Are Giants Overpowered?

[Hypersmurf]

HOWEVER, in your favor is the 3.5e changes to the Nymph -- she used to cast Druid spells higher than her CR, and now she does not.

Absolutely. Finger of Death, Fire Storm, and Summon Nature's Ally IX at will were scary. Even when the CL is only 7.

-Hyp.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Giants would be an interesting foe for the group I'm currently in - we have no cleric and no arcane caster (Pal, Drd, Rog, Ran). Therefore, no invisibility, no grease, limited flight, and no Will-save spells that would affect a giant. We're currently level 4, but I think by 5 we'd be able to take down an unclassed hill giant.
The battlefield-shaping spells (Entangle, Spike Growth, etc.) could be useful, in conjunction with sending in a bunch of summoned dire wolves all at once (only one gets AOOd, and a trip is fairly likely with Augment Summoning).

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Re-iterating what everyone else has said, giants are easy to defeat with the proper tactics, and mulch idiots who wish to fight them in hand-to-hand combat. 'Course, clever DMs put giants in places where their strengths are maximised and their weaknesses minimised.

On the general topic of monsters breaking "the rules" for monster design, so do hydras, but by being too weak, not too strong. Hydras have too few Hit Dice, are too weak (i.e. low Str), and their base damage (1d10) is too low, for a Huge creature. No-one seems to complain that they're too weak, though, and as for giants you should use tactics a little more complex than standing toe-to-toe with them in order to defeat them.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[dcollins]

On the general topic of monsters breaking "the rules" for monster design, so do hydras, but by being too weak, not too strong. Hydras have too few Hit Dice, are too weak (i.e. low Str), and their base damage (1d10) is too low, for a Huge creature. No-one seems to complain that they're too weak, though, and as for giants you should use tactics a little more complex than standing toe-to-toe with them in order to defeat them.

I disagree with that. According to Skip Williams article "How to Create a Monster", a Huge Beast should have 4 to 16 Hit Dice, and Hydras are exactly within that range (5 to 12). Their Strength is in the general ballpark (more than Large, at any rate), and the bite damage of 1d10 is pretty close to suggested 2d6 (off by 1.5 average, easily balanced by how many more they have than usual).

Meanwhile, the various Large Giants are outside the upper-bound of their suggested Hit Dice by multiples of x3 or x4.

 

[Zandy]

Giant, meet archer. Archer, have a potion of Fly. Archer, meet target practice.

To illustrate this;

A few years ago, a player lost his long running character (we were at about 13th level). He created an Arcane Archer, and completely within the confines of the rules, buffed him out. Boots of speed, fly spell, improved invis, bow feats, quiver of Ehlona, etc.

The first game he gets into was against Giants. He was taking out one fire or frost/rnd without any sort of retaliation.

Luckily, he was also one of our DMs and realized how unbalanced the PC was compared to the rest of the group. He was happy to give up a couple of boosts to bring him back to our power level.

But this just shows that there are ways to get past a giant. Even large groups of them...

 

[Aaron2]

I disagree with that. According to Skip Williams article "How to Create a Monster", a Huge Beast should have 4 to 16 Hit Dice, and Hydras are exactly within that range (5 to 12). Their Strength is in the general ballpark (more than Large, at any rate), and the bite damage of 1d10 is pretty close to suggested 2d6 (off by 1.5 average, easily balanced by how many more they have than usual).

I'd like to see all the giants written at their older, 1e HD levels (for 3.5). As it is now, its difficult to create a reasonable non-fighter classed giant since by the time they get enough cleric or wizard levels to reasonably face their opponents they are vastly over CRed. Wasn't there something in Savage Species about non-complementary classes affecting CR?


Aaron

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Going toe-to-toe with a "level appropriate" giant is not really any different an experience than being 3rd level and facing up a Dire Ape.

You are playing into the monster's strength. Even then it is possible to beat them at their own game through highly optimized violence.

IMHO this subject highlights the fact that NPCs are not automatically appropriate challenges just because they are the right number level. It requires strategy on the part of the DM to make their feats and wealth work for them.

One signficant advantage you have when fighting giants: they are very low on magical abilities compared other challenges of their CR rating. That makes their tactics very predictable.

 

[Darklone]

Do you guys remember the nice thread about overpowered druids/natures ally spell some time ago here where a monk player (level 5? Or higher?) complained that he couldn't shine because his buddy the sorcerer and the druid killed the two hill giants faster than he could with summoned monsters (dire wolf and dire lion)?

 

[Scion]

You mean this one right?

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=83199

Pretty nonstandard party, tearing through hill giants at level 5

 

[dcollins]

I'd like to see all the giants written at their older, 1e HD levels (for 3.5)...

Like on my website here? -- www.superdan.net/dndmisc/1st_ed_giants.html