Vigor of the Hill Giant 5e

Published on August 1, 2023

Become as immovable and hardy as hill giants with the Vigor of the Hill Giant feat!

A hill giant crushed a knight in armor under his foot.

Victor Adame Minguez - Wizards of the Coast - Bonecrusher Giant

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What Is Vigor of the Hill Giant 5e?

Vigor of the Hill Giant is a feat introduced in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants that provides some passive buffs, allowing you to avoid being moved against your will and heal more during short rests.

There are a cycle of 6 feats included in this book, each of which are thematic to a sub-type of giants. Vigor of the Hill Giant allows players to benefit from the hardiness of hill giants.

How Does Vigor of the Hill Giant Work?

Like all of the 4th-level Bigby feats, Vigor of the Hill 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.

The second ability allows you to resist effects that will move you or knock you prone by spending your reaction.

The third ability give you extra hit points during a short rest if you eat food and spend a Hit Dice. The extra hit points you gain are equal to your Constitution + proficiency bonus (pb).

Prerequisites

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

Is Vigor of the Hill Giant Good?

We gave Vigor of the Hill Giant a C Tier rating In our 5e Feats Tier List, making it a below-average feat in D&D 5e.

Unfortunately, this feat just doesn’t do enough to make it particularly worthwhile for most campaigns. If you’re playing a dungeon crawl where short rests and Hit Dice are imperative to stay alive, this can produce the extra resources needed to survive.

Which 5e Classes Make the Most of Vigor of the Hill Giant?

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

To take this feat, you’ll definitely want a high Constitution modifier so you can regain as many hit points per short rest as possible.

Artificer: Neither effect really produce enough value to artificers to make this feat worthwhile. Focus on something that will either boost Intelligence, damage output, or utility.

Barbarian: If this feat works for one class it's the barbarian class. Your Constitution will be sky high and you'll be in the middle of the fray which makes effects that try to move you more common. If you took the Strike of the Giants (Hill Strike) feat and wanted to continue down your path of channeling your inner hill giant, this isn't a terrible pickup.

Bard: Seeing as you have Song of Rest, you've already got extra healing during short rests covered for your whole party.

Cleric: Unless you're in a dungeon crawl hell style campaign where every short rest and hit point is crucial, focus on something that will improve your spellcasting instead.

Druid: None of the effect really produce enough value to druids to make this feat worthwhile, even with the +1 to Wisdom. Focus on something that will either boost your damage or utility.

Fighter: This can be fine for fighters who want some extra hit points. Plus, seeing as you're usually in the fray you're more likely to be targeted by effects that try to move you.

Monk: None of the effect really produce enough value to monks to make this feat worthwhile, even with the +1 to Wisdom. Focus on something that will either boost your damage or defense.

Paladin: This can be fine for paladins who want some extra hit points. Plus, seeing as you're usually in the fray you're more likely to be targeted by effects that try to move you.

Ranger: There are tons of feats rangers would rather have than this one. Go for something that'll boost your ranger's damage instead, like Sharpshooter or Dual Wielder, or provide more options to their limited spellcasting.

Rogue: None of the effect really produce enough value to rogues to make this feat worthwhile, even with the +1 to Wisdom. Focus on something that will either boost your damage, mobility, or utility.

Sorcerer: This is a skip for sorcerers, even though it can provide hit points during short rest.

Warlock: Warlocks usually push for short rests to get their spell slots back, so this can help heal you up more effectively as well. Still, it's probably not worth it because the ASI and resisting movement effects are worthless.

Wizard: This is a skip for wizards, even though it can provide hit points during short rest.

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.