JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Giant Lore is the third book of monsters in the softcover format from Fantasy Flight games. Unlike previous volumes this tome offers more than monsters.
The book starts off with a definition of what a giant is and starts into the stats quickly with an Amazon Giant and moves through the ranks. Many of the giants aren't of the huge variety, some based on those found in myth. Take the Amazons, a race of warrior women giants who have sorcerous hubsbands or the Tinkerkin, a race of giants who specialize in creating unique items like “a spinning wheel that turns hay into gold”. Sound familiar?
My favorites are the trolls. Many of them remind me of some found in 2nd and 1st edition. The Stone Troll is a massive rock like creature that hardens to stone in daylight while the Shambling Troll continue to fight until every piece is destroyed. Their castoffs regenerate into new trolls and only because they eat these smaller remains, is the population kept under control. Sounds like the good old classic troll to me. For those looking for something a bit more powerful, we have the Dire Frost Troll, a combatant whose simple skills include taking lots of damage and crushing lots of opponents with vast strength and massive regeneration. The bad news is that this old boy has fire immunity so the standard ways of dealing with a troll aren't going to be sufficient.
In previous books in this series, templates were put into the main body. This book breaks templates into its own section and works off of the idea that the “passions” within giants “spin out of control” giving them templates based on things like avarice, envy, and wrath, in addition to more traditional troll blood and lycanthropes. Full template details are provided with an example for quick play. The lycanthrope section is one of the most interesting because it has such a wide diversity of types. How about a simple hill giant dire werewolf? No? What about the Cloud Giant Wereroc or the Fire Giant Weretyrannosaur? Ah, now I've got your interest.
Another big step here is the prestige classes. Beast Tamers are giants who master large creatures like dire wolves and wyverns, to the bonegrinder, a specialist in making bread from, you guessed it, bones. The effects of the food that the bonegrinder can craft make him a dangerous opponent for players as they may not know what's causing the giants to fight so fierce against them and in melee, the bonegrinder is no slouch, knowing the tender spots in the meat he's fighting.
Perhaps the strangest class though, is the Ettin Balancer. This spellcasting PrC is based on the idea of reconciliation between the two-ettin brains and works as a true neutral spellcaster who seeks neutrality in all about him. Another one off the wall is the Infiltrator, a giant that becomes better as assuming smaller shapes until her power enables her to mimic small humanoids like halflings.
Those looking for further ways to maul their players will want to read over Chapter Four, Giant Options carefully. It starts off simply enough with new feats, but moves onto some diverse rules that can make giants very dangerous. The feats seem simple enough at first. Things like Blood of Fire, Blood of Winter and Hand of Thunder allow the giant to focus its elemental aspect into increasing damage on its weapon through fire, ice or lightning. How about Ricocheting Throw where you can bounce boulders or Dwarfkiller where the giant negates a dwarf's bonuses to AC against giants?
The option rules include material for using different types of armor for giants. Armor that only covers their lower half and what type of armor bonus it provides against smaller opponents as well as normal opponents. Also of use is the falling damage a giant can inflict on its enemies when it falls upon them. Trust me, you don't want to be in that spot.
New spells and magic items help round out the unique aspects of the giants. Din of Battle is a simple spell but effects spells that have a l”language-dependent descriptor” like Command or Mass Combat Reflexes where the giant spellcaster gives 1 ally per level the combat reflexes feat for 1 minute per level.
The magic item section isn't long but does provide more firepower to the giants arsenal. Between potions of troll's blood with the regeneration of 5 for 1d3 hours and the arrowhawk shield that not only have a DR 10 vs. ranged weapons, they hardly need something like the Sword of Winter's Wrath, a huge frost greatsword that can turns its victims to ice.
Now on the player's side, the book does have Against the Giants. Two new prestige classes, the giant slayer and the giant seed are introduced. The giant slayer is the standard ranger style character who focuses on killing the giants with a nice range of abilities. The giant seed on the other hand, starts to take on the giant aspect be becoming larger and stronger. A nice change of pace and original.
Feats for players focus on killing giants like Chant of the Dwarf Lords. The prerequisite for this is dwarven blood and bardic music ability and it provides a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls while Longaxe extends the reach of one attack by 5 ft. The feats helps players counter the powers that giants gain here, but players are often stingy with their feats and abilities. Fortunately, many of the feats here have uses outside of killing giants as an extra 5' reach is always useful.
Does the book go far enough? No. The rules it uses for ECL do not match other rules on ECL. For example, an amazon giant is an ECL of +1 but this doesn't mean that the character is equal to a 1st level character but rather, the ECL is part of a formula. Another issue is the book has no racial traits. While the ECL is a good idea, without the racial traits, for myself at least, it becomes more effort than its worth in 95% of the NPCs I'll make using the rules here to customize their stats.
Fantasy Flight Games is one of those companies, along with Green Ronin and Malhavok Press, where I don't have to worry about the art. I know it's going to be top notch. Mitch Cotie, Allen Douglas, Anneth Lagamo and David Griffith bring a lot of power and action to the giants. One of my favorite pieces, I bleieve by David Griffith, is of a dire frost troll looming over a traveller and his horse in the winter. Layout is standard two column with fair use of white space even though the interior covers aren't used. Price is standard for a 64 page book. One page is used for an ad for Dungeon and Dragon magazines and another for the OGL itself.
Giant Lore is a big step in making the various monster lore books more than just a collection of enemies for the GM to utilize against players but this is still a GM's purchase. If you're looking for new ways to crush your players and bring in some old favorites recast, then Giant Lore is for you.
The book starts off with a definition of what a giant is and starts into the stats quickly with an Amazon Giant and moves through the ranks. Many of the giants aren't of the huge variety, some based on those found in myth. Take the Amazons, a race of warrior women giants who have sorcerous hubsbands or the Tinkerkin, a race of giants who specialize in creating unique items like “a spinning wheel that turns hay into gold”. Sound familiar?
My favorites are the trolls. Many of them remind me of some found in 2nd and 1st edition. The Stone Troll is a massive rock like creature that hardens to stone in daylight while the Shambling Troll continue to fight until every piece is destroyed. Their castoffs regenerate into new trolls and only because they eat these smaller remains, is the population kept under control. Sounds like the good old classic troll to me. For those looking for something a bit more powerful, we have the Dire Frost Troll, a combatant whose simple skills include taking lots of damage and crushing lots of opponents with vast strength and massive regeneration. The bad news is that this old boy has fire immunity so the standard ways of dealing with a troll aren't going to be sufficient.
In previous books in this series, templates were put into the main body. This book breaks templates into its own section and works off of the idea that the “passions” within giants “spin out of control” giving them templates based on things like avarice, envy, and wrath, in addition to more traditional troll blood and lycanthropes. Full template details are provided with an example for quick play. The lycanthrope section is one of the most interesting because it has such a wide diversity of types. How about a simple hill giant dire werewolf? No? What about the Cloud Giant Wereroc or the Fire Giant Weretyrannosaur? Ah, now I've got your interest.
Another big step here is the prestige classes. Beast Tamers are giants who master large creatures like dire wolves and wyverns, to the bonegrinder, a specialist in making bread from, you guessed it, bones. The effects of the food that the bonegrinder can craft make him a dangerous opponent for players as they may not know what's causing the giants to fight so fierce against them and in melee, the bonegrinder is no slouch, knowing the tender spots in the meat he's fighting.
Perhaps the strangest class though, is the Ettin Balancer. This spellcasting PrC is based on the idea of reconciliation between the two-ettin brains and works as a true neutral spellcaster who seeks neutrality in all about him. Another one off the wall is the Infiltrator, a giant that becomes better as assuming smaller shapes until her power enables her to mimic small humanoids like halflings.
Those looking for further ways to maul their players will want to read over Chapter Four, Giant Options carefully. It starts off simply enough with new feats, but moves onto some diverse rules that can make giants very dangerous. The feats seem simple enough at first. Things like Blood of Fire, Blood of Winter and Hand of Thunder allow the giant to focus its elemental aspect into increasing damage on its weapon through fire, ice or lightning. How about Ricocheting Throw where you can bounce boulders or Dwarfkiller where the giant negates a dwarf's bonuses to AC against giants?
The option rules include material for using different types of armor for giants. Armor that only covers their lower half and what type of armor bonus it provides against smaller opponents as well as normal opponents. Also of use is the falling damage a giant can inflict on its enemies when it falls upon them. Trust me, you don't want to be in that spot.
New spells and magic items help round out the unique aspects of the giants. Din of Battle is a simple spell but effects spells that have a l”language-dependent descriptor” like Command or Mass Combat Reflexes where the giant spellcaster gives 1 ally per level the combat reflexes feat for 1 minute per level.
The magic item section isn't long but does provide more firepower to the giants arsenal. Between potions of troll's blood with the regeneration of 5 for 1d3 hours and the arrowhawk shield that not only have a DR 10 vs. ranged weapons, they hardly need something like the Sword of Winter's Wrath, a huge frost greatsword that can turns its victims to ice.
Now on the player's side, the book does have Against the Giants. Two new prestige classes, the giant slayer and the giant seed are introduced. The giant slayer is the standard ranger style character who focuses on killing the giants with a nice range of abilities. The giant seed on the other hand, starts to take on the giant aspect be becoming larger and stronger. A nice change of pace and original.
Feats for players focus on killing giants like Chant of the Dwarf Lords. The prerequisite for this is dwarven blood and bardic music ability and it provides a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls while Longaxe extends the reach of one attack by 5 ft. The feats helps players counter the powers that giants gain here, but players are often stingy with their feats and abilities. Fortunately, many of the feats here have uses outside of killing giants as an extra 5' reach is always useful.
Does the book go far enough? No. The rules it uses for ECL do not match other rules on ECL. For example, an amazon giant is an ECL of +1 but this doesn't mean that the character is equal to a 1st level character but rather, the ECL is part of a formula. Another issue is the book has no racial traits. While the ECL is a good idea, without the racial traits, for myself at least, it becomes more effort than its worth in 95% of the NPCs I'll make using the rules here to customize their stats.
Fantasy Flight Games is one of those companies, along with Green Ronin and Malhavok Press, where I don't have to worry about the art. I know it's going to be top notch. Mitch Cotie, Allen Douglas, Anneth Lagamo and David Griffith bring a lot of power and action to the giants. One of my favorite pieces, I bleieve by David Griffith, is of a dire frost troll looming over a traveller and his horse in the winter. Layout is standard two column with fair use of white space even though the interior covers aren't used. Price is standard for a 64 page book. One page is used for an ad for Dungeon and Dragon magazines and another for the OGL itself.
Giant Lore is a big step in making the various monster lore books more than just a collection of enemies for the GM to utilize against players but this is still a GM's purchase. If you're looking for new ways to crush your players and bring in some old favorites recast, then Giant Lore is for you.
