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Originally Posted by restlessgriffin
OK. I would use the Fire Giants from the Nordland Bestiary, Jötun, Fire Giant (Gaming Ballistic). I. don't a party would survive even one without Water and/or ice magic! I have no idea what 9th level would be for DFRPG. I'd say it will definitely matter how PCs are skilled., equipped, and prepared. Wizard would need lots of anti-fire, ice, and water magic. Scout would need enchanted bow and/or arrows -- especially fine and meteoric. Aim for eyes and maybe neck, mouth. As to thief, unless equipped with magic traps and enchanted weapons, I'm not sure they'd help a lot. Clerics would need to buff other characters. I'm not sure of warrior types could engage without lots of anti- fire gear. They'd needed to strike at legs, maybe targeting Achilles, knees, etc.
Maybe outdoors a Druid could cause a storm or blizzard.
GM also needs to make sure to provide some insight and use any PC expertise in areas like Hidden Lore, to clue the players in.
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I was thinking of an adapted 5E fire giant, which is basically a Hill or Mountain Giant from Monsters 2 but with immunity to fire/burning damage. I'm AFB, don't have my Nordland Bestiary at the moment, so I'm basically in the position of someone who has failed a Physiology/Hidden Lore check and knows nothing about Fire Jotuns except the obvious.
Killing one should be straightforward, no ice magic required. Several options exist which can be used separately, or together for redundancy: (1) hit it in the eyes (it's a big target!) with an arrow or shuriken or a spear from a woomera; (2) cast Flight on a knight, barbarian, or swashbuckler and have them stab it in the eyes or cut off a leg; (3) have a martial artist or swashbuckler Kiai it to stun it while you kill it; (4) have a bard or wizard mind control it; (5) Death Vision or Stun to stun it; (6) Rapier Wit or Song of Humiliation from swashbuckler or bard to stun it as a free action; (7) swarm it with a bunch of summoned karkadanns, bears, or Phantoms from the druid or wizard; (8) use Dark Vision, Darkness, Great Haste, and maybe Shield or Missile Shield to buff one of your fighters into being able to go toe-to-toe with it (under a Bless).
There's a pretty good chance attacking the eyes will turn out to be futile (see above commentary on difficulty being mostly about monster vulnerabilities, not just numbers), so if I know nothing about the monster but I have a well-balanced party, I'm going to go for the eyes but have some backup plans already in motion in case it doesn't work. E.g. while the scout is Waiting to shoot it in the eyes as soon as it turns the corner (in my head the scenario is that I already spotted it through a wizard eye and now we're luring it into an ambush), the cleric is casting Resist Fire on the Swashbuckler, who is Waiting to Kiai twice, while two of my Complex Illusion decoys (with Initiative) are mirroring the Swashbuckler, and the druid is laying caltrops while the bard and I hold our Concussions ready to throw. (I'm assuming that for whatever reason kiting it to death with scout + Missile Shield + Flight isn't feasible, maybe because we're underground. Besides, I probably wouldn't have Missile Shield--it's not on my top 30 list of must-have spells.)
Ideally we also have Mystic Mist from the druid pre-placed, and inside of that a pre-cast Sanctuary from the cleric, so that if everything goes wrong we have a way to fall back and regroup.
Later on I'll check the books and see if this would work. The point I want to make here though is that taking on one giant just requires one of these tactics to match up well with its actual vulnerabilities, but taking on four of them requires ALL of them to work, roughly speaking.