Giants

Alas, I have decided that I'm really not a fan of giants in D&D. In principle, they're pretty great - a semi-civilised race with a distinct and unusual culture, with several different factions that are mutually-adversarial (though not necessarily mutually-antagonistic), and indeed a well developed religious and spiritual role. It's all good stuff.

Unfortunately, when it comes to practice, giants fall down due to one fatal flaw: they're basically big bags of hit points that have to be whittled down a bit at a time. And, indeed, they're big bags of hit points, and they have very little else going on. Which means they're really dull in combat.

In my opinion, what giants really need are more terrain/movement powers, plus possibly an area attack with their boulders. Oh, and more mobility. This might well come at the price of fewer hit points, but that's no bad thing either.

(Of course, the DM can always add these things, and "Storm King's Thunder" does a decent job of making some likely suggestions. But, really, these things should come as standard. Plus, if I'm adding them to giants, could I not do a similar addition to other monsters and get an even better return on investment?)

Of course, this might also be a worthwhile time to note that the first Monster Manual of any edition pretty much sucks, which is largely an inevitable consequence of it being written before the edition is fully understood. Unfortunately, that first MM is also the place where all the most iconic and best-loved monsters are going to be found. I'm almost inclined to suggest that the 4e/Essentials approach is a reasonably decent one, with the entire set of monsters getting a thorough overhaul/rewrite midway through the edition for a better game experience. But that's another rant...