Fury of the Frost Giant 5e

Published on August 1, 2023

Turn the temperature down on your foes with the frost giant’s frigid retaliation!

Kim Sokol - Wizards of the Coast - Ray of Frost

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What Is Fury of the Frost Giant 5e?

Fury of the Frost Giant is a feat introduced in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants that provides a reaction akin to hellish rebuke, where you can damage creatures who hit you with an attack.

There are a cycle of 6 feats included in this book, each of which are thematic to a sub-type of giants. Fury of the Frost Giant gives players the ability to strike back at those who dare attack them, like the prideful frost giants who govern their society by strength.

How Does Fury of the Frost Giant Work?

Like all of the 4th-level Bigby feats, Fury of the Frost 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 cold resistance, which is well worth it due to its relative commonality amongst monsters and spells.

Finally, you get access to a reaction that can be used a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus (pb) in which you can send an icy blast at an enemy who hit you with an attack. If your target is within 30 feet of you, they must succeed in a Constitution saving throw or take cold damage equal to 1d8 + pb and have their speed reduced to 0 until the end of their next turn. The DC of the saving throw tied to this ability is 8 + pb + the modifier of the ability you increased by taking this feat.

Prerequisites

This feat is reserved for 4th-level and above characters, and also requires that you take the Strike of the Giant (Frost Strike) feat before you gain access to this one.

Is Fury of the Frost Giant Good?

In our 5e Feats Tier List, Fury of the Frost Giant was given a B Tier rating, making it a niche feat that can improve some builds in D&D 5e.

This is a decent value-for-investment feat, especially if you plan on getting hit by attacks while also not having a particularly useful reaction on-deck. Most martial characters can make great use of this, especially because they can boost Strength or Constitution on top of the solid defensive boost and reaction.

Which 5e Classes Make the Most of Fury of the Frost Giant?

The color code below has been implemented to help you identify, at a glance, how good the Fury of the Frost 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

While this is pretty appealing for martial characters without access to a stronger reaction, be careful taking this feat if you want to save your reaction for something that will be more effective to your playstyle. Casters who have access to silvery barbs, absorb elements, hellish rebuke, or counterspell will likely be able to skip this feat to ensure their reaction slots aren’t being crowded. Similarly, Polearm Master and Sentinel martial builds will certainly want to skip this feat.

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 reaction and preventing your prey from escaping. Plus, another resistance is always helpful. This is a solid choice for barbarians that want more action economy and range.

Bard: You have too many reaction-based spells to want to use this.

Cleric: As it offers an ASI to Wisdom, this is an alright choice for melee clerics who want to keep enemies locked in their spirit guardians radius.

Druid: This doesn't fit with most druid's playstyles but Circle of the Moon druids could certainly make use of the Wisdom boost, cold resistance, and reaction-based attack.

Fighter: Perfect ASIs, good defensive boost, and a potent reaction ability. This is a solid choice for fighters as long as you'll be avoiding a Polearm Master build.

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 resistance to cold damage and reaction are pretty decent to help improve your combat versatility. Monks have some reaction-based abilities, but they aren't common enough that they would interfere with using Frigid Retaliation.

Paladin: Perfect ASIs, good defensive boost, and a potent reaction ability. This is a solid choice for paladins as long as you'll be avoiding a Polearm Master or Sentinel build.

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

Rogue: Unfortunately, your Uncanny Dodge will always take precedent over Frigid Retaliation, so this is a skip.

Sorcerer: Unhelpful ASIs, cold damage resistance is alright, but you'll likely want to hold on to your reaction for counterspell.

Warlock: Seeing as you likely won't have the spell slots to be a counterspell machine, this could help pad your limited spell slots so you don't have to burn them on hellish rebuke. This is probably only worth it for Hexblades, who will be in combat more often than their ranged-counterparts.

Wizard: Unhelpful ASIs, cold damage resistance is alright, but you'll likely want to hold on to your reaction for counterspell.

Mike Bernier

Mike Bernier is the lead content writer and founder of Arcane Eye. He is a Adamantine 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.