Mountain giants just don't seem epic level to me. MM II gives them a CR that's on par with some demon lords. Are these things really that much more powerful than balors or titans?
What would a more realistic CR be for y'all?
Advance a hill giant to 30 HD and Gargantuan size and you're at CR 14. Add +2 for the additional special abilities, and you're at CR 16 or so. That seems a lot closer to the mark to me (this is what I did when I converted Return to the Tomb of Horrors).
Advance a hill giant to 30 HD and Gargantuan size and you're at CR 14. Add +2 for the additional special abilities, and you're at CR 16 or so. That seems a lot closer to the mark to me (this is what I did when I converted Return to the Tomb of Horrors).
Mountain giants are Colossal. I was thinking CR 17 or 18. RotRL puts rune giants at CR 14 and they almost seem tougher.
Mountain giants are Colossal.
Righto; I was looking at a juvenile. Let's see; Hill Giant = Large, 12 HD, CR 7.
So I, too, get CR 17 by using the SRD, but with much better stats than the MMII mountain giant (Str 50 for size +1 HD-based increase (use the rest for Con) = 53, greatclub 6d8+30, Power Attack 6d8+70).
That reminds me of the Sarukh CR in Serpent Kingdoms.
Or the 11 HD natives in the original Isle of Dread (was supposed to be 1+1 HD, but as written, the PCs could have an army of helpers, each with more HD than almost any of the dinosaurs).
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There's a lot of monsters in the MM2 that have CRs that are way off. The mountain giant's one of them, as are the linnorms and the hellfire wyrm and the fiendwurm. Mostly because there wasn't much playtesting done of really high level in early 3rd edition days, and the designers had to guess on them.
You'd think the designers would start with a similar monster and then scale it up or down according to the guidelines, instead of simply picking a number... but then again, the advancement rules for CR aren't all that much better than guessing, I suppose!
You've all been most helpful, especially Kirth. Thank you.
Anybody know of a site or whatnot that has corrected CRs for MM II and such (Fiend Folio, etc)? I don't think WotC ever bothered. I downloaded their 3.5 updates but they mostly just have DR and skill changes. No CR corrections.
There's a lot of monsters in the MM2 that have CRs that are way off. The mountain giant's one of them, as are the linnorms and the hellfire wyrm and the fiendwurm. Mostly because there wasn't much playtesting done of really high level in early 3rd edition days, and the designers had to guess on them.
So: mountain giant vs. rune giant. Pick a winner.
My vote is for the rune giant (who probably just dominates the low Will save mountain giant).
So: mountain giant vs. rune giant. Pick a winner.
If the mountain giant gets in a few successful 2-handed Power Attacks while the rune giant deals with summoned mooks, it's all over for the rune giant. 6d8+70 is a lot of damage for one blow!
So: mountain giant vs. rune giant. Pick a winner.If the mountain giant gets in a few successful 2-handed Power Attacks while the rune giant deals with summoned mooks, it's all over for the rune giant. 6d8+70 is a lot of damage for one blow!
Mass Charm Monster. DC 28. For the win.
Kirth Gersen has the right idea there. I never saw mountain giant as anything more than a bigger hill giant really. Ogre, go up a bit, hill giant, go up a bit, Mt, giant. They wheren`t supposed to be super monsters, just big tough barbarians.
Mind if you take a Hill Giant and take the Ogrekin tables and go the other way... Ogres take humans unwillingly. But I bet a lonely hill hill giant will take an ogress against her will... Ogrekin Hill Giant! Complete with straw hat and huge banjo.
That's a pretty interesting project. I like the CR-calculation formula too. I wonder what the final CR for the originally "CR 9 with two at-will 9th-level SLAs" Adamantine Horror will be :)
While simply recalculating the CRs is a nice idea, I think that some of those MM2 creatures are simply too off-base to work as they are. Many of them have way too many abilities for their HD or vice-versa to be given a proper CR, and should just be rebuilt from the ground up instead.