Giant Feedback: Are you sure you want to do this?

[CharmedRidge]

I am not sure comparing stats like that is the way to go, can't just say they get +8 stats so they are better than races that get less. Storms get Str/Con/Wis/Cha but is that really useful? I would argue it isn't. Specially Wisdom and Charisma at the same time isn't particularly useful. They make good Cha battleclerics, but that seems to be about about it. More important than stats is whether the stat line allows for something much stronger than other races.

You want to make a WM? You are better making a half-orc genasi as you can pump a lot more Strength than a half-giant, strangely enough.

No, lol. You can pick Cloud Giant for the 10% invulnerability, one hand the DI halberd, wear elven chain armor and use Runic Shield, that's I think 40 or so DI across the board as a WM, really bad Snuggybear!

[MissEvelyn]

Mechanical concerns aside (which are very valid!), I worry about the poor roleplay that may come from non-application gated exotic races. We already see it with the other award races. Firbolgs were mentioned, and I've yet to see one adhering to the Firbolg traditions and customs. They really are being played as large humans and not as Firbolg, and I find that a little concerning.

I know, controversial statement, how dare I police others' RP and Other Angry Statements

Ideally there would be way more oversight than a lootbox-gated award to play these races. Like an application followed up by a questionaire from the DMs, in order for the players to gain an understanding of how to roleplay their extremely rare race, but also for the DMs to foster confidence in said players.

I say ideally, because I know applications take time to process and DMs would much rather be doing DM things than bookkeeping and interviewing, I imagine.

[xf1313]

I have tested on PGCC with di build, and invited other players to hit me. Truth is a nice little invisible blade can make short work of me, not so much harder than get a yellow named giant on red dragon isle.

Yeah that number seems scary, but it really do not change too much of the game play, phylacteries are tougher (just kidding on this one)

[Arienette]

I would give the player in the screenshot the benefit of the doubt.

I once played a really large human and the bio said something like “this giant is well muscled…”

I wasn’t RPing as a giant. Was just a way of saying I was really big.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Comparing giant stats to drow is not good at all. We would not have nerfed orog and minotaur if a race that has weakness to sunlight and lacks a bonus feat and skill point that the base race human half giants have was the standard.

[Kenji]

Comparing giant stats to drow is not good at all. We would not have nerfed orog and minotaur if a race that has weakness to sunlight and lacks a bonus feat and skill point that the base race human half giants have was the standard.

Half-giants counts as mechanical giants and will receive plenty of obscure and forgotten malus from things such as:
Giant's Bane Essence (+5 AB, available as consumable for any melee build)
Defensive Training vs. Giants (+4 dodge AC, available to all Earthkin)
Favored Enemy/Bane of Enemies vs. Giants (+2 AB, +X damage, available to Rangers)

• Why mention FE when one can apply this to all other races? Giants are common PvE enemies, now it has PvP purposes, too. A ranger can't almost pick all the PC races, however. So obscure subraces with an uncommon parent race such as Minotaur (Mons. Humanoid), Pixie (Fey), and Firbolg (Fey) will likely not be on the receiving end of FE.

Colossi's End (+5 AB, +4 phys dmg, +4 ele dmg vs giant, +4 massive crit, keen, room for 1 dweomer and 1 perma essence, available to 2H builds)

Test these out and let us know if any of these are working as intended. Sunlight penalties are applied once on a cooldown. These bonuses against giants are almost always persistent (mainly for dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and rangers).

What would've had more traction was "Why aren't Ogres brought up to Half-Giant's level?"

[Scurvy Cur]

Giant's Bane Essence (+5 AB, available as consumable for any melee build)
Favored Enemy/Bane of Enemies vs. Giants (+2 AB, +X damage, available to Rangers)

• Why mention FE when one can apply this to all other races? Giants are common PvE enemies, now it has PvP purposes, too. A ranger can't almost pick all the PC races, however. So obscure subraces with an uncommon parent race such as Minotaur (Mons. Humanoid), Pixie (Fey), and Firbolg (Fey) will likely not be on the receiving end of FE.

Colossi's End (+5 AB, +4 phys dmg, +4 ele dmg vs giant, +4 massive crit, keen, room for 1 dweomer and 1 perma essence, available to 2H builds)

A lot of these really don't matter. The dwarven training vs giants does matter, but that it goes to a race that's already above average is a little perplexing. I'll set it aside for now.

For the rest.

Giant's Bane Essence
A lot of builds (pal, ranger, hex, bg, wm, etc) already have a +5 weapon. Most of the rest should be using a +4 weapon already (since, not being weaponmasters, they benefit from the +4 more than they benefit from long crits). So this is a situational +1 AB bonus, at most, to classes largely off the meta already.

Favored Enemy

Why mention FE when one can apply this to all other races? Giants are common PvE enemies, now it has PvP purposes, too. A ranger can't almost pick all the PC races, however. So obscure subraces with an uncommon parent race such as Minotaur (Mons. Humanoid), Pixie (Fey), and Firbolg (Fey) will likely not be on the receiving end of FE.

This is untrue. 30 ranger is probably the best setup for the class right now, and its FE setup covers all PvP races relatively comfortably.

Enemies Alternative Alternative
Ranger 1 Elf
Ranger 5 Halfling
Ranger 10 Gnome
Ranger 15 Fey
Ranger 20 Half Elves
Studied 1 Human
Studied 2 Dwarf
Studied 3 Horc
Studied 4 Giant
Studied 5 Undead
Studied 6 Outsider
Studied 7 Orc
Studied 8 Elementals Dragons Mons Hum
Studied 9 Reptilians Mons. Hum Dragon
Studied 10 Goblinoids Mons. Hum Dragon

I usually suggest tossing monstrous humanoid because there just aren't that many minotaurs around, because elemental is decent to have vs druids, and because there are a fair few elementals in the module, but you can fit it in without much stress, or swap to dragons if that's your thing.

Note, you can spend one of your epic bonus feats (which you get at 23, 25, 26, 29, and 30) on more favored enemies to grab the whole list without skipping any entries. I didn't do that here because I typically suggest spending these feats on the usual suspects:

Bane, Epic Weapon Focus, Epic Prowess, Call of the Wild, Bloodlust.

But you can if you want.

Colossi's End

The ab has the same issue above: most people are already going to be using a +4 or higher weapon, and a lot of mainline melee builds are +5.

The +4 elemental damage vs giant is defensive essence bait. This is basically "worse lawful protector that gets 1 more AB vs giants".
It's worse because Lawful Protector stacks different types of physical damage, whereas Collosi's End stacks 2 elemental damage types (and only vs enemies on the list).

[Kenji]

Giant's Bane Essence
A lot of builds (pal, ranger, hex, bg, wm, etc) already have a +5 weapon. Most of the rest should be using a +4 weapon already (since, not being weaponmasters, they benefit from the +4 more than they benefit from long crits). So this is a situational +1 AB bonus, at most, to classes largely off the meta already.

I disagree with this assessment because not all melee builds are 26+ paladin, 26+ ranger, 26+ hex, or 25 ftr / 5 WM. While the essence does not apply to the aforementioned builds, the essence and/or the 2H weapon is certainly applicable to other builds like 26/4 barb, pure barb, shamans, div dips, and whatnot. I will also tentatively mention various CoT, Cav, or swash builds, as they may no longer be on the top tier but have not disappeared altogether.

Couple that with 18-20 weapons that are often designed to have 3 instead of 4 AB. This further increases the effective AB of keen'd mdamasks for a niche purpose.

To add to the list of the essence not being as useful are the roguish classes like rogues, assassins, and SDs, for what it's worth.

This is untrue. 30 ranger is probably the best setup for the class right now, and its FE setup covers all PvP races relatively comfortably.

30 Ranger is comparable on paper to various other ranger build but doesn't automatically take the "best" title. They get more FE/SE, higher BT (which is higher AB), and better companion at the cost of AC and damage potential compared to div or WM variants.

If one were to take a 30 ranger against any of its cousins, like 27 ranger 3 div, 21 ranger 4 ftr 5 wm (great party blender), or even 27 ranger 3 bard, the 30 ranger is almost always at a disadvantage for having lower AC, lower saves, lower damage output, or having less utility. What the 30 pure rangers do excel in is a wide variety of FE/SE, stronger animal companion, higher AB (by maybe around 2? This remains to be calculated given the difference in Blade Thirst and stat allocation), and fantastic dispel resistance (but same as 27/3 variants).

UMD has also often been overlooked, but in the case of rangers, 30 pure rangers, imo, take up a small percentage of what applies to the argument of being able to get all the PvP races for FE.

The dwarven training vs giants does matter, but that it goes to a race that's already above average is a little perplexing. I'll set it aside for now.

This isn't just dwarven but applicable to gnomes, as well. For reference, they both take up about 12.5% of the server's population. Humans are 40%, and elves are 25%.

[Eyeliner]

Mechanical concerns aside (which are very valid!), I worry about the poor roleplay that may come from non-application gated exotic races. We already see it with the other award races. Firbolgs were mentioned, and I've yet to see one adhering to the Firbolg traditions and customs. They really are being played as large humans and not as Firbolg, and I find that a little concerning.

Firbolgs are exotic and have more complicated lore but I don't think giants are more difficult to RP than a dwarf or elf.

They're also extremely common on Arelith as NPCs. How many enormous and often interconnected dungeons are filled with hundreds and hundreds of them? I mean their population surely outnumbers a lot of playable races. Giants seem to love this island.

Obviously there are mechanical concerns but I don't think their lore or culture is so alien or difficult to learn as to be prohibitive.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Comparing giant stats to drow is not good at all. We would not have nerfed orog and minotaur if a race that has weakness to sunlight and lacks a bonus feat and skill point that the base race human half giants have was the standard.

Half-giants counts as mechanical giants and will receive plenty of obscure and forgotten malus from things such as:
Giant's Bane Essence (+5 AB, available as consumable for any melee build)
Defensive Training vs. Giants (+4 dodge AC, available to all Earthkin)
Favored Enemy/Bane of Enemies vs. Giants (+2 AB, +X damage, available to Rangers)

• Why mention FE when one can apply this to all other races? Giants are common PvE enemies, now it has PvP purposes, too. A ranger can't almost pick all the PC races, however. So obscure subraces with an uncommon parent race such as Minotaur (Mons. Humanoid), Pixie (Fey), and Firbolg (Fey) will likely not be on the receiving end of FE.

Colossi's End (+5 AB, +4 phys dmg, +4 ele dmg vs giant, +4 massive crit, keen, room for 1 dweomer and 1 perma essence, available to 2H builds)

Test these out and let us know if any of these are working as intended. Sunlight penalties are applied once on a cooldown. These bonuses against giants are almost always persistent (mainly for dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and rangers).

What would've had more traction was "Why aren't Ogres brought up to Half-Giant's level?"

Actaully i am thinking minotaurs, unless they do not count as giants.

Giants still rock a mighty score of 6 strength (or magus bloodline can still make decent blackgaurds) and now have access to the new weapons we have added. The arn't too far off from the partial nerfed half giants, but they were a joke before we did the recent nerf.

I am excited that you guys want to see the anti giant stuff work properly against giants and may rock a duergar in the future. (Collossi's end might be on a different play through with duerger nto being good aligned and all, but its an amazing eff you to half giants all trying to meme disarm)

[Kenji]

To clarify:
PC Minotaurs are racialtype Monstrous Humanoids.
PC Ogres and Half-Giants are racialtype Giants.
PC Firbolgs are racialtype Fey.
They are all creature size Large.

[Red_Wharf]

To clarify:
PC Firbolgs are racialtype Fey.

Can we change them to giant? Literally no one likes it or plays their Firbolgs as fey.

[MissEvelyn]

To clarify:
PC Firbolgs are racialtype Fey.

Can we change them to giant? Literally no one likes it or plays their Firbolgs as fey.

Since they were Giant in 3e, can we please?

[Hazard]

To clarify:
PC Firbolgs are racialtype Fey.

Can we change them to giant? Literally no one likes it or plays their Firbolgs as fey.

I play my firbolg as shy. A gentle druid. They keep no excess items or gold. They do all the firbolg stuff, and stick entirely to their racial schtick.

Even so, not sure why it says they're fey if we aren't doing the 5th ed version, and even the 5th ed version could be argued isn't "fey" but fey touched. The new books leave out a lot, and only show a very weird looking firbolg. The firbolg doesn't even speak fey languages but does speak giant.

The way I took the 5th ed, was as a variant that is particularly fey-touched, either living so closely with nature it became so, or actually living in the feywild (might also explain their strange look and smaller size). There's no reason all other variants of firbolg aren't still bumbling about too.

On Arelith we have the moon-seer gift firbolg can take, that gives them stats a little more in line with the "feytouched" type, and you have the normal non-gift that keep stats more in line with classic firbolg.

Can sort of have it both ways, or either ways.. Minus the weird new look (thankfully. ew. what the frick is that?).

Wouldn't mind seeing 'Fey' changed to 'Giant'. Would help with a lot of weirdnesses, like I would say MOST players who interact with my Firbolg refer to them as a fey, or explain to others they are fey I assume because that's what they see when they examine.

[Edens_Fall]

baffled and disturbed by half-giants. oh, and all the rest. even with future point-buy systems in mind. unironically, really think you should treat them all like vampires with applications and quotas. absolutely wild.

love and miss you all dev team, but- someone is still pumping the brakes sometimes, right? ...right?

Hey!!! Welcome Back!

Noticed you IG the other day as well. Glad to see your break from Arelith is over, even if you're just one of us common players again

[Kilnasaggart]

I'd recommend to everyone to wait a while before playing any of the new giants (but most especially stone giant using EDR build) because they WILL be nerfed.

No rants, but I would rate it as the top one issue with Arelith (which is otherwise a superb and splendid servor) - the lack of stability in the very core rules. I lost 9 months of RP following the nerf of summons (again, nothing with to do with more/less power, only what you could build RP-wise/what you could not do 24 hours later).

No point issuing overpowered classes/races if it's to take it back months later, there is more than required now to have decent fun. Perhaps more new spells (and more useful new spells, the existing ones don't get used ever, sadly).

[Xerah]

I lost 9 months of RP following the nerf of summons

You didn't lose 9 months of RP because your summons are slightly weaker.

The RP happened.

You can still do the same thing as before.

If your RP is based on an ability to solo end game dungeons while standing behind summons, then surely there was more to your character than that.

[Kilnasaggart]

You can still do the same thing as before

Of course not, as he was barred to go to the places where he could go and lead people to - but this ain't the right thread to be honest. The other thing which is striking here is how much players are "over-optimizing" and "experts". As I'm an NWN true idiot, I did something (after erasing my character) which I never did - I went to look at some builds, and found some "spellsword" ones.
One was mentioning some spellsword/monk building, another that the build could have 9th-lvl wizard spells. Of course, both things are gone and nerfed already, and truth is I have no idea what to play which would be funny, arcanish, and enabling somehow a bit of solo as grouping on Arelith is not this easy, to be honest. Not a question to game dungeons, don't care, just to play whenever you're dead alone.

I apologize to have highjacked the thread, will stop here. Best to all, and still wondering what to do. Any suggestions welcome !

[Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia]

Noticed you IG the other day as well.

just because i don't particularly like this misapprehension sitting around unchallenged: where ever you thought you saw me, or if you just said that for the fun of it, no, i am not playing this game again, just lurking the forums now and then.

this is why i always regret posting. sorry for interrupting the thread.

[Kenji]

If half-giants are what it takes for bat to come out of his forum ninja closet, then we’ll have to introduce something far more preposterous and ridiculous so he’ll have to actively play the game to killbash those characters

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Playable Tabaxi?

[AstralUniverse]

I'd recommend to everyone to wait a while before playing any of the new giants (but most especially stone giant using EDR build) because they WILL be nerfed.

No rants, but I would rate it as the top one issue with Arelith (which is otherwise a superb and splendid servor) - the lack of stability in the very core rules. I lost 9 months of RP following the nerf of summons (again, nothing with to do with more/less power, only what you could build RP-wise/what you could not do 24 hours later).

No point issuing overpowered classes/races if it's to take it back months later, there is more than required now to have decent fun. Perhaps more new spells (and more useful new spells, the existing ones don't get used ever, sadly).

idk why you're quoting me on this. my recommendation was in regards to something entirely new, that was live maybe for a day, and was CLEARLY overtuned. Currently I think it's safe to play after the 15% physical was nerfed, and that's not even a week into the race's existence so comparing this to the summons nerf is ridiculous. Also, that summons 'nerf' is not that much of a nerf after all, it seems.

[Edens_Fall]

Noticed you IG the other day as well.

just because i don't particularly like this misapprehension sitting around unchallenged: where ever you thought you saw me, or if you just said that for the fun of it, no, i am not playing this game again, just lurking the forums now and then.

this is why i always regret posting. sorry for interrupting the thread.

Ah! My mistake then. Sorry about that. I genuinely thought I saw one of your PC's IG and was happy to have you back, but that was clearly a mistake on my part. No harm, no foul as they say.

Either way still nice to see you around, if even on forums.

If half-giants are what it takes for bat to come out of his forum ninja closet, then we’ll have to introduce something far more preposterous and ridiculous so he’ll have to actively play the game to killbash those characters

Hear! Hear! I wholeheartedly second the motion.