Giants in the playground (5e)

This article would try to gather all the material published on the net regarding giants, an huge community of ill-tempered creatures scattered among every kind of environments.

I will start publishing the open-gaming stats found on Monster Manual, grouped under their kin, continuing adding more creatures later on on every occasion I met (or create) one of their kind.

For every entry listed here you will be able to download a D&D Monster Maker version of the creature from this Dropbox shared folder.

Hill Giants

Hill Giants are selfish, dimwitted brutes that hunt forage, and raid in constant search of food. They blunder through hills and forests devouring what they can, bullying smaller creatures into feeding them. Their laziness and dullness would long ago have spelled their end if not for their formidable size and strength.

  Primitive. Hill giants dwell in hills and mountain valleys across the world, congregating in steadings built of rough timber or in clusters of well-defended mudand-wattle huts. Their skins are tan from lives spent lumbering up and down the hilly slopes and dozing beneath the sun. Their weapons are uprooted trees and rocks pulled from the earth. The sweat of their bodies adds to the reek of the crude animal skins they wear, poorly stitched together with hair and leather thongs.

  Bigger Means Better. In a hill giant's world, humanoids and animals are easy prey that can be hunted with impunity. Creatures such as dragons and other giants are tough adversaries. Hill giants equate size with power. Hill giants don't realize they follow an ordning. They know only that other giants are larger and stronger than they are, which means they are to be obeyed. A hill giant tribe's chief is usually the tallest and fattest giant that can still move about. Only on rare occasion does a hill giant with more brains than bulk use its cunning to gain the favor of giants of higher status, cleverly subverting the social order.

  Voracious Eaters. With nothing else to occupy them, hill giants eat as often as possible. A hill giant hunts and forages alone or with a dire wolf companion, so as to not have to share with other tribe members. The giant eats anything that isn't obviously deadly, such as creatures known to be poisonous. Rotten meat is fair game, though, as are decaying plants and even mud.

Farmers fear and loathe hill giants. Where a predator such as an ankheg might burrow through fields and consume a cow or two before being driven off, a hill giant will consume a whole herd of cattle before moving on to sheep, goats, and chickens, then tearing into fruits, vegetables, and grain. If a farm family is at hand, the giant might snack on them too.

  Stupid and Deadly. The hill giants' ability to digest nearly anything has allowed them to survive for eons as savages, eating and breeding in the hills like animals. They have never needed to adapt and change, so their minds and emotions remain simple and undeveloped.

With no culture of their own, hill giants ape the traditions of creatures they manage to observe for a time before eating them. They don't think about their own size and strength, however. Tribes of hill giants attempting to imitate elves have been known to topple entire forests by trying to live in trees. Others attempting to take over humanoid towns or villages get only as far as the doors and windows of a building, taking out its walls and roof as they attempt to enter.

In conversation, hill giants are blunt and direct, and they have little concept of deception. A hill giant might be fooled into running from another giant if a number of villagers cover themselves in blankets and stand on one another's shoulders holding a giant-paint€d pumpkin head. Reasoning with a hill giant is futile, although clever creatures can sometimes encourage a giant to take actions that benefit them.

  Raging Bullies. A hill giant that feels as though it has been deceived, insulted, or made into a fool vents its terrible wrath on anything it encounters. Even after smashing those who offended it into pulp, the giant rampages until its rage abates, it notices something more interesting, or it grows hungry.

If a hill giant proclaims itself king over a territory where other humanoids live, it rules strictly by terror and tyranny. Its decisions shift with its mood, and if it forgets the title it bestowed upon itself, it might eat its subjects on a whim.

Here is presented the stat block of the base Hill Giant, found on 5th edition Monster Manual, page 155.

Contributions from the Web

Following his desire of having more choices, Demetrios1453, a dare user of the ENWorld community started creating higher challenge level creatures. We present here some of his creations, the Hill Giant Chief and the Hill Giant Priest of Grolantor. You can find his original post on ENWorld here.

Hill Giant Chief

For hill giants, bigger is better. Each hill giant wants, above all things, to be the biggest and fattest hill giant there ever has been. Most hill giants, being little more than stupid brutes, simply eat what they can, when they can, and have no deeper strategy beyond that to achieve this goal. However, some hill giants, being stronger and (slightly) more intelligent than the rest, are able to wrest food away from their counterparts, either through guile or sheer strength. These hill giants quickly become the biggest in their tribes or settlements; and the other hill giants, equating mass with superiority, acknowledge them as their leaders. Once placed in a position of power, these hill giant chiefs rapidly become even larger (and, thus, even more revered) as they can now demand even more food from their subjects as a sort of tax.

  Protection Through Bulk. Being able to demand or seize food from other hill giants means that a typical hill giant chief quickly grows to immense size. This hinders their ability to move around, as well as making their actions slow and ponderous. However, what they lose in speed and dexterity due to their obesity, they make up in sheer bulk - the immense rolls of fat make it difficult for the weapons of their foes to cause any real harm to vital areas. Swords might draw blood and clubs may bruise a hill giant chief, but these will do little more than enrage the creature. Only by slowly wearing the hill giant chief down through blood loss from these superficial wounds, as well as the periodic lucky shot that actually cuts through the fat to hit something vital, can the giant be truly hurt.

  Demanding Tyrants. A hill giant chief typically sits on a crude "throne" (usually a re-purposed item such as a wagon or conveniently-shaped stone dragged from some building or ruin) in its dwelling in the center of a hill giant settlement, surrounded by filth and refuse. Its leadership usually consists of no more than demands for more food to feed its ever-growing hunger. Should such an order be refused, or out of sheer boredom or malice, or simply to make an example of one of its subjects, the hill giant chief is able to bring the full weight of its bulk to bear when dealing a blow with its greatclub. The offending object of such a massive blow is often knocked senseless to the ground, where it is either summarily dispatched, or dragged away as an object lesson to others.

Hill Giant Chief, Priest of Grolantor

A select few hill giants, both ordinary and chiefs, having particularly excelled in their gluttonous endeavors, have pleased the hill giant deity Grolantor and have been blessed with divine spell use.

  Limited Spellpower. The few that do gain such powers never grow exceptionally powerful in them, for two reasons. First, hill giants are not naturally disposed towards such matters; and, secondly, any hill giant that actually reaches the ability to cast 3rd level divine spells gains access to a giant-sized create food and water and rapidly eats itself to death. This, as any hill giant will tell you, nodding sagely, is the way all of them would want to go.

  Craving Casting. Do to their nature, the spellcasting routine of a priest of Grolantor is almost predicatable and repetitive.
They start their combat trying to command the most armored of their opponent to bring them as much as food as possible, with a simple request like "Feed me to death".
If this tactic will fail, due to a succesful save from the spell of a simple misunderstanding regarding the REAL meaning of the command received, the second spell that the priest will try against the same target will be an hold person, followed by a recast of the command until someone start to bring him an huge amount of food, either taken from the party reserves or conjured by casting create food and water.
In the latter case, the primary target of the priest of Grolantor will turn to be the character who casted the conjuring spell; indeed, tales among hill giants tell that eating a caster will transfer its spellcasting ability to the creature who consumed the victim, so they never give away an opportunity to increase their limited spellpower.

Personal Homebrew

Here follows my personal additions to this project.

Hill Giant Champion

After many unsuccesful tests, I finally created my version of the hill giant's elite warrior. Its intended purpose is to disencourage parties to go forth beyond him, to secure areas where visitors or scavengers are not welcome.
Highly skilled in two-handed weapons, hill giant champions consider their maul as a companion, never leaving it unwielded. Devoted to exercise in combat between every meals, hill giant champions developed two powerful abilities they never miss to adopt in combats.

  Clever Combatant. Brute force is only one of the keys of success for them. A decent amount of dexterity turned these creatures into deadly killing machines; every time they hit with a blow, not only the target is forced a Strenght save to avoid falling prone, but their opponents are at risk of being hit a second time with a bonus attack they take using the advantage they gained, exposing their opponent to an incredible amount of damage dealt.

  Opportunity Blow. Approaching an hill giant champion is all but safe; due to their weapon great reach, these creatures can try to hit - and thus stop coming forth - an opponent they consider too dangerous to stand too close to them. The same fate is reserved to opponents trying to stand up while being yet into their reach after being hit, and found themselves prone, by a previous attack.

Age Stat Block Mods

I here introduce a mechanic that will be repeated for every step of age and kins. For every step younger the creatures will show stat block modification as follows:

Alignment one step toward True Neutral
Size and Hit Dice one category smaller
STR -4 CON-4 DEX+2 INT+2 WIS(-2) CHA+2
Skills added Acrobatic and Athletic
Expertise on all presented skills
Challenge -3 steps
Actions* Cunning Action as a bonus action (as Rogue)
Weapon damage -1 weapon dice

*Requires to be of child age; young ones don't benefits of this ability

The path to adulthood

Here are presented the Hill Giant (Young) and the Hill Giant (Child), an unpreceded view on the giants society that I tought is worth the knowledge.

Hill Giant (Young)

Prior to be full grown, giants are untamed adolescents, still not completely evil but yet enough chaotic. Since they are not fully absorbed by the clan's rituals and dogmas, young hill giants spend a lot of time exercising at combat.
Young hill giants reach the adulthood upon reaching their 12th birthday, leaving them 7 full years to exercise at combat.
Due to their skin and size, young hill giants are often mistakenly recognized as ogres. An opponent trying to devise their nature must make a succesful Survival or Nature (DC 12) check. The first rock they throws at You allows a failed save to identify them to be repeated.

  Pact Tactics. Their preferred tactic is to approach a target and use their mates to gain advantage on their opponents. If caught surprised, opponents could end literally surrounded by young hill giants before being able to realize the danger that are about to face. Due to their size, they can use this advantage even if the allies are at 10 feet from their target.

Hill Giant (Child)

During the first year of life hill giants reach the size of a medium humanoid. Completely unaware of their true nature, hill giant childrens are neutral beings with an innate desire to eat and combat.
Due to their skin and size, young hill giants are often mistakenly recognized as ugly humanoids. An opponent trying to devise their nature must make a succesful Survival or Nature (DC 14) check. The first rock they throws at You allows a failed save to identify them to be repeated.
Hill giants children reach the young age at 5 years old, giving them 4 full years of cops and robbers play, game they are encouraged to perform by their parents between every meal.

  Gang Up. The child hill giant gains +1 on a melee attack roll against a creature for each ally is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn't incapacitated.

 Cunning Action. Quick thinking and agility allows hill giants childrens to move and act quickly. They can take a bonus action on each of their turns in combat. This action can be used only to take the Dash, Disengage, or Hide action.