hawkeyefan
Legend
Yes, though at that point, the chances were vanishingly small. Still non-zero.
I have it set up where encounters occur at a distance of 3d20+30 feet. I don't see stone giants as likely lurkers, so I would not have it try to be stealthy. In this situation, the players chose to have the characters travel at a normal pace, so they are not moving stealthily.
While generally peaceful, stone giants see the world outside their lairs as dreams, so it's possible the giant could be violent since it doesn't need to account for its actions in a dream. I can imagine a scene where each group sees each other and the giant chucks a rock near the PCs on a whim to see what they do. What happens next is up to the players. If they decide to engage in social interaction, I could very quickly spin up a challenge where the stone giant effectively tries to take up a lot of their time. If they decide to fight, well, we have backup characters ready. If they decide to flee, perhaps the stone giant gives chase and we go into the Chase rules to resolve it. Ultimately that would probably come down to the characters being able to hide from the giant, which is a DC 15. If they can't, then perhaps the giant smashes one or more PCs to make a new color that it uses to paint its cave walls.
Okay, the Stone Giant may not have been the best example....I forgot they're less hostile than most giants.
But I think your comment about "if they decide to fight, well, we have backup characters ready" is more what I'm talking about. Sure, it's unlikely they'll win against such a creature at low level, but I don't know if it has to be that they all die.
Really, I'm not against PC failure or death....but a full TPK seems pretty insane to me.
Let's say the giant squishes one of the PCs and the others realize their error and run.....would he really feel the need to chase them down and smash them all?
And if they keep fighting....does he really have to kill them all before they decide to run?
Again, you're being very reasonable in your approach, and I am not trying to criticize your play....I just thought your example was useful for discussion.