Giff Guide 5e

What is this guide?

This guide is meant to give you an idea of whether or not the giff will be right for your 5e character build.

The color code below has been implemented to help you identify, at a glance, how good that option will be for your giff. This color coding isn’t a hard and fast rule; there are plenty of sub-optimized options out there that will be viable to your party and will be fun to play.

• Black is a trait shared by many races and or will not impact the effectiveness of your character build
• 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

What are Giff in 5e?

Giff are hippo-human hybrids that tend frequent the Astral Seas of Spelljammer campaigns. Their large stature, proficiency with firearms, and brash nature tend to make quite the impression on other travelers that giff meet along their journeys.

Giff 5e Traits

Ability Score Increase: Being able to choose between +2 ASI, +1 ASI, or +1, +1, +1 ASI means that you can pick exactly what your build will need.

Creature Type: Humanoid is the default creature type for playable races.

Size: Medium is the default creature type for playable races.

Speed: Standard 30ft walking speed and a swimming speed. This can be useful for when your campaign heads underwater, but is pretty situational.

Astral Spark: Adding extra force damage to attacks is always a nice bonus. This feature excels because it can apply to simple and marital weapons and can be applied after the you know the attack hits. This is a solid boost to any weapon-wielding build, especially because you can use this prof. modifier times per long rest.

Firearms Mastery: This is entirely campaign-specific but, if you can use it, is a huge buff to your ranged capabilities. This feature essentially contains partial abilities granted by the Gunner and Sharpshooter feats. First, you can ignore the loading property of firearms, allowing you to attack multiple times each turn. Then, you can ignore the disadvantage of shooting at long range. For the purposes of this guide, we’ll assume that firearms are available in your campaign because otherwise, why would you want to play a gun-toting giff?

Hippo Build: Advantage on STR-based checks and saving throws is nice for athletics checks, but its main boon comes from receiving advantage on grapple attempts.