Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6295406" data-attributes="member: 42582">Who said it's an autowin? But it doesn't strike me as very risky. How is making a hill giant guard or two friendly going to hurt the caster? And how is it not going to be a significant help in infiltrating the Steading? In the real world spies get what they want in part by making other people believe the spy to be their friend. Why would this not work against Hill Giants (with their INTs of 6 and their WISs of 10).I don't know the suite of 3E or PF feats very well, but I would have thought feats that boost save DCs are at least passable choices for a decent wizard build.So why would you threaten it? You'd just walk up and Charm it! (Perhaps using Tongues, which at the level we're talking about lasts over 1 hour, to help you talk to it. I think Tongues is one of those spells that you'd keep on a scroll for this sort of situation; even at 5th caster level it lasts nearly an hour, which is not too bad. Of course, with your high INT you could just have learned Giant.)Where in the Charm rules does it say the target has to be non-hostile? Is that part of PF? In 3E, all that matters it that you not threaten it. A hill giant has a speed of 50'. The range of Charm Monster for a 7th level caster is 60'. So it doesn't seem to be that hard to engineer to be within casting range, but outside melee range, of the giant, run the risk of a thrown rock (definitely the giant's less impressive attack) and then cast your spell.It seems to me that the 6 INT, 10 WIS giant is not going to be that hard to manipulate by my 20 INT wizard even if my CHA is only (say) 14 for a +2 (vs the giant's -2 for a 7 CHA). As to whether or not I can turn the giant on its mates, I note that a hill giant is Chaotic Evil which means that the giant "does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable [and t]ypically . . . can be made to work together only by force, and [the giant's] leader lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him." How hard is it going to be to get this guy to start fighting with fellow Chaotic Evil giants? (Aragorn makes a similar observation in The Two Towers, when the three companions come across the bodies of the orcs that were killed in the argument over where to take the kidnapped hobbits.)I don't see how a Chaotic Evil giant even has allies - its leader, for instance, "lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him". And a 6 INT, 10 WIS, 7 CHA creature looks pretty manipulable to me.Is there some subtle feature of the alignment rules, or of the implications of those mental stats, that I'm missing?I guess I'm thinking that, at least for the typical playing group where each player has one PC, the rogue comes with an opportunity cost too, namely, of not being a wizard or comparable caster. I'm not saying that that makes it obvious that the wizard is better, but it seems to me that even if the party with two wizards is not quite as optimised for scouting, it might have capabilities and synergies that compensate in other domains of adventuring activity. Which still leaves me puzzled why the two-wizard party would have a harder time of things.</blockquote>

Verification