Buff these Hill Giants!

[Taren Seeker]

You need to do something about the chief's will save. I don't know your party but I can almost guarantee that when you unveil him some uppity mage will hold monster or slow him first round.

Iron Will would help, or a bearskin vest of resistance +1 or 2. Be careful not to jack up the saves too much or he will blow through everyone quick. You basically want to give him a good chance at saving once or twice.

Alternatively you could up one cleric to level 7 and cast Freedom of Movement on the chief. Do it only if the PC's really make a racket and the chief has ample prep time. I suppose you could also give a scroll of it to one of the regular clerics. Ditto on a shield of faith to nudge that AC up a bit more to keep the power attacking BDF's honest. 2 decent THF tanks will chew through those HP's in no time. I'd prefer upping the AC a little to using Displacement. A 50% miss chance can really screw everyone up with only moderate bad luck.

 

[BOZ]

so far, the party's tactics have been mostly limited to "hack, slash, kill" - but of course, that can change. increaseing damage output and AC is desirable though.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

You said you wanted to give the giants treasure, but deny it to the party: Label all of the potions correctly in Giant, but put them in bottles previously used for other potions and labelled incorrectly in Common. "Hey! it says "Bull's Strength" right here on the bottle!" as he looks at the dead giant's unused potion of Reduce.

Armor and weapons should be easy enough - just make them the wrong size.

Oh! You can make the potions the wong size, too. They work just fine, but they take a round or two to drink just because they're so watered down.

You could give the giants magic items that only function for giants and giant-kin, or you could put obscure limitations on the use - like the wand of fireballs is actually an enchanted fireplace poker, serves as a one-handed exotic weapon, and has to be partially immersed in fire each night to function the next day.

Oh, wait! is there room in your module for a ghost giant rogue? Rogue Ghosts just make for nasty opponents!

 

[Sammael]

This entire clan of giants would die horribly to a greater invisible, flying (or even merely levitating) 7th level wizard with a wand of fireball. Invisibility purge does nothing when the wizard is 500 feet up in the air, above the giants. They need some SR, badly.

 

[Someone]

I don´t know... if you want some flying giants with SR and the ability to sense invisible foes, it would be better to just use dragons.

BOZ, you can limit the number of full attacks the giants get with some tactics. For example, use the Awesome Blow feat. Awesome Blow only lets you one attack per round, so you can make giants team or pake pairs. One full attacks, and then the other uses Awesome Blow, denying the PC the chance to full attack himself.

 

[Sammael]

What I'm saying is that these giants aren't nearly as big of a threat to a 11th+ level party as the others are making them sound. Sure, they'll survive a disintegrate or two, but they are too vulnerable to anything Ref or Will save related as well as touch attacks. A smart 9th level party could beat them with some trouble. An 11th level wizard could beat them alone in a couple of rounds without breaking a sweat.

 

[Someone]

Well, I agree, a party of that level shouldn´t have too much trouble with those giants, speacially when they are giants. Giants have strenghts (melee and hit points) adn weaknesses (low AC and vulnerability to magic). That´s intrinsic to the fact of being a giant. IMHO, To change that you need to change them into a state of not-giantness, like using dragons instead of giants or giving them the fiendish template, or using a lot of magic that need a lot of ad-hoc and frustrating reasons for not being used by the party, like giant specific magic items to avoid giving the party too much treasure.

 

[BOZ]

standard giants are essentially going to be cannon fodder. their "leaders" with class levels will have to be buffed to make them a viable threat. anything that denies the PCs a full attack is great, so Awesome Blow (heheh, always loved that name) should come in handy.

i crippled the main party mage/paladin (7th-level wizard who flies invisibly and uses a wand of fireballs, no less!) by sending him on a holy quest. he had lost his paladinhood through a bunch of shady acts, and to regain his paladinhood he must go through the giant lair without using any magic.

of course, there is a second spellcaster in the party who i am less familiar with that i must deal with...

 

[krichaiushii]

I'm browsing through Silverthorne Games' Deluxe Book of Templates and saw the Dreadnaught, Half-Troll, and Quickened templates.

If your chieftan had any (or all!) of these templates in addition to some barbarian levels, that might prove amusing.

Just not for the PCs.

Just a thought.

 

[BOZ]

ran a really tough encounter... bumping thread so i can find it later when i have time to post more about it.