Potion Commotion looks at a few staple potions in the game and plays around with them. We’ll taking the standard abilities and offer them with either boosts or limitations, providing new versions of these old classics for all levels of play!

This time we’re looking at the potion of giant strength.

Catch up on all the other Potion Commotion articles!

Go Big AND Go Home

This potion is a bit different in that it already has a number of different versions sorted by rarity. Still, they all follow a basic formula. You drink the potion, and your STR score changes for 1 hour, making you various levels of stronger.

Presented here are several variant versions of the standard potions, as well as two lesser versions of the potions, providing similar bonuses at lower power levels (as well as rarities).

POTION OF GIANT STRENGTH SURGE

Potion, Rarity Varies
cost varies

This potion’s transparent liquid has floating in it a clipping from a single hair from a giant of the same type.

When you drink this potion, it instills in you the potential for a brief burst of giant-like strength. For 1 hour after you drink the potion, as a bonus action, you enact the potion’s magic, changing your STR score until the end of your next turn, after which your STR returns to normal, the potion’s magic expended. This potion has no effect on you if your STR is equal to or greater than that score.

Type of Giant	STR	Rarity
Ogre	19	Common
Hill giant	21	Common
Frost/stone giant	23	Uncommon
Fire giant	25	Uncommon
Cloud giant	27	Rare
Storm giant	29	Very rare

POTION OF OGRE STRENGTH

Potion, Uncommon
200 gp

This potion instills the imbiber with the strength of an ogre, weaker cousins to the true giants. Suspended in the potion’s clear liquid is a sliver of fingernail from an ogre.

When you drink this potion, your STR score changes to 19 for 1 hour. This potion has no effect on you if your STR is equal to or greater than that score.

Variations on the Standard Potion of Giant Strength

Add one (or possibly more) of these to a standard potion of giant strength to provide interesting variants for your campaign. You could add them to the alternate potions presented here, as well.

Greater Potion of Giant Strength. This potion not only provide you with a giant’s strength, but also its ability to hurl a rock (or similarly sized and weighted object) as an attack. As you do not have the size of a giant, but only its strength, the rocks you can hurl are necessarily smaller, with a range of 30/120 feet. The following table provides the damage for such hurled projectiles, based on the type of potion. A potion of this type is one level of rarity higher than a standard potion.

Type of Giant	Damage
Hill giant	3d4 + 5 bludgeoning
Stone giant	4d4 + 6 bludgeoning
Frost giant	4d4 + 6 bludgeoning
Fire giant	4d4 + 7 bludgeoning
Cloud giant	4d6 + 9 bludgeoning
Storm giant	4d8 + 9 bludgeoning

Giant Strength and Giant’s Grace. This works like the standard potion of giant strength, but in addition to the STR of a giant, you also assume the giant’s DEX for the duration, as shown on the table below. This has no effect if your DEX is equal to or lower than that score.

Type of Giant	Dexterity	Rarity
Hill giant	8 (−1)	Uncommon
Stone giant	15 (+2)	Uncommon
Frost/fire giant	9 (−1)	Uncommon
Cloud giant	10 (+0)	Rare
Storm giant	14 (+2)	Very rare

Superficial Giant Traits. This potion functions like a standard potion of giant strength, but when you drink it, you take on physical traits of the giant type granted by the potion. For example, a potion of frost giant strength gives a blue cast to the skin and turns your hair an ivory color, while a potion of stone giant strength makes your skin look gray and stony. These are purely cosmetic traits.

Useful Giant Traits. A potion of this type grants not only the strength of a particular type of giant, but also some of its other useful physical traits, as described in the Giant Traits table. A potion of this type may also bestow superficial traits as well, as described in the previous entry. A potion of this type is one level of rarity higher than the standard potion.

Giant Traits

Type of Giant	Giant Traits
Hill giant	Natural Armor. Your skin thickens and toughens. Your AC can’t be less than 13, regardless of what armor you wear, while the potion is in effect.
Stone giant	Natural Armor. Your skin becomes hard and stony. Your AC can’t be less than 16, regardless of what armor you wear, while the potion is in effect.
Fire giant	Damage Resistance. You become resistant to fire. If you already have a natural resistance to fire, you become immune to fire instead for the potion’s duration.
Frost giant	Damage Resistance. You become resistant to cold. If you already have a natural resistance to cold, you become immune to cold instead for the potion’s duration.
Cloud giant	Natural Armor. Your skin thickens and toughens. Your AC can’t be less than 12, regardless of what armor you wear, while the potion is in effect. Spellcasting. You can cast each of the following spells once while the potion is in effect, using Charisma as your spellcasting ability: feather fall, fog cloud, and misty step.
Storm giant	Damage Resistance. You become resistant to cold, lightning, and thunder.

Find more potions and magic items of every kind in Vault of Magic!

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