I think Goliaths first appeared in the Races of Stone supplement for 3.5. In Fourth Edition, their first appearance was as a playable option in the PHB 2. They get their corresponding “monster” entry here, with a couple of stat blocks suitable for use as opposition or NPC allies.

They’re one of the many playable peoples designed to give players a “taste” of being a cool fantasy monster without being unbalanced. Eladrin arguably do it for Sidhe; dragonborn do it for dragons; tieflings for fiends; deva for angels. Goliaths do it for giants.

The Lore

Copyright 2009 Wizards of the Coast

The typical goliath is stated to be between 7 and 8 feet tall, so whether they’re on the large side of Medium or the small side of Large is a matter of opinion. The book’s opinion is that they’re Medium, since that allows them to be playable. Their skin is gray or brown, and speckled with coin-sized bony growths that look like rocks.

Goliaths have existed since shortly after the Primordials created the world, which might mean they’re a kind of byproduct of the creation of the Giants in the same way the origin of the Dragonborn is tied to that of dragons. Goliaths don’t care enough about that to make myths about it, though.

All throughout their history they’ve preferred to keep to a nomadic existence in the more mountainous areas of the world, so there isn’t much about them in other people’s records either. While it’s fairly common for individual goliaths to travel the “lowlands” as adventurers or explorers, they haven’t engaged in any grand diplomacy or empire-building as a people.

Culturally, goliaths place a lot of value in individual skill and prowess, and this makes them very competitive. Their communities probably have all sorts of tournaments and contests in their calendars. Individual goliaths tend to turn everything into a contest, even if only in the privacy of their own minds - they keep score and constantly compare themselves both to their companions and to their own past performance. That battle where Legolas and Gimli compare their kill counts? That’s every fight where a goliath is involved. This does have the downside of making them get a bit depressive when they fail to measure up to their own standards.

I suspect Kord is a very popular deity among goliaths, and they also often worship the primal spirits.

The Numbers

As far as the rules are concerned, Goliaths are Medium Natural Humanoids. They have a natural speed of 6, and human-equivalent senses. Their signature ability is Stone’s Endurance, a minor-action encounter power which gives them some resistance to all damage for a turn. The value of this resistance is 5/tier (5 at heroic, 10 at paragon, 15 at epic).

Goliath Sunspeaker

This is more of a primal priest of the sun spirits than a cleric of Pelor, focused on burning people with sun-powered lasers. Sunspeakers are Level 7 Artillery with 64 HP, wearing light armor and using an orb as an implement.

Their melee basic attack is the Sunspeaker’s Hand, which targets Reflex and deals light radiant damage. Solar Sphere does the same at Range 20 with better damage.

Less often, the sunspeaker can use Solar Rays (recharge 4+) against up to 2 targets within Range 10. This deals light radiant or fire damage, as well as ongoing damage of the type chosen (save ends). This allows them to potentially stack two sources of ongoing damage on someone with the same power.

If cornered, the sunspeaker can use Flaring Leap (move action; encounter) to jump 3 squares and then move its remaining speed. This jet-powered jump causes a fire in the sunspeaker’s starting space, which deals damage to adjacent enemies or to those foolish enough to enter the flaming square. The fire lasts for a turn and can be sustained with minor actions.

Finally, it can use a big area attack named Call Down The Sun once per encounter, which is a bit weaker than Solar Sphere but targets a lot of people and does half damage on a miss.

Goliath Guardian

A more straightforward but no less powerful martial type. The guardian is a Level 9 Soldier with 96 HP. It’s heavily armored by still has speed 6, wielding a bastard sword and a light shield.

Its basic sword attack marks for a turn, and if the target is prone it’s also prevented from getting up for the same amount of time. The guardian knocks people prone with Ram’s Charge (recharge 5+), a maneuver that deals light physical damage and has a long list of riders: it pushes the target 2 squares, knocks it prone, and allows the goliath to make a free sword attack against the target. As the name says, it can be used as part of a charge.

Finally, Warrior’s Leap is a passive that allows the guardian to jump without provoking opportunity attacks. It still uses the standard jump rules (and it’s high Athletics score) for that.

Guardians are awesome in moutainous terrain that’s full of cliffs. Even if their targets aren’t thrown overboard, they’ll still stay on the ground for quite a while, granting advantage to the guardian and any sneak-attacking skirmisher buddies.

Sample Encounters and Final Impressions

Goliaths often team up with similarly-inclined mountain-dwellers, which can include dwarves, galeb duhrs, or goblins. I suppose that might include stone giants as well, if you level your goliaths up a bit. The sample encounter is level 9, and includes a galeb duhr rock-caller, 3 goliath guardians, and 1 sunspeaker.

I like goliaths, they fill a very specific “huge person” niche. These two stat blocks are interesting from a mechanics standpoint as well.