The giant on page 45

[Hedgehobbit]

On page 45 of the rulebook there is a picture of a giant defeated by our plucky heroes. By my estimates, this giant is about 75' tall, more than three times the height of the 20HD Storm Giant.

Any ideas on how to handle a giant of this magnitude? Or things like the similarly sized giant squid on page 59?

[Rick]

I haven't read or played it, but I understand People of the Pit features a colossal monster, maybe that would help.

[Ravenheart87]

Such titans are a fun way to make the players crap their pants. It's like the Tarrasque of AD&D, but scarier. Even putting remains of such creatures in your campaign can cause some memorable moments: the crystallized skull of a titan, an adventure in the corpse of a colossal being...

For a living specimen, it must be a combat, where sheer brute power won't bring the beast down, because mere mortals can't gather enough to best it. It needs clever players, a huge and interesting area, which they can use to their advantage, plus interesting and dangerous ways to disable or kill the monsters. Remember how Odysseus defeated the cyclops. Or check out Shadow of the Colossus. Plus never forget: the bigger they are, the bigger they fall.

[Raven_Crowking]

This massive creature is unlikely to attack the PCs directly, but the PCs can still be hurt by its activities. Each round the giant is active, it causes damage in one area of the city. This damage might be by throwing things, using a weapon, kicking, etc. When targeting such a large area, the giant always hits, and does damage based on the table below (insert table, which should include secondary effects to characters in the area of effect).

The giant has 250 hit points. On any given round, city defences (archers, catapults, etc.) whittle away some of these points, but as the giant damages the city they are less effective. On round 1, the city defences do 2d10 damage. On round 5, this is reduced to 2d6. On round 10, this is reduced to 2d4. On round 15, 1d6. On round 20, 1d4. On round 25+, no further damage. The amount of damage done by city defence may also be affected by the giant's attacks, as shown on the table.

Treat the giant as AC 5 for the purpose of PC attacks. If any PC attack causes the giant serious inconvenience, or deals more than 10 hit points of damage, there is a 1 in 6 chance that the giant targets that PC specifically. This is cumulative; the second time, the giant has a 2 in 6 chance of targeting the PC. This chance resets if the giant successfully strikes a PC. The giant has -6 initiative, and attacks using 1d24 with a mere +4 bonus -- it is actually difficult for him to target creatures so small! Hits cause 2d12 damage, and cause a critical on a natural 20-24 (G/d12). The giant always succeeds in Fortitude and Will saves, but always fails Reflex saves.

The giant needs to demolish six city blocks to reach the palace. It can cross a demolished city block in a single round if it makes no attacks. Once at the palace, it takes the giant 2d3 destructive rounds to do enough damage to find the princess. It then backtracks the way it came, only attacking when seriously inconvenienced or when it has taken 10+ hit points of damage on a single hit.

Once it reaches the city edge, it moves at full speed to deliver the princess to the enchanter. Only horses at a gallop, swiftly flying creatures, or similar have a chance of keeping pace with him.

[Raven_Crowking]

(I love the bit in this illustration where the party is looting his enormous ring from his finger!)

[Colin]

He looks to have human-like proportions, which given that his head looks about 5'-6' long (compare length of head to the human figures standing near it) would make him about 40'-45' tall. Still, that's twice as tall as any other giant, so this god-born Giant is truly massive. How do we stat him? By using the tried-and-true method of MSU ("Make Stuff Up" in polite parlance). Nah, it's not really just making stuff up, it's making things up using judgement based on the stat values of comparable creatures and how they scale compared to each other. Y'know, do things like look how the various giants already compare and scale to each other, how big dragons are treated, etc.

I'd end up with something like this:

Giant, god-born (42’ tall, 50,000 lbs.): Init +3; Atk sword +32 melee (8d8+16); AC 23; HD 26d10; MV 70’; Act 6d24; SP single immunity and three powers based on divine ancestry (one usable 3/day, one usable 2/day, and one usable 1/day), crit on 20-24; SV Fort +20, Ref +8, Will +14; AL as per divine parent.

Colin

[Colin]

Any ideas on how to handle a giant of this magnitude? Or things like the similarly sized giant squid on page 59?

Well, the system already handles dragons "the size of a castle" (page 406, a Godlike dragon is the size of a castle or larger) using the normal stats available.

Colin

[Hedgehobbit]

I'm not sure a +32 is what I need. I like the idea of small nimble humans dodging the giant's massive fists and he crushes the city around him. Anyway, I remember that 3e had a chart where monsters got penalties to hit as they got a penalty to hit as they got larger and larger. I do think they should be rolling d30s for action dice so most of their hits will be criticals.

I've been working on random giants (similar to the random dragon charts) so I wanted a more smooth curve from smaller giants to huge ones.

[Raven_Crowking]

I'm not sure a +32 is what I need. I like the idea of small nimble humans dodging the giant's massive fists and he crushes the city around him. Anyway, I remember that 3e had a chart where monsters got penalties to hit as they got a penalty to hit as they got larger and larger. I do think they should be rolling d30s for action dice so most of their hits will be criticals.

I've been working on random giants (similar to the random dragon charts) so I wanted a more smooth curve from smaller giants to huge ones.

So give them bonuses to hit up to a certain size, and then start reversing the curve as they have a harder time focusing on those little guys by their feet!

Giant from Page 42: Init -6; Atk sword +6 melee (3d12); AC 15; HD 26d10; Hp 250; MV 70’; Act 1d24; SP crit on 20-24; SV Fort +20, Ref -8, Will +14; AL N.

I made him easy to hit and slow because of his size relative to the PCs. You might also consider having the PCs quest for the Arrows of Ecthos, which can do extra damage against a creature such as this.

Make a giant like this whatever you need for the adventure at hand. Remember that monsters don't have to follow the rules!

[TheNobleDrake]

I remember that 3e had a chart where monsters got penalties to hit as they got a penalty to hit as they got larger and larger

At the same time, they received strength bonuses from size that, at bare-minimum, off-set that accuracy penalty entirely.

Not that I think the high-end monster attack values are perfect in DCC - I really have no idea as I have not played quite high enough to tell yet, but it would seem that if one is to be fighting a Giant or a Dragon the size of a castle, one might find their first smart choice in preparation being to be 20' tall themselves, if not larger, as the enlarge spell actually cranks up the character's to-hit, damage, AC and even HP to help deal with those larger-than-your-house types of monsters.