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Message: <blockquote data-quote="T. Foster" data-source="post: 3029267" data-attributes="member: 16574">The revised/expanded encounter is still fair IMO, but is unfortunate. There was obviously a miscommunication between players and DM with regard to the sorts of challenges they'll be facing with random wilderness encounters, with tragic consequences. One way to resolve this is to let the action take its natural course (near-TPK) and let the other players create new characters with more wisdom about the world they'll be adventuring in. That's justifiable (especially since these were level 1 characters that presumably the players haven't invested a lot of time and emotion into yet -- a TPK at level 1 is an inconvenience, a TPK at level 7 is a complete disaster!) but pretty harsh, and some players might not react well to this "lesson."What I'd probably do (because I'm a big softy as a DM) would be to temporarily step out of character and explain to the players that this giant would normally kill them at this point, that the wilderness in this campaign is a tough place where they shouldn't expect the challenges to be matched to their level, and that as low level characters they should 1) seek to spend as little time as possible in the open wilderness, 2) always seek to hide or run from encounters, or at least 3) consider beefing up their numbers with guards/hirelings (not that a dozen 0-level men-at-arms would be much help against a hill giant, but it's still solid advice in a lot of other instances), but since  we're all still getting settled and feeling each other out, we'll consider this a "warning." Then, returning to character, the giant wouldn't immediately start hurling rocks from cover, but would allow the PCs to either parley (letting them go if they give him a horse or mule to eat, perhaps) or run away without pursuit. If the players didn't take the hint and decided they still wanted to fight it, then, of course, they'd be slaughtered unmercifully (and asked, as they're rolling their new characters, why they didn't take the hints).     And, next time they're wandering in the wilderness and hear something big approaching, they'd better have sense enough to react appropriately...</blockquote>

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