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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6828825" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Quoting from the SRD:Really? That would have saved him 35 points of damage, at the cost of both of his attacks. It's basically giving all 20+ enemy creatures a free round of attacks on him. If his mindset is so defensive already, why is he even launching an attack instead of negotiating?The paladin is the only one in range because the PCs know how to count, and the Paladin deliberately advanced into range in the OP to present himself as a target. Assume a den about the size of a high school gymnasium, 100' x 60'. Giants start out initially lounging somewhere near the center, some near the walls (I rolled randomly to see how many could be caught by the Wall of Force, got 2) PCs enter from one of the doors. Call it 50' to 65' away from the giants respectively, but it would turn out the same even if it were 30' or 90' initially, since the PCs have the surprise round and know how to count movement.BTW, you don't have to stay within 120' to maintain a Wall of Force, merely to cast it. The giants don't know this but the PCs bardlock and necrolock have ranges of 240' and 600' respectively on their Eldritch Blasts, so they have lots of range to play with.Conjure Animals has a range of 60'. I may have been too generous to the giants--I had assumed that only the wolves which won initiative got opportunity attacks on the giant(s), but in real play there's no reason the bardlock couldn't just summon them right on top of the giants before ducking back around the corner. Then all sixteen wolves would have gotten opportunity attacks on round #2 (house rule: animals conjured during combat count as surprised on the round they are summoned, since they didn't know they were about to be summoned) instead of only eight of them.You're right that they don't block the giant's movement because they're not big enough, but that's not what's going on here. It's not completely trapped, it's just surrounded in 8 of the 10 surrounding squares by wolves. The other 2 squares are taken up by giant furniture.BTW, the bardlock in this scenario specified his priorities as 1.) cobras, 2.) giant owls, 3.) wolves, 4.) draft horses. I rolled randomly and he got his #3 pick, wolves, instead of something better.Partly luck--the giants probably should have hit the Paladin more than they did. I was surprised to see four whiffs in a row--I was expecting him to take something more like 40 points of damage, since he hadn't even activated a Blur spell or anything. Partly it's just the overwhelming force advantage of outnumbering the giants 10:1. Partly it's the power of recon and Shadow Monks with Pass Without Trace. None of that is really relevant to what I'm really interested in though, which is: how badly-outclassed does a typical giant (i.e. human Enworlder) have to be before he realizes it and surrenders without making the PCs tear him to shreds first? I don't want to lean on my own intuition here because I think I am not average enough.So far, discussion seems to indicate that any given Fire Giant is probably not going to believe he's outclassed while he still has half his HP left. Maybe the old heuristic of "fight until half HP, or until half your comrades have surrendered or died" is valid after all.</blockquote>

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