I like the idea of a small creature riding the hill giant around and ordering it to smash things.Like a little goblin who's really smart and employs they hill giant by offering it things that it wants.
I like giants being at least somewhat intelligent. The way that I use my giants is kind of the way that Dark Souls use them and how they were portrayed in Norse mythology; they are shapeshifters extraordinaire on par with dragons. In fact, for my setting, royalty get a permanent Enlarge Person put on them on coronation, because royalty is meant to be physically taller than the rabble. Very fee-fi-fo-fum. I don't mind ogres, so I think I'll use the mechanics of hill giants as basically just bigger ogres. I don't know why exactly hill giants bother me. Maybe because I just like 'giant version of X' and I don't want the first thing my players think to be 'bigger equals dumber'. Hill giants are kind of the personification of that trope. Besides, I'm 6'6'', so maybe I see this as a personal attack. :P
Hill giants are inbred peons of giant kind. They are the slave class of giants. They did not need intelligence to do their job and no other true giant was gonna dirty themselves by doing something to improve the hill giants. Giant culture is pretty strict about hierarchy and who gets the lion's share of the divine power their godly daddy grants them. Poor Hill giants get nothing but the scorn of their kin. So they end up stupid savages who are getting ever more inbred and deformed as time passes. Play it up. Make them so wretched that if not for the fact they are man eaters people would be moved to disgusted pity.
AJ, you have inspired an encounter simply by noting the use of a massive and strong creature throwing a player character. Brilliant. I have some calculations to do... ;) Thank you
I remember in Ad&d 2nd. I was playing "Bubbo" a Glaterator with rage, half giant of hill giant leinage. lol int 4 wis 15 "me smart. me learn." and was a passifiveist in till hit in combat. lol he was more for role play than anything. and when the random mob is getting the better of the party. uproot tree and smash.
I balance the Hill Giants with their behavior and reproduction with the fact that they kill each other. Most Hill Giant deaths are by Hill Giants. They are a brutish, chaotic bunch and I also introduced my version of High Ogres. They are the good challenge combat for player characters, but really fodder of Giant-kind.
My first RPG shop when I was 20 years old during the latter days of AD&D2ndE, I was running a game where I was n/pc a hill giant for a few games. During one game a new player or I can say one of the shops regulars add his two cents into my game, .. " If you want to PC a hill giant I could DM it for you." .. with more than a smart azz tone to his voice. Me, " Okay, the two party system you see going on here is cause each of us are taking 20min turns DM this game seeing how to work out ogre and giant PCs. Along with seeing how to keep your larger than average humanoid from being killed by dwarves." Mister two cents eyes just got big at hearing that. Other table player, " My nephew in grade school wants a hill giant carrying a basket hut for his gnome wizard/ illusionist. So we are working out the flaws to see if we can get it to work. " A few games/ months later we had a new batch of players came in new to the game. A new guy not knowing that the guy playing a group of giants was the DM though it was common to PC giants without a full stat block. New guy, " Wow you can play more than one PC and do giants ?! Which giant can I run ?" After a few minutes hazing the guy about .. doing .. giants, the regular two cents guy said he could sit down and help him run a hill giant PC. In the old AD&D monster manual it stated hill giants hunt green dragon wrymlings for food, two problems with that, .. a.) Hill giants are not smart enough to hunt dragons. b.) Green dragons are over protective parents. Along with their young adult children lair close to their parents or still winter sleep with their parent if the cave is large enough. So hill giants can't get close to their babies or very young. 2.) PCing dumb hill giants, .. a.) dwarves are vicious foot/ ankle hackers. After running a few battles there was no way hill giants would last as long as the mammoth did. Anything that inbreed stupid will get killed off before the iron age. b.) Playing a dumb azz giant trying to catch a gnome running around a tree smacking it face into branches is just a silly riot. Giant goes to grab a gnome and the gnome just climbs onto the back of his hand/ forearm. Random giant, " Why are you slapping your hand ?" Giant with a gnome on him speaking like the Marvel cartoon Hulk, " Help I have a gnome on Me ! Slap it off of Me !" Other giant wants to know why random giant slap the other giant on his arm and face. Both starting hill giants, " Gnome is on Face ! " What does or would an ogre or hill giant look like ? The tallest biped animal that can stand upright around ten foot tall is a bear. So picture a shaved hairless bear that moves around as a great ape.
@@krispalermo8133 Sounded fun. But in 1st Ed, Hill Giants and Ogres were similar in size. 2nd Ed, Hill Giants were around twice the height of an Ogre with Ogres being 10's tall. I applied a secondary system for carried weight allowance, making it more relative to mass, but keeping the combat stats the same. I mean a STR 19 humanoid that's a hulking 19' tall would not be able to transport the clothing that's massive enough to cover it, nonetheless lift a club a monster of its size uses, with the STR chart as it was at the time. Sorry, I'll drop the ramble. I had rules for playing giants, golems, etc... if the players wanted to play them. I was inspired by the "Hey, you wanna play a Kobold?" article and fleshed it out with my homebrew conversion of the Complete Humanoids' Handbook. I had my Mr. 2-Cents as a new guy in one of my missions. He said he wanted to play a Fire Giant. I dug out one of my binders, opened it to the page, and dropped it in front of him. I also warned him that he'll probably get mobbed and killed at some point by what most people consider "good guys". As for the split party thing, uh... DM nightmare. I decided to stop letting players opt for that at all after one session, 8 real-world hours, was the first ten minutes of game time. You let them do it once and they will avalanche it all the way to the absurd eventually.
@@That80sGuy1972 1st off , .. ramble away. It is what these internet comment sections are for. 2nd, most of my game shops had around a dozen of players at a given time, so we ran one main story and two back up DM to break the groups down for quicker play. Also we stress that current players learn how to DM so we give them a 10min to 20min to flex their creativity. Some of them were not able to role play npc encounters, but they could run a hobgoblin battle formation with intense action. Well everybody has different talents. Since I had a few DM run giant vs gnome/ goblin battles like Star Wars Ewoks battle of Endor, I just can't take giant fights serious anymore.
My gm made my group of 4 level 1 characters fight one of these.... One of us died... Luckily, I was playing a gnome rogue, so I was popped off about 18 damage on my first turn through a sneak attack, but after that, it was just me trying to get a hit in.... Until I blinded him in one eye.
The hill giants from G1 were much,much more civilized than the description you gave........if these were the hill giants back in the day that module was written there wouldnt be a steading,the module simply wouldnt have worked.
I'm not sure where you get your information on Hill Giants and the Ordning but these creatures...lol you don't give them much credit,much credit at all,I've played this game since the late seventies and I can assure you the information you've given on Hill Giants isn't accurate at all....despite the fact they're not intelligent does not mean that theyre not cunning and as for them eating alone that's proposterous.....they take eating VERY seriously and actually have competitions that happen on a regular basis they also as far as I know don't eat rocks and dirt and other non consumables the favorite food of hill giants is green dragon which they hunt when they can and will enslave them as well! If you have literature on the Ordening you'd see that giants are not just big dumb brutes but a VERY ancient and sophisticated society.....im disappointed in this information....but the vid you did on the Terrasque was great!......i hate to be a pain in the ass but you also didnt mention their social structure as well as their superstitions when it comes to magecraft....they never trust magic and have ceremoniously killed mages smh come to America gluestick...consider this an actual invite and ill show you a campaign for your best characters against the giants and the Ordning lolx2
AJ Pickett Has the nature and role of hill giants changed that much since 1E? Or were there mistakes in the info used in the video and if so, where did you get the incorrect info?
In games I run, hill giants are at lest human int, use thick hide blankets/ cloaks for arrow cover and use slings and javelins. Giants are smart enough to use armor when raiding human settlements. If not giants would have been killed off in the bronze age let alone be seen walking around in the steel age.
I like the idea of a small creature riding the hill giant around and ordering it to smash things.Like a little goblin who's really smart and employs they hill giant by offering it things that it wants.
Welcome to the thunder dome
Ferra and Thorr from MKX would be right up your ally
"Their speed is 40 feet, so low level adventurers with ranged weapons can't use them for a few quick levels."
"in the wild they either Eat or Rut like wild animals." or Teenagers
God bless you
Your comparison of human a and pig is hilarious, mehmehmeh, where as a pig just goes weeweewee, lmfao
I like giants being at least somewhat intelligent. The way that I use my giants is kind of the way that Dark Souls use them and how they were portrayed in Norse mythology; they are shapeshifters extraordinaire on par with dragons. In fact, for my setting, royalty get a permanent Enlarge Person put on them on coronation, because royalty is meant to be physically taller than the rabble.
Very fee-fi-fo-fum. I don't mind ogres, so I think I'll use the mechanics of hill giants as basically just bigger ogres.
I don't know why exactly hill giants bother me. Maybe because I just like 'giant version of X' and I don't want the first thing my players think to be 'bigger equals dumber'. Hill giants are kind of the personification of that trope. Besides, I'm 6'6'', so maybe I see this as a personal attack. :P
Thats why every other true guant is intelligent. Hill giants are where the stereotype bigger is dumber comes from.
Hill giants are inbred peons of giant kind. They are the slave class of giants. They did not need intelligence to do their job and no other true giant was gonna dirty themselves by doing something to improve the hill giants. Giant culture is pretty strict about hierarchy and who gets the lion's share of the divine power their godly daddy grants them. Poor Hill giants get nothing but the scorn of their kin. So they end up stupid savages who are getting ever more inbred and deformed as time passes. Play it up. Make them so wretched that if not for the fact they are man eaters people would be moved to disgusted pity.
Watching this in 2024, these videos are great resources and should be saved forever.
Tree not hold hill giant! Hill giant smash!
AJ, you have inspired an encounter simply by noting the use of a massive and strong creature throwing a player character.
Brilliant.
I have some calculations to do... ;)
Thank you
AJ, if you ever go back and update this (as you often do), adding a segment on mountain giants and their origin would be interesting
I was just writing this down yesterday, yes, Mountain giants are getting their own video.
Awesome. Can't wait.
It's cool to see how far you've come lol.
Still a great video.
Ah the hillbillies of giant kind.
Hill Giants we want food and adult happy time. Or throwing rocks at each other.
I remember in Ad&d 2nd. I was playing "Bubbo" a Glaterator with rage, half giant of hill giant leinage. lol int 4 wis 15 "me smart. me learn." and was a passifiveist in till hit in combat. lol he was more for role play than anything. and when the random mob is getting the better of the party. uproot tree and smash.
AJ, the video was great!
The background music was a little distracting, though.
This is one of the videos that are going to get a remake, from scratch, with much better equipment and my modern format.
I balance the Hill Giants with their behavior and reproduction with the fact that they kill each other. Most Hill Giant deaths are by Hill Giants. They are a brutish, chaotic bunch and I also introduced my version of High Ogres. They are the good challenge combat for player characters, but really fodder of Giant-kind.
My first RPG shop when I was 20 years old during the latter days of AD&D2ndE, I was running a game where I was n/pc a hill giant for a few games. During one game a new player or I can say one of the shops regulars add his two cents into my game, ..
" If you want to PC a hill giant I could DM it for you." .. with more than a smart azz tone to his voice.
Me, " Okay, the two party system you see going on here is cause each of us are taking 20min turns DM this game seeing how to work out ogre and giant PCs. Along with seeing how to keep your larger than average humanoid from being killed by dwarves."
Mister two cents eyes just got big at hearing that.
Other table player, " My nephew in grade school wants a hill giant carrying a basket hut for his gnome wizard/ illusionist. So we are working out the flaws to see if we can get it to work. "
A few games/ months later we had a new batch of players came in new to the game.
A new guy not knowing that the guy playing a group of giants was the DM though it was common to PC giants without a full stat block.
New guy, " Wow you can play more than one PC and do giants ?! Which giant can I run ?"
After a few minutes hazing the guy about .. doing .. giants, the regular two cents guy said he could sit down and help him run a hill giant PC.
In the old AD&D monster manual it stated hill giants hunt green dragon wrymlings for food, two problems with that, ..
a.) Hill giants are not smart enough to hunt dragons.
b.) Green dragons are over protective parents. Along with their young adult children lair close to their parents or still winter sleep with their parent if the cave is large enough. So hill giants can't get close to their babies or very young.
2.) PCing dumb hill giants, ..
a.) dwarves are vicious foot/ ankle hackers. After running a few battles there was no way hill giants would last as long as the mammoth did. Anything that inbreed stupid will get killed off before the iron age.
b.) Playing a dumb azz giant trying to catch a gnome running around a tree smacking it face into branches is just a silly riot. Giant goes to grab a gnome and the gnome just climbs onto the back of his hand/ forearm.
Random giant, " Why are you slapping your hand ?"
Giant with a gnome on him speaking like the Marvel cartoon Hulk, " Help I have a gnome on Me ! Slap it off of Me !"
Other giant wants to know why random giant slap the other giant on his arm and face.
Both starting hill giants, " Gnome is on Face ! "
What does or would an ogre or hill giant look like ? The tallest biped animal that can stand upright around ten foot tall is a bear. So picture a shaved hairless bear that moves around as a great ape.
@@krispalermo8133 Sounded fun. But in 1st Ed, Hill Giants and Ogres were similar in size. 2nd Ed, Hill Giants were around twice the height of an Ogre with Ogres being 10's tall. I applied a secondary system for carried weight allowance, making it more relative to mass, but keeping the combat stats the same. I mean a STR 19 humanoid that's a hulking 19' tall would not be able to transport the clothing that's massive enough to cover it, nonetheless lift a club a monster of its size uses, with the STR chart as it was at the time.
Sorry, I'll drop the ramble. I had rules for playing giants, golems, etc... if the players wanted to play them. I was inspired by the "Hey, you wanna play a Kobold?" article and fleshed it out with my homebrew conversion of the Complete Humanoids' Handbook. I had my Mr. 2-Cents as a new guy in one of my missions. He said he wanted to play a Fire Giant. I dug out one of my binders, opened it to the page, and dropped it in front of him. I also warned him that he'll probably get mobbed and killed at some point by what most people consider "good guys".
As for the split party thing, uh... DM nightmare. I decided to stop letting players opt for that at all after one session, 8 real-world hours, was the first ten minutes of game time. You let them do it once and they will avalanche it all the way to the absurd eventually.
@@That80sGuy1972 1st off , .. ramble away. It is what these internet comment sections are for.
2nd, most of my game shops had around a dozen of players at a given time, so we ran one main story and two back up DM to break the groups down for quicker play. Also we stress that current players learn how to DM so we give them a 10min to 20min to flex their creativity. Some of them were not able to role play npc encounters, but they could run a hobgoblin battle formation with intense action. Well everybody has different talents.
Since I had a few DM run giant vs gnome/ goblin battles like Star Wars Ewoks battle of Endor, I just can't take giant fights serious anymore.
Another one of my favorite Fantasy creatures
My gm made my group of 4 level 1 characters fight one of these.... One of us died... Luckily, I was playing a gnome rogue, so I was popped off about 18 damage on my first turn through a sneak attack, but after that, it was just me trying to get a hit in.... Until I blinded him in one eye.
Who wins a hill giant or a ettin? The ettin is smarter and more agile but the hill giant is probably heavier
pretty even match
@@AJPickett but who wins????
@@majinbuu345 my Dads nut sack
Love it!!!. Ordered a couple of Reaper Hill Gaints a couple of days ago .
Darren Urquhart I love those miniatures, couple of my favs, to paint and to deploy on the table... great choice!
Do dwarves & gnomes still have +4 to hit & dodge fighting giants?
Aj... you rock.
So... used to live In Christchurch... 96-98
That your neck of the woods?
No, I lived down south for a few years, but I am an upper north island hobbit :)
The hill giants from G1 were much,much more civilized than the description you gave........if these were the hill giants back in the day that module was written there wouldnt be a steading,the module simply wouldnt have worked.
James Lowery true.
AJ Pickett keep up the fine work........
Agree +1
So Hill Giant's are like the bottom of the barrel among Giant kind, huh? xD
is this playlist in Order?
badum-tss
heh!
AJ Pickett and that in which U posted the vids...
Ha ha I love these dudes thanks man your awesome!
I'm not sure where you get your information on Hill Giants and the Ordning but these creatures...lol you don't give them much credit,much credit at all,I've played this game since the late seventies and I can assure you the information you've given on Hill Giants isn't accurate at all....despite the fact they're not intelligent does not mean that theyre not cunning and as for them eating alone that's proposterous.....they take eating VERY seriously and actually have competitions that happen on a regular basis they also as far as I know don't eat rocks and dirt and other non consumables the favorite food of hill giants is green dragon which they hunt when they can and will enslave them as well! If you have literature on the Ordening you'd see that giants are not just big dumb brutes but a VERY ancient and sophisticated society.....im disappointed in this information....but the vid you did on the Terrasque was great!......i hate to be a pain in the ass but you also didnt mention their social structure as well as their superstitions when it comes to magecraft....they never trust magic and have ceremoniously killed mages smh come to America gluestick...consider this an actual invite and ill show you a campaign for your best characters against the giants and the Ordning lolx2
It's almost like I improved since 2015.
AJ Pickett Has the nature and role of hill giants changed that much since 1E? Or were there mistakes in the info used in the video and if so, where did you get the incorrect info?
@@Im-Not-a-Dog they simply changed it around since 1st ed. All i play is 1st and 2nd edit. with a touch of 3rd.
In games I run, hill giants are at lest human int, use thick hide blankets/ cloaks for arrow cover and use slings and javelins. Giants are smart enough to use armor when raiding human settlements.
If not giants would have been killed off in the bronze age let alone be seen walking around in the steel age.
Hi mate love the monster series... I have another request for you.... howsabouts HAGS???!?
+Dom Ranson I think I can do that for you :)
+AJ Pickett (The Mighty Gluestick) Thats great as 1 or 3 might be popping into my campaign pretty soon! =)
Again great info AJ! Message me sometime if you'd like to join me on my show. We can connect on FB if that's easier :)
Ettins are True giants too, it would be nice if you got your information from more than just 5e.
They are a scary lot. I prefer playing Dwarven clerics