Since they're known for conquering settlements, let's assume a lone frost giant is scouting ahead of a main force, and attacks a settlement to better guage its strengths and weaknesses.
I got to wondering how many commoners would be needed to take him down and prevent him from reporting his findings?
The typical commoner can only hit on a natural 20, which results in a normal hit for an average of 4.5 damage. That means you need a unit of 20 commoners to reliably do that much damage in the first round.
The typical frost giant has 150 HP. That means...
150 HP / 4.5 damage = 34 units, or 667 commoners to fell the giant in one round.
Conversely the giant can auoto-kill a few commoners each round.
How does any small settlement possibly survive a monster attack in this edition?
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It just takes 1 strategically lodged commoner in it's throat to cause a frost giant to suffocate.
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I don't think a small settlement (of low-level creatures) is supposed to be able to fight off a frost giant, to answer your question. Power increases with level dramatically, and a 9th level creature is very powerful. For comparison, if the same small settlement of a few hundred people was the victim of a Young Blue Dragon infiltrating it and taking it over, a Night Hag preying on the victims for souls, a Vampire Mastermind trying to turn the village into their undead thralls, or an Osyluth devil rooting out heresy, I don't think many people would be particularly surprised that the village can't do anything about that. Fundamentally the fact that characters start at 1st level (not much beyond a dangerous wild animal, really) and progress to 20th level (equivalent to the most powerful of devils and demons, bar demigods or nascent demigods) means that this escalation of power is basically an assumption of all D&D/Pathfinder style ttRPGs. Different settings can address this in different ways - perhaps states are powerful and controlling, allowing them to easily dispatch a Cavalry Brigade, dangerous enough to the frost giant that they'd not want to attack the village. Perhaps those villages set in dangerous parts of the wild lead to well-trained individuals, so the normal person is level 3-4, with hunters and the like being level 5-6; that's likely enough to fight off a single frost giant. I feel like giants have a bit of a strange reputation - they don't quite feel equivalent to the devils, hags, and undead of the same level I mentioned earlier. I don't think that's actually reinforced by the Lost Omens setting - when Frost Giants co-operate with each other, not many are needed to create a truly threatening group. The leader of the ~300 frost giants in Irrisen, Jarl Grungginnir, is one of the most powerful people in Irrisen - a frost giant army like you've mentioned should be viewed in a similar way to an army of powerful devils, or an incredibly powerful vampiric warlord in control of his own army of vampires. That is to say, the force you're detailing (depending on the size of the army) is essentially an appropriate force to be the final confrontation of a 5 to 6 book AP that starts at level 1, and so a village shouldn't really stand as much of an obstacle to them.
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Since they're known for conquering settlements, let's assume a lone frost giant is scouting ahead of a main force, and attacks a settlement to better guage its strengths and weaknesses.
I got to wondering how many commoners would be needed to take him down and prevent him from reporting his findings?
The typical commoner can only hit on a natural 20, which results in a normal hit for an average of 4.5 damage. That means you need a unit of 20 commoners to reliably do that much damage in the first round.
The typical frost giant has 150 HP. That means...
150 HP / 4.5 damage = 34 units, or 667 commoners to fell the giant in one round.
Conversely the giant can auoto-kill a few commoners each round.
How does any small settlement possibly survive a monster attack in this edition?
Realistically, they don't. That's what adventurers exist for.
That said, that's not to say they don't have ways. Since we're talking about a frost giant, the commoners empty the shop of lesser alchemist fires and huck them at the giant. At a presumed to-hit of +3 (based on the rock), they need to hit a 16 to avoid crit failing for 11 damage, and hit on a natural 20 for an average of 15.5 damage. Assuming 40 throws, the giant takes 119 damage in the first round, and then likely burns to death over the next 3.
As Arcaian said, a small village isn't supposed to be able to defend itself against high level monsters such as giants. Goblins and orcs are already a threat to them. This is why remote villages in for example Varisia are under protection of larger cities, who can come to their aid with small armies or send adventurers to help.
That said, that's not to say they don't have ways. Since we're talking about a frost giant, the commoners empty the shop of lesser alchemist fires and huck them at the giant. At a presumed to-hit of +3 (based on the rock), they need to hit a 16 to avoid crit failing for 11 damage, and hit on a natural 20 for an average of 15.5 damage. Assuming 40 throws, the giant takes 119 damage in the first round, and then likely burns to death over the next 3.
Ringman the Bearded, is that you? ;)
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How does any small settlement possibly survive a monster attack in this edition?
Do we survive in a world without laws, police, fire fighters and the armed forces?
;)
They survive much in the same way we do, by having appropriate services available relative to the threats.
Also, by the system being developed for us as players rather than for world simulation.
If city guard troops can exist, and begger swarms can exist I would assume commoner troops can exist in a pinch.
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Note that there are also usually slightly higher level character around even the smallest village. Maybe the local priest is level 3-4 or so, the lord may have a guard sergeant that is level 5 or so. Fred the Huntsman could be level 4-6 depending on what he hunts.
Not every single person in the village has to be a 1st level commoner.
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I see levels as a game mechanic for the most part, an extrapolation of power.
Just like player wealth makes very little sense in a worldwide economy and is just an abstract gamey thing.
Villagers vs a giant w/o players to observe/participate wouldn't happen in encounter mode either. If we presume that villages don't just lose to a giant but are very weak then we gotta presume that they have tactics to defend or some other form of protection.
If for instance my players decided to start acting against villagers and other lvl 0-1 people I'd take away their level bonuses but keep proficiency, ability scores, etc.
Yeah, there's probably someone in the village above level 1.
And those commoners can potentially band together to make a trap of a level significantly higher than level 1.
What's the level and how much damage for a trap design consisting of swinging a log held by a rope designed to swing at chest level of a giant?
Enough to kill the giant if that's what the story demands, or maybe just severely wound it.
Or maybe it notices the trap and avoids it.
It really depends on the story.
If the inhabitants know that giants are on the way to a settlement to conquer it, the best way to survive would be to evacuate it and get as far away (in the opposite direction from where the giants are coming from) as possible.
How does any small settlement possibly survive a monster attack in this edition?
It could be worse; they could be attacked by a plague giant and have no hope at all, since they can't even hit on a natural 20.
Ideally, the settlement hopes the GM is using the rules for proficiency without level variant.
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I am with beowulf here, but I'd even go further to say that such a town full of "level 1 commoners" with no differentiating specialties, combat training, spellcasters, guards, militia, or even experienced tradesmen and soldiers is a total strawman situation and couldn't actually exist in the first place.
The only way such a community could ever exist is if some crazy lord or another went out of their way to gather up all of the most boring, untalented, and unskilled people from an entire province and ship them off to live in mediocrity and eventually starve to death lest they disband.
You should really be looking at a range of NPCs from level -1 through probably at LEAST level 6 in ANY Settlement or town no matter how far in the boondocks they are, that is, as long as they're really not inhabiting "idiot town" as I described. You need to mix Smiths, Guards, Miners, Hunters, Trackers, Farmers, Bodyguards, Jailers, and a whole smattering of other NPCs with the commoners to make this even close to a valid thought experiment.
I am with beowulf here, but I'd even go further to say that such a town full of "level 1 commoners" with no differentiating specialties, combat training, spellcasters, guards, militia, or even experienced tradesmen and soldiers is a total strawman situation and couldn't actually exist in the first place.
The only way such a community could ever exist is if some crazy lord or another went out of their way to gather up all of the most boring, untalented, and unskilled people from an entire province and ship them off to live in mediocrity and eventually starve to death lest they disband.
You should really be looking at a range of NPCs from level -1 through probably at LEAST level 6 in ANY Settlement or town no matter how far in the boondocks they are, that is, as long as they're really not inhabiting "idiot town" as I described. You need to mix Smiths, Guards, Miners, Hunters, Trackers, Farmers, Bodyguards, Jailers, and a whole smattering of other NPCs with the commoners to make this even close to a valid thought experiment.
I'm aware that most settlements will have a level range, but since this was basically just a simple "thinking-in-the-shower type of thought" I chose not to get too far down the rabbit hole. I'm glad to see that it started an interesting discussion, but I'm a bit surprised at how seriously everyone seems to be taking it.
Also, I wanted to make a "how many does it take to screw in a light bulb" kind of joke while also keeping to familiar terms like "commoner" that everyone would immediately recognize. In the end, the bulk of a settlement's population probably will be made up of commoners in any event.
Just sharing where I was coming from. Not criticizing the course of the discussion or anything. Carry on. :)
Well commoners have the same level of -1 as zombie shamblers, so I'd probably let them form up into a troop with similar stats to the shambler troop at level 4 if they had the numbers. Basing it solely off of the statistics for building encounters and how much experience things award, each of these commoner troops isn't powerful enough to award even 10 xp compared to the frost giant. But I've seen some official adventures use creatures at level-5 in batches of 2 to count as 15 xp.
So based on the goal that a 160 xp encounter should be about as hard as a 50/50, it looks like 22 troops of commoners would qualify as a sufficient threat to deal with the giant more often than not at 165 xp.
I also think a big help to the commoner troop would be picking up torches and lighting them to deal a small amount of fire damage and trigger weakness when the giant blows its Reflex saves.
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If you’re asking how many 4th graders I can fight at once, so far the answer is 24.
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The worse part is going to be the cleanup if the villagers survive because now you have a corpse that weighs ~1270kg (2800lbs) and is roughly as tall as a two story building laying in front of the gates. That's gonna get ripe really fast. An elephant has ~450L (120gal.) of blood. A dead giant is going to start leaking a lot of blood all over the place as soon as it expires.
I dont see a problem. You now have 2,800 lbs of crafting materials. Frost giant hair can be used as fishing line and to make clothes. Their leather can ve used for various armors and things. Their blood can serve well as a cooling liquid, specially because of its anti-freeze properties. Their bones are incredibly strong and so can be used as the basis for weapons, or milled to use as a powder (huge amounts of calcium and other stuff). Their tendons should make great bow strings. Their flesh is the hardest part to use, but can be used to feed animals and as fertilizer.
Also the time to handle all of that prevent spoiling depends a lot on the location. The type of giant might also play a part. Ex: Attracting/repelling insects or maintaining temperature.
And their skulls can be used as the little domed playhouses on the playground!
Easy! They form a few "Enraged Mobs", based on a Shambler Troop.
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Enraged Mob Creature 4
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NE; Gargantuan; Troop; Humanoid
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Perception +10
Str +5, Dex +2, Con +3, Int 0, Wis +1, Cha +0
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AC 19; Fort +11, Ref +8, Will +10
HP 60 (16 squares); Thresholds 40 (12 squares), 20 (8 squares); Weaknesses area damage 5, splash damage 2
Troop Defenses
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Speed 20 feet; troop movement
Form Up Single Action
Marabunta The Enraged Mob is less organized than most troops. It can move into other creatures' spaces, and other creatures can move into its spaces. Its spaces are difficult terrain to other creatures.
Onslaught Single Action to Three Actions Frequency once per round; Effect The Mob lashes lash out at any enemies in their squares or within 20 feet with whatever is at hand (DC 19 basic Reflex save). The damage depends on the number of actions. Single Action 2d6+5 bludgeoning damage Two Actions 2d6+9 bludgeoning damage Three Action 2d6+13 bludgeoning damage
Troop Movement Whenever a troop Strides, it first Forms Up as a free action to condense into a 20-foot-by–20-foot area (minus any missing squares), then moves up to its Speed. This works just like a Gargantuan creature moving; for instance, if any square of the troop enters difficult terrain, the extra movement cost applies to the whole troop.
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LOL, I just realized this formation might have worst chances than the individual Commoners working together. Maybe if we raise the level and make a "Militia" and raise the level by 1
Humbly,
Yawar