PapersAndPaychecks
First Post
Yeah. There are other things that can have weird dice ranges (by the book, an orcish witchdoctor of 2nd level would have 1d8+1d4+1hp) but as a rule, they're whole numbers. Except giants.
AD&D1 giants
- Thread starter Quasqueton
- Start date
dcas
First Post
Maybe if one were inclined, one could go through the MM etc. and produce a list of such creatures with unambiguous HD/HP values, such as: Hill Giant (HD: 8; HP: 8d8 + 1d2). What's interesting is that some Fire Giants will attack as 11 HD (those with 11d8 + 2 HP) creatures, some as 12 HD (those with 11d8 + 3-5 HP) creatures.
PapersAndPaychecks
First Post
diaglo said:i love me some shaman/witchdoctor multiclassed orcs.per the 1edADnD DMG (1979 revised)
I need to use Deities & Demigods as well to make that hp calculation work though.
Garnfellow
Explorer
Given that the giant HD range is so inconsistent with other monsters in the MM, it might be worthwhile to dig out the monster card entries to see if anything was changed. The cards incorporated a lot of super-obscure errata and might give you a definitive answer. (Although my money's on A).
diaglo
Adventurer
but on topic for this thread.PapersAndPaychecks said:I need to use Deities & Demigods as well to make that hp calculation work though.
pick Giant as your base race.
spellcasting Hill Giants or Storm Giants are just nasty.
and giving them class levels to boot. ups their to hit.
Last edited:
Contrarian
Explorer
Garnfellow said:
...and I just happen to have a set of AD&D Monster Cards in the same room as my computer! (Mostly, I use them as color references for painting miniatures. Did you guys know that succubi and mermaids use the same color scheme? But I digress.) The cards also list "Giant, Hill" as having "HD: 8 + 1-2", and "Giant, Stone" as "HD: 9 + 1-3".
Celebrim
Legend
Browsing throught my 1st edition MMII finds monsters HD such as...
Annis: 7+3-12 (as a giant hag, it follows the giant HD convention)
Barkburr: 2-6 (this is 2-6 HD, not 2-6 hit points, interesting the XP table has entries starting at 1HD suggesting 2-6 is a misprint)
Bloodthorn: 5-30 + special (Making this plant one of the most powerful monsters in the game.)
Catfish, Giant: 7-10
Choke Creeper: 25 (I thought I'd throw that out as the MMII was stuffed full of plants that could eat most dragons for breakfast.)
Shadow Dragon: 4-6 + 4-6 (And this on top of the fact that in 1st edition, the hit points of a dragon - and not its HD - depended on its age.)
Dragonfly, Giant: 8 + 1-8
Formian Giant: 13 + 1-3
Firbolg: 13 + 2-7
Grim: 4 + 2-8
Hangman Tree: 61 hp/year (The great thing about this was that it meant that a sapling had more hit points than Thor. A 151 year old tree, merely the oldest on the table, had 9211 hit points, by far more than any other creature in the game, and more I think even than 3rd edition epic monsters. I always wanted my players to encounter a 1000 year old hangman tree somewhere in my campaign world, but I feared they'd find some way to kill it and I'd be dolling out 489000 XP.)
Jann Shiek: 84
Jann Amir: 95 (The amazing ninety-five HD of the Jann Amir fired my imagination from the first time that I read the entry. This was the most HD of any creature in the game, with average hitpoints higher than even the elder gods. Truly the Jann were a mighty race of unparalled power to have leaders such as this. You can imagination my disappointment when I figured out several years later that this had to be a typo, and the intended HD was 9+5)
Muckdweller: (1-4 hp)
Quickling: 1 1/2 (effectively 1 + 1-4, quickling leaders had 4 1/2 HD.)
Raven: 1/4
Rock Reptile: 5 + 1 + 5-12 (The creature got bonus hit points for each foot of length. A strange couriousity is that the creature was basically weaker for being size large under 1st edition rules, and yet the size large version gave far more experience for defeating it.)
Scum Creeper: 1 (2-8 hp) (1st edition had all sorts of wierd exceptions like this)
Squirrel, Carnivorous Flying: (1-7 hp) (see what I mean?)
Thunder Beast: 4-9 + 4-9
Vilstrak: 1-6 hp
Yochlol: 6 (1d10 hp per die)
There really no rules about how you could create a monster in 1st edition. That was both good and bad. Good designers broke the rules with purpose. My favorite such rules tossing is in Pharaoh. Tracy and Laura Hickman clearly want to present some mooks that are or high enough skill (good THAC0's) to challenge the party, but still fall over dead like good mooks. Lacking any of the devices of 3rd edition, he comes up with the solution of 27 4HD creatures with the following hit points: (2,7,1,2,3,1,9,8,2,1,2,10,2,2,2,9,1,10,2,10,10,2,5,4,5,2,5)
Annis: 7+3-12 (as a giant hag, it follows the giant HD convention)
Barkburr: 2-6 (this is 2-6 HD, not 2-6 hit points, interesting the XP table has entries starting at 1HD suggesting 2-6 is a misprint)
Bloodthorn: 5-30 + special (Making this plant one of the most powerful monsters in the game.)
Catfish, Giant: 7-10
Choke Creeper: 25 (I thought I'd throw that out as the MMII was stuffed full of plants that could eat most dragons for breakfast.)
Shadow Dragon: 4-6 + 4-6 (And this on top of the fact that in 1st edition, the hit points of a dragon - and not its HD - depended on its age.)
Dragonfly, Giant: 8 + 1-8
Formian Giant: 13 + 1-3
Firbolg: 13 + 2-7
Grim: 4 + 2-8
Hangman Tree: 61 hp/year (The great thing about this was that it meant that a sapling had more hit points than Thor. A 151 year old tree, merely the oldest on the table, had 9211 hit points, by far more than any other creature in the game, and more I think even than 3rd edition epic monsters. I always wanted my players to encounter a 1000 year old hangman tree somewhere in my campaign world, but I feared they'd find some way to kill it and I'd be dolling out 489000 XP.)
Jann Shiek: 84
Jann Amir: 95 (The amazing ninety-five HD of the Jann Amir fired my imagination from the first time that I read the entry. This was the most HD of any creature in the game, with average hitpoints higher than even the elder gods. Truly the Jann were a mighty race of unparalled power to have leaders such as this. You can imagination my disappointment when I figured out several years later that this had to be a typo, and the intended HD was 9+5)
Muckdweller: (1-4 hp)
Quickling: 1 1/2 (effectively 1 + 1-4, quickling leaders had 4 1/2 HD.)
Raven: 1/4
Rock Reptile: 5 + 1 + 5-12 (The creature got bonus hit points for each foot of length. A strange couriousity is that the creature was basically weaker for being size large under 1st edition rules, and yet the size large version gave far more experience for defeating it.)
Scum Creeper: 1 (2-8 hp) (1st edition had all sorts of wierd exceptions like this)
Squirrel, Carnivorous Flying: (1-7 hp) (see what I mean?)
Thunder Beast: 4-9 + 4-9
Vilstrak: 1-6 hp
Yochlol: 6 (1d10 hp per die)
There really no rules about how you could create a monster in 1st edition. That was both good and bad. Good designers broke the rules with purpose. My favorite such rules tossing is in Pharaoh. Tracy and Laura Hickman clearly want to present some mooks that are or high enough skill (good THAC0's) to challenge the party, but still fall over dead like good mooks. Lacking any of the devices of 3rd edition, he comes up with the solution of 27 4HD creatures with the following hit points: (2,7,1,2,3,1,9,8,2,1,2,10,2,2,2,9,1,10,2,10,10,2,5,4,5,2,5)
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