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

[TheAuldGrump]

For my own game world giants get bigger over time - they never stop growing. I gather that to an extent Arcana Evolved takes a similar approach with the PC race of giants.

I don't use the giants from the MM as is, but I do use them as a starting point. So a young adult Frost Giant would be pretty much as described in the MM, but an older and more experienced giant might be a full size category larger, with the ability score modifiers to match.

The Auld Grump

 

[woodelph]

Depends on which half of my brain you ask. One half says "Giants! Yeah! Big in every way!". The other half says "Thin kinda makes sense. Keeping something that big really well-fed would be tough, let alone a whole group of 'em."

Shouldn't the half of your brain that's being realistic remember the square-cube law, and point out that there's a reason elephants and horses look nothing alike?

Anyway, as for how big giants should be: i once put together a to-scale collage of all the races for my Spelljammer campaign (you know, like the race illos in the PH). It doesn't take all that much bigger to be really impressive. Go watch The Princess Bride, particularly the fight scene between Fezzik and Wesley. And then consider that Andre was "only" 7'4" and around 500# at that time. Scale that up to 10', and it's already pretty scary to stand next to. Go stand next to the elephant at the zoo, and just feel the massiveness. Then picture it rearing up and swing a [small] tree at you.

I don't think there's any need to biggify giants--just bring home to the players how big they already are. That said, yeah, i like my giants bigger. But not because it's necessary.

 

[Vuron]

If you want versimilitude the heights at current are just fine. Keep in mind that say doubling height mean a much more than a doubling of weight.

For example the frost giant is probably the closest in physical proportions to a healthy human. Let's say a healthy 6' male human averages 200 lbs. A Frost Giant of 15' should weigh rough 3,125 lbs. If the Frost Giant is moderately active that means the giant needs to eat roughly 46,875 calories a day. That means the frost giant needs to eat the equivalent of 46 triple meat whataburgers a day

A Cloud Giant should weigh roughly 5,400 pounds and needs to eat 81,000 calories a day.

Storm Giants would top the chart at 8,575 pounds and needs to eat 128,625 calories a day.

Granted with the more magical giants they might get some of thier nutrition through magic means but if you figure a frost giant tribe would require a truly insane amount of food in a given year.

Huge and Gargantuan Giants just become ridiculous.

 

[Kunimatyu]

If you want versimilitude the heights at current are just fine. Keep in mind that say doubling height mean a much more than a doubling of weight.

For example the frost giant is probably the closest in physical proportions to a healthy human. Let's say a healthy 6' male human averages 200 lbs. A Frost Giant of 15' should weigh rough 3,125 lbs. If the Frost Giant is moderately active that means the giant needs to eat roughly 46,875 calories a day. That means the frost giant needs to eat the equivalent of 46 triple meat whataburgers a day

A Cloud Giant should weigh roughly 5,400 pounds and needs to eat 81,000 calories a day.

Storm Giants would top the chart at 8,575 pounds and needs to eat 128,625 calories a day.

Granted with the more magical giants they might get some of thier nutrition through magic means but if you figure a frost giant tribe would require a truly insane amount of food in a given year.

Huge and Gargantuan Giants just become ridiculous.

Isn't this why giants come into contact with human settlements, ie. eating all the cattle and/or villagers?

 

[genshou]

Here at Wendy's a Classic Triple w/ Cheese is 970 calories. To reach the previously posted calorie total, that giant would need to eat 48.324742 Classic Triples w/ Cheese. In case you're wondering, that's 36.243558 lbs. of hamburger meat. Eating this much meat every day would require a very large cow population from which each giant in the tribe could draw their daily sustenance. For this reason, I seldom have more than three adult giants in one group. They tend to dominate the region they are in, because only a dragon possesses similar power and innovation.

 

[woodelf]

If you want versimilitude the heights at current are just fine. Keep in mind that say doubling height mean a much more than a doubling of weight.

For example the frost giant is probably the closest in physical proportions to a healthy human. Let's say a healthy 6' male human averages 200 lbs. A Frost Giant of 15' should weigh rough 3,125 lbs. If the Frost Giant is moderately active that means the giant needs to eat roughly 46,875 calories a day. That means the frost giant needs to eat the equivalent of 46 triple meat whataburgers a day

A Cloud Giant should weigh roughly 5,400 pounds and needs to eat 81,000 calories a day.

Storm Giants would top the chart at 8,575 pounds and needs to eat 128,625 calories a day.

Calorie intake doesn't scale proportionately with mass--it doesn't even come close. The bigger the creature, the fewer calories needed in proportion to their mass. Another example of the square-cube law (in this case, the decreasing surface area in proportion to the volume). As an extreme example, it has been proposed that the largest dinosaurs--the brontosaurs and so forth--were "mesothermic"--that is, that while they had a fundamentally cold-blooded metabolism, their sheer bulk gave them a steady metabolic temperature, so they behaved essentially like a warm-blooded animal.

That said, most D&D ecologies are fundamentally broken, with way too many predators for the number of prey animals around. I wouldn't start analyzing the food consumption of large monsters too closely.

Oh, on the 'how big is big' front, check out this Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gheorghe_Muresan, and note how the 7'7" Gheorghe positively dwarfs the 6' Tim, with them both in basically the same pose. Now try and imagine someone 10' tall similarly dwarfing Gheorghe--and put that guy next to Tim. 10' is already pretty impressive.

 

[Conaill]

If you want versimilitude the heights at current are just fine. Keep in mind that say doubling height mean a much more than a doubling of weight.

For example the frost giant is probably the closest in physical proportions to a healthy human. Let's say a healthy 6' male human averages 200 lbs. A Frost Giant of 15' should weigh rough 3,125 lbs. If the Frost Giant is moderately active that means the giant needs to eat roughly 46,875 calories a day. That means the frost giant needs to eat the equivalent of 46 triple meat whataburgers a day

A Cloud Giant should weigh roughly 5,400 pounds and needs to eat 81,000 calories a day.

Storm Giants would top the chart at 8,575 pounds and needs to eat 128,625 calories a day.

Calorie intake doesn't scale proportionately with mass--it doesn't even come close. The bigger the creature, the fewer calories needed in proportion to their mass.

In general, metabolic rate scales roughly as the 3/4 power of mass (Kleiber's law, see also here and here).

So for our 3.125 lb Frost Giant, his metabolism would be only 7.9 times higher than a 200 lb human, or requiring 11,788 calories per day (12 triple meat whataburgers).

The 5,400 lb Cloud Giant would have a metabolic rate 11.8 times higher than a human, or 17,767 calories per day.

The 8,575 lb Storm Giant' s metabolic rate would be 16.8 times higher than a human, or 25,133 calories per day (25 triple meat whataburgers).

Doesn't look nearly so bad now. Any area that could sustain a band of 17 cattle cattle thieves could just as easily sustain a Storm Giant. And that's assuming they're pure meat eaters, and don't grow their own food.

 

[hastur_nz]

I like the sizes as they are; the problem I have is the excessive HD. Compared to an Ogre, a Hill Giant is just too tough when it's not really that much bigger.

In my game, I strip 4 HD off each Giant, which takes them back to the way they were in 1st edition (old-timers may remember how they added about 4 HD to each giant in 2nd edition because they were not tough enough compared to 2nd edition adventurers especially fighters - in my opinion, 3rd edition fixed this problem by giving monsters feats etc, hence my re-tooling of them). Not a big change, but bridges the gap between Ogre and Hill Giant, and lets you run a few more at a time against your players. I then reduce their CR by 1. I ran an extensive "play test" of this by running my own conversion of G1-3 (cut-down a bit, but not a lot, to allow us to finish it in our life-times). I just added a few class levels to the important giants. It worked out pretty well, and lots of giants got slaughtered (and a number of PC's died, some multiple times).

 

[hong]

Compare a medium to a huge.
Compare a small to a large.

Use your imagination rather than your tape measure

I bet you say that to all the girls.

 

[genshou]

I bet you say that to all the girls.

I'm debating whether I should burst out laughing or beat you with the hongstick.

In the end, I'd rather laugh