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Dann
2008-02-08, 11:18 PM
Here's the situation we ran into in our last gaming session. Giants are raiding the livestock from nearby farms, etc. etc., so we being the intrepid adventurers that we are track them down. We find their cave, do some recon, and find that there are 2 adult hill giants with two children. Immediately, I am struck with an IC and OOC quandry. Now that we know what's going on, what do we do about it?

Here's the party:
Level 3 Grey Elf Beguiler (Me) Greater spell focus: enchantment, distract assailant for my advanced learning, all the standard beguiler spells (but only level 1). I'm also carrying a rapier, studded leather, and a longbow +1.

Level 3 Human Cloistered Cleric - Travel/Trickery domains, divine spell power, extra turning, extend spell. Also carries a crossbow and a MW small short sword, if you care. And some sort of light armor, probably padded.

Unknown, probably ECL 4, dwarf something. Some sort of melee build, I think he had a template of some sort because he had very high hp (~65) and strength (~25). Fights with axes, occasionally TWF with them.

So, can we do anything other than leave quietly? I'll write down what actually happened in a spoiler below. We have access to: Complete Adv., Divine, Scoundrel, PHBII, the SRD, and anything found free online (Crystal Keep, etc.) Really, the DM would probably shoot a lot of it down, but we'll ignore that for this thread.

Here's what actually happened:

When we find them, the dwarf is all for charging right in. His player has roleplayed before, but this is his first time in 3.5. I convince him that we would get clobbered. Eventually everyone agrees to my plan, which is to sneak in and slit their throats while they're sleeping. I'm CN, with a healthy dose of racial superiority. At any rate, we wait for night time, take off our armor, cast mage armor on myself and the dwarf, expeditious retreat on myself, and head into the cave with dancing lights to guide us (stupid low light vision.) The cleric stays by the cave entrance, having announced he was casting invisibility at the first sign of trouble. So we get in no problem, find the adults, count down silently, and coup de grace. Or rather, the dwarf slices clean through his giant's neck, and I do a piddling 11 damage with my long bow. Oops.

So my giant wakes up really mad, I cast obscuring mist (he had already picked up his club, and I wanted concealment) and ran for it. The dwarf ran too, although much, much slower. The cleric is now invisible and walking away quietly. I easily got out of the cave and found a good hiding spot. The dwarf got out of the cave and turned around to fight. Ah well, hopefully he was having fun. I did get out of my hiding spot and start shooting arrows, I think I even hit once. The cleric went back and cast sanctuary on the dwarf trying to let him run away, but the giant made its save. So the dwarf got squashed in probably two rounds, maybe 3, and I finished running away and hiding, eventually grouping back up with the cleric who had done the same thing. That's where the session ended.

Just to be clear, the DM had warned us at the beginning of the campaign that the world would be populated with encounters at, above, and below our level, that we should plan accordingly and be prepared for character mortality when we chose poorly.

Reel On, Love
2008-02-08, 11:29 PM
Here's the situation we ran into in our last gaming session. Giants are raiding the livestock from nearby farms, etc. etc., so we being the intrepid adventurers that we are track them down. We find their cave, do some recon, and find that there are 2 adult hill giants with two children. Immediately, I am struck with an IC and OOC quandry. Now that we know what's going on, what do we do about it?

Here's the party:
Level 3 Grey Elf Beguiler (Me) Greater spell focus: enchantment, distract assailant for my advanced learning, all the standard beguiler spells (but only level 1). I'm also carrying a rapier, studded leather, and a longbow +1.

Level 3 Human Cloistered Cleric - Travel/Trickery domains, divine spell power, extra turning, extend spell. Also carries a crossbow and a MW small short sword, if you care. And some sort of light armor, probably padded.

Unknown, probably ECL 4, dwarf something. Some sort of melee build, I think he had a template of some sort because he had very high hp (~65) and strength (~25). Fights with axes, occasionally TWF with them.

So, can we do anything other than leave quietly? I'll write down what actually happened in a spoiler below. We have access to: Complete Adv., Divine, Scoundrel, PHBII, the SRD, and anything found free online (Crystal Keep, etc.) Really, the DM would probably shoot a lot of it down, but we'll ignore that for this thread.

Here's what actually happened:

When we find them, the dwarf is all for charging right in. His player has roleplayed before, but this is his first time in 3.5. I convince him that we would get clobbered. Eventually everyone agrees to my plan, which is to sneak in and slit their throats while they're sleeping. I'm CN, with a healthy dose of racial superiority. At any rate, we wait for night time, take off our armor, cast mage armor on myself and the dwarf, expeditious retreat on myself, and head into the cave with dancing lights to guide us (stupid low light vision.) The cleric stays by the cave entrance, having announced he was casting invisibility at the first sign of trouble. So we get in no problem, find the adults, count down silently, and coup de grace. Or rather, the dwarf slices clean through his giant's neck, and I do a piddling 11 damage with my long bow. Oops.

So my giant wakes up really mad, I cast obscuring mist (he had already picked up his club, and I wanted concealment) and ran for it. The dwarf ran too, although much, much slower. The cleric is now invisible and walking away quietly. I easily got out of the cave and found a good hiding spot. The dwarf got out of the cave and turned around to fight. Ah well, hopefully he was having fun. I did get out of my hiding spot and start shooting arrows, I think I even hit once. The cleric went back and cast sanctuary on the dwarf trying to let him run away, but the giant made its save. So the dwarf got squashed in probably two rounds, maybe 3, and I finished running away and hiding, eventually grouping back up with the cleric who had done the same thing. That's where the session ended.

Just to be clear, the DM had warned us at the beginning of the campaign that the world would be populated with encounters at, above, and below our level, that we should plan accordingly and be prepared for character mortality when we chose poorly.

If you were level 4, you guys could've taken them. Glitterdust, for starters. With your level 1 spells, you were pretty much screwed. For fighting two CR 7 creatures, you didn't do so bad.

Silent Image would probably have been a better bet on your part than the Fog. Color Spray would probably have been worth a shot--60%ish chance to stun the thing for a round, it drops its weapon, dwarf hacks at it, &etc.

Edit: oh, man, the Cleric should have prepared Silence! Then you could've had the dwarf CdG one giant in total Silence, move over to the other one, and do the same.

Fenix_of_Doom
2008-02-09, 07:39 AM
Unknown, probably ECL 4, dwarf something. Some sort of melee build, I think he had a template of some sort because he had very high hp (~65) and strength (~25). Fights with axes, occasionally TWF with them.


This guy must have cheated, templates usually reduce the number of HP because of level adjustments, I wouldn't mourn his death.

Also you did reasonable, but a beguiler to deliver a coup de grace? why? Unless he was carrying a scythe specifically for these kinds of situations you have very little chance of making a successful coup de grace, you do what 2d8 damage?
So giant the giant has to make a fortitude save of (on average) DC 19 and they get +12 on their fortitude save, really it's better to let the fighter type do these kind of things on his own(unless you have a rogue of course).

Dann
2008-02-09, 09:51 AM
This guy must have cheated, templates usually reduce the number of HP because of level adjustments, I wouldn't mourn his death.

Also you did reasonable, but a beguiler to deliver a coup de grace? why? Unless he was carrying a scythe specifically for these kinds of situations you have very little chance of making a successful coup de grace, you do what 2d8 damage?
So giant the giant has to make a fortitude save of (on average) DC 19 and they get +12 on their fortitude save, really it's better to let the fighter type do these kind of things on his own(unless you have a rogue of course).

Well, the dwarf was new to 3.5 so he made his character with the DMs help. So while I wouldn't put it past him to fudge a bit, if the DM said its OK it can't be cheating, right?

As for the CDG, I'd love to say that it was an in character decision... after all, he'd never had any trouble CDG-ing the orcs, kobolds, and human bandits he'd cast sleep on, and that was mostly all we'd fought to that point. Really though, I'll have to admit I didn't realize how little damage I was going to do until I started rolling the dice.

Fenix_of_Doom
2008-02-09, 10:23 AM
Well, the dwarf was new to 3.5 so he made his character with the DMs help. So while I wouldn't put it past him to fudge a bit, if the DM said its OK it can't be cheating, right?

As for the CDG, I'd love to say that it was an in character decision... after all, he'd never had any trouble CDG-ing the orcs, kobolds, and human bandits he'd cast sleep on, and that was mostly all we'd fought to that point. Really though, I'll have to admit I didn't realize how little damage I was going to do until I started rolling the dice.

mmm, well, no, I guess you could call it DM fiat then.


On the second point, I can actually get in to that, at low level the base damage of weapons is still important and you've probebly experienced no problems with weak enemies with a fortitude save of +5 at best and then you run in to an enemy with a much higher save(which is impossible to know IC) and you suddenly fail, well at least your character learned something:smallwink:.

InkEyes
2008-02-09, 10:37 AM
The giant might go on a rampage now that his wife is dead, so you should probably all try running to nearby homes/settlements and warning the residents of the irate giant. Once he's done breaking stuff he'll eventually fall asleep again, and you guys can creep up on him with a scythe and a silence spell and CDG him again. Another possibility is taking his kids hostage and forcing him to do what you want, but that might not agree with your alignment.

AtomicKitKat
2008-02-09, 09:07 PM
Although the MM says "unless otherwise noted, giant children have the same statistics as adults", I vaguely remember reading that each child tends to be equivalent to a lower giant. In the case of Hill Giants, I'd say pre-teenagers(well, whatever the equivalent is, probably anything younger than a quarter century, since they live about twice as long as Humans) count as Ogres. Definitely would have CdGed them first. Also agree on the Silence thing. Casting it on the Dwarf would have let him go in, even fully armoured, and totally murdered all of them(well, excepting the father, which you could have readied an action to shoot at the moment the Dwarf swung his weapon or something.

Regarding templates and "cheating", a level 4 Barbarian with 16 Constitution has 12(1st HD)+12(Con Bonus 3*4 HD)+36=60 HP maximum. Assuming this guy has a +1 LA template, he should have 36 HP maximum from his class levels(assuming Barbarian again), leaving 29 from Constitution. This requires him to have around 30 Con(+10 modifier) in order to hit 65. Yeah, doesn't quite smell right.

vrellum
2008-02-09, 10:56 PM
Maybe he was a psiwarrior with vigor and a few other tricks? It would seem like he has a ton of HP.

Chronos
2008-02-09, 11:24 PM
Although the MM says "unless otherwise noted, giant children have the same statistics as adults", I vaguely remember reading that each child tends to be equivalent to a lower giant.You may be showing your age: 2nd edition had a lot of cases like that: One monster's children were treated as equivalent to other monsters. Infant hill giants were equivalent to gnolls, and children were equivalent to ogres.

While we're at it: Infant stone, fire, and frost, cloud, and storm giants have no combat ability and HP of an ogre. Child stone giants are equivalent to hill giants in HP and combat power, child frost giants are equivalent to stone giants, and child fire giants are equivalent to frost giants. Child cloud giants are equivalent to fire giants, and child storm giants are equivalent to cloud giants.

I'm certain I remember seeing this type of rule applied for other monsters (ogre young being treated as orcs, etc.), but I'm not finding it in the book.

Leewei
2008-02-09, 11:42 PM
This is one of those whacky situations where a 3rd level wizard loaded up with black karma curse scrolls could have a heyday. Well, until a giant made him toe jam, anyhow.

Dann
2008-02-10, 12:29 AM
Silence would have been a really good idea actually. The DM ruled that the dwarf's CDG resulted in a huge clang as his axe hit the stone floor under the giant's head, so with the plan as we had it, we had to go at the same time. But with silence, we totally could have had the dwarf do the whole thing. Anyone see any potential problems with the cleric casting silence on the dwarf and sneaking in that way?

sikyon
2008-02-10, 01:42 AM
Although the MM says "unless otherwise noted, giant children have the same statistics as adults", I vaguely remember reading that each child tends to be equivalent to a lower giant. In the case of Hill Giants, I'd say pre-teenagers(well, whatever the equivalent is, probably anything younger than a quarter century, since they live about twice as long as Humans) count as Ogres. Definitely would have CdGed them first. Also agree on the Silence thing. Casting it on the Dwarf would have let him go in, even fully armoured, and totally murdered all of them(well, excepting the father, which you could have readied an action to shoot at the moment the Dwarf swung his weapon or something.

Regarding templates and "cheating", a level 4 Barbarian with 16 Constitution has 12(1st HD)+12(Con Bonus 3*4 HD)+36=60 HP maximum. Assuming this guy has a +1 LA template, he should have 36 HP maximum from his class levels(assuming Barbarian again), leaving 29 from Constitution. This requires him to have around 30 Con(+10 modifier) in order to hit 65. Yeah, doesn't quite smell right.

My guess is that neither of them fully understood how level adjustment works, and added in the racial hit die but didn't adjust level for it.

For the record, racial hit die are not included in the level adjustment listed, your ECL is level adjustment from template + number of racial hit die from template.

Irreverent Fool
2008-02-10, 02:42 AM
He could be an earth-touched dwarf. I recall playing in a game with one and his STR and CON were through the roof, but he had an LA of 2 I think.

Ok, so I looked for the planetouched stuff, but I can't find it anywhere. I found a mention of it on someone's character sheet via Google, though. It is, in fact, a template. Here's what it said:

As an earth-touched, he has outsider traits as a native, pass without trace 1x/day as a spell-like ability, cannot be banished, receives a +2 Con, +2 Str, -2 Cha, +1 natural armor. ('Native' outsiders cannot be banished, and are immune to spell effects that specify humanoid targets.)

So, he's got a total of +4 con. Assuming a barbarian with max rolls at each level and started off a base Con of 18 (and that he's somehow still a level 3 character, which can't be right with this template), that's 54 hp. Toughness would bump that up to 57. I don't think he could have any bonuses to it beyond since even an Amulet of Health +2 is beyond the WBL of an ECL 3 character at 4,000 gold.

So yeah... something just ain't right there.

About the giants, I'm impressed! The only suggestion I have beyond what you did would have been to spread caltrops at the entrance to the cave with a narrow 5-ft path for you and your teammate to run down. The larger giants wouldn't have been able to bypass them as easily and would likely have gotten a couple in them (giants don't usually wear shoes, do they?) to at the very least allow you more time to escape... or possibly pepper them with arrows.

Oh.. and use scythes for coup-de-grace. :D

its_all_ogre
2008-02-10, 06:04 AM
a coup de grace with a long bow would do 3d8 damage, as it is an auto critical hit. mind you 11 is a poor roll but not that low. could have been a 3!!

Rift_Wolf
2008-02-10, 07:29 AM
My solution?
1) Find some way of collapsing the cave entrance
2) Take one of the children hostage and tell the hill giants to move on if they want to see him again. (Non-lawful only)
3) Kill both the children and leave notes saying 'You're next'. (CE only)
4) Kill both the children and leave notes saying 'You're next'. Cast sepia snake sigil and explosive runes on both notes.
5) Diplomacy.
6) Fire.

AtomicKitKat
2008-02-10, 10:14 AM
Chronos: Yeah, and I'm the one showing my age?:smalltongue: I do have an AD&D Monstrous Manual, which is where I read it first, and it always stuck with me(Of course, DM has to use some sense like not giving child Fire Giants Cold Immunity just because they're treated as Frost Giants). I think it's a good rule of thumb, nevertheless, especially since Giants at any age are rather dangerous creatures. Ogre kids should definitely count as Orcs(Seriously though, Giant in 3.x is more or less just Humanoid with more size and maybe Darkvision).