Advice/campatibility of "Against the Giants"

[QuaziquestGM]

I'm gearing up to run the classic module series "Against the Giants" for my Party.

This will be post wedding. I expect to be running it in about a month and a half, and I am already working it into the storyline.

The expected composition of the party:

1) elf sorc 10 (maybe 11). Blaster with Wall of spirits, Leomeds Secure shelter, Energy substitution (Edit: Electric) and an improved familiar. ring of flying

2) Dwarf, Level 9, Fighter/cleric/paragon. Has fast healing 1 due to special familiar. +4 greatax. wings of flying.

3) psudo fey/1/2 elf, Level 9 druid/master of many forms. She can also cast extra spells as a level 5 druid due to a wish level effect( Edit: Gained half/@$$ed nymph template). Displacer puma animal companion.

4) Human level 9 rogue/bard/shaman (OA). Able to polymorph into orc. Has item that makes him invisible to any beyond 20 ft. (Edit: second item that gives him increased movement speed)

I'll have to edit this to finish it later.

Edit begins:

5) Goliath barberian 2 afflicted were-bear with monkey grip....(I should lose my GM license for allowing this...May also be a bear totem barberain, pc currently in creation)

6)Arvoral Level 3 warmage with maybe 12 hp (tends to roll poorly on hit die, ECL 7 with +4 level adjustment for being a _flying_ elf. Glass canon)

7 human NPC multiclass healer/utility caster/psion. level 9.5

8 Elf ranger level 7 with magic armor and bow. (+6 ringmail with +4 spikes)

9) NPC lizradman barberian 4.

Party has access to a ring of warmth, so I'm not too concerned for frost giant area and the coldblooded npc.

Right now the favorite toy of the Druid and the rogue is a bag of tricks (the one with the rhino, lion, and warhorse)

As a segway into this adventure the 4 of the party arenow rescuing their "milk men" from a raiding party of 8 Hill giants. Everquest Hill Giants. (Huge, 235 hp, 16 hd, ...it was a pick up game, it was the only monster manual on hand....it claims they are cr 10 each...). The encounter was on favorable terms for the party. While investigating why their supplies hadn't come in they found the broken wagons and tracked the giants to their camp. One guard on duty.

I've about gotten it into their heads that they cannot melee these guys (huge great ax, 3 attacks and shield bash), or for that matter win a standing ranged fight. (2d8 +11 boulder at +16, +11, and +6.) They withdrew from the first engagement, and then switched to flybys and started burning charges on magic items. They got 2 the first night. Spent the next 2 days and nights swaping magic items and harrassing them. Then the dwarf silently and invisibly flew into thier camp and cue de gra'd 3 of them before being detected. They've rescued one delivery guy, lost another, and still have 3 giants to go.

One of the things that i am worrying about is playiblity of the module. A hill gaint in the module as written (1979 tounament module) had 40 hp. The 3.5 srd hill giant has 102 ph. The everquest hill giant has 235 hp. If I don't ungrade the giants to 3.5 then they will be push overs. If I do, then there will be a few 10 thousand hp to cut though and I'd perfer not to spend an entire night running one combat.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

It certainly can work.

IIRC the mission in G1 is to gain information. A 4-PC party of that composition could very easily succeed if they use stealth skillfully.

I played in a 8-PC 8th level party that tackled G1 head on. That was very, very difficult. This team is not likely to have any better luck if it devolves into a slugging match.

But they are a small enough team with enough spellcasting that hit and run could be extremely effective. They could DDoor/Teleport the entire party in while buffed and Invisible, and then DDoor out when the heat is on.

The party is going to need to be at least 11th across the board to tackle G2 IMO.

 

[kenobi65]

I ran a 3E party through the adaptation (from this site) of G1, when they were about 9th level. They were pretty much an iconic party (human cleric, halfling rogue, half-orc fighter, fire genasi wizard), and they did well, but they used a *lot* of hit-and-run tactics, finding ways to fight the giants in smaller groups, rather than all at once.

3E giants are fundamentally Large bags of hit points, but they can do a LOT of damage when they hit you, and they're pretty good at hitting you. A stand-up fight is usually not in the PC's favor.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

One thing I would personally do is tone down the "base" giants a touch to make handling the numbers easier - the Frilond Campaign website has stats for all the classic giants toned down (primarily by reducing their HD to 1e numbers, and maybe knocking a point off of CON or STR here and there), and I used that when I modded G2 for my group of 4 10th level PC's). I also cut the number of giants back by a bit, and used class levels to boost them back up when I needed to. That allowed me to freely give the giants some cool PrC abilites (Master Thrower, anyone?) without blowing the CR's out of the water...

 

[monboesen]

IMO what you need to take into account is:

Any PC group who thinks they can defeat Giants by meleeing them will end up as decorative red paint.

Giants are TOUGH melee sluggers and even CR appropiate giants will make mincemeat of most fighters. Even blaster type casters can find it hard to work throug the massive HP totals of giants. In my games succesful combating of giants have usually been through action denying magic (glitterdust, slow, confusion, hold monster) followed up by mass ganging up on single vulnerable giants.

 

[Holy Bovine]

IMO what you need to take into account is:

Any PC group who thinks they can defeat Giants by meleeing them will end up as decorative red paint.

Giants are TOUGH melee sluggers and even CR appropiate giants will make mincemeat of most fighters. Even blaster type casters can find it hard to work throug the massive HP totals of giants. In my games succesful combating of giants have usually been through action denying magic (glitterdust, slow, confusion, hold monster) followed up by mass ganging up on single vulnerable giants.

I agree 100% with this. Melee is about all giants have going for them so it makes sense they are exceptionally good at it. My 5 member 12th level group met a gang of 3 standard 3.5E Hill Giants 4 1st level barbarian ones and one with 3 levels of cleric and had the hardest time putting them down.

 

[QuaziquestGM]

I'm wondering how anyone survived this series. Never mind the giants for a moment....
A pack of polar bears that fight as cave (Dire) bears? packs of hell hounds and frost wolves. ice toads with no save 3d6 cold radiation attacks. Creative applications of contact poison....

This should be interesting....

I'm probably going to mix up the giant stats a bit. Since I already established that "Hill Giants" have 235 hp, I'm just going to have their HP vary wildly and have them come in various sizes.

I think that I will keep the original dragon rules. Breath weapon damage = hp of dragon...saves me some die rolls.

I also think that I will drop the 3.5 grid and just use a yard stick and circular based minis. The original rules were more realistic as opposed to "Game based" about the amount of space that beings occupy. There are some 40 X 40 caves with 14 giants in them, so to have room for pcs the bases of the pc minies will need to overlap with the bases of the huge giant minies. More WYSIWYG than grid....Should make attacks of opportunity and eyeballing AOE spells interesting.....

Oh...anyone know what a "Rod of cold" is?