Here there be Giants

[lordhack]

Hey everyone! I'm running an adventure tomorrow evening where the players will be investigating the castle of a cloud giant. I pretty much know what the PCs are going to encounter, but I was hoping for some tips on how to make the fight with the giant, if it does happen, feel like a fight with a giant, and not just a bruiser monster with a few spells. I want to try to encourage the PCs to try and get in its face, and give it some actions that make it feel like its trying to swat at ants rather than get in an actual fight. So, any advice on how to run the encounter?

I'm thinking the giant will try to grapple the PCs, lift them and drop them as an opening move. Fall damage from 40 feet is a little bit less than its Morning Star weapon, but that can be adjusted... and the wizard is probably just going to use feather fall anyway, which is fine since he hasn't got a chance to use that trick yet this campaign. They're most likely to fight him in either the giant's kitchen, or his 'office' so he might try to swat them off anything they're climbing on. I'd like to give the Party advantage for attacking somewhere other than his feet, but I'm not sure how to convey that to the PCs without telling them that outright. Climbing onto his back will probably also grant advantage, though again, not sure how to convey that to other PCs. Any ideas for making the fight more dynamic than a standard encounter would be greatly appreciated.

[djreynolds]

Well for me having stuff he can hurl or even just destroy.

But keeping it even also, the giant can rip down a pillar forcing dex saves to dive out of the way, but also creating new cover and concealment

Even some misdirection on the giant's part, he might be hurling stuff but really not at the party but to disperse them to areas of the building weaker than others so he can just topple a wall on them.

There is so much the giant can destroy that could outright kill party members.

Another thing is have different levels in the area that can be destroyed or even created by the giant's destruction.

Climbing and feather fall and levitation, it could be fun.

[Galadhrim]

I understand him breaking furniture and other movable objects but this is his castle isn't it? Wouldn't the walls and pillars be built to Giant proportions? It doesn't seem likely that he would be able to simply rip down his own walls and pillars anymore so than a human fighter could pull a human castle down on his opponents. Unless he has specifically booby trapped these walls to be destroyable?

[lordhack]

More importantly, he wouldn't want to if he could. Even destroying some of his own furniture is going to frustrate him, if the walls come crashing down, he's the one who has to rebuild them.