Ember of the Fire Giant 5e

Published on August 1, 2023

Set your enemies alight with the giant-fuelled fire power!

Andrew Mar - Wizards of the Coast - Fire GIant’s Fury

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What Is Ember of the Fire Giant 5e?

Ember of the Fire Giant is a feat introduced in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants that provides martials with an area-of-effect (AoE) attack and debuff.

There are a cycle of 6 feats included in this book, each of which are thematic to a sub-type of giants. Ember of the Fire Giants allows players to channel the fire giant’s durability and skill in combat.

How Does Ember of the Fire Giant Work?

Like all of the 4th-level Bigby feats, Ember of the Fire Giant provides an Ability Score Increase (ASI) to one of three thematic choices based on the giant type this feat stems from. In this case, you can choose to increase your Strength, Constitution, or Wisdom by 1.

You also get access to fire resistance, which is a huge defensive boost considering how prevalent fire damage is amongst monsters and spells.

Finally, you get access to an attack variant that allows you to deal 1d8 + prof. bonus damage in a 15-foot radius centred on you. This ability targets Dexterity saving throws and also blinds targets if they fail.

Prerequisites

While this may seem extremely powerful compared to previous feats, this feat does require some investment. Not only is it reserved for 4th-level and above characters, but it also requires that you take the Strike of the Giant (Fire Strike) feat before you gain access to this one. The concept of locking feats behind prerequisites first appeared in Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, but it appears this is the direction D&D will head in new 5e materials and the 2024 Player’s Handbook.

Is Ember of the Fire Giant Good?

In our 5e Feats Tier List, Ember of the Fire Giant was given an A Tier rating, making it an excellent pickup for specific classes.

Even with the prerequisites, Ember of the Fire Giant is a solid ability for pretty much any martial build. While it doesn’t output damage on par with a heavy weapon (like a greatsword or maul), the AoE, defensive boost, and debuff provided by this ability are outstanding value. On top of this, this is a half-feat, meaning that you still get to increase important ability scores, ensuring you don’t fall too far behind in your stat progression.

Another thing to note is activating Ember of the Fire Giant doesn’t take an action or bonus action, you can simply replace an attack with it. This adds to it’s effectiveness for just about any build.

We can see that there has definitely been some power creep in feats by comparing it to Infernal Constitution from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, which was a half-feat that also provided a resistance. Here’s the differences:

Ember of the Fire Giant gives +1 to Strength, Constitution, or Wisdom. Infernal Constitution only gives it to Constitution.
Ember of the Fire Giant gives resistance to fire. Infernal Constitution gives it to cold and poison.
Ember of the Fire Giant provides a hugely useful AoE combat ability. Infernal Constitution only gives advantage against being poisoned.

So, while they’re quite similar, Ember of the Fire Giant’s AoE ability is really what signals the power creep. The fact that Infernal Constitution gives 2 damage resistances and Ember of the Fire Giant only gives one is a good indicator that the power creep isn’t too substantial.

Which 5e Classes Make the Most of Ember of the Fire Giant?

The color code below has been implemented to help you identify, at a glance, how good the Ember of the Fire Giant 5e feat is for a specific class/subclass.

Red isn’t going to contribute to the effectiveness of your character build at all
Orange Situationally good, but a below-average option otherwise
Green is a good option
Blue is a great option, you should strongly consider this option for your character
Sky Blue is an amazing option. If you do not take this option your character would not be optimized

This feat provides awesome value to any build that:

Wants to be in melee combat
Wants to be taking the Attack action
Gets extra attacks

If your build meets that criteria, you’ll likely also gain a benefit from the fire resistance and the ability to boost either Strength or Constitution.

Artificer: This is an excellent option for Armorer or Battle Smith artificers. Even if you can’t pump Intelligence with the ASI, pumping Constitution can help with survivability.

Barbarian: You can pump Strength or Constitution while also getting a reliable AoE damage and debuff ability, this is perfect for barbarians.

Bard: The fire resistance, Constitution bump, and AoE effect offers a decent defensive and offensive boost to bards that will be in close melee distance.

Cleric: As it offers an ASI to Wisdom, this is an awesome choice for melee clerics and is especially thematic for Forge clerics.

Druid: Unfortunately, this is a bit clunky, even for Circle of the Moon druids. You see, using multiattack and taking the Attack action are two separate things. So even if you can make mulitple strikes in your Beast form, you won’t be able to activate this feat and attack in the same action.

Fighter: Perfect ASIs, good defensive boost, and a potent offensive ability. This is an awesome choice for fighters.

Monk: Seeing as you can boost Wisdom or Constitution, the ASIs in this feat are actually quite solid, even if you can’t boost Dexterity. Also, the survivability boost, AoE, and debuff it provides goes well with the monks playstyle.

Paladin: While this feat can’t be combined with your Divine Smite, it offers enough value in the ASI, defensive boost, and attack option that it’ll work in just about any paladin build.

Ranger: Good for Strength-based rangers who will want to be in melee combat.

Rogue: No Dexterity boost, but the defensive buffs are pretty solid. Also, blinding your enemies can net you advantage on your attacks, which is great for activating Sneak Attack. This is a solid choice for more melee-minded rogues.

Sorcerer: Sorcerers don’t usually want to be using the Attack action nor in melee combat, so this is a skip.

Warlock: The typical warlock won’t want this feature, but it could be decent for Hexblades who are martially-inclined.

Wizard: Wizards don’t usually want to be using the Attack action nor in melee combat, so this is a skip.

Mike Bernier

Mike Bernier is the lead content writer and founder of Arcane Eye. He is a Mithral best-selling author of Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery on DMs Guild and is a contributing author at D&D Beyond. Follow Mike on Twitter.