Giants are always given notice for their height, but never for their weight. A 20+' humanoid stomping the ground next to characters in melee would be a problem. The ground would shake, possibly upheave, and likely cause some effect. With regard to their intelligence, it never shows. Give a Frost Giant a shield to scale with it, like a Viking would actually carry, and you have a WALL that will certainly slow down ranged combat and perhaps grant the Shield Master feat to truly halt fireballs. Have a Giant engage at range with boulders or massive ballistae spears, or even with a ballistae as a crossbow. Place the giant in terrain that's disposable. A gaint that misses a swing with a massive club in a forest will start toppling trees...which are now ANOTHER Dex save that the party needs to make, and it's now difficult terrain for the players and NOT the giant. Have the giant fight in it's favored terrain. A Frost Giant on a completely frozen lake where it doesn't slip because fo it's mass, but players risk a "Grease spell-like" effect in combat. Fire giants that use their weapons or hands to splash lava on characters, or who start forest fires to trap the players in a hostile terrain. Storm Giants attacking ships at sea from below... Giants don't need to be tactical geniuses. But they do deserve credit for fighting and surviving to adulthood in a world filled with more monsters than player characters. They are in danger every day. That should come with experience and cunning. Maybe even valor. Giantkin should be given credit to a lesser degree. All of them seem to have minion-like companions. They may even act as firing platforms for lesser creatures. An Ogre acting as a "war elephant" for a pair of Goblin bowmen is something more than just a dumb creature with a club. Now it's a dumb creature with two very clever creatures. Add black powder pistols, grenados, and that's an encounter! Or, if you would rather avoid black powder, shortbows and Alchemist's Fire. All of these creatures are smart enough to know what to do with magic items found in their hordes. Just a quick perusal of the DMGs list of magic items might inspire a series of "what if ___ had ___". There's a lot of room to move here.
Something I forgot about is Giants as firing platforms. They have a massive size with an equally massive carrying capacity. Imagine harnesses or platforms on the giant loaded with other humanoids or siege weapons. THAT'S a problem to deal with.
***** More like Giants with other creatures riding on them. Using the Giant as a Tank to move it's archers and crossbowmen into combat, or dropping berserkers off amid archers. That sort of thing.
***** Thank you for that compliment. I write an online article for Nerdarchy.com called "Out of The Box Encounters". I have one called "Fire For Effect" coming up in a week or so that has a Fire Giant and Hobgoblins working together in such a unit.
I always liked the idea of having an Ettin NPC. When the players meet it, one head is asleep, the other awake. The awake head tells them how much he loves poetry (which they have to suffer through) and flower pressing. So he wants to be separated from his other head. The PCs then have to figure out how to do that without killing the "nice" head and have to trick the "mean" head into coming along to whatever trap they have devised for it. Still working out the kinks but I hope to put it to my party soon.
Oooh I know this is an ancient comment but I love this idea. I could imagine drugging one of the heads, or keeping him blindfolded, or only half charmed, or stuffing cotton in his ears/silencing him every once in a while to mislead him.
I know personally whenever I get together with friends and play D&D we usually have moderate role play, we don't really do voices and do stay super strict to our characters, but mostly focus on having fun and making each other laugh. But when I watch games on UA-cam they all role play more and rarely break characters. It would be cool if you guys could talk about the different styles of playing and how that affects the game and your guys opinion on them.
One of their earlier videos focused on this exact thing. I think it was called player styles? I'm sorry I can't be more help but that video does exist under some name
i used a hill giant (homebrew created) in a campaign as an encounter that players found walking towards them while climbing a mountain. the fight turned out very well with the players attempting to climb trees to get at it head and it rolling tree trunks downhill forcing players to panic and run or jump etc. away from the rolling logs. i think with giants using the environment like that can be very good
The best giant encounter I ever ran was with a clan of hill giants. The party noticed they were upset, and approached them diplomatically. They were mad because "Those mean doggies stole old chief!" It turned out that a pack of blink dogs had dug up some bones, and, not realizing they were significant, took them home to chew on. The party negotiated for the return of the bones, made friends with both groups, and left in high spirits.
This is so bloody useful, I'm running Storm King's Thunder and I was so worried about theses giants being bored or too easy to defeat, thank you so much guys!
Yoiner Barrios I'm literally about 2 weeks away from also running it and this will be my first time as a dungeon master this video is super helpful as are some of the comments
'Boy lemmi tell ya, did he just rock that things world.' I have never heard you quite so southern :D I think you guys are my favourite pair on youtube.
+Tabletop Gaming with Juce A Cavalry of storm giants riding Behirs accompanied by some Behir Bolter Whelps could be an interesting "hunting party" to come across.
LEFT WING CONSPIRACY the more enemies the longer and more drawn out a combat is. If you have a combat heavy group buff the stats and throw less bad guys at them. It speeds up the feel of combat.
There is an easy fix to this giant action economy conundrum, PCs don't just fight one giant at a time. Maybe toss some class levels on the bigs to make them more interesting. I would love to see high level party react to a lvl 20 champion fighter fire giant king action surging, ah that would be glorious.
Mark J I always like to throw weird stuff at my players. i have a similar idea but I haven't gotten to use it yet. a 20th level berseker barbarian storm giant. give it 34 str. and a greatsword of sharpness , that's three attacks with GWM at 62 damage each
I would say that the real problem is that D&D treats giants like regular humans as far as combat is concerned. how are you supposed to kill a giant by hacking away at it's ankles? You might be able to harm its foot, but you won't kill it. And if it is wearing armored boots, you shouldn't be able to hurt it at all. Also, all of a giants attacks should be AOE. It should be able to swing through an entire party of PCs in one swing. It should be able to kick and stomp for high damage. it should have an incredibly high AC for having super thick skin. I mean how thick does skin have to be to support itself and 10,000-20,000 pounds of guts?
Agreed. Really, adventurers trying to fight a giant should be like mice trying to fight a human being. Even if you gave the mice sapience, armor as thick as an aluminum can, some pen knives for swords, and tiny little bows that shoot toothpicks, they aren't going to do much of anything against the human in a straight fight. They're going up against a creature that exists on a completely different order of magnitude to them. So our hypothetical mice warriors don't try to engage that fight. Not if they want to live. First they sneak and hide, to escape the human's attention. Then, they try to arrange a plan that makes up for their disadvantages.
Cutting at the ankles would be quite effective. You cut the tendons on the back of the foot and the leg is absolutely unusable. It would be like trying to walk when your leg is asleep you cannot do it you will simply collapse.
7:25 Dude that’s awesome! I love going back to these old videos they never cease to inspire. You could even have it be that each additional giant in a group increases the spell level by one that they cast as a group up to 5th level Example: Stone giants 1 Giant can cast earth tremor 2 giants Maximilian’s earthen grasp 3 can cast Erupting Earth 4 can all get stone skin together 5 cast transmute rock or wall of stone
The trouble I've always had with giants is that they never felt big enough. A while back I experimented with my own build for a giant troll and gave it several actions per turn. These actions were as follows and largely stolen from an older edition of warhammer. Swing club, make a club attack as normal only you target 3 adjacent squares ie a 15ft line. hit with club, make attack against single target for double damage, lose club on failed attack. stomp, make unarmed attack add additional damage for each size category the giant is to its target. Kick, make unarmed attack and punt target 30 feet away. Pick up and, make a grapple check- -throw, make a ranged attack as you throw them back into the fight. -bite, bite attack (I set this as a death attack) Every attack got a reflex/ dex save for half damage or if the player chose all damage but was then prone and the Giant got 2 - 3 actions a turn which I played by ear. I some day hope to tailor this further to balance it out a bit more.
I'm a new DM, never had the opportunity to play the game before. These videos are an amazing resource for us, and you guys are a credit to the community. I always appreciate your wisdom and your knowledge when planning out a session. Thank you so much guys.
Another way to assist monsters with the action economy, particularly big 'uns like giants, is to give them area attacks. An area attack may only hit one PC, but it could catch the whole party if they don't pay attention, effectively mimicking extra actions.
I'd be interested to see an update concerning how giants were handle in Storm King's Thunder. Cloud giants, for example, got buffed up a good bit as spell casters. Water logged hides for trolls? Like Trepsin the 4 armed troll in Hoard of the Dragon Queen.
I'm actually going to run a game were a Storm Giant is a NPC that the party has to seek out for his vast knowledge. I was worried how to use him if the party had things go south and they had to fight the Giant. This video really helped. I love your videos. Please keep it up guys!
I had this one moment where me and my party were fighting a giant. My character had wings so I went up to disarm the Giant so I flew up and attacked his hands, and he dropped his weapon. But here's the thing, I'm now face to face with a giant that has nothing occupying his hands. I looked over at my DM he smiles, and then the Giant grabs my character and punts him to the ground as hard as he can, almost killing him and my friend that he threw me at.
there are Elemental Giants to worry about. also Giants have been a staple in Fantasy games since myths about them.what about Elemental trolls? like trolls with Icy claws and ones with Fire breath.
Many people conceptualize giants as brutes and barbarians, who can only use raw force. But what if you had a Giant Mage, Druid, or Cleric? A towering figure with a staff made from a whole uprooted tree, whipping up storms and singing things into existence. Bringing entire forests to life as walking puppets, or clutching a symbol of their giant god that hangs from his neck, the size of a battle axe. Suddenly you have a caster raining spells down on the party, _who just so happens to be far from squishy_.
Giants! Running Storm King's Thunder for my friends. They finished their first Giant lair yesterday, Den of the Hill Giants. Gorilla tactics and well timed Short Rests helped them prevail but the highlight; once they entered Chief Guh's throne room, the warlock immediately casted Banishment. Guh disappears and her allies bail. She reappears and the bard polymorphs her into a frog, tosses her down a whole lol. They won without rolling initiative 😂😂😂
One thing you could add to giants in this vein to spice up the encounter is give them damage resistance against all melee attacks by all creatures with less than 10ft reach while the creature is not prone. Couple this with a mechanic that can trip them if they get hit hard enough by an attack they resist, maybe with a dex save to avoid damage from the giant falling on you, giving the monster a bigger role as a battleship that can wade into a crowd of melee fighters and not have to worry too much about all the little people under their feet.
By and large Giants are not idiots. They have been fighting for upwards of 100+ years and are tribe based. I often have the giants fight intelligently. With front liners and ranged fighters. Sure you can fight the one in front of you but taking a boulder to the face every round from 100ft away might make you think twice.
I played in a game with my brother as the dm and we had to settle a dyed between several giants each with a different subspecies that were in a merchant war with each trying to one up each other. The frost was selling iced tea, fire giant sold fireball., the hill sold moonshine, and the cloud sold cloud cakes.
When i set up myparty's first encounter with a roup of giants and minions i thought 'this is gonna be awesome.' And it turned out like you said, a big bag of hit points and a stupid attack and went down like chumps. But that 1.5 rounds looked cool.
I genuinely love the fact that in 5E (combat-focused-game) literally no giant has at least one unique ability or differences between each other. Smash twice and throw rock. So it's up to DM not only to make them interesting and special via homerules, but also balance this on your own.
I remember our party in one game having to avoid a Hill Giant so we wouldn't be squashed because we were level 1s and 2s fighting Kobolds and the occasional Bugbear.
I'm reminded of Drizzt and Wulfgar taking on a whole lair of giant-kin, and of course other times when they fought giants with Bruenor. R.A. Salvatore is VERY descriptive in the battles he writes. Also Jack the Giant Slayer was an under-rated movie (and the old Jack the Giant-Killer).
Playing Baldur's Gate 2 the encounter with a red dragon and his wing buffet was very cool. Sends your characters flying all the way across the map and a chance to get stunned from the impact with a wall. In 5e we have a shove attack which should be expanded upon for Giants. Similar to a red dragon maybe strength based as not all giants are the same size and strength. To send the target of the shove attack a multi turn distance away from the combat and perhaps with a chance of stun as well. That would make it difficult and dangerous to attack even a single giant as it should be. Also overrun attacks, so an intelligent strong large giant, like a fire giant or a bigger type, could for example overrun right through the entire party to reach the most dangerous spell caster in the party, then do a back hand shove to that spell caster to send it flying maybe 70 feet away doing some damage with the hit and also a chance that the spell caster gets stunned when it lands. Also everyone the giant plowed through during the overrun gets knocked prone. Now the giant is a giant as it should be. Lets add in some height and weight to signify some of the above. Hill giants D&D 5e page 153 monster manual Height 16 feet average weight for that height would be around 1,100 lbs. Fire Giant 18 feet tall average weight 5,000 lbs. Stone Giant 18 feet tall average weight 1,500 lbs. Frost Giant 21 feet tall average weight 4,500 Lbs. taller and thinner than fire giants. Cloud Giant 24 feet tall average weight 7,500 lbs. Storm Giants 26 feet tall average weight 11,000 lbs. Also a house rule I use, if a creature is large enough that a character with a 5 foot reach weapon can not hit a vital target on that larger creature (heart lungs area or head) then they attack with disadvantage. Conversely the larger creature with more weight behind it gets advantage on its melee attacks. So yes you may have a higher AC than the giant does but if he weighs some 11,000 lbs. It is likely that his hit on your shield will drive right through your shield and the force of the impact will still hit the player character and drive him back. Thus the advantage roll. Keep in mind a reach weapon can have a 10 foot range and may overcome this on some monsters. And this does not effect range weapon attacks. Using the Storm giant as an example his waist is 13 feet above the ground. A 7 foot tall character with a 5 foot reach melee weapon can only reach up to 12 feet not even to his waist. You can see a bit of DM latitude has to be implemented here. But that does make fights with Giants feel more like a fight with a giant. I do the same with fighting from horseback. Character on the horse gets advantage on a man size on the ground and the man size on ground disadvantage to attack the guy on the horse back unless he has a reach weapon. This often leads to horses being taken down to get at the riders. Of course now that guy on a horse would not have disadvantage to hit the giant because he is up on the horse. And the giant no longer has advantage to hit the guy on the horse either. But my giants do tend to shove/kick horses aside so as to trip them up and send the rider prone into a thrown from the horse situation. Just ideas to use if you want in your games. Makes these fights less ordinary and more special. Feel more real.
Three Addison powers for your consideration- Scatter and stun (all giant kin) with a free action can s&s any group shattering units by moving all units on the battlefield the closer they are to him. 3d10 in random direction Agility save to remain standing and to resist effects (two saves and grows in power as giant grows) Giant roar - free Action can break concentration and aiming of enemies. Make save for giant enemies to use or maintain spells and use non-melee attacks. Power varies the Roar can and should say some thing but in the case of stupid giants they make noise. Save is versus fear and harder the larger the giant. This can be done 1D4 turns. Devour - the giant eats a friend or foe of m size. This attack takes the place of all other attacks but if successful that creature will die in the belly of the giant in 1D4 rounds. For every 6 inches the target is shorter the 6 feet the giant gets a +1 and the target may use his agility save if target is on there feet. Once attack succeeds giant gains 20% of targets max hit points and regeneration 20 hit points a round until target is digested. Target can be saved alive if giant is cut open be for 1D4 rounds pass. But can only be raised if body can be retrieved within the week. Note that if a giant eats an allied target allies near the giant get. A second save against fear effects and are far less likely to run.
Its been a long time since I fought a giant but I thought that if you you were to fight above your size that you had to halve your damage due to the physics of the size differance
I'd like to see a storm giant with at least 6 levels of bard commanding a group of trolls. Between at will levitate, their lightning strike ability recharging on 5 or 6, bard support spells like fairy fire and hypnotic pattern, and the trolls regeneration, that would be a tough fight. Give him magic items like an instrument of the bard's and you have a very cool fight.
i like the idea of making giants do aoe damage types, like hill giants hit an area on the field around them and where the attacks do essentially shock wave, causing people to be immobilized or stunned
i love the multiple giants ability aspect but i think there is room for them to have individual elemental aspects like having a frost breath or burning what ever is touched for a short time.
If you've weakened the party beforehand that they don't have all their powerful magic or once a day abilities anything becomes significantly harder. Reducing party resources beforehand is the best way to make something challenging and interrupting the parties formation. Second way to make it more challenging is to use actual tactics from history, this is completely dependant on the intelligence score of the creatures being used. Giants are reasonable to do this with. I'd suggest, flanking enemies. In the example used having the merrows attack first, then a second group flank the party on round two, then on the third round of combat a giant enter the initiative attacking from the front. You've made the encounter much more interesting than throwing everything at once to begin with and also not artificially such as adding feats or excessive amounts of gear to the giants to make them more difficult. Stone Giants are my personal favourites for this sort of encounters particularly in mountains, they're not inherently evil but who cares your trespassing! They have very high stealth when in mountainous terrain, you put the party on a thin track or path through the mountains. You then have several options, you have the stone giants above and throw boulders and cause land slides on the party from above, or use their high stealth to pop out behind the party once they've been tied up by the giants pet bears. Again this can make the encounters lethal because your party will move to fight the initial threat exposing the casters to the flanking enemies on the second round of combat.
Suggestion inspired in old arcade monster bosses: Greater hit points. For every fixed damage points inflicted by the party (I usually use 20 hit points), roll 1D12 of actual damage to the giant . The thing will certainly last more than 1 round and a half, with the funny thing that you dont actually know how many rounds your giant will last. In my game, this house rule (along with an incrased number of attacks and some legendary actions) has made giants great again
I had an idea a little while ago of having a group of people who would catch hill and stone giants, remove a bit of their legs and make artificial "hooves", reins, and saddles, and 'brainwash' them and use them as mounts. It would be like riding a bigger, stronger, sometimes smarter gorrilla.
We were playing SKT and we got to Ironslag and we went straight to Duke Zalto and well now we have 13 other fire giants some ogres and a couple of drow coming for us
I'm making my own custom session, and giants are eventually gonna be a part of it. Since Yhorm the Giant is one of my favorite bosses in Dark Souls, ever, I'm gonna definitely give them some love.
A giant's size and a strength give him a lot of tactical options; he can throw and push large objects around with ease. In an urban environment there will be plenty of things they can throw at players: carts, anvils, horses or cows, NPCs, or perhaps the commemorative statue of the duke. They can collapse houses or walls where the players are taking cover in or behind, burying them in rubble. In a wildness environment, especially near their lairs, hill or stone giants could have avalanches of large boulders prepared to tumble on invaders. They can push trees over onto opponents. A storm giant can capsize ships by punching holes in their hull. Fire giants could set a forest on fire before assaulting the players within it. What about giant sized weapons? I'm sure anyone that's seen Game of Thrones remembers the giants armed with bows that acted like ballistae against humans. What would be the range on those? Giant's are large enough for small creatures to ride them. A cloud giant could have perches from where goblins shoot crossbows. Maybe they have minions that hitch a ride on them specifically to repel players that try to climb the giant 'Shadow of the Colossus' style as brought up. A fire giant could douses himself in greek fire when someone jumps on his back. A storm giant can grab players and submerge underwater to drown them. A cloud giant can pick people up, fly into the air, and drop them to their death. There are a lot of possibilities to make giant encounters more memorable (and deadly) without altering giants' stats.
I like the idea of giving groups of giants thematic spell casting but what about giving them Frightful Presence? Seems like a more interesting way to give your giants more survivability than just giving them a pack of ogre minions and I honestly don't know why they wouldn't have this feature.
A fun thing to do with giants is to put their size into play. Maybe have a hill giant just pick a PC up and throw them at another one, or have a giant's corpse in a battle become an obstruction or even cover on the battlefield. Perhaps an ice giant could throw their axe at a player and even if he misses, the impact of the axe behind the player can still be felt. If you are in a social encounter in a giant-made settlement, describe how oppressive is the size of the halls of the storm giants, or the smouldering flames of the fire giants' forges seem as big as a whole house ingulfed in flames. There are a lot of possibilities in these scenarios.
Even really simple things, like putting wooden doors as kneecaps or something will give them some damage reduction and force the characters to climb them in order to reach more vulnerable spots.
I know im late to the party, but some of the weaknesses of the giants can be made up for thematically given their strength. First I would give them a leap which they could use 3/day They can leap thier walking distance and not take opportunity attacks from any engaged foes. In addition, the leap would cause a shockwave that would cause some bludgeoning damage and need a strength or dexterety staving throw or be knocked prone. This would apply to both the leaping spot, and the landing spot. Handles thier escape option, allows them to enter combat easier, and helps them disrupt parties a bit better for a solo monster.
When you guys were talking about the elemental giants, and how hill giants in a group could maybe cause an earth quake, or mud wall etc. did you mean a Stone Giant in place of the hill giant? I don't know if I could see a hill giant troupe using an ability like that. But it would make more sense for the Hill Giants to gather as a marauding group compared to the Stone Giants since the Stones are neutral instead of Chaotic Evil.
In the setting that i'm using there are 3 tiers of giant, that determines there position in creation, you have the lesser giants who range in height from 10-30ft and tend to be seen as gardeners of the environment they were born to, these would be the hill giants through to the cloud giants. you then have the Titans who are around 2-3 times the size of the lesser giants, and helped shape the terrain setting up mountains and coasts. Then finaly we have the Gigantes who are truly gigantic and as such seldom move as if they did they would cause earthquakes and tsunamis, but during the creation of the world they ruled supreme moving the continents into the places they are know.
Ice giants -> Make them conjure Ice Storm as an bonus action on their turn to spice things up. Same with fire and storm giants,but different magics. And for Stone Giants, they could conjure earth elementals and shape the rocky environment at their will. >Knock people back with their giant weapons. >Creatures comes to their aid in the fight. >Giants can cause fear, or can charm people with "ancient magic". >The environment counts as difficult terrain. >They can heal themselves throught the use of "Magic beans" (i know). Or just fkcing annihilate your players with 10 fire giants and an ember roc. Last one works like a charm, in case you're - THAT GUY -.
First time seeing you guys. Well done, clearly spoken (good microphone), nice artwork, cool figs in the foreground, is that castle DM screen storebought? Is that screen in the back concave to aid in microphone pick-up? Now I have to bingewatch all your stuff.
Do you know where i can find the 3rd picture from the start of the video ? The one with the female fighter/barbarian cause she looks awesome and i would like to use it as pc art
One of the first Giants I've fought in 5e was made into a complete chump. . . We had a Goliath in the party which I (the wizard) enlarged. From this, they were both Huge class monsters. . the goliath being a barbarian rages and boom. . Suddenly the barb goliath standing 17ft tall has advantage on grappling this stone giant to the ground where everyone else pummels him into the dust. . Pretty much exactly as you guys mentioned is like one of the easiest methods to defeat it. x-x All and all.. the giant plus the ettins nobody took 1 point of damage. x-x
What about after being hit you are flung 30feet or more then the damage from that. I feel giants are a huge encounter that players should be afraid of.
yeah! Or what about a giant in close combat picks a player up instead of attacking him. And the next round tries to bite his head off! Or more intelligent giants could start bargaining with the rest of the party "If you don't be nice, I will eat your friend or smash his skull! Now be nice!"
I was tinkering with the idea of a fire giant who is decked out in seriously heavy armor. This "multi-stage" idea is interesting...I could have this fire giant have some massive AC from their armor, but the party could target parts of the armor to dismantle it. However, even as they strip the armor, this seems to bolster the fire giants ferocity...more attacks, maybe Polearm Mastery... ...if they attack it in their forge, maybe they pour liquid metal around the party; giving some terrain difficulty.
What I do with giants is give them special attacks to emphasize their size. I'll give them a leap, similar to hulk, where they jump through the air and then slam down on a PC. They can also use this to get a quick escape as well. I also enjoy letting them just chuck PC's across the map. Snatching up the party fighter and throwing him 40+ feet into a cliff face really shows how dangerous the giant is.
Would you guys ever do an "ask me anything D&D related" style episode where you take questions from here and facebook and answer them? Because I'd love some ideas on how to make it fun for everyone when I'm very much a min/maxer while my friends aren't, as well as me being a caster in 3.5. I feel like the playstyle I have the most fun with is making the arms race for challenging encounters for my DM is leaving the other two in a position where they can die in one or two hits while I'm sitting at demi-god like power.
I love using giants as pets for monsters against a really low level party. A bugbear has a giant chained up asleep in the main room. A level 2 party is gonna shit their pants if theres any chance that its gonna get loose
our dm thew 2 frost giants and 2 worgs at us in the storm kings thunder when we were at level 4. Our party of 5 took them all down it was a long slog but we did it. Should we have been fighting these things
What about a nerdy giant who's an equivalent of like a butterfly collector in our world. So he likes to capture and collect tiny adventurers and pin them into little glass cases and displays in his home.
How about an ettin named Zig Zag that one head is friendly and one is not so friendly? They’re tasked to guarding the entrance of an ancient tomb but have grown bored and willing to work somewhat with the PCs
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A party of trolls with a healer, who is just a troll carrying several buckets of water
Or a troll Druid with Create Water...
Red half dragon troll squad F*** YOU PCS!
So Scrag trolls then.
There ar Troll Shamans called Vinespeakers. Its a thing.
What a troll 😆
Giants are always given notice for their height, but never for their weight. A 20+' humanoid stomping the ground next to characters in melee would be a problem. The ground would shake, possibly upheave, and likely cause some effect.
With regard to their intelligence, it never shows. Give a Frost Giant a shield to scale with it, like a Viking would actually carry, and you have a WALL that will certainly slow down ranged combat and perhaps grant the Shield Master feat to truly halt fireballs. Have a Giant engage at range with boulders or massive ballistae spears, or even with a ballistae as a crossbow.
Place the giant in terrain that's disposable. A gaint that misses a swing with a massive club in a forest will start toppling trees...which are now ANOTHER Dex save that the party needs to make, and it's now difficult terrain for the players and NOT the giant.
Have the giant fight in it's favored terrain. A Frost Giant on a completely frozen lake where it doesn't slip because fo it's mass, but players risk a "Grease spell-like" effect in combat. Fire giants that use their weapons or hands to splash lava on characters, or who start forest fires to trap the players in a hostile terrain. Storm Giants attacking ships at sea from below...
Giants don't need to be tactical geniuses. But they do deserve credit for fighting and surviving to adulthood in a world filled with more monsters than player characters. They are in danger every day. That should come with experience and cunning. Maybe even valor.
Giantkin should be given credit to a lesser degree. All of them seem to have minion-like companions. They may even act as firing platforms for lesser creatures. An Ogre acting as a "war elephant" for a pair of Goblin bowmen is something more than just a dumb creature with a club. Now it's a dumb creature with two very clever creatures. Add black powder pistols, grenados, and that's an encounter! Or, if you would rather avoid black powder, shortbows and Alchemist's Fire.
All of these creatures are smart enough to know what to do with magic items found in their hordes. Just a quick perusal of the DMGs list of magic items might inspire a series of "what if ___ had ___".
There's a lot of room to move here.
Great ideas!
Something I forgot about is Giants as firing platforms. They have a massive size with an equally massive carrying capacity. Imagine harnesses or platforms on the giant loaded with other humanoids or siege weapons. THAT'S a problem to deal with.
***** More like Giants with other creatures riding on them. Using the Giant as a Tank to move it's archers and crossbowmen into combat, or dropping berserkers off amid archers. That sort of thing.
***** Thank you for that compliment. I write an online article for Nerdarchy.com called "Out of The Box Encounters". I have one called "Fire For Effect" coming up in a week or so that has a Fire Giant and Hobgoblins working together in such a unit.
Mike Gould yes
I always liked the idea of having an Ettin NPC. When the players meet it, one head is asleep, the other awake. The awake head tells them how much he loves poetry (which they have to suffer through) and flower pressing. So he wants to be separated from his other head. The PCs then have to figure out how to do that without killing the "nice" head and have to trick the "mean" head into coming along to whatever trap they have devised for it. Still working out the kinks but I hope to put it to my party soon.
This is hilarious.
I like 👍🏻👍🏻
Did you do this?
Oooh I know this is an ancient comment but I love this idea. I could imagine drugging one of the heads, or keeping him blindfolded, or only half charmed, or stuffing cotton in his ears/silencing him every once in a while to mislead him.
@@fahdkhan problem is they share the body tho.
I know personally whenever I get together with friends and play D&D we usually have moderate role play, we don't really do voices and do stay super strict to our characters, but mostly focus on having fun and making each other laugh. But when I watch games on UA-cam they all role play more and rarely break characters. It would be cool if you guys could talk about the different styles of playing and how that affects the game and your guys opinion on them.
One of their earlier videos focused on this exact thing. I think it was called player styles? I'm sorry I can't be more help but that video does exist under some name
i used a hill giant (homebrew created) in a campaign as an encounter that players found walking towards them while climbing a mountain. the fight turned out very well with the players attempting to climb trees to get at it head and it rolling tree trunks downhill forcing players to panic and run or jump etc. away from the rolling logs. i think with giants using the environment like that can be very good
The best giant encounter I ever ran was with a clan of hill giants. The party noticed they were upset, and approached them diplomatically. They were mad because "Those mean doggies stole old chief!" It turned out that a pack of blink dogs had dug up some bones, and, not realizing they were significant, took them home to chew on. The party negotiated for the return of the bones, made friends with both groups, and left in high spirits.
Yeah but...arent those giant still going to go on to murder innocent civilians in the foreseeable future? I mean, thats kinda their thing.
This is so bloody useful, I'm running Storm King's Thunder and I was so worried about theses giants being bored or too easy to defeat, thank you so much guys!
Yoiner Barrios I'm literally about 2 weeks away from also running it and this will be my first time as a dungeon master this video is super helpful as are some of the comments
Stoner Hill Giants??
OOoooooh Stone OR Hill Giants.
"Dude where's my club?"
The Mapronomicon "Dude maybe we're not giant, maybe they're just really small."
Hill giants that ate a drug warehouse and are now high.
'Boy lemmi tell ya, did he just rock that things world.'
I have never heard you quite so southern :D
I think you guys are my favourite pair on youtube.
Giants in 5e are def scarier on paper than in actual game. Putting them in groups of 3 though can really make an impact.
This is the truth.
JPruInc keep up the good work guys. Love the conversational aspect to the videos.
+Tabletop Gaming with Juce A Cavalry of storm giants riding Behirs accompanied by some Behir Bolter Whelps could be an interesting "hunting party" to come across.
Tabletop Gaming with Juce Try putting them in groups of 12, bro
LEFT WING CONSPIRACY the more enemies the longer and more drawn out a combat is. If you have a combat heavy group buff the stats and throw less bad guys at them. It speeds up the feel of combat.
Every time they say "iconic", drink.
Jeffrey Anderson guaranteed alcohol poisoning
There is an easy fix to this giant action economy conundrum, PCs don't just fight one giant at a time. Maybe toss some class levels on the bigs to make them more interesting. I would love to see high level party react to a lvl 20 champion fighter fire giant king action surging, ah that would be glorious.
Mark J That would be absolutely terrifying... I love it.
Mark J I always like to throw weird stuff at my players. i have a similar idea but I haven't gotten to use it yet. a 20th level berseker barbarian storm giant. give it 34 str. and a greatsword of sharpness , that's three attacks with GWM at 62 damage each
I have an idea for an encounter with hill giants trying to snatch up jellies and oozes for part of their sod-sandwiches.
Fire giants have been trained to kill since they could walk. Having fighter levels on all your fire giants make sense.
I would say that the real problem is that D&D treats giants like regular humans as far as combat is concerned. how are you supposed to kill a giant by hacking away at it's ankles? You might be able to harm its foot, but you won't kill it. And if it is wearing armored boots, you shouldn't be able to hurt it at all.
Also, all of a giants attacks should be AOE. It should be able to swing through an entire party of PCs in one swing. It should be able to kick and stomp for high damage. it should have an incredibly high AC for having super thick skin. I mean how thick does skin have to be to support itself and 10,000-20,000 pounds of guts?
Using that kind of logic, most monsters should instantly kill any player they hit. Logic can only take you so far without wrecking the game.
Agreed. Really, adventurers trying to fight a giant should be like mice trying to fight a human being. Even if you gave the mice sapience, armor as thick as an aluminum can, some pen knives for swords, and tiny little bows that shoot toothpicks, they aren't going to do much of anything against the human in a straight fight. They're going up against a creature that exists on a completely different order of magnitude to them.
So our hypothetical mice warriors don't try to engage that fight. Not if they want to live. First they sneak and hide, to escape the human's attention. Then, they try to arrange a plan that makes up for their disadvantages.
Cutting at the ankles would be quite effective. You cut the tendons on the back of the foot and the leg is absolutely unusable. It would be like trying to walk when your leg is asleep you cannot do it you will simply collapse.
Giants in D&D 5e aren't that big. You could get it in the upper thigh, probably the groin if you're tall enough.
Hiking at its ankles won't kill it. But it could potentially knock it down and make it vulnerable.
7:25 Dude that’s awesome! I love going back to these old videos they never cease to inspire.
You could even have it be that each additional giant in a group increases the spell level by one that they cast as a group up to 5th level
Example: Stone giants
1 Giant can cast earth tremor
2 giants Maximilian’s earthen grasp
3 can cast Erupting Earth
4 can all get stone skin together
5 cast transmute rock or wall of stone
The trouble I've always had with giants is that they never felt big enough. A while back I experimented with my own build for a giant troll and gave it several actions per turn. These actions were as follows and largely stolen from an older edition of warhammer.
Swing club, make a club attack as normal only you target 3 adjacent squares ie a 15ft line.
hit with club, make attack against single target for double damage, lose club on failed attack.
stomp, make unarmed attack add additional damage for each size category the giant is to its target.
Kick, make unarmed attack and punt target 30 feet away.
Pick up and, make a grapple check-
-throw, make a ranged attack as you throw them back into the fight.
-bite, bite attack (I set this as a death attack)
Every attack got a reflex/ dex save for half damage or if the player chose all damage but was then prone and the Giant got 2 - 3 actions a turn which I played by ear. I some day hope to tailor this further to balance it out a bit more.
web dm is dope. love the lore talk.
I'm a new DM, never had the opportunity to play the game before. These videos are an amazing resource for us, and you guys are a credit to the community. I always appreciate your wisdom and your knowledge when planning out a session. Thank you so much guys.
Another way to assist monsters with the action economy, particularly big 'uns like giants, is to give them area attacks. An area attack may only hit one PC, but it could catch the whole party if they don't pay attention, effectively mimicking extra actions.
Giants in 2nd edition (playing through Against the Giants specifically) were tough as hell.
I'd be interested to see an update concerning how giants were handle in Storm King's Thunder. Cloud giants, for example, got buffed up a good bit as spell casters.
Water logged hides for trolls? Like Trepsin the 4 armed troll in Hoard of the Dragon Queen.
I'm actually going to run a game were a Storm Giant is a NPC that the party has to seek out for his vast knowledge. I was worried how to use him if the party had things go south and they had to fight the Giant. This video really helped. I love your videos. Please keep it up guys!
Awesome! Let us know how it turns out.
I had this one moment where me and my party were fighting a giant. My character had wings so I went up to disarm the Giant so I flew up and attacked his hands, and he dropped his weapon. But here's the thing, I'm now face to face with a giant that has nothing occupying his hands. I looked over at my DM he smiles, and then the Giant grabs my character and punts him to the ground as hard as he can, almost killing him and my friend that he threw me at.
there are Elemental Giants to worry about. also Giants have been a staple in Fantasy games since myths about them.what about Elemental trolls? like trolls with Icy claws and ones with Fire breath.
the fire troll where instead of using fire or acid you have to use water on it
That pun alone was enough to be a favorite video
Fantastic! I'm in Chapter 2 of running Storm King's Thunder for my players. The options you talked about will help make things very interesting
Many people conceptualize giants as brutes and barbarians, who can only use raw force. But what if you had a Giant Mage, Druid, or Cleric? A towering figure with a staff made from a whole uprooted tree, whipping up storms and singing things into existence. Bringing entire forests to life as walking puppets, or clutching a symbol of their giant god that hangs from his neck, the size of a battle axe.
Suddenly you have a caster raining spells down on the party, _who just so happens to be far from squishy_.
Fianally another monster episode! I love these!
And in the words of the beloved Ricks and Morty character Fart, "More are coming!"
Awesome content, guys. Keep up the great work, it's appreciated.
Thanks!
Your content is very engaging and enjoyable. I always feel inspired listening.
Giants! Running Storm King's Thunder for my friends. They finished their first Giant lair yesterday, Den of the Hill Giants. Gorilla tactics and well timed Short Rests helped them prevail but the highlight; once they entered Chief Guh's throne room, the warlock immediately casted Banishment. Guh disappears and her allies bail. She reappears and the bard polymorphs her into a frog, tosses her down a whole lol. They won without rolling initiative 😂😂😂
One thing you could add to giants in this vein to spice up the encounter is give them damage resistance against all melee attacks by all creatures with less than 10ft reach while the creature is not prone. Couple this with a mechanic that can trip them if they get hit hard enough by an attack they resist, maybe with a dex save to avoid damage from the giant falling on you, giving the monster a bigger role as a battleship that can wade into a crowd of melee fighters and not have to worry too much about all the little people under their feet.
By and large Giants are not idiots. They have been fighting for upwards of 100+ years and are tribe based. I often have the giants fight intelligently. With front liners and ranged fighters. Sure you can fight the one in front of you but taking a boulder to the face every round from 100ft away might make you think twice.
You should do a classic d&d wilderness fight like a owlbear or a group of goblins
I played in a game with my brother as the dm and we had to settle a dyed between several giants each with a different subspecies that were in a merchant war with each trying to one up each other. The frost was selling iced tea, fire giant sold fireball., the hill sold moonshine, and the cloud sold cloud cakes.
When i set up myparty's first encounter with a roup of giants and minions i thought 'this is gonna be awesome.' And it turned out like you said, a big bag of hit points and a stupid attack and went down like chumps. But that 1.5 rounds looked cool.
I genuinely love the fact that in 5E (combat-focused-game) literally no giant has at least one unique ability or differences between each other. Smash twice and throw rock. So it's up to DM not only to make them interesting and special via homerules, but also balance this on your own.
I love the giants added in Volo's, they do a good job of spicing up the basic giants from the monster manual.
I remember our party in one game having to avoid a Hill Giant so we wouldn't be squashed because we were level 1s and 2s fighting Kobolds and the occasional Bugbear.
I like the idea of an Ettin mage--two heads, two concentration spells?
I'm reminded of Drizzt and Wulfgar taking on a whole lair of giant-kin, and of course other times when they fought giants with Bruenor. R.A. Salvatore is VERY descriptive in the battles he writes.
Also Jack the Giant Slayer was an under-rated movie (and the old Jack the Giant-Killer).
Incrediably informative episode, as always, LOVE IT.
Thanks for tuning in and for the compliment.
Playing Baldur's Gate 2 the encounter with a red dragon and his wing buffet was very cool. Sends your characters flying all the way across the map and a chance to get stunned from the impact with a wall. In 5e we have a shove attack which should be expanded upon for Giants. Similar to a red dragon maybe strength based as not all giants are the same size and strength. To send the target of the shove attack a multi turn distance away from the combat and perhaps with a chance of stun as well. That would make it difficult and dangerous to attack even a single giant as it should be.
Also overrun attacks, so an intelligent strong large giant, like a fire giant or a bigger type, could for example overrun right through the entire party to reach the most dangerous spell caster in the party, then do a back hand shove to that spell caster to send it flying maybe 70 feet away doing some damage with the hit and also a chance that the spell caster gets stunned when it lands. Also everyone the giant plowed through during the overrun gets knocked prone. Now the giant is a giant as it should be.
Lets add in some height and weight to signify some of the above. Hill giants D&D 5e page 153 monster manual Height 16 feet average weight for that height would be around 1,100 lbs.
Fire Giant 18 feet tall average weight 5,000 lbs.
Stone Giant 18 feet tall average weight 1,500 lbs.
Frost Giant 21 feet tall average weight 4,500 Lbs. taller and thinner than fire giants.
Cloud Giant 24 feet tall average weight 7,500 lbs.
Storm Giants 26 feet tall average weight 11,000 lbs.
Also a house rule I use, if a creature is large enough that a character with a 5 foot reach weapon can not hit a vital target on that larger creature (heart lungs area or head) then they attack with disadvantage. Conversely the larger creature with more weight behind it gets advantage on its melee attacks. So yes you may have a higher AC than the giant does but if he weighs some 11,000 lbs. It is likely that his hit on your shield will drive right through your shield and the force of the impact will still hit the player character and drive him back. Thus the advantage roll.
Keep in mind a reach weapon can have a 10 foot range and may overcome this on some monsters. And this does not effect range weapon attacks. Using the Storm giant as an example his waist is 13 feet above the ground. A 7 foot tall character with a 5 foot reach melee weapon can only reach up to 12 feet not even to his waist. You can see a bit of DM latitude has to be implemented here. But that does make fights with Giants feel more like a fight with a giant.
I do the same with fighting from horseback. Character on the horse gets advantage on a man size on the ground and the man size on ground disadvantage to attack the guy on the horse back unless he has a reach weapon. This often leads to horses being taken down to get at the riders. Of course now that guy on a horse would not have disadvantage to hit the giant because he is up on the horse. And the giant no longer has advantage to hit the guy on the horse either. But my giants do tend to shove/kick horses aside so as to trip them up and send the rider prone into a thrown from the horse situation. Just ideas to use if you want in your games. Makes these fights less ordinary and more special. Feel more real.
Love Giants more than dragons, thanks for the video guys!
Three Addison powers for your consideration-
Scatter and stun (all giant kin) with a free action can s&s any group shattering units by moving all units on the battlefield the closer they are to him. 3d10 in random direction Agility save to remain standing and to resist effects (two saves and grows in power as giant grows)
Giant roar - free Action can break concentration and aiming of enemies. Make save for giant enemies to use or maintain spells and use non-melee attacks. Power varies the Roar can and should say some thing but in the case of stupid giants they make noise. Save is versus fear and harder the larger the giant. This can be done 1D4 turns.
Devour - the giant eats a friend or foe of m size. This attack takes the place of all other attacks but if successful that creature will die in the belly of the giant in 1D4 rounds. For every 6 inches the target is shorter the 6 feet the giant gets a +1 and the target may use his agility save if target is on there feet. Once attack succeeds giant gains 20% of targets max hit points and regeneration 20 hit points a round until target is digested. Target can be saved alive if giant is cut open be for 1D4 rounds pass. But can only be raised if body can be retrieved within the week. Note that if a giant eats an allied target allies near the giant get. A second save against fear effects and are far less likely to run.
I thought he said stoner hill giants, and that makes a little too much sense, lol.
Its been a long time since I fought a giant but I thought that if you you were to fight above your size that you had to halve your damage due to the physics of the size differance
I'd like to see a storm giant with at least 6 levels of bard commanding a group of trolls. Between at will levitate, their lightning strike ability recharging on 5 or 6, bard support spells like fairy fire and hypnotic pattern, and the trolls regeneration, that would be a tough fight. Give him magic items like an instrument of the bard's and you have a very cool fight.
i like the idea of making giants do aoe damage types, like hill giants hit an area on the field around them and where the attacks do essentially shock wave, causing people to be immobilized or stunned
If you ever want to lose some teeth-
Fist fight a Giant.
i love the multiple giants ability aspect but i think there is room for them to have individual elemental aspects like having a frost breath or burning what ever is touched for a short time.
If you've weakened the party beforehand that they don't have all their powerful magic or once a day abilities anything becomes significantly harder. Reducing party resources beforehand is the best way to make something challenging and interrupting the parties formation. Second way to make it more challenging is to use actual tactics from history, this is completely dependant on the intelligence score of the creatures being used. Giants are reasonable to do this with.
I'd suggest, flanking enemies. In the example used having the merrows attack first, then a second group flank the party on round two, then on the third round of combat a giant enter the initiative attacking from the front. You've made the encounter much more interesting than throwing everything at once to begin with and also not artificially such as adding feats or excessive amounts of gear to the giants to make them more difficult.
Stone Giants are my personal favourites for this sort of encounters particularly in mountains, they're not inherently evil but who cares your trespassing! They have very high stealth when in mountainous terrain, you put the party on a thin track or path through the mountains. You then have several options, you have the stone giants above and throw boulders and cause land slides on the party from above, or use their high stealth to pop out behind the party once they've been tied up by the giants pet bears. Again this can make the encounters lethal because your party will move to fight the initial threat exposing the casters to the flanking enemies on the second round of combat.
Suggestion inspired in old arcade monster bosses: Greater hit points. For every fixed damage points inflicted by the party (I usually use 20 hit points), roll 1D12 of actual damage to the giant . The thing will certainly last more than 1 round and a half, with the funny thing that you dont actually know how many rounds your giant will last.
In my game, this house rule (along with an incrased number of attacks and some legendary actions) has made giants great again
Can you do an episode on mundane weapons and properties?
You could have their melee attacks do a combination sweeping attack and pushing attack to more accurately portray the power in those swings.
I love the giants from Game of Thrones because of how biologically accurate they appear.
I had an idea a little while ago of having a group of people who would catch hill and stone giants, remove a bit of their legs and make artificial "hooves", reins, and saddles, and 'brainwash' them and use them as mounts. It would be like riding a bigger, stronger, sometimes smarter gorrilla.
In my current adventure (first one ever for me) we left our hideout and were immediately attacked by 6 hill giants hurling boulders at us. Good times.
We were playing SKT and we got to Ironslag and we went straight to Duke Zalto and well now we have 13 other fire giants some ogres and a couple of drow coming for us
I'm making my own custom session, and giants are eventually gonna be a part of it. Since Yhorm the Giant is one of my favorite bosses in Dark Souls, ever, I'm gonna definitely give them some love.
A giant's size and a strength give him a lot of tactical options; he can throw and push large objects around with ease.
In an urban environment there will be plenty of things they can throw at players: carts, anvils, horses or cows, NPCs, or perhaps the commemorative statue of the duke. They can collapse houses or walls where the players are taking cover in or behind, burying them in rubble.
In a wildness environment, especially near their lairs, hill or stone giants could have avalanches of large boulders prepared to tumble on invaders. They can push trees over onto opponents. A storm giant can capsize ships by punching holes in their hull. Fire giants could set a forest on fire before assaulting the players within it.
What about giant sized weapons? I'm sure anyone that's seen Game of Thrones remembers the giants armed with bows that acted like ballistae against humans. What would be the range on those?
Giant's are large enough for small creatures to ride them. A cloud giant could have perches from where goblins shoot crossbows. Maybe they have minions that hitch a ride on them specifically to repel players that try to climb the giant 'Shadow of the Colossus' style as brought up.
A fire giant could douses himself in greek fire when someone jumps on his back. A storm giant can grab players and submerge underwater to drown them. A cloud giant can pick people up, fly into the air, and drop them to their death.
There are a lot of possibilities to make giant encounters more memorable (and deadly) without altering giants' stats.
I like the idea of giving groups of giants thematic spell casting but what about giving them Frightful Presence?
Seems like a more interesting way to give your giants more survivability than just giving them a pack of ogre minions and I honestly don't know why they wouldn't have this feature.
A fun thing to do with giants is to put their size into play. Maybe have a hill giant just pick a PC up and throw them at another one, or have a giant's corpse in a battle become an obstruction or even cover on the battlefield. Perhaps an ice giant could throw their axe at a player and even if he misses, the impact of the axe behind the player can still be felt. If you are in a social encounter in a giant-made settlement, describe how oppressive is the size of the halls of the storm giants, or the smouldering flames of the fire giants' forges seem as big as a whole house ingulfed in flames. There are a lot of possibilities in these scenarios.
Note that fire giants may well have metal and perhaps magical armor and weapons. Giant sized of course.
Even really simple things, like putting wooden doors as kneecaps or something will give them some damage reduction and force the characters to climb them in order to reach more vulnerable spots.
I know im late to the party, but some of the weaknesses of the giants can be made up for thematically given their strength. First I would give them a leap which they could use 3/day They can leap thier walking distance and not take opportunity attacks from any engaged foes. In addition, the leap would cause a shockwave that would cause some bludgeoning damage and need a strength or dexterety staving throw or be knocked prone. This would apply to both the leaping spot, and the landing spot. Handles thier escape option, allows them to enter combat easier, and helps them disrupt parties a bit better for a solo monster.
When you guys were talking about the elemental giants, and how hill giants in a group could maybe cause an earth quake, or mud wall etc. did you mean a Stone Giant in place of the hill giant? I don't know if I could see a hill giant troupe using an ability like that. But it would make more sense for the Hill Giants to gather as a marauding group compared to the Stone Giants since the Stones are neutral instead of Chaotic Evil.
I've got my giants on Oman's Isle training dinosaurs. *cue Jurassic park music*
Ever played a game with giants as players? I tried once, pretty fun.
In the setting that i'm using there are 3 tiers of giant, that determines there position in creation, you have the lesser giants who range in height from 10-30ft and tend to be seen as gardeners of the environment they were born to, these would be the hill giants through to the cloud giants. you then have the Titans who are around 2-3 times the size of the lesser giants, and helped shape the terrain setting up mountains and coasts. Then finaly we have the Gigantes who are truly gigantic and as such seldom move as if they did they would cause earthquakes and tsunamis, but during the creation of the world they ruled supreme moving the continents into the places they are know.
With what spell did your player's necromancer raise a zombie giant?
Maybe a limited wish spell.
My guess would be a misread reanimate dead spell.
Ice giants -> Make them conjure Ice Storm as an bonus action on their turn to spice things up. Same with fire and storm giants,but different magics. And for Stone Giants, they could conjure earth elementals and shape the rocky environment at their will.
>Knock people back with their giant weapons.
>Creatures comes to their aid in the fight.
>Giants can cause fear, or can charm people with "ancient magic".
>The environment counts as difficult terrain.
>They can heal themselves throught the use of "Magic beans" (i know).
Or just fkcing annihilate your players with 10 fire giants and an ember roc.
Last one works like a charm, in case you're - THAT GUY -.
First time seeing you guys. Well done, clearly spoken (good microphone), nice artwork, cool figs in the foreground, is that castle DM screen storebought? Is that screen in the back concave to aid in microphone pick-up? Now I have to bingewatch all your stuff.
Do you know where i can find the 3rd picture from the start of the video ? The one with the female fighter/barbarian cause she looks awesome and i would like to use it as pc art
Giant can ride adult dragons, they can :P Don't forget that ;P That is even mentioned in MM :P
"If you ICEolate them[frost giants]"
How about one show for each type of giant?
We did a battle with a giant where we climbed it and hit its weak spots to take it down. You cant attack anywhere else.
One of the first Giants I've fought in 5e was made into a complete chump. . . We had a Goliath in the party which I (the wizard) enlarged. From this, they were both Huge class monsters. . the goliath being a barbarian rages and boom. . Suddenly the barb goliath standing 17ft tall has advantage on grappling this stone giant to the ground where everyone else pummels him into the dust. . Pretty much exactly as you guys mentioned is like one of the easiest methods to defeat it. x-x
All and all.. the giant plus the ettins nobody took 1 point of damage. x-x
we're the pcs evil cause I remember storm giants being chaotic good alignment
What about after being hit you are flung 30feet or more then the damage from that. I feel giants are a huge encounter that players should be afraid of.
yeah! Or what about a giant in close combat picks a player up instead of attacking him. And the next round tries to bite his head off!
Or more intelligent giants could start bargaining with the rest of the party "If you don't be nice, I will eat your friend or smash his skull! Now be nice!"
I was tinkering with the idea of a fire giant who is decked out in seriously heavy armor.
This "multi-stage" idea is interesting...I could have this fire giant have some massive AC from their armor, but the party could target parts of the armor to dismantle it.
However, even as they strip the armor, this seems to bolster the fire giants ferocity...more attacks, maybe Polearm Mastery...
...if they attack it in their forge, maybe they pour liquid metal around the party; giving some terrain difficulty.
I added grab and swallow...yes. I watched Attack on Titan.
i say that these guys should get 2d4 pun damage (dealt as psychic for overcoming damage immunities and resistances) for every bad pun
What I do with giants is give them special attacks to emphasize their size. I'll give them a leap, similar to hulk, where they jump through the air and then slam down on a PC. They can also use this to get a quick escape as well. I also enjoy letting them just chuck PC's across the map. Snatching up the party fighter and throwing him 40+ feet into a cliff face really shows how dangerous the giant is.
He said, “Stone or Hill Giants”. I heard, “stoner Hill Giants”. Lol
Would you guys ever do an "ask me anything D&D related" style episode where you take questions from here and facebook and answer them? Because I'd love some ideas on how to make it fun for everyone when I'm very much a min/maxer while my friends aren't, as well as me being a caster in 3.5. I feel like the playstyle I have the most fun with is making the arms race for challenging encounters for my DM is leaving the other two in a position where they can die in one or two hits while I'm sitting at demi-god like power.
A live Q&A has been discussed and we are currently working out the logistics. Stay tuned.
You guys have great ideas!
Thanks! We'll keep supplying them as long as they're in demand.
Could also combine troll with hag. making something horrifying.
No episodes on Mephits yet? I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about those. PS Thoughts on Ice Mephits in a Blizzard?
Could I play a Half giant half Nerrupu sorcerer or would that not be ok in 5e
I love using giants as pets for monsters against a really low level party. A bugbear has a giant chained up asleep in the main room. A level 2 party is gonna shit their pants if theres any chance that its gonna get loose
Add a half dozen goblins with bows shooting then hiding and shooting from hidden ;) better yet have the goblins ride the giant like an elephant!
... "moist and limber" ...
:-o
Really great video, guys ;)
Thanks for the support.
our dm thew 2 frost giants and 2 worgs at us in the storm kings thunder when we were at level 4. Our party of 5 took them all down it was a long slog but we did it. Should we have been fighting these things
Ha ha I love that a big bag of hit points and a dangerous attack
What about a nerdy giant who's an equivalent of like a butterfly collector in our world. So he likes to capture and collect tiny adventurers and pin them into little glass cases and displays in his home.
How about an ettin named Zig Zag that one head is friendly and one is not so friendly? They’re tasked to guarding the entrance of an ancient tomb but have grown bored and willing to work somewhat with the PCs
Why not give different parts of the giant different AC's depending on where people hit them.