Giants: How big should they be in an a Fantasy RPG?

[frankthedm]

Previous title:Giants: Should Hill, Stone, Frost and Fire giants be Huge instead of Large?

Giant: The word hold a lot of imagery. Most of it barely applies to the giants PC will fight most often. Out of all the MM ‘true’ giants, only the strongest and most magical, Cloud and Storm giants are huge. The rest, while bigger than humans, are not significantly larger than an ogre or troll. While the desire to have most giants fit into dungeons is understandable, a large non classed biped having 130 to 150 HP feels just off to me. To then say it is a “Giant” makes it worse.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG121.jpg
I doubt I am the only one who feels this way, a few times I have noticed D&D artists drawing giants as much larger than the MM calls for…
http://paizo.com/image/product/catalog/TSR/TSR82133_500.jpeg
http://www.waynereynolds.com/Misc1A/8.jpg
http://www.waynereynolds.com/Misc1A/12.jpg

Also wotc does now seem to be making giants more giants 'giant', the MM3’s Eldritch and Death giants are both huge and the MM2 mountain giant is colossal.

 

[Ilium]

I'll take them as they are. I like a range of sizes. Howeve,r there's no reason magic-using giants wouldn't invent "Enlarge Giant" spells.

 

[Henry]

Large is Large enough to me; after all, that's Eight to Sixteen feet to play with! Anyone who is six feet tall is going to see a 15 foot giant as three times his size, pretty much; visions of that can really evoke some terrifying thoughts.

 

[Sejs]

They're fine as-is for my tastes. Large runs the gamut from barely-large (ogres) to nearly-huge (giants), much in the same way medium has its own range, dwarves to goliaths.

As it stands, giants hit hard. Go toe to toe with one and you're in deep kimchee. Last thing we need is them getting any stronger, heh.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Giants are fine as-is. A 16-ft.-tall fire giant is close to three times the height of an average human and twice the height of an average ogre. I would like to see racial paragon classes allowing the lesser giants to BECOME huge, however (or to acquire Powerful Build); I picture some lesser giants growing enough to qualify, but not all.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I would like to see racial paragon classes allowing the lesser giants to BECOME huge

That is a great idea. I love it when someone uses something that is already available to handle a concept.

 

[Felon]

Certainly don't see the problem with giants being--large is pretty big!

I do wish it were possible to advance giants as monsters so their size could increase. But you have to advance them by class.

 

[Nyaricus]

In my homebrew, I am using monster progressions ala Savage Species (with a lot of changes, of course ) to make giants grow as they go up in level/experience. They start as medium, fairly quickly make it to large and then after a great while they get to be huge. This hasn't been playtested yet (and is really only a rough draft), but most of the levels are stat boosts for giants. Basically, I will eventually be doing this for any playable "monster" in my campiagn setting, so that they don't have to start at level 15, or whatever (not fun for a level 1 game, anyways )

So, I do use huge giants. While large size is that, it's just not what I see giants as. The Fire Giants (second last) picture by Wayne Reynolds is about the size (if a bit shorter and less stocky) that my campaigns giants would be.

 

[Klaus]

That is a great idea. I love it when someone uses something that is already available to handle a concept.

And to your left we see the Giant Paragon prestige class from Arcana Evolved.

http://www.enworld.org/Pozas/Pictures/Illustration/titanic_battle.jpg

 

[Tonguez]

IMC there is only one species of Normal Giant* who are large sized and range from 10 - 12ft. In Giant society staus is determined by height and power and all giants advance by gaining HP Height and first elemental powers (Stone, Frost, Fire, Storm, Cloud), then Huge size and then Legendary Status.

16ft Giants are few and Huge giants are legendary figures who may even be worshipped as minor dieties

(*Normal Giant does not include Sea Giant, Ogre, Troll or Hag which are all considered different species)