monster Manual, page 342) or two guards (Monster Manual, page 347). The goblin boss included in the adventure can be swapped for a spy (Monster Manual, page 349) and named Elgath Bearkiller Elanithino. The orcs can be left alone if you’d like, but if you want them to be more goliaths, swap the regular orcs for thugs (Monster Manual, page 350) and the orc eye of gruumsh for a berserker (Monster Manual, page 344) or even a bandit captain (Monster Manual, page 344). To drive home the giant theme even further, swap the elf scouts out for firbolg scouts (Volo’s Guide to Monsters, page 106; Monster Manual, page 349), if the elves come up at all. Then, to make the NPCs feel like goliaths, give them a version of the Stone’s Endurance trait. Call it Stone’s Resilience and make it grant resistance to all damage as a reaction to taking the triggering damage. They get it back on a short or long rest. Basically, they halve one instance of damage they take “every so often”. You could run Stone’s Endurance as normal, however, I feel that might make them too resilient for their challenge rating and we want minimal changes to the mechanics. One temporary damage resistance fits that bill nicely. Now, to tweak the narrative.

The goblins in the adventure are opportunistic, goofy, and evil. They’re kidnapping people, ruining what’s left of homes, and eating some of the captives. This works for goblins, but goliaths don’t typically do this outside of some form of madness. For it to be more fitting, make the goliath’s motivations all revolve around competition. They’re all trying to claim the best spoils before the others do, not necessarily for greed, but simply for the competition. They stay in the Dripping Caves because they’re more at home in caverns than in normal houses. Their captives in the Dripping Caves are there because Elgath wants to boast about having the most prisoners. The people listed as having been eaten have instead died trying to escape except in the case of Olaf Delfryndel. He died trying to challenge Elgath for their freedom.

After that, the adventure turns back towards more directly giant related antics, but with those changes, your party will feel the unrelenting surge of a giant’s presence from start to finish. Just remember to describe the goliaths as towering figures that reach eight feet tall with booming footfalls and you should be fine. Thanks for reading, and here’s hoping you out there can hit the endgame!

-The Clark Side