PCs as Stone Giants

[Numion]

"No, really, I'm an adventurer polymorphed into a stone giant!"

...nah. I'd give the check a -20. If you succeed, you can enter the city - but you still have to convince everyone else!

Are Stone Giants that hated? IIRC, they're neutral, not evil. Villagers might not know the differenc, though.

Maybe I wasn't as much looking for advice as I was hoping for my players to, well, grow up.

 

[Draconis Imperium]

But my actual dilemma isn't that they're too powerful or unbalancing. It's that constantly looking like friggin' Stone Giant is stupid! However, the Stone Giant form is superior to that of human or dwarf in melee, and it would make sense for all adventurers to polymorph into giants. A whole group of giants.

So, have any of you had this sort of 'stupidness' in their games? How did you handle it?

I'm not really looking for answers like "Dispel it" or "Make dungeons so small only humans fit". I'm looking for something to make the human form gerally more desirable, either from RP or game mechanics POV (Ok, small dungeons do make it preferable, but still )

I think small areas and how would they interact with normal humans? They would have a hard time going into buildings. Do you think a shop owner will bring all his goods outside or build a bigger building just for them. I would make their lives so hard to do normal things, that they would love to be human again. then they have to quest to find the spell to turn them back.
Making their lives miserable is the way to go. I know it won't play well for awhile but it is the only way to keep them from doing something like this again. IMHO.
Guards would fire first and talk later. Self preservation comes first, sorries are second. Poison tipped ballista's or arrow's would equalize the fight real quick. The poison just saps their strength. A 8 strength giant, could they even lift their arms?
As someone else said what about other high level characters, not just good but evil ones. The evil ones hear about the good PC"s and decide they need to be removed before they do any damage to them.

Their are lots of things to do. You just have to take control and not let PC's get unbalancing.

 

[Umbran]

Depending on exactly how that Miracle worked...

Okay, so now you're a large-sized humanoid. All your mundane equpiment is still medium sized - like your forks, spoons, cooking utensils, sleeping gear. Your horse probably won't bear you, as you weigh something like 1200 lbs, and your saddle's now too small (Saddlehorn! Ouch!).

Imagine yourself trying to cook and eat your meals with shrimp forks, and drinking out of espresso cups, eating off of a child's tea party set, and you get the idea. Nor can you fit into a standard bed... or outhouse. The human-sized world is clumsy even for those folk who top 7' tall. Imagine it for someone 12' tall...

Are stone giants that hated? Remember - the general populace hasn't read the rulebooks. They don't know a stone giant's alignment. Only the most learned among them know what a stone giant is! They only see this pair of huge grey men as tall as the city gate- armed and armored! In a world populated with evil humanoids, you'd respond with a loaded ballista, too.

 

[Numion]

Depending on exactly how that Miracle worked...

Okay, so now you're a large-sized humanoid. All your mundane equpiment is still medium sized - like your forks, spoons, cooking utensils, sleeping gear. Your horse probably won't bear you, as you weigh something like 1200 lbs, and your saddle's now too small (Saddlehorn! Ouch!).

Miracle can emulate any spell of 6th level or lower, IIRC. So he used it to cast Polymorph Self. So, his equipment changes size with himself.

Of course the players don't go into towns in giantform; just the dungeons and wilderness.

 

[Leopold]

Yeah, I'm sure the 19th level cleric will be shaking in his boots about the idea of being shot at by the town guard.

One Diplomacy check (probably at +15 or +20 or so) later, and the problem is solved.

diplomacy with a giant? I don't care what the 19th level cleric is saying, a town on the border with giants approaching without a care int he world IS going to attract attention.

Go ahead roll diplomacy. Your a giant, it doesn't matter if you have a silver tongue and can finnally convince them that you are human in another form, someone will flip out.


It's like godzilla marching into tokyo but saying "Hi i am here just for the sushi, don't mind me". Not gonna happen peacefully.

 

[Oni]

BTW, I have another solution. Anyone hit with a polymorph other or any other permanent shape change has a cumulative 1% per day chance of becoming that creature in mind as well as in body. This chance does not drop to zero. I do not tell my players of this rule though I do hint at it. Also it doesnt drop back to zero if the player changes back to their normal shape for a day. It remains at what the percentage was and keeps climbing the next time they turn into that particular form.

Thats a little rough, A spellcaster should be able to understand how their spells function, and anyone with decent ranks in spellcraft or Knowledge: arcana ought to know something that potentially important as I cannot imagine that they are the first people ever to try that in your campaign world either on themselves or on someone else.

 

[Fenes 2]

Again, almost no Dungeon should be large enough for a stone giant to move inside (maybe crawl). Just common sense - why would dwarves or any other burrower race make hallways and tunnels giant-sized? Humans wouldn't in any case.

As for the wilderness... just skip random encounters, or judge them effortless due to the stone giant forms advantage (therfore yielding no exp), and you will not have much trouble rules-wise.

I would just tell the players to stop walking around in giant form if it bothers you - it would bother me - else any encounter will either begin with a couple of dispells guaranteed to dispel polymorph, or not happen at all. If the players know that constant giant form will yield no advantage they should not make much of a fuss.

If they do spend too much time in giant fom anyway, make them feel side-effects. Make them get used to the giant form, and lose combat prowess when not a stone giant. (Like, they begin to forget that their human skin is not as tough, they have trouble against equally sized foes etc - soon any underground fight will be the death of them with all those circumstance boni you can give the opponents.

 

[Storminator]

Miracle can emulate any spell of 6th level or lower, IIRC. So he used it to cast Polymorph Self. So, his equipment changes size with himself.

Of course the players don't go into towns in giantform; just the dungeons and wilderness.

Never mind... nothing to see here, nothing to see

PS

 

[Umbran]

Miracle can emulate any spell of 6th level or lower, IIRC. So he used it to cast Polymorph Self. So, his equipment changes size with himself.

Only that equipment which he carries on his person will be changed - if he left it back at camp, he'll have a problem.

More importantly, note the sentence in Polymorph Other, "Any part of the body or piece of equipment that is separated from the whole reverts to it's original form." If he puts the fork (or anything else) down, it shrinks back. You try to cook and eat a meal in the wilderness without ever putting down a single utensil! Or he takes off his backpack to get the hardtack out to munch, and forgets that he must be in physical contact with that backpack at all times. Consider what happens if he's disarmed, or absent-mindedly puts down his weapon...

Plus, the horse he's using to get around on in that wilderness doesn't count as "equipment", at least in my mind. So, he's stumping around the wilderness on foot, or has to save his Miracle for when he knows he's gonna see action. The character can likely be ambushed if he choses the latter.

[Edit: As others have noted - the giant is 12' tall. Most dungeons don't have 12' ceilings...]

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I don't think so. Polymorph Other was never intended as a spell to be used to shape change you into whatever race you want. So the results of using it on yourself are probably not well known.

Also mages that do discover this fact discover it the hard way by losing their minds. Hard for them to tell anyone and word is only going to get out if someone goes looking for the lost mage and finds him even though he not only looks like another race but actually thinks like that race as well.

Thats a little rough, A spellcaster should be able to understand how their spells function, and anyone with decent ranks in spellcraft or Knowledge: arcana ought to know something that potentially important as I cannot imagine that they are the first people ever to try that in your campaign world either on themselves or on someone else.