D&D 5E Why are 5E Giants Huge size?

[Mind of tempest]

Thanks for the shout-out!

I really should get the giant paragons done, now that I think about it. I'll have to see if I can get my giant creativity going....

if you get any interesting idea post them.

I think 4e went for really elemental themed giants so those could work?

 

[Flamestrike]

Going by how the 5E rules work, three Fire Giants are a Challenge Rating of 21.

Where are you getting that from? I dont see any reference to 'Encounter challenge ratings' anywhere.

Three CR 9 creatures have an XP budget of 30000 XP (arguably a little inflated as they only just scrape into the x 2 XP multiplier for 3-6 monsters) which makes the encounter a 'Hard' encounter for 5 x 15th level PCs.

 

[teitan]

So I wouldn't call the Reaper Fire Giant Queen a "huge" scale figure. She is towards the upper end of the large scale. Comparing sizes across companies is an exercise in frustration when it comes to anything outside of current standards. Some of the Reaper giants were metal molds from 3e era and they own a Pathfinder license so they tend to conform to 3e era scales.

That said, I totally agree it had nothing to do with miniatures as WOTC doesn't produce minis and hadn't for a while when 5e came out. I recall somewhere the designers of 5e discussing the increase in giant sizes to make them suitably more epic in size because the older edition giants were small.

Personally I think scale creep plays a huge part as well. Back when 3.5 came out and WOTC standardized it to miniature play they started putting everything into square bases so a regular sized horse went from a space of 2x1 to 2x2. Some creatures got larger in order to fill out that 2x2 and higher base size so monster sizes started creeping upward on the base. It comes off as cartoonish to me.

 

[S'mon]

The other problem with the TftYP version of the Against the Giants modules is that they didn’t increase the scale of the maps to account for the increased size of 5e giants, so in many cases, the giants have to squeeze to move around in their own lairs.

I think for Roll20 VTT where the tokens are Huge & the map made for Large I'm going to have to say that the giants can fight in a 10' space without penalty. With tabletop I already just use my old Large giant minis & give them the 5e stats including 10' reach, which may be a slight power up but works fine.

I dunno, maybe I'll shrink all the VTT tokens to fit the map. :/

 

[AtomicPope]

I like that 5e made them all huge for a few reasons:
1. Makes all giants seem like they belong to the same group.
2. Sets Hill Giants apart from Ogres.
3. Puts giants on a different encounter scale.

Each of the reasons listed became more and more apparent when playing Storm King's Thunder (which is a mediocre campaign) and Tales of the Yawning Portal (which has some conversion problems but overall is much better). Ogres can be a bit of a nuisance but overall they're slow and easy to hit. The first time you have to face several Hill Giants you quickly realize how powerful they are in 5e. Then because of their size you can't push them around or easily escape their attacks. Giants are really big in 5e and it's better for the game. The new modules lean heavily on giant lore and the Ordning. When all giants are Huge it gives the impression they're really the same type, in the same way as dragons. The pecking order of giants is Might Makes Right manifest, and that's a combination of strength and CR. And 5e made sure all giants hit hard and often. When it comes time to face giants in 5e it's best not to stir up the nest otherwise they'll squash you. That is a welcome change to 4e and to some extent 3e, where giants relied on power attack to generate more damage but then missed. In 5e giants get two melee attacks that demolish you. It's quite impressive. Then when it's time to set up the board as a DM I like to put large 10ft crevasses and pits in their caves, things that giants can step over or treat as difficult terrain but PCs can fall in and get stuck. A 10' pit is an inconvenience to a giant but to a PC it could be a prison. Giants need to be mythic, larger than life, a fairy tale monster, and not just a really big humanoid.

 

[S'mon]

So I wouldn't call the Reaper Fire Giant Queen a "huge" scale figure. She is towards the upper end of the large scale.

This lass? I own the mini and she fits fine with the 3e era 'large' fire giant minis from WoTC; if anything she's a bit more petite. Also, more princess than queen - G3's Queen Frupy is supposed to be "an ugly giantess, with a mass of bright yellow hair, pig like eyes and lumpy complexion" - but you don't see too many ugly female minis, sadly. Definitely not from Reaper!

 

[Upper_Krust]

To be clear, you're not really supposed to run into the Fire Giant's lair making a ton of noise, you are supposed to try and sneakily stealth around from room to room and stop the giants from gathering reinforcement and warning each other. If the fire giants are given the chance to gather their forces, they will certainly kill the party of PCs.

My point is that if you have to face 5 fire giants or more at Level 12 then its a TPK. In a fortress of 105 fire giants

I largely don't agree with this. When you start getting into the higher levels, around 12, the CR system begins to break down. I know because I've run a game that ran from level 1 to 14, and by 14 you really need to start throwing some truly dangerous stuff to truly threaten players. Things listed as Hard in the CR system are actually Easy, and pretty much every fight they come across will need to be considered Deadly by the CR system (the designers probably know this too, as higher level adventures for 5E are not really balanced at all by the DMG CR system). It's even worse when you consider the magic items they may have, and by level 12 a party should have some pretty good ones (or the gold to buy them).

I partially agree with you on this but I think you have it slightly back to front (at least based on my observations).

The CR system begins to break down at higher levels primarily because the monsters (especially those from the Monster Manual) do not match the statistics for monsters of their supposed Challenge Rating (as per Page 274 in the DMG).

Now yes more options, items and spells CAN result in overpowered Party's but if you don't get the monster basics right you just compound any potential problems.

That said, giants are tough! It is of course dependent on the giant type (hill giants are pretty easy honestly), but Fire Giants are one of the toughest "generic" enemies in the game. By comparison, Githyanki Knights (I use githyanki as an example, as they are a popular humanoid combatant in high-level play) are CR 8, slightly lower than Fire Giants. They aren't really meant to be fought 10 at a time or anything like that.

Githyanki Knight ( CR 8 ): 91 hp and two attacks averaging 46 damage.

CR 8 (by the DMG): 176-190 hp and averaging 51-56 damage.

Fire Giant ( CR 9 ): 162 hp and two attacks averaging 56 damage.

CR 9 (by the DMG): 191-205 hp and averaging 57-62 damage.

So the Githyanki Knight has 49% of the suggested HP for CR 8 and 86% of the damage. Githyanki Knight at 67% overall effectiveness.
A Fire Giant has 88% of the suggested HP and deals 94% of the suggested damage. Fire Giant at 91% overall effectiveness.

Both have fractionally higher than average AC's so we can cut them a tiny bit of slack. But we can easily see which one is more formidable on a per CR basis.

 

[Upper_Krust]

UK, nice to see you posting again - welcome back! I came to this a little late so I will just briefly touch on a few subjects:

Hey Dave mate!

Why are giants Huge size?

• As noted by others, the mechanics of size (grapple, etc.) make them feel more "giant"
• Longer reach (most Large creatures in 5e only have a 5 foot reach, giants have a 10' reach).
• They are closer to how they are typically depicted in art
• To differentiate them from smaller "giants:" ogres, trolls, etc.

I understand it better, due to the good people of this thread.

Why are giants "boring?"

• As noted by others, many monsters in the 5e MM do not have a lot of interesting features. They are intended to be simple and die quickly. Heck I have a whole thread about making 5e monsters more interesting: 5e Updates: Monstrous Compendium, and there are lot of giants there (mostly by @Demetrios1453)
• Later designs are more interesting, check out the Volo's Guide giants. I particularly like the Storm Giant Quintessent myself. (see below)
• Despite your thought of not being able to have a lot of giants. I disagree and think they are generally designed to be a higher level version of orcs. High level PCs can wade through quite a few CR 5 Hill giants. So, the basic giants in the MM are supposed to be simple to run without tricky mechanics that slow a DM down if there are 5-10 of them.

I agree with you they are simply higher level orcs (something I pointed out in a previous post).

I just think they are far less interesting than their 4E counterparts and in making a monster bigger and more powerful I think the onus is on the designers to not make it less interesting.

Would you say that Storm Giant Quintessent is the 5E version of 4E's Storm Titan?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Not really. Obviously there a range of giants, but even my unoptimized group of lvl 15 players can finish off quite a few giants. I know some optimized groups on these forums can treat them a barely more than cannon fodder.

I'd be interested in reading some testimonies on that. I'll search for them after these posts.

Obviously that is subjective, but high level 5e PCs are still very strong, hard to accidentally kill, and can do a ton of damage (like 200-300 DPR)

True, albeit that's usually best possible damage, not every round.

Lvl 20 PCs (without boons) can easily take out Orcus in 1 round if they can get to it. Doesn't mean they will, but they can. Now getting to Orcus is another thing all together (and highly DM / adventure dependent).

I agree Level 20 PCs can beat Orcus.

My point (as with the Fire Giant Lair) is that logically Orcus won't be alone and if you are sensible about it he'll have 4-5 of his top demons in attendance. Meaning it would likely be Orcus + 2 Balors (or better) + 2 Molydeus (or better) in the final showdown...and you still have to get through a bunch of other encounters before you even get to the final showdown.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Where are you getting that from? I dont see any reference to 'Encounter challenge ratings' anywhere.

If they equate to 30,000 XP then that's roughly the same as a CR 21 encounter.

Three CR 9 creatures have an XP budget of 30000 XP (arguably a little inflated as they only just scrape into the x 2 XP multiplier for 3-6 monsters) which makes the encounter a 'Hard' encounter for 5 x 15th level PCs.

Exactly, a hard encounter for Level 15 PCs. So if a Level 12 Group are in a Lair with 105 Fire Giants fighting those same 3 fire giants will be a deadly encounter. Fighting more than 3 at a time (which you would assume is very likely once the alarm is raised) is going to be a likely TPK.