The various true giant races are among the iconic monsters of Dungeons and Dragons, most having been in the game since those original three booklets way back in 1974. The G, or Giant, series of modules (1978) were some of the most popular adventures ever published for 1st edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The 2nd edition AD&D designers decided that giants needed a significant boost in order to justify their fearsome reputation, as well as to provide readily available monsters for higher level characters, since demons had been removed from the game. So the true giants were all given additional HD to make them tougher for 2nd edition. This power boost was preserved in the 3e revision.

Daniel R. Collins provides a pretty persuasive analysis that 3e giants have too many HD for their type and size, at least when compared to other 3e monsters. I would further argue that, in 3e, where all monsters get ability scores and can readily take character classes, the additional HD are unnecessary and actually limiting. A standard 3e fire giant, for example, has 15 HD and a level adjustment of +4, making it very nearly an epic character right out of the gate. I say better to scale the base HD back to more reasonable levels and thus give DMs and players more opportunities to add classes and templates to these monsters.

Dan did a very nice 1st edition conversion of the true giants for 3e. I've built on this work, updating the monsters to 3.5e and adding advanced versions that are comparable to the 3e Monster Manual versions, for those DM who want to have their cake and eat it, too.

-- R. Dorman, The Frilond Campaign

Reprinted with permission from The Frilond Campaign; based on work by Daniel R. Collins at his Superdan website. This boxed text is closed content