Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

Back in the 80's we made some provisions for giant-sized weapons. Meaning that one has to have giant-sized hands to wield them. Armor was a scaled no brainer. Humans may be able to carry or drag these things but they could never actually wield them.

If there is a published addendum that addresses this topic, I request that someone provide a link. Much of what I post on these topics is based in the fact that my prior TFT experience was more free formed because we were playing the game up to two decades after it went out of print. We also stopped playing just before the internet became a thing.

Since the armor had to be large enough for the giant to wear them, all of the same modifiers would apply until they became strong enough for the modifiers to have less effect. The only part of this discussion would be the strength levels required to do that. I would start at a maximum of doubling the human strengths for that and discuss from there.

In the original TFT, a human with ST that is 10 higher than required to wield a two-handed weapon could wield it with one hand. These means that a human-sized Two-handed sword could be wielded in one hand by a human of ST 24. Back then, the maximum recommended ST was 30. This has now been scaled down to 20 and the one-hand rule for a two-handed weapon to be wielded in one hand is a ST of 3 higher. So. a human of ST 17 could wield a two-handed sword in one hand.

A giant starts at ST 25, DX 9, IQ 7, and MA 10. Under the original and current TFT rules, they could wield a two-handed sword in one hand. Under the current rules, the giant could also wield a Great Sword in one hand. A GM could decide if the grip of the human-sized weapon would need to be enlarged. I probably wouldn't require that although it would be recommended.

Now, if they had a two-handed sword made for a giant, what ST would be required to wield it and what damage should it inflict?

If one were to follow the weak implication that the max ST for a giant is 40 per the new ITL (page 78), one could still default to doubling the required ST. However, since this is not as strong of a suggestion as the ST 20 maximum for human-sized characters, if double strength is required, one may consider not limiting giants to 40 ST. In light of all of this, double ST requirements for giant-sized two-handed weapons is reasonable. This would be ST 28 for a giant Two-Handed sword and ST 32 for a giant Great Sword. One could argue that an added ST of 10 required to wield is applicable in the new TFT which would change these to ST of 24 and 26 respectively. The difference could be split. I can easily agree to anything within these boundaries.

Now, here's the part that will probably spark the most lively debate since there are members here that seem to not like and seem to actively resist high damage weapons of any kind. Well...the fact is that giant-sized weapons are very large and a giant is wielding it so that must be taken into consideration. It will be rare and attribute/cost restrictive which should make many more agreeable to this. We could start at double damage for the discussion but even I am not fond of that idea. That may have been more applicable in the original TFT but not the newer NERFed version of TFT. At a minimum, such a weapon would warrant an added 1D6 (or 1D6+1) to the human-sized version. This would make the damage inflicted by a giant-sized two-handed sword 4D-1 (or 4D) and a great sword at 4D+1 (or 4D+2). This actually lines up well with the added damage for charge attacks even though this would become an issues until we start talking about giant-sized pole weapons. One could argue that this proposed damage should be higher since there is simply more size/weight and ST behind the swing.

In the past, we had a player that had a few Giant playing characters. He was confident having them in battle because he was VERY lucky with the dice in every game that we played no matter which set of dice we made him use. My lack of luck with the dice discouraged me from creating and playing giants. They were great foes to fight in my various GM activities. They weren't likely to hit but, when they did, OH CRAP.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

Here's my gear for giants:
https://www.hcobb.com/tft/house_rules.html#giants
and
https://www.hcobb.com/tft/new_spells.html#Gear

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

Thanks. Interesting.

On first check, this applies to a giant-sized mace. I will dig some more but comments are still welcome.

If I apply this damage methodology to a two handed sword, you would add 1D+1 per each 10 ST above the ST required to wield one made for a human. This would bring a giant-sized two-handed sword to 4D damage for a ST 25 giant. This seems to fall in line with what I proposed. However, your suggestion ads additional damage based upon ST. So, at ST 34, it will do 5D+1 damage and 6D+2 damage at ST 44 (If allowed to go that high). Did I read your link properly?

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

The first file is my filling in specs for giant weapons that are mentioned in the text. The gigantic swords are just made up by me.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

Thanks again. I think that I was on the right track.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

If one likes the Melee club rules where a giant with a giant club does 1d+1 for every 10 ST, one could develop more detailed house rules using that as a baseline. Presumably, a giant with an actual giant-sized weapon would be even more dangerous than one with a giant-sized club.

There's a point where something does so much damage that a normal human probably wants to focus most effort on avoiding ever being hit, rather than being able to survive a blow.

(Melee giants go up to ST 50 rather than 40, too.)

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

Giants really need toughness.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

It takes them a long time to get the IQ required for that.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

Giant in chainmail might as well be in chains.


120 pounds of armor divided by ST 25 is a 4.8x load, with only 30 more pounds to go before she loses another point of DX.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

Not if you remove the IQ prerequisite.
;)

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

I solve this by adding a size multiplier. A figure’s carrying capacity is multiplied by hex-size so a giant can manage 3x the load based on ST alone.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

C.f. A Note on Encumbrance, Adventures 2, page 3/7.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

It's page 5/7, but I'm not a fan of using division. The load is the load.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

My solution to the 'weapons' issue is to always use a melee weapon damage bonus equal to +1 damage per 2 full points of ST in excess of the prerequisite, with no bonus given for weapons that lack a ST, and trading +4 bonuses for an extra die. E.g., a ST 30 giant fighting with a two handed spear has base damage of 1d+1+9 = 3d+2 (4d+2 on or vs. charge). You can think of hypotheticals where this approach breaks down, but it scales well across a pretty wide range of situations.

I haven't come up with a good solution to the armor problem. What we need is a way for big, powerful creatures to be harder to kill than they are, as even ST 30 or 40 doesn't take long to ablate down at the base 'lethality' of TFT. I've experimented with giving everyone 1 point of Toughness per full 10 pts of ST above 10, on top of whatever else they have. So a ST 30 giant has 2 points of protection and a ST 70 large dragon has 6+5=11 points of protection. This isn't a terrible rule, but it does result in a significantly different balance of power and so feels like a house rule that sets you off on your own journey, separate from the normal game and its supplements and adventures.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

I can see adding ST related damage bonuses to normal sized weapons. However, I would looking for a good way to assign damage to actual giant-sized versions of normal weapons that could only be wielded by giant-sized characters. I think that it was covered well earlier in this thread but, If you have your own take on it, I'm all eyes and ears.

If I were interested in an alternative for Giants to wear armor, I would offer this from a functional basis.

1. It wouldn't be wrong to simply state that everything is scaled up for giants and that the same encumbrances apply.

2. One could simply apply the encumbrance changes across the board per the benefits of high ST in ITL. However, one could argue that is not scaled properly for a giant wearing giant-sized armor.

3. Simply drop all encumbrances for cloth and leather armor and cut encumbrances for all metal armor and shields in half.

4. Take the encumbrance modifications for benefits of high ST in ITL and scale them up to giant ST ranges.

5. If one wants to get into weight vs. strength charts which starts making it too complicated and could impede the quick fun factor of the game.

Armor has a decent precedent set in ITL that would allow for options 1-4 with little problem. Option 5 would be too complicated and maybe oven decrease the fun factor. I'm certain that we would all be arguing over every little detail. LOL! After running through the actual effects of such a system, you will probably find that it falls in closely with one or two of the prior options.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

The only real problem with DX penalties for armor on biguns is that they have a rigid upper DX limit, and the penalties impose a cost that is proportionately greater than would be experienced by a typical human. If your base DX is 9 you obviously can't burn much on armor.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

I concur.

However, the question has been raised about the accuracy of those penalties for giants wearing armor.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

If I recall correctly, in the old ITL, advantages of great ST basically allowed giants to wear leather with no armor DX penalty... just looked it up and pg 8 of the original ITL has both movement and DX penalties reduced for someone of giant level ST (eg ST 30 character could ignore chain MA and DX penalties). I am not going to list it all here. In Legacy ITL all this was removed (see ITL pg 15), so they had their reasons for doing so. Maybe it was too much.

In Legacy ITL on page 132, it states that barding for riding beasts is at 1 point less DX penalty reduction. Maybe a fair approach is Giants and others, is to say for every hex you are over one hex in size you get a 1 DX penalty reduction. So, a 3 hex giant gets +2 to their armor wearing penalties. That is, cloth and leather will have no DX penalty and chain would have a -1 DX penalty, etc. Since this should be enough to make it fair I would keep the weight encumbrance penalties.

Giants in leather armor would be significantly tougher to beat. You can have the IQ 9 giant with toughness & leather armor that will have a total of -4 protection with no DX penalty. Now that will be a very difficult foe.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

That makes a giant's two-handed spear a little bit more deadly than a cavalry lance, which is probably just about right considering their size and the momentum behind them. If I've done my math correctly, a broadsword wielded by a ST 30 giant would inflict 2d+9= 4d+1 damage, and a battleaxe wielded by the same giant would do 5d-1 (if adopting the convention that +3 adds 1d-1).

It might be worth putting a cap on damage, so that a figure can't add more dice of damage to a weapon than their number of hexes, regardless of ST. For example, a 3-hex giant's battleaxe would be capped at 6d, regardless of ST, but a megahex-sized giant could do more.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

The spiked club gets 1d+1 for every 10 ST, so that's a half point less than +1 per +2 ST.


Fortunately nobody applies the -2 for fighting giants against the halfling's Dagger Expertise.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

I think the most difficult problem with weapons for the differently-sized is reach. A giant club can, rightly, be used at jab ranges. A giant spear might have the reach of a pike. A halfling weapon would be more likely to be useful in HTH and less useful at longer distances than its full-length equivalent.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

I've worked out a set of giant/high St weapons for my campaign

I'll note that my house rule for damage bonuses from high St is +1 damage for +4 St, but with points over St 20 counting half and points over St 30 counting 1/3rd.

For example, a very strong character using a St 15 battleax would get a +1 damage bonus at St 19, but would not get a +2 damage bonus until St 26 – the six points of Strength above St 20 count as only three points toward the increased damage. Likewise, he would not get +3 damage until St 36 – the four points from St 26 to St 30 give only two points toward the next +1 damage bonus, and the six points from St 31 to St 36 give another two points. Beyond St 36, the character would get an additional +1 damage bonus for every additional 12 points of Strength.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

Ummm... did you intend to swipe my post (along with my tagline) or just quote me?
https://forums.sjgames.com/showpost....7&postcount=11

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

AND they hid a link at the end of the stolen tag line. Guess I made my IQ check to spot that <g>. I also reported it.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

I'm glad that this thread spawned decent discussion and I have seen some various ideas in addressing it. When it comes to variations like this, I usually anchor my decision in some sort of historical core. I do admit to bias toward Classic TFT. I haven't seen any suggestions or house rules that are outright unreasonable. This is great for the overall discussion.

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

Did anybody apply great strength in armor in Classic to giants and if so have you copied that to Legacy?

Re: Giant Sized Weapons and Armor
 

It doesn't work. Those rules assume human-sized figures (and a much easier path for attribute increases).

My armor rules provide a more flexible and nuanced approach.
https://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=187178

For oversized figures, however, the ST requirement for each armor type logically has to go up. For example, in my framework, CHAIN requires 9 ST to wear effectively. For large 1-hex figures like reptile-men, the ST requirement is 12. A centaur (2-hex) needs 16 ST and a 3-hex giant (who starts with a base ST of 18 in my game) is looking at 21 ST to avoid additional penalties.