What's the CR of a...

[Greenfield]

Fire Giant (right out of the MM), on the Elemental Plane of Fire, with an AntiMagic Field?

Our DM said that the normally CR10 monster was a CR 11 in that situation.

As long as he has boulders to throw, he's a match for any archer out there at ranged combat, and anyone closing for Melee starts taking fire damage as soon as they get close (i.e. all their Protection From, Resist, or Immunity to effects go down in the AMF.).

Their AC also takes a hit as all magical enhancements go away, and their offense gets blunted as all magical weapons, buffs and aids of any kind go down.

So, in single combat, what level/class/approach do you need to be to take him down?

Or, in more generic terms, how would you rate his CR? (My own answer later.)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Where is the giant getting an anti-magic field from? That sounds like a magical trap (technically CR 6!). But at that point, why don't the PCs just stay away from him?

 

[Greenfield]

Where is the giant getting an anti-magic field from? That sounds like a magical trap (technically CR !). But at that point, why don't the PCs just stay away from him?

Agreed, it has a lot of "trap" aspects, but calculating the CR of a trap in these unusual circumstances is just as bad as calculating the CR of the giant.

As for why we didn't just avoid him...

There were two of them, acting as bodyguards/thugs for an Efreeti. Yeah, CR 10s working for a CR 8. Still, it's the story, and I didn't write it.

Our goal was to take on the Efreeti and take him to the Caliph in the City of Brass. The Caliph was hoping the Efreeti would be killed, we (for alignment reasons) were trying to take him alive.

They'd appeared near us, having become aware that we were looking for him.

We could have fled and simply waited for the AMFs to go down. And as soon as their advantage had run out, they would have left as well. This fight had to happen in some form, and all we would have accomplished with a retreat would have been to delay the encounter. (You have to know our DM to be able to see that coming, so I'll just ask you to trust me on it.)

The AMFs came up under Contingencyas soon as a Fire Giant attacked.

This, by the way, implies an 18th level caster someplace in the wings, since Contingency allows up to 6th level spells (Like AMF), but the spell can't be higher than 1/3 the caster's level.

Over all it was a brute fight, with the Efreeti fighting like he was brain-dead. No tactics, no use of any of his special abilities, not even bright enough to use his superior movement to avoid flanks.

Efreeti have perfect flight of 40. PCs, in a relational-gravity realm like the Plane of Fire move based on their Intelligence or Will. Some of our casters could match him, but none of the fighter types could. There is no way he should have stayed around long enough for us to drop him the way we did.

In any case, while the situation may be interesting and the tactics questionable, the event is past and the tactics were what they were. The topic now is, what CR should such a Fire Giant be, in that situation?

Note: Give him Improved Grab and he pretty much auto-kills any single humanoid opponent. He grabs at +29 (+25 right out of the book, +4 for the Feat), and then just hangs on while his opponent takes his hand-to-hand plus 5 D6 fire damage every round. The environment kills PCs if they don't have magical protections in place.

 

[Stormonu]

Well, looking things up on the SRD, CR 10 looks statistically right (CR 10 Giant + CR 8 Anti-magic trap = CR 10). However, I'd probably add +2 CR for the advantage of the Plane of Fire terrain.

That *should* mean about a 14th level character should be able to take that fight on alone.

Something to note about anti-magic field:

Should a creature be larger than the area enclosed by the barrier (10 ft. radius), any part of it that lies outside the barrier is
unaffected by the field. A fire giant is 12 feet tall, so part of it would stick out unless it continuously stooped - enough to blast it with a cone of cold...

And if you could wait about 110 minutes or so, you could come back to fight the giant. It's not like someone could cast permanency on an anti-magic field...

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The DM didn't seem like they were following the rules. IIRC you can only put a Contingency on yourself.

Duration: One day/level (D) or until discharged

You can place another spell upon your person so that it comes into effect under some condition you dictate when casting contingency. The contingency spell and the companion spell are cast at the same time. The 10-minute casting time is the minimum total for both castings; if the companion spell has a casting time longer than 10 minutes, use that instead.

The spell to be brought into effect by the contingency must be one that affects your person and be of a spell level no higher than one-third your caster level (rounded down, maximum 6th level).

No 18th-level caster required or even allowed. Instead, you have a very nasty trap. Once. So you should have been able to walk away, and maybe shoot some arrows at long range because the giants have no healing abilities at all.

The efreeti's abilities are largely spell-like and supernatural, so they won't work in an anti-magic field. Only its heat ability isn't. As a result, it couldn't really use it's abilities, such as all of its ranged attacks (so it should stay on the ground until too injured). It's trap suggests it was paranoid of Cone of Cold spells as it took away its attack options. And how did it make such a trap anyway? You would need at least an 11th-level caster to pull it off, and the efreeti doesn't have the required magic to do it.

And of course, the Elemental Plane of Fire is an encounter of at least 9th-level by itself, on the grounds that you need to be 9th-level minimum just to cast Plane Shift. (Mathematically it is supposedly a level 5 challenge, dealing 5d6 damage every round, but it has a duration of literally infinite.)

Efreeti (including the caliph) are usually evil, and I think planar travelers should know that. Even bringing the efreeti alive to the caliph simply means it will be tortured. But you didn't write the story.

I wouldn't change the fire giant's CR. Rather, you modify the EL of the encounter. At minimum one CR 6+ trap, one CR 5+ environmental hazard, one CR 8 monster, two CR 10 monsters... and increase the XP value by +100% or so because of their extreme advantages. (And unlike an encounter with archers behind arrow slits, this is unavoidable. I would give PCs XP just for bypassing such an encounter, and no bonus XP for fighting it, because that's just a bad idea. But as you mentioned, avoiding this was impossible.)

 

[Greenfield]

The effect is a 10 foot radius, "centered on you". Our DM ruled that it extended 10 feet from the creature's base. Good ruling or bad, the effect is 20 feet across, and if it's "centered on you", as opposed to a point on the ground, ruling that it extended out from center-mass isn't unreasonable. There wouldn't be any parts of him sticking out.

And if we'd waited 110 minutes, they would have left and we wouldn't have seen them again until they were ready to pull the same trick again. We needed to capture/kill the boss, and that couldn't happen if they left. Covered that in my previous post.

Most emanations with a radius are centered on a junction of lines on the battle mat. This one would normally be centered around a Medium creature, who exists more or less in the center of a 5 foot square. So determining its area is not exactly standard.

Like I said, the DM ruled that it measured out from the creature's base. If it hadn't, but had been the standard 20 feet across, period, the giant would have done more damage in melee, when using reach to hit an opponent: They would have been outside the AMF, and the magic of his blade woula have applied, both to hit and to damage.

I ran a simple simulation against a level 17 Barbarian. Presuming that both opponents power attack for 5 (first blow is in the "don't roll a 1" category for both), the Barbarian drops the Giant, then falls himself at the start of his next action when the fire damage kicks in.

Your mileage may vary, naturally, but to my eye the combined advantages make him a CR 16 or 17.

 

[Greenfield]

The DM didn't seem like they were following the rules. IIRC you can only put a Contingency on yourself.

Ah, that explains why the Giants had Rings of Spell Storing. They allowed them to cast those spells upon themselves. And the 18th level caster would only be needed to charge the rings.

And I can see the idea of doubling the Exp, except for one thing: For most of the party level 17 and 18), the monsters were worth literally nothing. Double nothing is nothing, and the fact is it damn near killed two PCs.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Spell Storing

As the minor ring of spell storing, except it holds up to five levels of spells.

Moderate evocation; CL 9th; Forge Ring, imbue with spell ability; Price 50,000 gp.

Spell Storing, Major

As the minor ring of spell storing, except it holds up to ten levels of spells.

Strong evocation; CL 17th; Forge Ring, imbue with spell ability; Price 200,000 gp.

The rings required to even store the spell have a caster level of 17 and cost 200,000 gp each. I wonder if your PCs could even afford a ring each. And this guy had two of them to just hand to his bodyguards?

Abuse the heck out of the rings! (Serious response: Talk to the DM once you have collected evidence.)

 

[Greenfield]

Sad reality: Some things happen "because the DM said so."

<EDIT> Actually, the caster could have done it for as many Giants as he chose, using just two rings.

Step 1: Charge rings. He gets to put the Contingencyin at 18th level because that's the minimum needed for this particular use. (Yeah, it's a stretch, but it's the kind that DMs love to use).

Step 2: Hand Rings to a Giant.

Step 3: Giant triggers rings, and now has an Antimagic Field on himself, under Contingency.

Step 4: Giant hands rings back to caster.

Step 5: Go to step 1 as often as needed, until all Giants are charged.

The Giants don't need to have the rings on them at all when we fight. I don't know if our DM thought it through to this degree, but it is possible and he said that it happened, so...
</EDIT>

 

[delericho]

Strictly speaking, it's still CR10 - that would be a 'trick' encounter, as described in the DMG (p.49-50), an encounter that is 'easy' if the players can find some way past the antimagic shield, but is otherwise extremely difficult.