In a moment of insanity or inspired genius (only time will tell) I have allowed one of my players to take, as their companion, a 75 foot tall Rock Giant.
And now I have to stat him (it?). In a way that will not break a game made up of magi just past their gauntlets.
I'm mainly concerned about Characteristics and Magical Might at the moment. I am going to let the player stat the character, but I want to know where baseline characteristics would start.
At first I thought you were insane but then I decided I like it. It makes for some really interesting story possibilities. I suggest the Snuffleupagus approach.
I agree with BoXer. WAY more that 5 to 10 MM would be appropriate.
I don't know. Size and magical puissance shouldn't have to be the same. A mouse could be mightier than an elephant, after all. 10 seems reasonable to me.
The principle concern you'd need to worry about, I'd say, would be food. Said Giant is going to eat a hell of a lot of cattle.
Maybe he is a cannibalistic rock eating 75 foot rock giant. I would hope he doesn't have to chase cows around because he moves REALLY slow.
Mice and elephants are natural creatures so if you have one hell of a powerful magic mouse, then, yeah I agree with you, but the 75 foot rock giant is magic in it's very unnatural existence.
I just noticed that. 20 or 30 is too low even. try 40 or 50 at least.
Marko Markoko's Might Scale
5 Smurf
10 Goblin
15 Hobgoblin
20 Troll
25 Firedrake
30 hill giant
35 Demon warrior
40 Hag
50 Medium Giant, Medium Dragon
75 Storm Giant, the Dragon Pan Caudrax
It has been tested. It works. In my games anyway. Then again, I use the old Ward rule.
Not needing to worry about penetration, because the subject warded against is not the target. The subject protected is the target. That's the way it worked up until last year.
Ward Penetration throws the scale off, and it is hard for me to readjust. Weak Wards result in creatures with lower might scores, resutling in lower penetration on their part, also resulting in their being more susceptable to other might based spells.
Big debate, old debate, but regardless, I prefer creatures with a hearty might score. Using my scale with new rules, keep the low end the same, subtract 5 from the middle and 10 or 15 from the upper levels.
But a pair of 5th ed archmagi took on 4th ed Pan Caudrax (might 75) and won. Cost them every resource they had, but they won.
As for the might,...
I would give the companion a relatively low might at the beginning. And while the story unfolds and other characters grow more powerful so does your giant. This way he does not unbalance the game.
There are rules for Nephelim in RoP: The Divine. These characters start off with a might score based on the amount virtue points spent and while getting older, their might and height increase. (Sorry, I do not know the exact rules. Serf's parma!)
Vetrenius suggests a very good solution, to start low and build might as the character grows into his magical inheritance (or whatever).
I also agree with Fhtagn. Magical might should not need to scale with size, I find it perfectly plausible that a six foot Faerie King has ten times more might than a seventy five food Giant Peasant.
Who says a 75 foot tall Rock Giant is a peasant? Are you gonna call him one to his face (or big toe anyways)?
Methinks anything that big would be quite wealthy, simply taking whatever he so pleases to add to his mountain lair horde.
As for MM, I suppose a grow as you go mechanism would be a good compromise, but I'm still inclined toward might being no lower than 25 to start. 5 or 10 is ghost or magical mole level.
I'm also on the side that might doesn't depend on the physical. We've all seen too many human-sized faerie lords. And can someone remember Oberon in Gargoyles?
Note also that a great might will also be very powerfull compared to other characters. I wouldn't want such a character to be overwhelming physically AND mystically.
Might 25? Parma 5.
The nephilim begin with what? 5 might points? These are the freakin' nephilim!!!
Or give him some mystical flaws/weakness to compensate
I don't think that there needs to be a relationship between physical size and Might either. However...
I think something on the order of Might 20-30 would be appropriate. Unless you have some mechanism for him to increase his Might during play. The problem I see, if his Might is only 5-10, is that he will quickly become overshadowed by the magi, if his Might score can't increase.
The nephilim start out with 5 points but they keep getting bigger and gaining might until they're gigantic beasts with God knows how many might points. This rock character is already pretty big so if you're using nephilim as examples, he would still have way more than 5 or 10 might points.
Companions are always overshadowed by Magi, magically speaking at least. They have a very different role in the game. As far as the magic resistance issue goes, it seems a non-issue to me.
Besides, at that size, the character will take negligable damage from most attacks and effectively be immune to most Corpus based spells. You win some, you lose some.
OTOH, it's a companion, not a mythic companion, and, physically speaking, it already overshadows any warrior combattant. Does it really need to be also able to compete with magi?
How many companions have MR? Most mythic ones don't have it either.
Also an important point to consider, yes.
It can me immune to most magics because of its sheer size, without having a host of magical powers.
Then again, how many companions can claim this?
Yes and no. True, companions are always overshadowed by Magi to some extent. But they are meant to have long-term play value and interest. They are not grogs.
If his Might is only 5-10, then there is a good chance that the very first time that he encounters an apprentice who is either frightened of him or hostile towards him, then he will get hit with a version of Demon's Eternal Oblivion that targets magic creatures and then he will be dead. Having a very low Might actually makes him much more vulnerable than any other companion character.
Of course, this is very much a "your saga may vary" issue, and there's no one right answer. But, certainly I'd be annoyed as a player, if I made an interesting companion character that was then eliminated in the first session he was played. If it was a grog, then that would be OK.
Then, what about demon-blooded charaters? (Or nephilim for that matter?)
DEO is one of the most widely-known spells, and the might of devil children is 5, +2 per minor virtue. Nonetheless, they are described as being very powerfull. And they are, compared to other companions.
You can't have have a character who is invincible both physically AND magically, it'd be very unfair to other players.
