Dungeons and Dragons' Boring Monsters: The Hill Giant

Introduction

            As I have mentioned many times before in this blog, I play Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) most often as a Dungeon Master (DM).

            I have always been more of a story centric DM, getting most of my kicks by setting up complex story situations, “Do you fulfill the contract you made even if it means destroying something special?” or “Do we awaken this ancient evil sorcerer because he might be the only one with the knowledge to stop the even bigger evil on the horizon?” or “With how much impunity do we destroy the evil army?  Innocent people may get hurt.”

            Asking players to engage with the material I have written and have an impact on the world is where I get most of my fun.  BUT… I do like learning and using the rules of the game to have fun too.  Constructing an encounter that challenges the players to think about how to beat the bad guys is important rather than just having them slap their meat against the enemy’s meat until only one meat slab remains.

            Which is what I wanted to talk about in this series* I want to talk about monsters that I think do a poor job of being fun.  They are boring to use, and boring to fight.  They are Meatballs.  Just big balls of meat that you slap the players with.

            It is important that this is not just about complaining, this is about fixing flaws.  I want to try and create thematically appropriate ways of making monsters more interesting to run.  So let’s start out by looking at one of the most meaty of monsters, the Hill Giant.

            The Hill Giant is defined by 3 things to me, 1) low armor making him easy to hit, 2) Numerous hit points allowing him to stay on his feet even as he is being hit numerous times, and 3) having a ranged attack and a melee attack, each dealing a large amount of damage.  Big ball of meat that slaps.

            “What is the drawback here?” you might be asking.

            The issue is that the giant has no means of manipulating the battlefield, no way of working with or at cross purposes with allies, and there is no clever way to get around any of his defense.  On his turn he will attack, he will likely hit, and that is it.

            “Okay, so what would you suggest for a giant?” might be your follow up question.

            I want giants to have elemental powers, and I have talked about this concept before with my limited series on making monsters more exotic in lore.  Giving elemental powers to some giants makes sense, for instance Frost and Fire Giants, all one has to do is give them an attack that creates ice or fire and you are done, but Hill Giants are not as intuitive, hills are not that inherently hostile and they do not illicit thoughts in them beyond making sunrises prettier.

I think that having the Hill Giant be based around loose soil will work.  Which is a weird pick.  Here is what I mean.  First I want to give them a short-ranged area attack with a Strength based save, the giant will smack up loose soil, stone, and earth from the ground in a wave that might bury those caught in it.  This temporary burying will allow the giant to move up and pummel those opponents who are now at his mercy.  This ability will be called “Dirt Storm” and require the giant to be on unworked ground in order to use it.

Next, I want to give the Giant a means of recuperating to keep the players from simply playing hit and run with it, wearing the thing down.  The ability, “Rub Some Dirt on It” will allow the Giant to rub themselves down with soil to regain hit points and shore up their defenses.  Taking a minute to rub themselves down with loose soil allows them to cure up to a quarter of their full hit point total (26 for a typical Giant).  A quicker use of this ability in combat grants 10 hit points and a +2 to armor class for a round, picture the giant drawing up the earth around them to create a layer of soil skin (like a super-fast day at the spa) for rejuvenation.

Last thing to add is to make its rocks more interesting.  All giants in the Monster Manual throw and catch rocks as a sort of traditional thing, it is an okay thing, but I would like to start the tradition of making the rocks different from one another in a variety of ways.  Hill Giants should throw massive Dirt Clods.  When these hit they do less bludgeoning damage that a full-on rock, but they have the added benefit of shattering into a blinding torrent of soil.  In fact, a blinding effect for hitting people with soil would also work for the first ability, “Dirt Storm”.

This all combos together nicely, the Giant can blind people who are far away, so they can’t shoot at him, those who are a medium distance away might get buried and blinded allowing him plenty of advantage and closing with him means that you have to deal with his devastating club.  He is still a meatball in lots of ways.  The melee attacks are the most damaging and they are likely to hit.  But giving him alternate attacks will allow the DM to make decisions that have more impact on the game.

Here is a link to a PDF type thing.

Now to introduce one last aspect of dynamic monster action: Levels of Success/Failure.  The giants abilities have the potential to impose status effects on the players, and the players should have different levels of being hit by the attacks.  If a players fails a save by 10, they should be buried deeper and be blinded longer, a little less when missing by 5, only momentarily knocked down when you barely miss.  Here is a little chart to help, and I recommend making these for your own encounters to give some more dynamic outcomes to each save in an encounter.

The Blinding affect in the stat block lists 1d3 rounds of being blinded, with the gradient chart this 1 to 3 rounds is a reflection of how much the player failed the save.  Burying is a straightforward process in the stat block, here it can be debilitating, causing weapons to be lost in the soil!  Be careful with this level of punishment, as it makes the Earthen Hill Giant potentially much tougher.

Suggested Encounter

            The Earthen Giant’s key abilities of Dirt Storm and Rub Some Dirt on It, both require access to loose soil.  This means that the players gain a clear advantage drawing the monster into an area with a worked stone or paved floor.  If there is no dirt to throw then the Earthen Hill Giant is just a weaker Hill Giant.

            I picture a ruined city where there are large sections of paved road on which the Giant’s abilities would be blocked, while most of the city is just soil and ruined buildings.  Having the players have to taunt the giant into an area where the ground is impermeable ground cover would give them a smart way of limiting the monsters ability allowing a group of lower level characters to get a drop on the monster.

            They could even lay a trap by casting an illusion of soil over a paved area allowing the giant to waste a turn trying and failing to use one of its abilities. And then having to make a save to even figure out why the ability failed and if they fail to break the illusion they might try and fail again.

 

One of many looks for the Hill Giant.

Conclusion

            What do you think?  Do these changes make the Hill Giant more interesting?  Or are they options and augmentation that you think are pointless?  Do you think the changes make the Earthen Hill Giant a good CR 6, or should it be higher?  Comment below if you think I did a good/bad job, and if you would like to see me do more monsters, or if you have a suggestion for another encounter environment.

            Regardless, I would like to point to Home Brewery for giving everyone the tools to make their own authentic looking stat blocks for 5e content.  If you would like to make monsters, check them out.

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*(I plan to make this a series, but I write entries in this blog so rarely these days… who knows?)