Talk:Half-Giant (3.5e Race)

Ratings

	Franken Kesey likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	Finally a Giant that is good with melee and can be used at a low level.

	Lisliaer likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	Very well thought out with a unique flavor thrown in. I still feel they are on the strong side of LA+1. But I agree with you on they are not ECL3.

Request for clarification/Justification

Prior to rating I have a few concerns which could swing the vote from favor to dislike depending on the answers. Let me preface this with I am worried this should be a +2LA as opposed to the current +1 (but I think it's close.

It has the same stats blocks as Goliath (Also a +1) so I will use it as the baseline for my argument.

1. Giant subtype gives it immunity to spells that affect only humanoids. Meh but it is a bonus.
2. both are medium. So no difference.
3. Hg has low light at 3x human distance whereas standard hg only has 2x. So bonus
4. Goliath does not have low light so bonus again
5. Hg has dark vision. (Yea I know it's only 30' but standard has none) and Goliath has none so double bonus.
6. Powerful build. Both have it but it is basically a feat in and of it self so it could be argued that itself is a +1la by itself. I think its strong but not quite la1 itself. But they both have it so no change.
7. I will put the rock throwing/catching besides the goliath acclimated in that it's situational and unless you are running a campaign geared around it not a particular bonus just flavor. So no change.
8. Hg has a +4 on saves vs fear. That is a good bonus.
9. I will put the hg +2 intimidate beside the Goliaths +2 sense motive.
10. I will put the +2 jump and climb beside the Goliaths Mountain movement. You could argue it's more but for the sake of argument I'll say its the same.

So if I add that up that's 6/10 bonuses compared to Goliath. And the remaining 4 are in the ballpark of the same.

Side note the rock throw/catch if you built around it could be powerful but I think it would require a 1 trick pony build and so I mark it down as flavor. Lisliaer (talk) 20:59, 12 March 2019 (MDT)

Thank you for your concern I appreciate your input! It's funny you would draw the parallel between them because Goliaths were actually one of the motivations for me to start working on this race. The other being that I didn't like the flavor of the psionics for SRD half-giants, because I felt like it shoehorns you into playing a psionic character with them to get the full benefits.

So for starters let me talk about the inspiration for the project. I wanted this race to account for most half giants so I did skim over all of the giants in the monster manual when making this race and there was Stone giants that had dark vision so I gave them that to account for the flavor for giants other than the hill giant. Also I didn't realize that the normal giants only got 2x low light and I can adjust that, thank you for bringing it up. Aside from that lets go back to your direct comparison for Goliath.

First lets go back to what cancels each other out. We have stat block, powerful build, Intimidate/Sense Motive bonus, Climb & Jump/Mountain Movement and Rock Throwing/Acclimated. I would say those are all fair comparisons to draw. Then next lets talk about what's left. First we have the Giant type with spell immunity to 2-3 spells, low light/darkvision, a +4 bonus VS 1 specific saving throw and a +1 bonus to Natural AC. While these do give some versatility, lets look at the Dwarf. Dwarves get Darkvision 60 ft, Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat, +4 on situational ability checks (bulrush), +2 on saves vs spells, +1 attack rolls and +4 AC VS specific opponents, not to mention stonecunning and a couple other skill bonuses all for NO LEVEL ADJUSTMENT AT ALL! So clearly you can pack a lot of abilities in between level adjustments including 60 ft darkvision for no LA.

What we need to look at is How much of a difference these bonuses make. The problem with LA is that it isn't a precision tool. To say that this is a +2 LA would imply that any level 1 Half-Giant Fighter or Half-Giant Wizard should be roughly equivalent to any level 3 Human of any class in a Same Game Test (SGT). However if you write up a level 1 Half-Giant fighter and put him against a level 3 human with any class he wont be equal. As a third level character Rogues are going to have 2d6 sneak attack, rangers are going to have two-weapon fighting plus 3 extra feats (level 1, 3 and Human) meaning lots of room for customization, paladins are going to have a +3 damage on smite and Charisma to attack on smite and on all saves. Then, assuming max HP at first level and each having a 14 con, a level 1 Half-Giant Fighter would have 12 hp, but a level 3 Human Barbarian would have 27 BEFORE raging!! (assuming average roll of 6.5 per level). The fighter would get slaughtered. Wizards, Clerics and Druid's will have gained 2nd level spells with Clerics getting Death Knell, Enthrall, Summon Monster II, plus he could pop sanctuary to prevent attacking and cure himself with Cure Moderate Wounds +2d8 and if they have the trickery domain they'd have invisibility too. Wizards would have Invisibility, Hypnotic Pattern, Scorching ray (4d6 damage), daze monster, blur.

As you can see they're not very even. The only bonuses we're considering here that make Half-Giants better than Goliaths are the Giant Type, Low-light/darkvision, +4 bonus to 1 specific save and +1 natural armor, which wouldn't be enough to tip the scales in the Half-Giants favor enough of the times because he would only have 1 level of hit-dice, base attack bonuses, saves, etc. If you feel otherwise I'd love to let you play a level 1 Half-Giant vs me playing a level 3 Human anything and I guarantee I could win a vast majority of the time. So, in closing while the Half-Giants are clearly more powerful than a Goliath, I dont feel like its enough of a difference to make them effectively equal to a 3rd level character since Dwarf shows a lot of stuff can be packed between LA's. Thank you for your interest in the article and if there are any other concerns that I have not addressed please let me know! :) The-Marksman (talk) 05:04, 13 March 2019 (MDT)

I agree about the flavor of psyonics I made a half-giant race for the same reason and I had the same exact idea for using some of the giant heritage. But could never figure out how to add it as a seperate option. Using what I had as a "base race" then depending on which giant was would dictate what benefits it would get. Such as this would be something along the lines of what the stone giant heritage would be. The idea was originally from the +2 saving throw vs fire the are half giant has (hinting towards fire giant being the giant half).Lisliaer (talk) 21:10, 14 March 2019 (MDT)