D&D General Miniatures shouldn't be edition-dependent (a Fire Giant size rant)

[wingsandsword]

With some money I got for Christmas, I decided I would expand my collection of miniatures for D&D games.

I realized I never used giants in my D&D games, because I had no minis for them. So, I hunted around online at various mini stores and ordered some official hill giant, stone giant, frost giant, and fire giant minis (among other things), as giants I thought I might use in the games I run, if I had proper minis for them.

They came in the mail yesterday. I was generally pleased with all of them. . .but the fire giant seemed off. He was size huge, not large like the rest. I remember my giant sizes decently well even though I hadn't used them in game, and thought that only cloud and storm giants are "huge", so it seemed strange. I double-checked the SRD, and sure enough, it's size large.

I was left baffled as to how an official D&D miniature of a major D&D creature could get something as basic as it's size wrong, just outright wrong.

Then I decided to go look at 5e, and sure enough, WotC had changed fire giants from size large to size huge. I looked again, and it seems they changed ALL the giants from large to huge, and I just got lucky by 3e-era giant minis for the rest of them. As I run and play 3.5e, this means the huge fire giant I got is unusable and inappropriate for my game. I'm frustrated at spending the money on the mini, and I'm angry at WotC for arbitrarily changing the size of a creature like that, thus creating minis that are edition dependent.

So, now I'm looking for a size large (not huge) fire giant mini, one presumably made during the era when 3.x was the current officially supported edition, and maybe I can re-gift this 5e fire giant to someone that plays 5e, because it's sure not going to get any use at my table.

. . .and I'm also wondering, does WotC just arbitrarily change the size of creatures to encourage players to buy new minis to accommodate? That's what it feels like. How many other creatures went from large to huge, or vice versa, or maybe from medium to large?

 

[tommybahama]

Well the huge fire giant can be you BBEG, the king of the giant kind. Perhaps he forced a captured Red Wizard to cast Enlarge on him. Or it is a side effect from mixing potions. So in addition to being Enlarged, he has resistance to all spells...

 

[Quickleaf]

Hit up MinisGallery - D&D Miniatures Core Sets which is a photograph list of all core set D&D minis produced during the 3e era. The mini's size is called out on that site.

 

[Mistwell]

It's not unusable for your game. They're just cool looking placeholders anyway. You don't even need any miniatures, much less a 100% accurate one. If they're too small, just put them on a larger base and tell your players they take up that size.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Pry it off the base, glue it to a large base.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I’d have more sympathy, but if you think that’s a problem, imagine those of us with 80s minis trying to use them at the same table as modern ones lol. Where the ral partha hill giant is as big as a modern human reaper barbarian

 

[Imaculata]

Miniature sizes have changed constantly throughout the years. I have a miniature for a medium sized dragon, that they awkwardly squeezed onto a medium sized base. Its upward pointed wings make the thing so top heavy, that it can't stand upright. I had a friend glue a large base to it, to keep it from falling over.

 

[Oofta]

I’d have more sympathy, but if you think that’s a problem, imagine those of us with 80s minis trying to use them at the same table as modern ones lol. Where the ral partha hill giant is as big as a modern human reaper barbarian

Yeah, I have a really awesome hill giant mini that is not much bigger than recent PC minis and is dwarfed by my new fire/frost giant minis.

 

[wingsandsword]

Pry it off the base, glue it to a large base.

I already thought of that and ruled it out.

The legs are in a wide stance, it would not fit in a large base. It was clearly designed to take up an entire "huge" space.

 

[wingsandsword]

It's not unusable for your game. They're just cool looking placeholders anyway. You don't even need any miniatures, much less a 100% accurate one. If they're too small, just put them on a larger base and tell your players they take up that size.

It's not that they're too small, it's that they're too large.

The problem is that a miniature I bought, that was made for a huge-sized base because WotC made Fire Giants huge in 5e, doesn't work in 3.x because in that edition, Giants are size large.

The difference in large and huge sizes has substantial implications for reach and attacks of opportunity, not to mention how many foes can surround them at one time, and how much physical space they take on the battlefield.

If I was going to run a game without miniatures, I wouldn't have invested hundreds in minis over the years. I know full-well that you can play D&D without them, I ran and played lots of 2e games without minis, but 3.x really works better with minis because of the tactical elements.