D&D General How do you use giants in your game?

[Ruin Explorer]

I love splatbooks! I don't think disliki g them is a grognard thing. Plenty of people (not me) approved of 5e's super slow product rollout, for example.

It might not be purely a grog thing but the "splatbooks sucked, actually" attitude definitely centers around players aged 40+, in part simply because fewer younger players even really know what a splatbook is (I saw some posts by very obviously 20-something RPGers wildly and amusingly misapplying it to essentially "any book with rules in" recently), given they've been absent from most RPGs for a long time.

 

[TwoSix]

That would actually totally rock, even if the grognards would start darkly muttering the hated term "splatbook". Honestly, I'll say it now, I never hated splatbooks - I kind of loved splatbooks. I bought loads of splatbooks, and if they were cool, I'd do it again!

God, I miss splatbooks. I miss when making a leatherbound book for every class wasn't enough, so they just made new classes so they could make more splatbooks.

 

[Celebrim]

Possibly. What they have certainly become in the newer editions is tougher and meaner, which they badly needed as the 1e versions (particularly post-UA) were far too spindly.

A Frost Giant would average 58 h.p., rounding up. A specialized mid-level Fighter with a 2-handed sword and decent AC could chop one down in two rounds and maybe only take one hit in the process, which for what should be an apex-level opponent is pathetic.

I mean, this is a general problem with 1e period, especially once you add in things like specialization. Almost everything in 1e AD&D is a glass canon, and most combats are basically over by the initiative roll. Almost none of the original monsters are designed to face more than 10th level opponents and 10th level is treated by the rules as pretty much apex level play. Once power creep like specialization is factored in, almost nothing can really stand up to an 8th level party that wins initiative.

I've got several threads on this tagged 1e AD&D.

For example:

D&D 1E - Revised and rebalanced dragons for 1e AD&D

Hit Dice by Chromatic Dragon Species Age Category Category Name AC Move Rate Small White White Black Green Blue Red Huge Red 1 Hatchling 2 12"/24" C 1+3 1+3 1+3 1+3 2+6 2+6 2+6 2 Very Young 1 12"/24" C 2+8 2+8 3+12 3+12 4+16 4+16 4+16 3 Young 0...

www.enworld.org

D&D 1E - A Guide to 1e AD&D Monsters to Challenge a Party of 13th level and Higher

If you’ve ever DMed a 1e AD&D party past name level, you quickly discover that most everything in the game is designed for characters of 10th level or less. If well equipped, a party of around 8-12 10th or 11th level characters can reasonably expect to overcome any monster in the game...

www.enworld.org

All that said, I prefer the 1e AD&D Hit Dice and especially heights to latter editions, it's just I have different approaches to solving the 1e AD&D glass cannon problem. The 1e AD&D giants are plenty big as it is, and supersizing things without dealing with scale in any sort of reasonable manner doesn't help the game. If the real problem is hit points, deal with that using things like explicit or implicit CON scores or better defensive abilities.

 

[Dias Ex Machina]

When I ran Storm Giant's thunder, the party was a Star Gate crew requested by locals to deal with the giant activity.

I used Ultramodern 5 for the PCs.

They had local tech support from the Gnomes and drove around in a Green Studebaker across the Realms

While we never finished it, the giants had started getting access to the technology and would as time progressed.

Hense I had renamed the adventure Storm Giant's Shotgun to give you a clue what the giants had managed to scrounge that they had to deal with at one point. <evil grin>.

That sounds like a great idea. Like the use of UM5 rules.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't really like most of the main giant types in D&D. The few times I've used them felt unsatisfying, in part because I just don't think their lore is interesting.

I'm currently leaning towards making giants be descended from angels in my setting, based on the Nephilim. Empyreans will be the highest rank of Giants, while Hill Giants, Ogres, and Goliaths will be several generations removed from their angelic ancestors. Goliaths will have slightly different mechanics, with some divine flavor. I might include Shadow Giants, being connected with fallen angels.

I do like the idea of the Cradles from Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, and will likely find a way to work them in with Empyreans.

 

[Alerad]

When I started playing DnD again in 2014 (2015?) with 5e I was fascinated with the giants and the duergar, but I found the lore bland and generic. This is how I changed it for my campaign back then:

Long time ago the seven dwarven archmages each ruled one school of magic. There are 8 schools in 5e, but one of my players was a Dwarf Wizard - Evoker, so I let her have that one. The acrh mage dwarves 100 years ago ruled the other 7 schools and Evocation wasn't its own school yet.
Why Dwarves? Because one of my players was a Dwarf Wizard, also, medium armor, shield and battle axe! (Did they have shield proficiency? I forget) They're badass!

Now, the story goes, the BBEG is one of the seven arch mages. He is blind, he is a duergar and he is the archmage of Divination. Neat. I was experimenting if I can make him as low level as possible while still being all-powerful mage that everyone fears. He was level 15, but I cheated a bit by giving him permanent Foresight, which is a 9th level spell.

Now duergar can double in size. After reading this I decided there are no giants in my world, just the deep dwarves. Regular duergar can only double in size. The archmage's lieutenants could grow multiple times in size, each more powerful one could grow more. So we got the Hill, Stone, Frost, Fire, Cloud and Storm giants being the six most powerful and most trusted lieutenants of the BBEG arch mage duergar.

(I did a similar thing with metallic dragons in my next campaign, I might share it too later!)
Edit: I did! I started the "How do you use dragons?" thread.