Topic: What level PCs for "Giants"?

[mocking bird]

Ah - they did start at 15th level for it.  Sounds like they did all right as the player of the healer was quite adept and another player running an archmage 'had is way' with the SUC & Elemental companion so she could be considered 'beyond her level'. 

Loved portable holes & bags of holding.  Made adventuring much easier.

[Marc R]

Best version of that I ever saw was a Mirror. . .I forget which book it was in. . .you used it as a crystal ball, you could ask it questions like in snow white. . . .and could walk through it like a portal.

Knew a mage who got hold of that, he obsessed for months on keeping it safe and intact, carved out a hidden fortress and mounted it on the wall.

After that he'd "adventure" by watching the rest of the party on "TV" in the mirror, step through to aid them as needed. . . .and the party would just toss the loot through the mirror back to his place after each encounter. . . .

They were like locusts, once they were done with a lair, no treasure, no furniture, no bodies, nothing but dust left behind.

I think that was the pinnacle of "home invasion monte haul style" dungeon crawling in my experience.

Sorry, I tangent.

15th level? How many PCs?

[Xyskalla]

I always thought provided characters in modules were pretty weak.

I had a good laugh when I actually examined the pregenerated characters in Tomb of Horrors and realized that they didn?t have the ability to defeat the demilich.

Best version of that I ever saw was a Mirror. . .I forget which book it was in. . .you used it as a crystal ball, you could ask it questions like in snow white. . . .and could walk through it like a portal. 

I think it was either The Village of Hommlet or The Temple of Elemental Evil. 

I used to play in a group where the GM honestly believed that GURPS was the only system worth playing.  His life?s goal seems to be to create the perfect Shadowrun conversion to GURPS, but he was always tweaking it because he was never satisfied with how the Matrix turned out.

Anyway, he wanted to take us through The Village of Hommlet, The Temple of Elemental Evil and the Slavers? series (converted to GURPS, of course) in that order, since most of us hadn?t played through those modules before.  We found the mirror you described early on, so it had to be from either Hommlet or the Temple.

I think it was the Temple, because we entered the first part of the Temple, but as soon as we realized what the mirror did, one of the other players had an idea that allowed us to step through the mirror to the final room, skipping 90% of the adventure.  Everybody else was laughing except the frustrated GM who had spent many hours converting it to GURPS.

[Thorbrin]

Hello Lord Miller, I have been unpacking some old boxes and came across some of my old gaming books. Against the Giants was in the box, I started reading it and remembering games from way...way to many years ago. The last time I ran this adventure was for AD&D 2nd ed, in the mid 90's and it was definitely a very dangerous module.
The first adventure in the "Great Hall" against the Hill Giants has a great potentiol for TPK's. Overly confident players can quickly find them selves over run, by the brute force of the Giants or simply by "numbers". If played properly the Giants should put up an effective, determined defence of their home, especially if they are getting advice from the "evil Elves"(is there any other kind of Elf? ). Also keep in mind that morale will play little effect in any of these adventures. These "beasts" are defending their homes, and in several cases their loved ones must be protected from the vial and "short" raiders...hehe
So its a battle to the end really!
Out of curiousity I opened up the critter books for Rolemaster( RM2 and RMSS) to take a look at the Giants. Could a party of high level Rolemaster characters handle the perils of this adventure? After reading the module over and glancing through the "critter" rules, I would have to say that any group would have to be very lucky indeed to survive the dangers of this epic adventure.
Rolemaster as all of us know is definitely a very dangerous game, where one "lucky" roll could end your characters life. The "Giant" series modules are really nothing but , combat encounter after combat encounter.....which in Rolemaster makes this very deadly indeed!
But I must admit, I am interested to see how this module would play in Rolemaster. So I have decided to start the conversion process busing the RMSS rules, mostly because I am more familiar with them. My group of players have not experienced "high level" RMSS play, the highest they have ever been is around 9th level.
I play using the "Realms" setting, and I figured I might as well start with the characters. With a dangerous adventure like this , I have decided to make 6 pre-generated 15th level RMSS characters. Once I have everything done I will invite the gang over for a marothon session(hopefully I can pull them away from WOW..lol).
I will post the Characters in the "characters" section of the forum under the name "Giant Slayers". I spent most of the afternoon making the first character....Tristan a Noble Rouge from from the city of Suzail in the Kingdom of Cormyr. I forgot how long it takes to make a character....lol (especialy a high level one..!!).
May the gods keep you safe......!!

[markc]

Thorbrin,
 Keep us posted as I am also intrested in how it goes. I did a short adventure with giants that was fun and brutal. One PC choped down a giant and it fell on him [failed a dex roll or acrobatics roll]. Then when he was pushing his was out another gaint fell on him [this time I had him roll % dice and if he got within + or - 5 from my roll the gaint fell on him. He matched my roll so the giant fell right on him again.] The big joke was he played a dwarf and it was not the gaints themselves that were the danger but the fact that they had to fall somewhere once they were killed or put to sleep.

MDC

[Marc R]

I too can't wait to hear more. . .Off to go look at the Giant Slayers. . .anyone named "Beek Gwenders of Croodle" in there?

[Thorbrin]

Thanks for the kind words guys, its good to know people are at least "intersted"..lol
Right now I am concentrating on the characters, after that I will start on the module. I will try and post ideas, concerns and some of my ideas for adapting this classic adventure in this forum.
May the gods smile on you......"Keep your feet on the Ground!!!"

[Hawkwind]

The two biggest things that are going to make these adventures much, much tougher in RM than they were in AD&D are the amount of combat and the fact that giants in RM are much tougher than giants in D&D.

I remember running the giants series when they first came out way back, and the party that went through them started G1 at around 8th level (using 1st ed AD&D). They were fairly cautious, but they still ended up with a major fight in the great hall - but hill giants had sufficiently few hit points so a couple of fireballs took most of them out.

If I were to run them in RMC or HARP I would have the party be at least 12th level - and reduce the number of giants as well.

Very curious to hear how it goes Thorbrin. They were great modules, and I have always had a fondness for them. It used to be the ultimate Greyhawk campaign in AD&D 1 - start in Hommlet, do the moathouse and Temple, which should get you to around 8th level, then follow up with G1-3, D1-3 and Q1. If you had a group of players that could get through that without needing either a new character or a raise dead, then I'd think the GM just wasn't trying 

Hawk

[RandalThor]

I too am very intersted in how this turns out. The level you have chosen seems pretty-good to me, so it sounds like it is going to be a lot of fun. i wish I could be there to play.........sigh........

[Thorbrin]

There has been a slight "change", I discussed the upcoming game with my group of local players. They tried very hard to convince me to change from RMSS to RM2, apperently several of my players prefer the older rules. I bowed to their wishes and will be using RM2 , for the game.
It just means I am going to have to re-work some of the characters I have already done.Anyways , I am off to character creation...lol

[Thorbrin]

Okay so I have decided to take a break from "character creation" and have plunged in to he conversion process of the module.
Glancing through the first "module" I noticed a few things that could make this adventure deadly.
1)The amount of Giants in the Steading is a little daunting! 26 Giants in the "Great Hall"!! Not to mention a Cave Bear pet that is as dangerous if not more danerous then your average Hill Giant.
2)In the Rolemaster system , most Giants have some sort of "limited" spell abilities.In my setting Giants do not have "innate" spell casting abilities. So the Giants will be losing their spell casting abilities.
I have decided to start the game with the "adventurers" summoned to a council of Nobles,Priests and Government representatives from local areas affected by the Giant raids. These worthy nobles will provide a "back story" and supply a map and a guide(Dwarf Ranger).
The adventuring party will consist of the following:1) Common Man Rouge lvl 15
                                                   2) Common Man Cleric lvl 15(Lathander)
                                                   3) Dwarf Ranger lvl 15
                                                   4) Gray Elf Magician lvl 15
                                                   5) Common Man Fighter lvl 15
                                                   6) 1/2 Elf Warrior Mage lvl 15
                                                   7)N.P.C Common Man Noble Warrior lvl 15
To lesson the dangers of this first adventure slightly, I have decided to have the players arrive at the Hill Giant Fortress just as a "Raiding Party" is leaving the Steading.
The PC's will see a group of 10 Hill Giants,40 Orcs,5 Bugbears,5 Dire Wolves and 5 Ogres assembling outside the hall and then head south away from the PC's. In the unlikely event that the players are having to easy of a time this "Raiding Band" could return at a later date. Note that the monsters of this raiding party have been removed from the roster of other rooms in the adventure. Most notably reducing the amount of Giants in the "Great Hall" by 10!
I noticed that the author of this module, was very fond of "Intelligent" magical swords. As a matter of fact every magic sword found in this first adventure is "Intelligent". There are three swords, I have decided that one Intelligent weapon is more then enough...lol The Giant Slaying sword in the "Cloud Giants Room" will retain its "Intelligence".
The rest of the module was actualy very simple to convert. With one minor change.
Manticores in my "setting" do not have Poison Stingers for tails, they have the more "D&D" tail spikes....gaining a (light crossbow volley..attack instead).
I am looking forward to actualy playing through this, well back to slaving away at character creation.
Its kinda funny that it took an "afternoon" to convert the module, but its been almost two weeks and I am still not done making all of the "characters"..lol
 

[markc]

 One thought I remembered from the last time we played G1-G3 was we used magical wall spells and spells to block the giants line of sight, then put walls behind walls and then a big pit so the giants had to go through a guantlet before the could get to the group. Also after casting their other spells the casters pumed area affecting damage spells into the main room. This made the main chamber a lot easier to handle than a strait out fight. How did we know what was thier? We had a thief type with either a ring of invisability or the spell cast on him scouting the place out first, and getting the ginats to chase him to our ambush site.

MDC

[Marc R]

Markc, Did the GM have the giants using their innate spell lists?
Thorb, do you intend to?

[markc]

LM,
 I dont remember as it was about 20 years ago but I do reember that that was how we got through it as the gaints were taking a fair amont of damage from the walls and stuff we had set up.

 Also I do not remember Hill Gaints haveing lots of inate spell abilities. I do remember that there was at least 1 or 2 spell casters and an embesarry from the Fost Gaints and some Hill Gaints had some magic items to deal with magic. But I also reember that we had 1 magic item based on Lord of the Rings, rings of power. I had the Ring of Illusion so spells I cast were at 25th+ level and I had access to all illusionist spells. The game was loosly based on D&D and quite a few home rules. So many in fact that I would call it a different game entirelly.

MDC

[Marc R]

The hill giant innates are pretty weak, but the frost and fire get Ice and Fire law respectively. . . .even at base levels you could see some nastiness that way.

[jolt]

If I were to do this, I would drop the Ice/Fire Law from the giants.  This, IMO, keeps the tone and difficulty of the original modules intact (well, more intact anway).

When converting, I always try to go with "the simplest solution that works" method.  I think that dropping the giants down in difficulty is easier than adjusting the entirety of the module to compensate for the increased difficulty of the giants.  YMMV.

jolt

[Thorbrin]

I plan to remove the "Giants" innate spell lists. Mostly to keep the "theme" of the original module as "Jolt" mentioned.The Hill Giants spell lists are very minor , but the "greater" giants have more respectable powers available to them. The module will be hard enough without every single giant able to use "magic"..lol
Also "Giants" in my setting never cast "spells"...except for the very rare..shamen(Priest or perhaps Magician).
I have begun to convert the second module battling the Frost Giants. This is my favourite of the three! Something about Ice caves...giant berserkers and way..way too much treasure just gets my imagination going!
Well thats enough rambling for now, more to follow soon.
take care..!

[magritte@shaw.ca]

I agree--the Frost Giants is the best module of the Three.  The setting is simply much more interesting and exotic.  We kind of snuck around the Hill Giants--ended up leaving and coming back after the party in the Great Hall was over.  Fire Giants was just an incredible grind--I was playing two high level fighters and they went from 90 or so hit points down to less than 10 and back again two or three times each.  The DM was kind enough to allow us to get away with spiking doors shut (like that would really stop fire giants!) so we could rest and recover spells a few times, but it was still a struggle.

[Marc R]

yeah, even in AD&D fire giants was a TPK waiting to happen.

[markc]

 BTW, on the ring of power note. I rolled 10 "20's" in a special section of his game to determine how powerful the item was you recieved. It was a minor ring of power but was still very powerful and helped us many times in the game.

MDC