Best Giant

[hivedragon]

What's better; being large (half-ogre) or being medium with powerful build (half-giant/goliath)?

[*.*.*.*]

What's better; being large (half-ogre) or being medium with powerful build (half-giant/goliath)?

I prefer actually being large, due to reach.

[tyckspoon]

Being Large is better most of the time; you have native reach, which Powerful Build doesn't grant you, and natively Large races usually have better stat mods as well (especially if you're using Half-Minotaur or the broken template version of Half-Ogre, since you get huge benefits that you normally would have to pay a lot more LA or racial Hit Dice to get.) You do have to squeeze into some spaces, but most places that are built for Medium creatures can accommodate Large ones as well.

The main time you would prefer Powerful Build, IMO, is when you have the ability to switch yourself between Large and Medium, such as a Half-Giant Psychic Warrior. In that case, you get the benefit of being Large when you need/want to be, can be Medium when that's more convenient.. and most importantly, because Powerful Build references your *current* size instead of just saying 'you count as Large for X purposes', it will stack with your size increases. So you use Expansion to become Large, and Powerful Build goes on top of that so you're wielding a Huge-scale weapon and count as Huge for your special combat checks.

[Devmaar]

Being large is better but not worth the extra LA, imho.

Goliath Barbarian gets the best of both worlds.

If you can get away with the Savage Species Half-Ogre, it is the best option. It is also broken.Ask your DM. Nicely.

[Psyren]

Being large is generally better, the problem is that being large usually comes with RHD, LA or both.

[Rejusu]

Agree with tyckspoon, if you can increase your own size then Powerful Build is a much better option. Especially with something like the PsyWar, which can buff it's size two categories up to huge. So that combined with powerful build mean you have the reach of a huge creature, the weapon of a gargantuan creature as well as all the beneficial combat modifiers (trip/grapple etc) of a gargantuan creature.

Plus being large does have drawbacks. Like not fitting into dungeons designed for medium creatures.

[Kurald Galain]

The best giant is the one in the playground.

/cue drum roll

[Taelas]

Being large is better but not worth the extra LA, imho.

Goliath Barbarian gets the best of both worlds.

If you can get away with the Savage Species Half-Ogre, it is the best option. It is also broken.Ask your DM. Nicely.

If you want Half-Ogres, the template from #313 is vastly better than the race from Savage Species. Large size, +12 Str, for +1 LA. (If you take Half-Minotaur first then Half-Ogre, it's Large size, +16 Str, for +1 LA.)

They're not giants, though, as they don't change type.

The Half-Ogre in Races of Destiny is, of course, the 'current' version.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

I'm a fan of Psychic Warrior Half-Giants abusing expansion. Goliath with the Mountain Rage substitution is also nice, as it makes you legitimately large for as long as you can rage. Both of those options are only +1 LA, albeit they do come with restrictions.

Honestly, though, my favorite giants are Primordial Incarnate Construct Draconic Warforged. :smalltongue:

[Steward]

Death giants from Monster Manual 3 (I believe) have some of the best flavor of all the giants.

[Thurbane]

If you're looking for an option to Half-giant, there's the Eneko from Secrets of Sarlona. They are +1 LA medium giants with Powerful Build, and less of a psionic focus than half-giants. They take a -2 hit to CHA compared to Half-giants, though.