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Against the Giants: Campaign Journal
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<blockquote data-quote="cthulhu42" data-source="post: 7332599" data-attributes="member: 6792361"><p>Session 2</p><p></p><p>We start with the party just having opened the door to the giant's great hall so there's not much to plan here except to prepare for a fairly epic battle. They are facing some 27 giants and giant kin. </p><p></p><p> I give them ten minutes to plan, OOG, plus they get a free round to act since the giants are largely drunk or slow on the uptake. </p><p></p><p>The party opens the door to the hill giant great hall, interrupting their festivities. The giants are slow to grasp that there are intruders in their midst so the party get a free round to act. </p><p></p><p> Edran tags the cloud giant with a couple of arrows, Sai tosses in a Fireball, and Thoradin casts a flame strike, and then they all retreat back around the corner to the matron's room, setting themselves with Krote and Thoradin holding the doorway while Sai and Edran ready bow and spell behind them. </p><p></p><p> The giants start coming. And coming. And coming. </p><p></p><p> Given the narrow (for giants) hallway and the doorway to the room the PC's have taken their stand in, it's difficult for the giants to attack more than two or three at a time, but they do attack, and even though the party metes out terrible amounts of damage, the giants give as good as they get. Krote's axe bites again and again. Thoradin alternates between damaging spells and healing. Sai pounds away with Fireballs, Ice Storms and Fire Bolts, while Edran fires arrows with pinpoint accuracy. But still, when the giants hit, they hit hard! Krote goes down two or three times. Edran goes down at least once. There is some talk of using Word of Recall or Teleportation Circle, but in the end they decide to make their stand here. Thoradin fills the hallway with a Blade Barrier with devastating effect. </p><p></p><p> The fight took up pretty much the entire session, but when it was finally over, the PC's stood amongst the blood, viscera, and pulped up corpses, victorious. </p><p></p><p> Well, more or less. </p><p></p><p> The hill giant chief and his wife and their sub-chief managed to flee, and the party were so low on hit points and spells that they had to flee as well. But they left a scene of truly mind boggling carnage behind them. They even had to slay a half-dozen hill giant young to get out of the keep, but eventually they staggered through the pounding rain to return to their base cave for much needed rest. </p><p></p><p> We leave them there, hunkered down in the cave, hoping for eight uninterrupted hours with which to heal themselves and get ready to return to the giant hold. </p><p></p><p> It is Harvester 4, 11:00pm (roughly). </p><p></p><p> Notes: It has been noted that the designers did not take into account the larger footprint that giants have in 5E which causes some issues with the square footage in the locations in this module. I tend to resize on the flay, as needed during the game, and allow a bit of leeway for giant movement. </p><p></p><p> One thing I found was that, because the locations are giant sized, it can be difficult to fit an entire area on a battle mat. But we use a fairly large, gridded, white board, and as long as I just draw it out room by room, we get by. </p><p></p><p> Another issue was not having enough minis to represent the giants and their kin. I eventually cut out several dozen appropriately sized circles out of Styrofoam board, which allowed me to mark them as, “Hill Giant 1, AC 13”, etc. I use similarly marked poker chips for large sized creatures. They're not as dynamic as a 3D mini, but they work very well, and being able to number each disc is a huge help when dealing with multiple enemy combats, of which there are many. </p><p></p><p> I also cut out about 80 squares of the same styro stuff and labeled each one as an item found in a giant bag. Most of them are trash or common items, but there are a few valuable trinkets in there as well (potions, minor magic items, treasures, etc). Whenever the module notes a giant bag found among the treasure, I allow the PC's to randomly pull 3d4 items per bag from the Crown Royal bag full of styro squares. The players love it! Credit where it's due, I picked up the idea from a post here on the EN world boards. I wish I could remember the actual poster to give full kudos, but if he/she happens to read this, thanks!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="cthulhu42, post: 7332599, member: 6792361"] Session 2 We start with the party just having opened the door to the giant's great hall so there's not much to plan here except to prepare for a fairly epic battle. They are facing some 27 giants and giant kin. I give them ten minutes to plan, OOG, plus they get a free round to act since the giants are largely drunk or slow on the uptake. The party opens the door to the hill giant great hall, interrupting their festivities. The giants are slow to grasp that there are intruders in their midst so the party get a free round to act. Edran tags the cloud giant with a couple of arrows, Sai tosses in a Fireball, and Thoradin casts a flame strike, and then they all retreat back around the corner to the matron's room, setting themselves with Krote and Thoradin holding the doorway while Sai and Edran ready bow and spell behind them. The giants start coming. And coming. And coming. Given the narrow (for giants) hallway and the doorway to the room the PC's have taken their stand in, it's difficult for the giants to attack more than two or three at a time, but they do attack, and even though the party metes out terrible amounts of damage, the giants give as good as they get. Krote's axe bites again and again. Thoradin alternates between damaging spells and healing. Sai pounds away with Fireballs, Ice Storms and Fire Bolts, while Edran fires arrows with pinpoint accuracy. But still, when the giants hit, they hit hard! Krote goes down two or three times. Edran goes down at least once. There is some talk of using Word of Recall or Teleportation Circle, but in the end they decide to make their stand here. Thoradin fills the hallway with a Blade Barrier with devastating effect. The fight took up pretty much the entire session, but when it was finally over, the PC's stood amongst the blood, viscera, and pulped up corpses, victorious. Well, more or less. The hill giant chief and his wife and their sub-chief managed to flee, and the party were so low on hit points and spells that they had to flee as well. But they left a scene of truly mind boggling carnage behind them. They even had to slay a half-dozen hill giant young to get out of the keep, but eventually they staggered through the pounding rain to return to their base cave for much needed rest. We leave them there, hunkered down in the cave, hoping for eight uninterrupted hours with which to heal themselves and get ready to return to the giant hold. It is Harvester 4, 11:00pm (roughly). Notes: It has been noted that the designers did not take into account the larger footprint that giants have in 5E which causes some issues with the square footage in the locations in this module. I tend to resize on the flay, as needed during the game, and allow a bit of leeway for giant movement. One thing I found was that, because the locations are giant sized, it can be difficult to fit an entire area on a battle mat. But we use a fairly large, gridded, white board, and as long as I just draw it out room by room, we get by. Another issue was not having enough minis to represent the giants and their kin. I eventually cut out several dozen appropriately sized circles out of Styrofoam board, which allowed me to mark them as, “Hill Giant 1, AC 13”, etc. I use similarly marked poker chips for large sized creatures. They're not as dynamic as a 3D mini, but they work very well, and being able to number each disc is a huge help when dealing with multiple enemy combats, of which there are many. I also cut out about 80 squares of the same styro stuff and labeled each one as an item found in a giant bag. Most of them are trash or common items, but there are a few valuable trinkets in there as well (potions, minor magic items, treasures, etc). Whenever the module notes a giant bag found among the treasure, I allow the PC's to randomly pull 3d4 items per bag from the Crown Royal bag full of styro squares. The players love it! Credit where it's due, I picked up the idea from a post here on the EN world boards. I wish I could remember the actual poster to give full kudos, but if he/she happens to read this, thanks! [/QUOTE]
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