Leading up to and then running G1-G3 for 3.5, advice needed!

[painandgreed]

I'd go witht eh A series, but if that's not what you're looking for, you could try easing them into the G series. Have them guard the caravans that the giants are raiding and fighting some giants before they have to hit the main fortess. Perhaps lead in with some humanoids that the giants are controling. First some orcs, then some orcs with a giant leading them, then a party of giants. Perhaps get hired to go help a walled town that is having trouble with giants seiging it. Move from there into the wilderness and attack some camps of giant raiding parties and follow them to the G1 series. If they could use an edge, the maybe run White Plume Montains but replace the weapons with giant killers because it seems that giants are a cyclical problem in the region and the last heroes who had them put them there for the next group that would need them.

 

[dagger]

Thanks for all the help

 

[ruleslawyer]

I agree with RTTTOEE as a lead in. Equally deadly. Similiar play styles. One word of warning: they may get "dungeon crawled" out.

That's why I don't agree with RttToEE. G1-3 involves just too much hack-and-slash in focused indoor settings to lead it off with 10 level-ups worth of dungeon crawling. I actually think that Banewarrens makes an easy transfer; you can use the intro for GDQ1-7 and substitute the bad guys in the Banewarrens for the Slavelords. Just my $0.02...

 

[tarchon]

With 5-6 PCs, smart, stealthy players could take G1 at 7th-8th level. "Fools rush in" players, yeah, probably about 9th-10th minimum.

 

[Mystery Man]

Giants are super, super deadly in 3.0/3.5. They just hit so damn hard.
Wulf

They do and they are up to a certain level, then hill giants become cannon fodder. I know because I ran G1 and some of G2 using 3.5 rules.

 

[dagger]

I am just buming this week old thread of mine to see if anyone else has any advice.

 

[Garnfellow]

I have downloaded the g1-g3 conversion docs from this site and they pretty much confirm what I had already surmised; that the party will need to be higher level than in the original modules. I will most likely have around 5-6 steady players who are average at min maxing characters.

I'm in a very similar boat as you -- I am running a retro campaign of classic modules (what a fricken blast!) and G1-3 is probably the sequence I am most eagerly anticipating (because it's so cool) and also dreading (because giants have changed so drastically since 1st edition).

My solution is probably more radical than what you're looking for, but here goes -- I'm pondering using vastly scaled down versions of the 3e giant races, as described by Daniel Collins in his article, "Giants: 1st AD&D Conversions." (http://superdan.net.home.comcast.net/dndmisc/1st_ed_giants.html).

I've got a lot of reasons for wanting to do this, and not all of them amount to simple knee-jerk retroism. Daniel makes a pretty good case on his own, and I'm inclined to agree that from a design perspective, 3e giants have flat out too many HD. They don't fit the 3e monster building guidelines, but (to me) more importantly, having so many racial HD is boring and fairly limiting. I'd rather have a lot fewer giant racial HD and thus more room to add base classes and prestige classes (and hey, templates too) before banging up against epic levels.

 

[Garnfellow]

As a follow-up, if I choose to go this route, I will probably develop a whole series of typical giants, sort of like how the 3.0 DMG had the NPC class progressions. So I’d have stats for a generic hill giant with 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. warrior class levels. Or barbarian. Or whatever. Same thing with frost giants, and fire giants. And I’d certainly share with any interested EnWorlders.

 

[dagger]

The folks I game with are used to the 3rd edition giants of death, or I would do something similar as that.

I think I am going to have them use Gestalt characters to give them more staying power. So that will be 5 or 6 players with fairly powerful character combos, which should be enough.

 

[dagger]

As a follow-up, if I choose to go this route, I will probably develop a whole series of typical giants, sort of like how the 3.0 DMG had the NPC class progressions. So I’d have stats for a generic hill giant with 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. warrior class levels. Or barbarian. Or whatever. Same thing with frost giants, and fire giants. And I’d certainly share with any interested EnWorlders.

I seem to alter my plans almost day to day, so you never know, I might end up using your lower CR giants and beefing up the other monsters instead. I was thinking about using FR Tanarukks (orc tiefling)for the orcs, to add some flavor.