How to make fights with giant creatures feel giant?

[Nadevoc]

Let's take a fire giant for example. My understanding is that these guys are going to be nearly 20 feet tall, so probably more than three times the height of any PC is going to be. And yet, mechanically, they're treated the same as a goblin standing there and duking it out with the fighter.

Anyone got any tips to make fights with massive dudes stand out and make them actually feel huge so the fighter isn't standing there hacking at the giant's thighs/knees?

[False God]

As I'm running a lot of giant fights recently for reasons...

Impact damage. That hammer/sword went somewhere when it missed right? The square where it hit is now difficult terrain. If it hit a PC, it has a knock effect depending on the direction of the swing.

"Stomp" and "kick" attacks. Yeah, the players are all about 5-7 feet tall, they're basically hacking at the giants shins. The giant retaliates in the same way you would a small animal attacking your legs. You don't swing your hammer at it, you kick it!

Move over enemy spaces. Much like small races slipping through legs, the same is true of medium races against giants, but the reverse also applies. The giant can just step over the knee-high player. Sure there's an OA here, maybe an acrobatics check. I mean, a tabaxi attacking a giant isn't far off from your cat running between your legs right?

[Aussiehams]

You can try making it different targets. Legs, body, head or similar. Each have their own AC and HP. They would count as being at different ranges.
DM can decide what happens when a segment is taken down to 0.
This gets into a lot more book keeping and may be fiddly though.

[SociopathFriend]

Let's take a fire giant for example. My understanding is that these guys are going to be nearly 20 feet tall, so probably more than three times the height of any PC is going to be. And yet, mechanically, they're treated the same as a goblin standing there and duking it out with the fighter.

Anyone got any tips to make fights with massive dudes stand out and make them actually feel huge so the fighter isn't standing there hacking at the giant's thighs/knees?

A few of the bigger ones:
1) Throw stuff. The example is a rock sure- throw other stuff.
That horse that's wandering around the battlefield? Throw it at them.
That wagon the horse was formerly attached to? Throw it at them.
That annoying adventurer guy that's hacking at your legs? Replace one Greatsword attack with a Grapple and then throw him at them.

2) Levels. Not the experience kind no- but terrain levels.
Heroes can attack from atop a house to get free shots on the Giant's head to draw his attention.
The Giant CAN lean over the 10 foot wall to attack the Adventurers hiding behind it.
There a roof to the place you're fighting in? That the Giant can reach? Have him smack it to drop debris on the party below.

3) Walk over people.
No seriously- walk over them. The rule for moving through enemy spaces is they need to be two sizes different.
Medium -> Large -> Huge
Inform the stalwart Fighter and roaring Barbarian that the bad guy literally stepped over them to move through their spaces. You never left engagement so no Attack of Opportunity.
Inform the players they're more than allowed to do the same because he's so big- but they cannot end their movement underneath him RAW just as he cannot end his movement on top of them with the same.

[BurgerBeast]

Depending on whether you’re going for the “big, slow, lumbering powerhouse” feel (perhaps for ogres and hill giants if not more varieties), I’ve considering giving them this attack:

Clobber: When the giant makes a melee attack and does not move on the same turn,... (put whatever you want here. Examples would include bonus damage, knock back effects, Skyrim-esque knocks into the air, or sweeping blows that target multiple enemies).

The idea is to create the effect that if you want to defeat a big, slow, giant, you need to keep moving. If you stop next to him, you will get clobbered.

Another idea would be to introduce the ability to, or just generally encourage players to, climb the giants. Offer incentives for reaching vulnerable locations and striking that are significant enough to outweigh the cost of “wasting actions” on the climbing. Or make rules for using attacks to climb. Climbing up a giants back using two handaxes would be pretty cool.

[Warlush]

I mean, a tabaxi attacking a giant isn't far off from your cat running between your legs right?
I laughed until i couldn't breath when I read this. Now I wonder what class would be best to accomplish this style if fighting? Rogue? Fighter? Eldritch Smite can take down a Huge creature. Trip Attack only works on Large or smaller. Swashbuckler could get Sneak Attack and a free disengage. But can you play a Tabaxi Swashbuckler without any stupid pop culture references?!?!?

[DeTess]

One thing I've used for a huge enemy is to replace a lot of attack rolls from the huge creature with saving throws to help create the idea of people needing to dive out of the way from all the attacks, because they where big and strong enough that armor and the like isn't going to help.I also included these really big sweeping-but -telegraphed AoE attacks that the players would get a turn to get out of the way off, because otherwise they'd be in trouble.

This was for a foe that was a bit bigger than even your average giant though (I was sitting at one end of the battlemap in the location the creature would be if I'd bothered putting it on, and the general agreement among the players was that I was basically the 'mini' representing it).

[Quietus]

One thing I've used for a huge enemy is to replace a lot of attack rolls from the huge creature with saving throws to help create the idea of people needing to dive out of the way from all the attacks, because they where big and strong enough that armor and the like isn't going to help.I also included these really big sweeping-but -telegraphed AoE attacks that the players would get a turn to get out of the way off, because otherwise they'd be in trouble.

This was for a foe that was a bit bigger than even your average giant though (I was sitting at one end of the battlemap in the location the creature would be if I'd bothered putting it on, and the general agreement among the players was that I was basically the 'mini' representing it).

I just want to say, this sounds amazingly fun. Kudos!

[False God]

I laughed until i couldn't breath when I read this. Now I wonder what class would be best to accomplish this style if fighting? Rogue? Fighter? Eldritch Smite can take down a Huge creature. Trip Attack only works on Large or smaller. Swashbuckler could get Sneak Attack and a free disengage. But can you play a Tabaxi Swashbuckler without any stupid pop culture references?!?!?

I'd allow it as a grapple attempt, like when a cat pounces on your foot. It may not hurt, but it might throw off your balance and make you trip. The giant would likely have advantage on the attempt. Failure on his part can range from the tabaxi latching on to his boot, him hopping around wildly and so on. I mean, cats.

[stoutstien]

Using the optional climbing on larger creature rules helps alot and giving the giant creatures small aoe attacks that can hit multiple targets at once has a good feel as well.

[Man_Over_Game]

Splash damage, as well as persistent direction.

For example, treat the giant's as a melee version of Ice Knife, knocking targets prone and dealing damage if they fail.

For the direction, make a note as to which way the giant is facing, and that his legendary actions can only attack in that direction, within a 270 degree radius, unless he uses a legendary action to turn.

[Waffle_Iron]

A simple change I’ve made is to announce the giants actions 10 initiative before they take them.

It creates the lumbering, glacial slowness of a giant.

I then adjust if the party moves or makes the action impossible. The hammer is still coming down, but the giant adjusts for your scampering out of the way.

[Damon_Tor]

At one point I had my players encounter a Galactus-sized creature, and I'm describing his size, and I'm pretty sure they don't really get it, so on the minimap I have the players set up their minifigs and I put down a 4*4 wet-erase circle. I'm reasonably artistic, so I'll draw up monsters on these when called for, and I expect they thought that's what I was doing.

But I didn't draw the giant guy.

I drew a foot.

[Chaosmancer]

One thing a DM of mine did in a play by post game was narrate successful attacks as misses, but the damage came from the spray of debris.

So, the giant "hits" on a roll of 21, but the damage is actually the spray of cobblestones and shards of ceramic from the hammer smashing down next to you, not the actual blow hitting.

Maybe another thing you can do is reduce a Giant's speed when they are bloodied, because yes, the fighter and barbarian have been wrecking it's calves and knees and it is having a hard time supporting it's own body weight.

Another fun thing is when such a creature falls prone, have it potentially land on somebody. It is 20 - to 30 ft tall after all, so if it falls forward, it might land on top of the mage or the fighter.

[Nagog]

One thing I've always enjoyed about Giants is their variety. Giants have such wildy different styles, in alignment, culture, intelligence levels, all over the place. If you're trying to make the Hill Giant seem like a Giant, have it move slowly and telegraph it's actions and the like, and bump up it's damage dice a level or two. Makes it a bit more like a Dark Souls boss in the go-to tactics to defeat it, but overall it's a unique fight.

Something more akin to a Fire Giant would involve the Fire Giant pouring lava or igniting swaths of the battlefield on fire. They're immune to fire and are of average intelligence, using fire as a battlefield control tactic is easily within their wheelhouse.

Frost Giants are often depicted as being very Nordic in nature, give them some kind of berserker fighting style. Perhaps their Greataxe attacks aren't avoided with AC, but you roll a save that competes against their attack roll, whether that's diving out of the way, or if you feel up to it, catching the weapon on a Str save, or otherwise evading the attack. Give the players leeway in how they avoid getting hit by it and allow them to lean into their strengths.

Stone Giants have quite a few tactical abilities, such as Stone Camouflage and their rock throw having a chance to knock enemies prone. They also have the rock catching ability, but that's extremely situational unless you also have a giant on your side. Lean into the tactical abilities of ordning to toss a rock from 35 ft. away, if it knocks them prone, move 20 feet in and attack with your 15 foot reach, then move 20 feet away again. No AoO unless your PCs somehow have 15 foot melee range on a reaction. For this reason, Stone Giants are probably my favorite giants to play in an encounter. That and they're True Neutral, so they're more likely to come up when the party has done something to deserve their ire.

Cloud Giants are good Gish enemies to throw at a party. Throwing down a Fog Cloud and sweeping through the cloud with a Morningstar attack is sure to be an effective strategy. Perhaps they use that strategy exclusively, so they drop the cloud to blind the party, then next turn swing through it. The party members who failed to vacate the cloud on that turn roll saves against the Giant's attack roll at disadvantage due to being unable to see the attack coming. Once they get hit once by it, they'll refrain from grouping up and know to get out of dodge when they're tossed into a Fog Cloud. Once that tactic becomes ineffective, the Giant may cast Fly and begin kiting the party similar to how a Dragon would.

Storm Giants are... Well frankly they're amazing. As an opponent, they are already extremely powerful, so as long as you play them intelligently (with optimal use of their Lightening Strike ability), the fight should feel sufficiently difficult.

[Safety Sword]

The problem I find with giants is that they're too generic.

A big bag of hit points and an immunity does not make an interesting foe. I like to give my giants some flair by stomping, flattening and rolling PCs into squishy messes. The suggestion for throwing anything is also great. Fire giants should be throwing flaming cauldrons or other such fiery matter.

The variants and attacks in Volo's are a start, but I think giants (especially martially minded ones such as fire giants) should be doing teamwork attacks such as one giant knocking and shoving targets for something like a dreadnought to ram into a wall with a shield.

I give my hill giants a teamwork attack that allows them to use their actions to simultaneously stomp or jump, causing small earthquakes and knocking enemies down.

Basically giants are strong and they should be knocking things over and crushing them. :smallbiggrin:

[carrdrivesyou]

Personally, i am a big fan of Demonac's size rules. Here's the gist:

Threshold and Reduction.

Threshold 5 per size category bigger than Medium.
Damage Reduction 2 size category bigger than medium.

The idea is that the same longsword has less effect on larger critters. The same hit just doesnt cause the same level of damage.

So take a huge monster as an example. That's two sizes bigger than medium. So it would have threshold of 10, DR 4. Meaning that any attack would have to cause more than 10 damage to be relevant, but even so, 4 of it is just ignored (no way to bypass).

[NaughtyTiger]

I like these, I wish I had put them in play during my last giant's encounter.

That said, I did use the optional DMG rules for climbing on, overrun. that added a bit to the experience.

[Trask]

This is a feature I made that I was fond of, one that simulated a gigantic, thrashing, and frantic colossus that would be hard to even approach.

Shifting Bulk: When this creature makes an attack roll, any creature that ends it's turn within 5-feet of this creature before the end of it's next turn takes 1dX bludgeoning damage. This creature cannot use this feature if it is incapacitated. (Adjust damage as desired.)

I found that this helped simulate the difficulty of approaching some enormous thing without getting clobbered just by it moving and stepping around, but I think this would also be useful for substantially smaller creatures like a bull or a horse.

[Nadevoc]

Thanks, folks! This started out as mostly an idle question of something about something that I thought D&D didn't do very well, and has evolved into something that I actively want to put into my game. It looks like it'll require some homebrewing in advance to set up the encounter, but that's not that unusual for D&D. If I come up with something I'm particularly proud of I might circle back and post the encounter I come up with.

[Safety Sword]

Thanks, folks! This started out as mostly an idle question of something about something that I thought D&D didn't do very well, and has evolved into something that I actively want to put into my game. It looks like it'll require some homebrewing in advance to set up the encounter, but that's not that unusual for D&D. If I come up with something I'm particularly proud of I might circle back and post the encounter I come up with.

I, for one, would like to hear what you come up with.

Happy PC smashing :smallamused:

[Kane0]

Separate initiatives for each limb, and make sure to use the DMG ‘climb a creature’ rules.

[Sam113097]

I'm a big fan of knocking the players around, not just prone or back a space: if you get slammed by the giant's hammer, you're going airborne (I may have been inspired by Skyrim), and you're gonna have to make a save or Athletics/Acrobatics check to land or control your skid/fall. I also like grabbing attacks: most giant creatures have very high Strength, and when combined with their reach and their knockback capability, they can really move players around the battlefield. I especially like reaching over the frontline fighters' heads or kicking them out of the way to be able to yank the caster behind them into the air.

[Vogie]

Some ideas:

Use the Ghosts of Saltmarsh Ship rules to stat out the various portions of the giant. The barbarian could be climbing his back with handaxes while the ranged is shooting its face and the other melees are going after its legs.
Use concepts from Shadow of the Colossus to make heavily armored giants actually walking puzzles or skill challenges. Can you find the chinks in the armor before it flicks you off of it, or grinds you against the cliff face?
Incorporate Matt Colville's Villainous Actions. These could include additional reaction options (such as kicking or flailing), additional situational bonus actions (BA Attack on a target within 10 ft that is lying prone, for example), or scripted bonus/legendary/lair actions for the first couple of turns (such as, First turn Fling a random object or target, second turn Earth Tremor at 3rd level, Third turn leap up to movement towards a target)
Incorporate battlefield manipulation mechanics into the attacks. Thrown rocks create half-cover for ranged attackers; missed melee attacks create difficult terrain for medium or smaller creatures; connected hits have a chance to push, disarm or knock targets prone.
Give non-spellcaster giants spell-like abilities, such as Catapult, Earth Tremor or Thunderwave. Color Wave could be reflavored as a giant using pocket sand, or just launching a cloud of debris in the faces of its foes. If your giant uses improvised weapons such as Tree trunks, stalagmites and wagons, you can use the Ice Knife mechanics to represent the improvised weapons slowly splintering by being used that way.
If the giant is big enough, they may have minions hanging around, maybe even on their person. The giant may have a nest of goblins with shortbows on a shoulder, like the Rook from Demigod, or have swarms of insects hiding in their armor.

[Segev]

Stomp: (May only target creatures at least two size categories smaller.) Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 0 ft., target one creature. Hit: 1d8+5 bludgeoning damage, and the giant enters the target's space. The target must succeed on a DC 17 Strength or Dexterity save or be Grappled and knocked Prone. If they fail by five or more, they are incapacitated. The grappeled (and, if applicable, incapacitated) conditions end if the giant leaves the target's space.


Adjust the save DC if needs be; I used a 20 Strength and +4 proficiency modifier to calculate to-hit, damage, and the save DC.

[Chronos]

Put the fight in the giant's lair. It's not a giant in a human-sized world-- The PCs are rodents in a giant-sized world. The "terrain" isn't geography; it's furniture. The rogue isn't hiding behind a tree; he's hiding behind a mug sitting on the table.

[KOLE]

With the Corona Virus finally reactivating my campaign, I'm excited to finally see if my PCs can discover the conspiracy the plot is spinning around. Right now they're literally clueless, but if they can get their stuff together, they'll find the Fey plot to awaken the Mountain Giants. Here's to hoping they are smart and able to stop all these spinning parts, but after reading this thread... I really hope the Giants wake up.

[Amechra]

One little thing to remember - if a giant grapples a PC, that giant's speed isn't halved. They can grab a PC and just kinda... carry them.

[Democratus]

A lot of really great ideas here!

I like the idea of "wind-ups" for attacks that telegraph something is about to happen. This gives sufficient justification for cool things like massive blows that throw characters across the room (take the base damage for two rounds of attacks and condense them into one).

[Luccan]

If no one has mentioned this yet: there's a variant rule already in the back of the DMG about climbing creatures bigger than yourself.

[Tokuhara]

If no one has mentioned this yet: there's a variant rule already in the back of the DMG about climbing creatures bigger than yourself.

I was about to recommend this in the vein of Shadow of the Colossus.

Additional things: play up the sheer mass of a Giant, and its weapons. The Greatsword of a Fire Giant shouldn't, to the PCs, resemble a Greatsword but instead a massive slab of steel. The club of a Stone Giant is less a finely carved piece of timber and more a tree he just uprooted. Impacts from these weapons should do say a 5' AoE to truly "feel" heavy. But most of all, especially in T3 Giant Encounters (when Gargantuan becomes reasonable), treat Giants less like monsters and almost like puzzles you can fight in melee

[Eldariel]

Don't forget to play this in reverse too. Really small enemies skittering up you, using arrows and pebbles and such as cover and climbing surface, attacking weak parts of your body, etc. Gives the PCs the chance to feel big and stomp some rats too.

[Imbalance]

At one point I had my players encounter a Galactus-sized creature, and I'm describing his size, and I'm pretty sure they don't really get it, so on the minimap I have the players set up their minifigs and I put down a 4*4 wet-erase circle. I'm reasonably artistic, so I'll draw up monsters on these when called for, and I expect they thought that's what I was doing.

But I didn't draw the giant guy.

I drew a foot.

I was thinking along these lines. The minis they make and call "giant" really aren't. I have some big action figures I want to use, namely the NECA Balrog as a stand-in for balor or something homebrew.