Giant Sized Weapons and Armor

[Bill_in_IN]

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.