Knights & Knaves Alehouse

It's interesting to read the Ranger class description. It's loaded in very subtle points of background that can easily be missed on a cursory look at the tables alone. One of them is the damage bonus the ranger gets against "giant class opponents."

The PH then defines this "giant class" as including bugbears, ettins, giants, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, ogres, ogre magi, orcs and trolls.

Let's read that one again: kobolds, goblins and orcs, "giant class"? It's really something that could spawn a whole bunch of ideas for a campaign milieu and the way the monstrous races came to be, their relationships between one another, and so on.

How do you interpret this in your own campaign milieu? Why is it that these creatures are all part of the "giant class", for you? Is it because of the ranger's particular training in dealing with these particular types of humanoids rampaging through the wilds, or is it something that has more to do with the creatures themselves, the way they live together, or are related in some way?

What's your take on this?

I always thought of the giant class not as some sort of racially/genetically related list, but more as a list of association. The "lesser" giants would often be found as minions or allies of the "true" giants. In battling the giants, rangers have to be trained to deal with these minions and allies as well.

My 2cp anyway...

It also sort of puts a "Mountain Man" kind of spin on the class too, that I never really paid attention to before. I have always associated rangers with the forest. Interesting...

I always thought it was because they were pests, but they are bigger than cockroaches. So, they are giant pests.

I'm only 1/4 kidding.

TheRedPriest wrote:I always thought it was because they were pests, but they are bigger than cockroaches. So, they are giant pests.

I'm only 1/4 kidding.

Ya'know. I had to laugh... not just at the comment, but your avatar just makes me chuckle every time I see it...

foxroe wrote:

TheRedPriest wrote:I always thought it was because they were pests, but they are bigger than cockroaches. So, they are giant pests.

I'm only 1/4 kidding.

Ya'know. I had to laugh... not just at the comment, but your avatar just makes me chuckle every time I see it...

Tim would be pleased.

It always makes me think of this quote from The Fellowship of the Ring: “Elladan and Elrohir, were out upon errantry: for they rode often far afield with the Rangers of the North, forgetting never their mother’s torment in the dens of the orcs.”

Also, from the Appendix: “Orcs, multiplying again in the Misty Mountains, begin to ravage the lands, and the Dúnedain and the sons of Elrond fought with them.... Aragorn was only two years old when Arathorn went riding against the Orcs with the sons of Elrond, and he was slain by an orc-arrow that pierced his eye.”

“Giant-class” suggests a sort of Norse Mythology point of view in which all monsters are descended from Giants, and served them. Not surprising Gygax took that view, since the G-series and the PHB were published in the same year.

Back in the day, I took 'giant class' pretty literally, and had powerful giant shamans as the root cause for the creation of them. Giant magic made orcs & goblins, etc to to try to eliminate the mannish race - there's just too many humans for the giants to do it themselves. So, I took that aspect literally, but took a lot of liberties with giant magic (it's the NE cloud giants that did it)

Odhanan wrote:Why is it that these creatures are all part of the "giant class", for you?

They're called giant class because they appear on, or are variations of monsters that appear on, the "Giants" wilderness subtable in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. The term is simply a pointer to that particular table, and has no meaning in the game world.

When this term was used in Joe Fischer's ranger article, the term humanoid didn't yet have its game meaning of "mammalian man-like creature," I think. If it had, he would have said "evil humanoids." That's who the ranger has a bonus against: evil humanoids.

Stormcrow wrote: They're called giant class because they appear on, or are variations of monsters that appear on, the "Giants" wilderness subtable in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. The term is simply a pointer to that particular table, and has no meaning in the game world.

When this term was used in Joe Fischer's ranger article, the term humanoid didn't yet have its game meaning of "mammalian man-like creature," I think. If it had, he would have said "evil humanoids." That's who the ranger has a bonus against: evil humanoids.

This is the explanation that I favour, but in practice have typically just glossed over the terminology and focused on the list.

Good catch, Stormcrow!

It is well-known, but I think might as well be mentioned in this thread for archival purposes, that UA has an expanded list of the Ranger’s foes (with monsters from FF and MM2 added).

Stormcrow wrote:They're called giant class because they appear on, or are variations of monsters that appear on, the "Giants" wilderness subtable in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. The term is simply a pointer to that particular table, and has no meaning in the game world.

Wow, I never realized that. That's what I love about this game -- there's always something new to learn.