Half-giants: A bit of tweaking maybe?

[HalflingWhore]

I've thought about this for a while now and I think there's some changes that could be made to half-giants that would make them a bit more realistic without going too overboard.

1) With a half-giant's enormous size, it should be much harder to inflict wounds upon them. I believe it says somewhere that they have tougher skin (like dwarves), but I don't think it's reflected realistically codewise. I've noticed -no- difference in damage dealt to a hg pc vs. dealt to a non-hg by the same beasts. Half-giants get annihilated by anything fast, halflings, elves, anything that is just -simply- faster than them. It should realistically be harder for such physically weak beings to even hurt a half-giant. Sure, they might be hard for the half-giant to hit and they might land -alot- of hits, but those hits shouldn't even injure them much of the time unless the hg's opponent is a very skilled warrioror very strong.  

2) Starting off with a hg pc is much harder than any others because it costs 4-5 times more to get one equipped. Now, most of them are supposed to have been around for a while and your starting coins is given to your to represent what you'd have aquired up until the point you begin playing them. There are enough hgs existing in the gameworld that more places should sell hg sized stuff.

3) Movement outdoors. I've noticed that movement costs out of doors are approximately the same for a half-giant pc and most other pc races (with the exception of desert elves of course). Due to their size, I think a single stride from a half-giant should carry them a farther distance than a single stride from any other race. (with the exception of desert elves).

Here's my ideas to fix them up a bit and make them a bit more realistic and more appealing to people to play:

1) Increase their natural armor. Make it so that it takes a very strong, or skilled warrior to injure them. Anyone other than a very strong or skilled warrior shouldn't even be facing off against a half-giant solo. It is currently too easy for people to do so.

2) Increase the starting coin slightly -or- make it so that more hg sized stuff is available through the major arms/armor dealers. Salarr.

3) Decrease movement costs for hgs out of doors. Place them somewhere between movement costs for d-elves and movement costs for other races. I personally would like to see more people play hgs in the game. I think the wisdom and agility negatives are enough to balance things out, especially since many have a problem with playing dumb pcs anyway. I think these changes, or some similar or to create a similar end result would make it more realistic and make them more appealing to players.

Thoughts or ideas?

[UnderSeven]

I havn't played them to know what their natural armor is like, I don't know that I agree it needs to be stronger, is their skin supposed to be significantly harder than normal skin?  I don't think so, nor do I see what you are refering to in the help files.  So I don't see why their natural armor should be increased.

Movement.  They stride larger, but spend more energy having to do it.  It would even out, I would agree with their walk speed being increased so smaller races need to work harder to keep up, but I don't think they should actually be able to move longer distances.

Starting coin.  Here is a place I have to totally disagree.  Half giants nine times our of ten, are probably going to be bred, or belong to a house.  Sure half giants might get together, get jiggy and accidentally have a baby, but more likely than not, both of those half giants already belong to a house or are slaves or what have you.  Starting coin would suggest they have some sort of solo wealth.  They shouldn't.  I feel half giants should be treated a lot like a mul in that a half giant should in most cases maybe even need to be app'd with a house in mind.  I just can't imagine a family of half giants living in an apartment in allanak with their half giant children, or a tribe of half giants for that matter.  They take such a ridiculous amount to feed and cloth that it seems more likely to me they would almost all already belong to someone in one way or another.

[HalflingWhore]

Here is a place I have to totally disagree. Half giants nine times our of ten, are probably going to be bred, or belong to a house. Sure half giants might get together, get jiggy and accidentally have a baby, but more likely than not, both of those half giants already belong to a house or are slaves or what have you. Starting coin would suggest they have some sort of solo wealth. They shouldn't.

Nowhere does it say that a half-giant pc must be a slave or belong to a house. It is not a requirement of making a half-giant pc so that argument to the point is invalid.

[Many Faces]

You want HGs to be MORE powerful?

Any HG off the starting block can wash and wax any other PC pretty much no matter what.  HG merch vs halfling warrior - pwned.

HGs don't need to be more powerful.  They need to be played better.

As for the starting cash idea, scrap it.  HGs are forgetful.  They aren't going to have a knack for counting coins and keeping track of them.  It costs more to equip them because they're freakin huge.  There are a lot of HGs, yes, but there are a lot of people in the world over the height of 6'5".  Not every place on earth sells clothing for people that large.

HGs do not get annihilated by anything quicker then them.  If this is your experience, then I would suggest you look more at the strengths of your character and use them directly.

HGs have longer legs, but they also weigh a bajillion times more than a human.  Sure, they can stride farther, but it still tires them out to move that much bulk... considering the fact that most of them wear and carry heavy crap all the time, I think that the movement cost is completely valid.

[UnderSeven]

Here is a place I have to totally disagree. Half giants nine times our of ten, are probably going to be bred, or belong to a house. Sure half giants might get together, get jiggy and accidentally have a baby, but more likely than not, both of those half giants already belong to a house or are slaves or what have you. Starting coin would suggest they have some sort of solo wealth. They shouldn't.

Nowhere does it say that a half-giant pc must be a slave or belong to a house. It is not a requirement of making a half-giant pc so that argument to the point is invalid.

True it doesn't say it, I'm going out on a limb.  I'm going out on a limb and I'm trying to imagine a half giant household.  I'm failing miserably to come up with one.  I don't think they exist, or they'd be damned rare.

Lets look at what we know about half giants:

1) They are stupid, way too trusting and in general not good managers of anything (think money).

2) They are expensive, expensive to feed, expensive to clothe.  I've never even seen a house with half giant tennants in mind, at least, not barracks.

3) They are fairly coveted by houses for their raw ability to mash everything in sight.

My conclusion based off of those three facts, is that half giants are probably very rarely solo from birth and are probably bred or made between two half giants already in a house and therefore the kid would end up in the house too.

It may not be in the help files, but I think these are pretty logical steps to make and I actually think it probably should be in the help files.  Unless a staffer wants to disagree with me.

[HalflingWhore]

Any HG off the starting block can wash and wax any other PC pretty much no matter what. HG merch vs halfling warrior - pwned.

Have you actually -played- a half-giant pc? I've tested this exact example on more than one occasion and the half-giant pcs with BADASS stats got rocked by halfling hunters or warriors.

[Cale_Knight]

Half-giants are utterly scary, especially if they manage to get themselves a little training.

They really don't need to be beefed up.

And they already have the ability to walk a lot further than, say, humans.

[HalflingWhore]

And they already have the ability to walk a lot further than, say, humans.

This is completely false.

[Jherlen]

The HG I played had a lot more stamina than any of the humans I've rolled up. He was able to walk almost the entire way from Allanak to Luir's without a rest.

I see no logic why an HG would start off with more coin than anyone else would.

As far as natural armor: HGs are essentially just really really big, strong people. I don't believe it says anywhere that they're any more resilient than humans except by virtue of their size. HGs also start off with lots more HP than your average human will, this means they CAN take more punishment.

[Hymwen]

I definitely don't think HG's need to become more powerful. They already smash other races (don't know about muls, I've never seen one fight). As for giving them "bouncy skin"? You want it so that only master warriors can hurt them? That would become incredibly lame, very very fast. They have amazing endurance which gives them a health and stamina advantage, and I think that's sufficient to portray their superior toughness, and it also lets them walk further than most others.

As far as starting money, I think it's fair that people who are over twice the size of everyone else have trouble finding equipment that fits.

[Synthesis]

Yeah, half-giants have more HP, but this is completely counteracted by the fact they take double or triple the damage a human would, due to their low agility and the effect this has on damage rolls.  I've seen relatively unskilled elven assassins with cheap daggers inflict grievous wounds on half-giant warriors.

And no, half-giants don't get a lot more stamina.  Even with a good endurance roll, you're only going to get a few dozen more stamina points.

The main problem with half-giants is that they're only "utterly scary" on the offensive side of the equation, and this only after a -lot- of combat training (combat training that is essentially impossible to get in a clan, unless you have the extremely good fortune to be in the clan with another half-giant).  Defensively, they never come close to what even a dwarf of the same class could achieve.

A secondary problem is that the offensive bonus that they do get nowhere near reflects the actual amount of damage they should be capable of inflicting.  I think a seasoned half-giant should be able to kill any regular humanoid instantly with a good hit.  As it stands, a human or elf warrior with the same level of experience can inflict more damage per unit of time than a half-giant, for several reasons: 1) Half-giants are basically stuck with using one weapon and a shield, unless they have people to "tank" (hack and slash term, forgive me) for them; 2) Half-giants attack ridiculously slowly, due to their obscenely low agility; and 3) Half-giants don't inflict nearly the kind of damage that they should, given their insane strength.

The agility modifiers are fine, in my opinion.  The strength problem is still real.  Half-giants can weigh up to a ton, if I recall the ranges correctly.  Now, look at the strength differences in humans:  in virtually all combat sports, weight divisions are broken down into ranges of ten pounds at the most, because size and strength differences give larger opponents huge advantages.  Put a lightweight against a heavyweight, and you're going to end up with a seriously broken lightweight, given equal skill, and that's only a 70 lb. difference.  The difference between the heaviest (fit) human and the heaviest half-giant is over 1,700 lbs.  

I don't think any humanoid should ever come even -close- to equalling a half-giant in combat.  A half-giant should be able to wade into a battlefied and leave nothing but mangled human corpses in his wake.  Swipes of his arm should kill two or three seasoned vets at a time, sending them flying over the awed heads of their comrades.  A punch from a half-giant should be roughly the equivalent of having an anvil launched into you at 60mph.

I think half-giant weapons and armor should reflect this strength, as well.

No more swords and wussy polearms, and no more armor designed to be lightweight -and- protective.  Half-giant weapons should be gigantic hunks of stone or solid wood, able to withstand their brutal strength.  A half-giant can pick up three or four human corpses and be only slightly burdened...a half-giant's weapon should be three-hundred pounds of unbreakable death on a shaft.  Baobab trunks lined with salt-worm teeth.  Boulders attached to gigantic ropes, designed to be whirled over the heads of your tiny allies and thumped down into enemy lines, instantly killing several foes at a time.  Huge hollow javelins filled with glassy shards of obsidian, hurled into the air and impacting with enough force to send deadly shrapnel whizzing through the air.

Half-giant armor should be layers of chitin fixed together, impervious to anything short of another half-giant's blow.  Or thick planks of wood fitted together...an entire layer of protective wood that would resist everything but fire.  The legs and arms should be lined with bone spikes and chitin razors, every kick should flay skin from bone, and every punch should impale.  Half-giants with this kind of armor wouldn't need weapons at all...they would only need to be sent marching toward the enemy, and the movement alone would be devastating.

Currently, all we have is half-giants restricted to the same ho-hum combat style as every other type of humanoid, with only extra damage to reflect their ability to devastate.  Unfortunately, this means that half-giants are nowhere near as dangerous as they by all rights ought to be.  It only takes a few humanoids ganging up, and even the most skilled half-giant will be nicked and grazed to death, through the thickest armor, before he manages to land enough blows to kill even one of them.  This simply shouldn't happen.

[Hymwen]

I don't think any humanoid should ever come even -close- to equalling a half-giant in combat. A half-giant should be able to wade into a battlefied and leave nothing but mangled human corpses in his wake. Swipes of his arm should kill two or three seasoned vets at a time, sending them flying over the awed heads of their comrades. A punch from a half-giant should be roughly the equivalent of having an anvil launched into you at 60mph.

I don't ever see that happening. In a game with perma-death, noone wants non-magickers who can "kill two or three seasoned vets with a swipe of his arm". Yeah, from a purely realism point of view perhaps it could be that way, but you can't have a race that makes the character twenty times more powerful than other races of the same guild. From a balance point of view, we just can't have people walking around in the streets who are capable of killing half the city on their own.

[Medena]

Thank you for that excellent analysis Synthesis.  I'm going to just underline a few of the points in order to support two of the original poster's suggestions -- making HG's inherently more impervious to blows and upping the starting coin.

HG's are incredibly weak defensively mainly because of their inability to dodge blows. While the low agility is as it should be, it brings with it a double penalty in that they can't land many blows either.  When one finally lands, it's huge, but by then the HG could well be near death.

Their massive size, of itself, should bring some defensive perks. Those mounds of flesh should be harder to really harm. I mean, think of it this way, two equal blows with the same weapon to a dog and to a moose. Which one do you think would do more damage? (As a side note: I've seen a car hit a moose head on at highway speeds. The car was totalled. The moose swayed on its feet a moment then ambled on across the highway.)

HG's are ridiculously expensive to equip.  I'll accept the argument that it ought to be harder to find outsize gear. However, not the one that they are bad with money and so wouldn't have extra coins. Your starting gear is supposed to represent what you've taken years in acquiring.

[Synthesis]

The game isn't about balance, Hymwen.  That's a typically newbie thing to say, and you've said it repeatedly on various topics.  This game -is- about realism, as long as it doesn't affect -playability-.

Half-giants are a level of karma above common magickers.  There are reasons for that: 1) They are difficult to play properly; 2) They are dangerous; and 3) Their power is easily abused.

Races are not balanced.  Classes are not balanced.  That's the way it is, because that's the way the world is.  The problem here is that half-giants are underpowered, plain and simple.  Making half-giants more powerful would not negatively affect playability for anyone, except those who currently are taking them lightly.

And no, rogue half-giants would not be capable of destroying half the city.  There is a reason that the Templarate of both city-states keeps large numbers of half-giants employed, and the problem of rogue half-giants is one of them.

[Sakra]

we just can't have people walking around in the streets who are capable of killing half the city on their own.

That's what muls are for.

I'm all for beefing up HG's, but just raise their karma level.

Think, half-giant = cave troll from Lord of the rings. You saw how those things wrecked the human lines?

[Hot_Dancer]

Beefed up half-giants would probably have to cost more than muls...

Hot Dancer

[HalflingWhore]

Currently, all we have is half-giants restricted to the same ho-hum combat style as every other type of humanoid, with only extra damage to reflect their ability to devastate. Unfortunately, this means that half-giants are nowhere near as dangerous as they by all rights ought to be. It only takes a few humanoids ganging up, and even the most skilled half-giant will be nicked and grazed to death, through the thickest armor, before he manages to land enough blows to kill even one of them. This simply shouldn't happen.

Exactly. All they have going for them is some extra strength and extra hp. And those do not reflect how dangerous they realistically should be.

Every half-giant pc I've played has been absolutely slaughtered by things that I've been able to take out with a newbie human,elf, or some dwarf warriors (that also were statistically above the norm).
It's just not right. I wouldn't be against beefing them up to make them realistically what they should be and up'ing them a bit karma-wise.

[John]

My conclusion based off of those three facts, is that half giants are probably very rarely solo from birth and are probably bred or made between two half giants already in a house and therefore the kid would end up in the house too.

Okay, how about this: Most PC half-giants aren't slaves.

[Majikal]

Half giants have ridiculous strength and because of that they have awesome hp and stamina.. being someone who's taken on a decently skilled Half giant carrying a two handed battle axe.. I'm against making them any tougher as it is. They're damage is ridiculous most of the time, the agi and wis makes up for that though. They're fine as they are IMO

[Hymwen]

The game isn't about balance, Hymwen.  That's a typically newbie thing to say, and you've said it repeatedly on various topics.  This game -is- about realism, as long as it doesn't affect -playability-.

The game isn't about balance, no, but balance is still the reason why you can't have your HG killing 3 people in one blow. Do you seriously honestly want HGs to do that? Do you think that realism justifies a race, regardless of how much karma it requires, to be a one-man army? There's a reason why the PCs who can do that - defilers, psis and other such madmen - can do so at the steep cost of solitude and being hated by every living thing in the world. You can't have killing power like that walking around in the streets. Asking for your character to be able to kill several people per swing is just insane. And thanks a lot for calling me newbie, that sure backed up your statement.

we just can't have people walking around in the streets who are capable of killing half the city on their own.

That's what muls are for.

Yes, and muls are very restricted. If you want to play a mul, your choices are to be a slave who is under constant supervision so that you can't go on a rampage, or to be a run-away in Red Storm. That's pretty much it. You can apply for a HG and basically do what you want. You can be a 'rinther and attack whoever you want (and this has happened).

[HalflingWhore]

Half-giants are severely restricted by their own stupidity and their habit of imitating those around them.
These are follow-the-leader morons. That itself, restricts them immensely.

[Sir Diealot]

Not to mention.. All you 'zomg they could be ABUSEDDDD!!!' people.

FUCKING KARMA RACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  -3- Karma currently, raise it if you buff them.  2 Karma Ruks are scarier than HGs right now.  And!!! THEY THINK FOR THEMSELVES.

wtf.. seriously, c'mon?  You just don't want to lose a character you enjoyed because HGs are accurately portrayed..  admit it.

[HalflingWhore]

2 Karma Ruks are scarier than HGs right now. And!!! THEY THINK FOR THEMSELVES.

This is so true.

[Hot_Dancer]

A 2 karma Rukkian is scarier than a mul as well..or just about any non magicker.

I'm more towards comparing mul and half giants at their karma rate.. since, I seem to remember muls having their price hiked due to the increasing nature of players using them commonly for raiders..and their imposed rarity.

(Too bad this happened as soon as I got mul karma)

Hot Dancer

[X-D]

First, I've played half-giants, from rangers to magickers to warriors and let met state.

They need no changes. Period.

Right out of the box my HG mages have been able to crush pretty much anything they wanted to without spells. Once they had reasonable magick ability...well, it was nearly silly.

I have a HG warrior(near 20 days played), I had stored mostly because he could wash pretty much anything that he came up against.

To any that think they need help. HAH, I say, you have never seen a HG warrior with good shield skill, good parry and a big ass blunt weapon in action. I myself have. And this knowledge means that any of my non-HG pc's, no matter how buff/scary/uber treat ALL HG's with an extreme amount of respect, if they don't just outright scream like a girl and run.

HG movement.
They are already the fastest race in the game and can easily outrun (speed wise) A desert elf. I know, I've done so many times over.

Outfitting
Yes, its many times more costly to do so, who cares, part of the fun.

Hell, if HG's started with no cash, it would not bother me..cept that would mean a lot more pc kills by starting HG's for cash..