D&D 5E Why are 5E Giants Huge size?

[Upper_Krust]

Sorry, I've been popping in and out of this convo so have not been following as closely - what are the secondary modifiers you are referring to?

Well on Page 274 of the DMG you get the table of basic HP/AC/DMG etc. for monsters of each CR. After that are a bunch of secondary modifiers for things like resistances, immunities and so forth.

My opinion is that these secondary modifiers don't directly affect the actual challenge rating at all.

For example Orcus gets modified because he is immune to Necrotic, Poison and Non-Magic weapons. Which in my opinion is totally irrelevant.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Well on Page 274 of the DMG you get the table of basic HP/AC/DMG etc. for monsters of each CR. After that are a bunch of secondary modifiers for things like resistances, immunities and so forth.

My opinion is that these secondary modifiers don't directly affect the actual challenge rating at all.

For example Orcus gets modified because he is immune to Necrotic, Poison and Non-Magic weapons. Which in my opinion is totally irrelevant.

I think many would agree with you that they they don’t affect the actual difficulty of the fight to the degree that the design assumes. However “CR” and ”Challenge Rating” are technical D&D terms (they could have called them “fish factor“ or “T2” or whatever) and those modifiers absolutely do affect the value of that technical term. If there were a single feature that you could add to a monster that increased its CR by 2 but made it objectively weaker, it would still be true that it really is that CR. It would be pretty awful design, but it would still be true. Its just like overpriced goods actually costing what their price says it is whether or not it actually reflects their value.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I think many would agree with you that they they don’t affect the actual difficulty of the fight to the degree that the design assumes. However “CR” and ”Challenge Rating” are technical D&D terms (they could have called them “fish factor“ or “T2” or whatever) and those modifiers absolutely do affect the value of that technical term. If there were a single feature that you could add to a monster that increased its CR by 2 but made it objectively weaker, it would still be true that it really is that CR. It would be pretty awful design, but it would still be true. Its just like overpriced goods actually costing what their price says it is whether or not it actually reflects their value.

Depends on your definition of what's being equated.

A. Is it a tally of powers and abilities, whether combat relevant or not (in which case the nomenclature is awry).
or
B. Is it a gauge of the monster's effective challenge in actual combat (in which case the name is appropriate)...but we should probably ignore the secondary modifiers.

 

[Nefermandias]

I'd be interested in reading some testimonies on that. I'll search for them after these posts.



True, albeit that's usually best possible damage, not every round.



I agree Level 20 PCs can beat Orcus.

My point (as with the Fire Giant Lair) is that logically Orcus won't be alone and if you are sensible about it he'll have 4-5 of his top demons in attendance. Meaning it would likely be Orcus + 2 Balors (or better) + 2 Molydeus (or better) in the final showdown...and you still have to get through a bunch of other encounters before you even get to the final showdown.

Orcus's final encounter in 4e's lvl 30 adventure Prince of Undeath is a good example. He's protected behind a force field that can only be disabled after destroying/dispelling four pillars around the huge encounter area. The party is supposed to get to him before he can manage to stab the Raven Queen to death with a shard of primordial evil. I'm quite fond of that school of encounter design when it comes to decisive dramatic battles.

 

[Nefermandias]

Titans do kinda, sorta exist in 5e, kinda, sorta.
Empyreans are called out to be 'Immortal Titans' in their MM entry (page 130), and have the titan special subtype. But otherwise, they're "the celestial children of the gods of the Upper Planes" and are Huge celestials. Greek myth style titans they're kinda not but also kinda am, but as higher order beings descending into the mortal realms they could potentially serve as precursors of the giant races.

Titans most definitely exist in the Forgotten Realms, regardless of edition. They are the children of Lanaxis and occupy the top spot in the Ordning.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

This thread seems to have devolved into a debate about CR... which who really cares, everyone is aware it is filled with inconsistencies and DMs really can only use it as a general barometer more than anything fine-tuned.

Back to the topic of "should giants be huge?" I'm going to be a little bit frank... I find @Upper_Krust a little all of the place in this thread. At first it seemed like he finds giants an easy foe to fight that doesn't justify being huge. Then it seems like he believes giants are too dangerous to fight, and that it is unreasonable to fight more than a handful of them. I'm still not sure if he wants giants to feel like a distinct monster, or to add them to the list of "generic large foes," like ogres or trolls.

Anyway, I'm going to restate my opinion, which is two-fold; giants are not a monolith (there are 6 types after all), and range from the not that frightening Hill Giant to the damn terrifying Storm Giant. I personally like how Giants are huge, as there really isn't any monster that takes up that niche in 5E (a humanoid-looking monster that takes up that much space). And lastly, I don't really care that they really are just buckets of HP and damage; if I need an interesting giant, I'll grab some from Volo's or make my own, but sometimes its good to have simple statblocks if you want your combat to be speedy (or have one interesting boss, and a couple boring lackeys helping).

It would be good to have a succinct argument from @Upper_Krust as to why he feels giants should be large... as reading the thread, it largely seems to boil down to "That's how the used to be, that's what I'm used to, I wish they went back to it."

 

[dave2008]

Looks like a gorgeous book. Tad expensive. Sort of thing S'mon should have got me for my birthday.

They have some unique mechanics for epic monsters that I think you would find interesting. Monsters have an area of influence (like a big aura but more involved) and a nucleus (the stat block) and they do interesting things with that concept.

 

[dave2008]

High CR monsters are weak and get weaker the higher you go. That correlates intrinsically to those secondary modifiers, which are more prevalent the higher you go.

Adhering closely to the DMG pg. 274 table without incorporating the secondary modifiers looks like both a much simpler and a much more effective way of handling monster design.

Ultimately I think that is the wrong way to go. But I completely understand your point of view. I've tried what you want to do and after several years I decided it wasn't that right choice for me. I decided it was better to work with the system than fight the system.

Ideally, I would completely redo the monster creation guidelines and CR system to that a CR 1 creature = a lvl 1 PC. However, that is not what we have and I don't think it does good to rock the boat for my personal preference. Took me 5 years or so if fighting to get there, but ultimately that is where I landed.

 

[dave2008]

It would be good to have a succinct argument from @Upper_Krust as to why he feels giants should be large... as reading the thread, it largely seems to boil down to "That's how the used to be, that's what I'm used to, I wish they went back to it."

He came around to the idea of them being Huge if you continue through the tread. Though it was still somewhat based on: that really isn't to far from what they where historically.

 

[dave2008]

Well on Page 274 of the DMG you get the table of basic HP/AC/DMG etc. for monsters of each CR. After that are a bunch of secondary modifiers for things like resistances, immunities and so forth.

My opinion is that these secondary modifiers don't directly affect the actual challenge rating at all.

For example Orcus gets modified because he is immune to Necrotic, Poison and Non-Magic weapons. Which in my opinion is totally irrelevant.

Do you think proficiency in saving throws or the ability to turn a failed saving throw into a success or a getting advantage on saving throws against magic shouldn't affect CR? There is a lot more in the guidelines than adjusting effective HP because of immunities and resistances (which the specifically say is a judgement call).

How about resistance to all damage, or all B,P, S damage. I don't think you can just ignore these things whole-hog and have a reasonable CR system. If you do, you monsters definitely will not be balanced either.