D&D 5E Should giants be tougher?

CTurbo

Explorer
Their stats and CR are kind of underwhelming considering how huge and strong they're supposed to be. Is it because they are so straightforward and lack any tricks, feats, lair actions, or legendary actions? Or is it because they are meant to be fought in numbers? In that case maybe there should be a "solo brute" version that's meant to be a boss fight.

Hill Giant - CR5
Stone Giant - CR7
Frost Giant - CR8
Fire Giant - CR9
Cloud Giant - CR9
Storm Giant - CR13

How were they ever able to go to war with dragons when they're only comparable power wise to a young dragon?

I can understand having the Hill giant in the CR5-7 range, but it seems like there should be more parity between the subclasses with the big dog Storm giants being in the CR16-19 range.
 

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Hmm, my group has a healthy fear of giants in this edition. They had some very tough fights early on, so maybe they're just a bit gun-shy. But based on several encounters I've run, I wouldn't suggest that giants need to be tougher.

As for taking on dragons, several giants all throwing boulders at a flying dragon are going to give that dragon a bad day. One-on-one, the dragon wins. Many-on-one, not so much.
 

Giants come in tribes, Dragons come in singles. The Giant-Dragon war was probably a numerical total mismatch, with the Dragons needing to group up to hold off the Giants. Whereas when your players meet them, a Dragon is nearly always alone - maybe it has a bunch of cultists, Kobolds, Guard Drakes or Wyrmlings in its cave, but still only the one actual Dragon usually - whereas you can put a dozen Giants in a single location and it still makes sense.

The thing that makes Giants tough is that you can have the door open and five Storm Giants walk out, and it works. They're basically high-level mooks, not solo boss monsters.
 


Volo's Guide to Monsters adds new giant variants for the six above. These include a new hill giant (CR6), stone giant (CR10), cloud giant (CR11), frost giant (CR12), fire giant (CR14) and storm giant (CR16).

The toughest of them, the Storm Giant Quintessent, is a nightmare in its own lair. It only has AC 12 (!!!), but it has a legendary action that allows it to teleport anywhere within its own lair... and a pair of javelin attacks that never miss any target within 600 feet for average 38 damage per round. If a dragon attacks one of those, it's in trouble. The storm giant (which can fly) teleports to a spot in mid-air, 500 feet away from the dragon. It tags it twice for 38 damage. On the dragon's turn, it double-moves (say) 200 feet closer; still out of range of its spells or breath weapon. The storm giant then teleports to maintain the 500 foot range... rinse and repeat, until the dragon (any dragon; any size) is dead. And, because it's a legendary action, the storm giant calls it at the end of the dragon's turn. Even if the dragon somehow closes the range with (say) a dimension door, it will never get an attack off.

The other "new" giants from VGTM have similar interesting wrinkles. The frost giant has "troll regeneration", which means it can't easily be killed by its typical prey (white dragons). The cloud giant has a range of spells (including invisibility and suggestion) and can polymorph into any beast it has previously seen. In Storm King's Thunder, you also see stone giants with absolute top order spells (no spoilers, but some 8th level parties are going to be very surprised if they wander into the stone giant lair...).

...but, putting aside the new (tougher) giant variants, it's all about the numbers. Storm King's Thunder describes longships populated by 20+ frost giants... and all the giants have dozens of servitor creatures (many with flight or missile weapons). Any dragon that can get close enough to use its breath weapon is also certainly close enough to receive a dozen thrown boulders.

As for fighting characters... sure, most giants are one-trick ponies. They're beef-sticks. From my own experience, a typical control spell like hypnotic pattern can end a giant fight real quick. A few sessions ago, the party absolutely dismembered a trio of frost giants at only 7th level by doing the following: barbarian rages, druid hits him with a polymorph (Giant Ape), then wizard casts invisibility (using a 3rd level slot) on both himself and the druid. The giants couldn't find either of the two spellcasters to disrupt their concentration spells, so had to wade through 300 effective HP (giant ape has 150 HP, but 1/2 damage due to rage) while the barbarian tore them apart with his simian fists.

Of course, on the flip side, if the giants win initiative and focus fire on one of the spellcasters, they can kill him outright. I've seen the party wizard knocked out from max HP simply because two giants got within reach. If one of those hits had been a critical, it might have back-doored him (negative max HP). So, it's all a bit swingy.

If you're concerned about the challenge for the group you're playing with, mix it up a bit as shown in SKT or use one of the new variants from VGTM. Pair the giants with some servitor creatures with high Wis saves, or make one of the giants a caster with dispel magic, or add a bunch of hell hounds, or whatever.
 

Yeah I read about the Volo's giants and they do seem to be tougher. A little more in line with what I was expecting from the higher tier giants. I could always just beef them up a tad like +1 to Str, +2 to Con or give them the tough feat.
 


Yeah I read about the Volo's giants and they do seem to be tougher. A little more in line with what I was expecting from the higher tier giants. I could always just beef them up a tad like +1 to Str, +2 to Con or give them the tough feat.

Aye. Give them whatever you think will be helpful. If you use a lot of giants, give several of them something unique. Like give one the Martial Adept feat (or better, just pick a couple maneuvers and give him multiple Superiority Dice so he can do his tricks more than once), give another Magic Adept so he can use a couple cantrips (increased in power based on the giant's hit dice instead of level) and surprise the players with a shield spell.

That is, have fun modding your giants while turning them into the monsters you think they ought to be.
 

Giants come in tribes, Dragons come in singles. The Giant-Dragon war was probably a numerical total mismatch, with the Dragons needing to group up to hold off the Giants. Whereas when your players meet them, a Dragon is nearly always alone - maybe it has a bunch of cultists, Kobolds, Guard Drakes or Wyrmlings in its cave, but still only the one actual Dragon usually - whereas you can put a dozen Giants in a single location and it still makes sense.

The thing that makes Giants tough is that you can have the door open and five Storm Giants walk out, and it works. They're basically high-level mooks, not solo boss monsters.

Good point. On a similar note, if cloud giants could make flying fortresses, what other toys did they have that have been lost to the mists of time?

There might have been a whole David Weber style arms race between giants and dragons (great now I have "1,000 red dragons breathed fire at the storm giant fortress, 2 missed altogether, illusions spells diverted 300, the elemental shields blocked 325 of them, which meant that 373 hit....." in my head).
 

Well I don't think they meant the giant's listed in the MM to be representative of all giants, just the average fighter type. Consider them the equivalent of a "Veteran" human NPC. Need them tougher, add some class levels and/or magic items. And no doubt the giants kept the dragons in check the same way humans, dwarves and elves do, strength of numbers.
 

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