By Alan McCoy from Dungeons & Dragons: Fundamentals
How to build challenging encounters against a Cloud Giant
Note: This has been prepared utilizing only the 5E Core Rules. The Cloud Giant can be found in the Monster Manual page 150. Additional information regarding all giants can be found in the Monster Manual pages 149-156. Additional information regarding giants can be found in the adventure book (published by Wizards of the Coast) Storm King’s Thunder.
General information about Giant Society
All Giants are part of an ancient race that shares a common heritage. While the culture and traditions of the giant subraces varies widely, the religion, history, and language are directly shared.
The Giants are ancient and in their glory days, were responsible for creating many of the wonders that the world marvels at today. Giants carved the mountains, deepened rivers, planted massive forests and stabilized volcanos.
They erected plinths, built monoliths, constructed clouds, and sculpted gigantic icy frescos.Waging war with Dragonkind eventually led to the fall of the giants from power and glory. While the exact cause of the defeat unknown, the hatred still expressed by giantkind towards the victor suggests that treachery was involved.
Currently, the Giants and the Dragons avoid each other whenever possible. They even settle in different areas if necessary.
The Giants worship their own Gods. First in the pantheon is Annam Giant-father, who turned his back on the giants when they fell from power, Myth states that he will restore his favor when the giants return to their former glory.
The Children of Annam are revered by Giantkind, the Sons have each chosen to specific race of giant to patronize. Stronmaus for the Storm Giants, Memnor for the Cloud Giants, Skoraeus Stonebones for the Stone Giants, Thrym for the Frost Giants, Surtur for the Fire Giants and Grolantor for Hill Giants.
Not all giants revere their racial patron, choosing instead the patron of another type of giant, some revere the daughters instead. The Daughters of Annam include: Haiten, the Huntress and Home Warden; Iallanius, the Goddess of love and peace, and Diancastra, an impetuous and arrogant trickster.It is the rare giant that worships a God “not of the giants”, such an individual would be killed (likely) or an outcast (if they escape).
Scattered from their empire, the giant clans separated into groups, usually family units, clans and tribes that have similar physical size and affinity for their environment. In times of legend the caste system called the Ordning evolved. Essentially this system allowed the giants to determine the members of the giant community.
Every true giant understands their place in the Ordning.The standing of individuals with a community, while part of the Ordning, are significant only to that group, tribe, or clan. Challenges for a change of status with the clan or tribe are taken quite seriously, though no outsider is usually allowed to observe the conflict in progress.
The Status of one giant type vs others are stable parts of the Ordning and have stood unchanged for millennia, the precedence of the giant races for example.
In descending order: Storm, Cloud, Fire, Frost, Stone, Hill.
The giant-kin: Fomorians, Ettins, Ogres, etc. are ranked within the Ordening, but are of course, inferior to any true giant.
Cloud Giants in particular
Cloud Giants live extravagant lives high above the world, and because the Storm Giants are so rarely seen or interacted with, have come to consider themselves the epitome of “ACTIVE” Giantkind.
Thanks to their homes on their clouds, these giants are not tied to the ground usually take little interest in the life and doings of the societies and struggles on the ground below.
Cloud Giants reside either on lofty but stable giant clouds called cloud-homes, or on high almost inaccessible mountaintops, where they carve elaborate fortress-palaces.
The Cloud-Home
Easily the most valued possession of any family or clan, these massive stable clouds are considered artifacts of legend. No giant remembers the art of their creation, and it is widely accepted that they are gifts of the gods to their special favorites.
Should a new Cloud-Home be created, however small, it would be cause for celebration and considered a good omen by giant-kind everywhere. The cloud-homes are extremely stable and almost impossible to damage.
The cloud-homes have individual names, usually representative of the clan or tribe that resides upon it. A cloud-home is a place of beauty, with lofty structures of stabilized mist used to divide rooms and form furnishings.
Beautiful gardens yield not only flowers, but also fruits of amazing size such as grapes the size of apples, apples the size of pumpkins and pumpkins the size of wagons.
Mountain-Home
Created by shaping the stone of high mountaintops well above the cloud line, these fortress-palaces are well suited to the lofty cloud giants. All mountain dwelling cloud giants claim to have chosen to reside on their mountains, but there is a general belief that they were somehow dispossessed of their cloud-home.
Cloud Giant Life
Living in the inaccessible regions of high mountains or clouds has allowed the cloud giant clans to live a life of leisure, receiving the bounty of the lands below as either tithe or tribute. Cloud giants enjoy a form of ‘hawking’ that uses griffons, perytons and a special favorite wyverns (subjugation of a creatures like the hated dragons seems to amuse).
Cloud giants also keep Owlbears and lions as pets, considering them a vital means of controlling the vermin that sometimes finds its way aloft.
Additionally, almost all cloud giants enjoy gambling. Mundane games, such as dice and bowling have been mistaken for thunder, a fact that the giants find quite comic.
The most favored pastime of these giants is gambling. Cloud Giants have been known to wager huge sums or powerful and precious items on the outcome of mortal wars, the survival or success or mortal heroes. The outcome of mundane games of chance rarely interests them.
While these giants often declare that they will do nothing to affect the outcome of their wager, they almost always choose to intervene in one way or another. It is an understood and unspoken quality of the Cloud Giant wager, and it is there they express their trickery and cleverness, or trickery and treachery, depending on the outlook of the giant household.
As the followers of Memnor the Trickster (God of Cloud Giants), the Cloud Giants value cleverness above all things. Wealth is valued only as a means to an end, not as an end in and of itself. A Cloud Giant would consider a bag of gold useful only if something could be purchased with it, or something could be made from it.
Cloud giants enjoy and admire beautiful things, especially items that are unique or special. Legend has it that a Cloud Giant once acquired at great price a sentient harp that could sing him to sleep, and a large goose that laid golden eggs.
One of the unique cultural elements of the Cloud Giants is that have a dual nature, with some groups being benevolent and helpful to those below, while others are tyrannical to those below. In a family grouping of Cloud Giants one outlook will prevail.
Step 1) Let’s Review what we know about Cloud Giants
Cloud Giants appear as muscular humanoids roughly twenty-four feet in height. Most have light colored skin and hair of silver or blue. Males normally wear well-groomed beards or other facial hair.
These giants are well dressed in fashionable attire, sometimes mimicking the styles of the world below (for amusement). While rarely armed or armored in their homes, such is available to them, along with their favored weaponry: a massive Morningstar which they wield one-handed.
Physically, they have Amazing Strength (+7) and are unbelievably Tough (+6), while the are not especially dexterous (+0) by human standards, the fact that they can be dexterous at all given their massive bulk is impressive.
Mentally, they have an above average intellect (+1), are strong willed (+3) and have a strong presence (+3). None forget an encounter with a Cloud Giant.
Cloud giants have exceptionally tough skin, giving them an unarmored Armor Class of 14.
Cloud giants have a walking speed of 40-feet per round.Cultural and Physical factors have combined to provide the Cloud Giant with proficient saving throws in Constitution (+10), Wisdom (+7) and Charisma (+7).
Cloud Giants are by dint of early training and natural talent proficient in the skills of Insight (+7) and Perception (+7).
Cloud Giants have a Passive Perception of 17.
Cloud Giants speak Giant, though they disparage the accent of those whose status is below them in the Ordening. They can also speak common and will often do so to terrorize and intimidate those with whom they interact. (Fee Fi Fo Fum!).
A Cloud Giant has an excellent sense of smell, gaining advantage on perception checks using that sense.
Cloud giants can cast spells using Charisma as their spellcasting modifier.
At Will: Detect Magic, Fog Cloud, Light; three times per day each: featherfall, fly, misty step, telekinesis and one time per day each: Control Weather, Gaseous Form.
Step 2) Determine the probable Strategy
A group of giants arriving on a giant cloud-home have some purpose in being there. It could be simple observation as a means of resolving a wager. It could also be to gain something from those below, by either demanding tribute or offering to provide good weather for harvest in exchange for goods or services desired.
Despite their large size and apparent invulnerability, cloud giants rarely go anywhere alone. A family unit of three or more is most likely to be encountered. No matter what their number, a cloud giant EXPECTS submission from those it encounters. Cloud giants are not simple-minded bullies, they gain their arrogance from their size and power.
Disrespect will be handled by destruction, not only of the individual but also of any community that person represents.
A fight with a Cloud Giant, is not a fight with an individual, it is a fight with a family or clan of cloud giants. The family will avenge the attack upon their kin by attacking the perpetrator.
Should they be unable to locate the responsible party, or if it is simply the nature of that household to do so, they will rain horror and devastation to the countryside below.
Step 3) Determine Tactics
First things first, any Cloud Giant making a descent to the world below will equip themselves with armor and weaponry.
Travelling to the surface, either by flight or by other means, the giants will arrive in such a way as to intimidate any which might stand against them (Feather-fall and Fog Cloud: Superhero Landing).
As only the strongest individuals would willingly attack a cloud giant, the giant will probably begin by smashing the property of the offending creature. Pulverizing it with boulders or pounding it with their massive Morningstar.
Should the giant be engaged in individual combat, the giant will utilize its weaponry, but is not averse to merely reaching out and grappling a target with the intention of either throwing the offending creature or simply crushing it between its fingers.If engaged at range, the cloud giant can choose to pick up and throw a massive boulder which it can throw with surprising accuracy.
Based on their size, a giant can call forth a FOG CLOUD that completely obscures the ground below, blinding their opponents, while they, standing above, can see easily.
If other giants are involved, they will assist by throwing rocks and otherwise pounding the area of the combat and surrounding community (Even if you win, you lose).
The giants will utilize control weather, usually long before descending, to create weather favorable to them in any encounter
If you use my spell variant, the giants will use their control weather spells to create weather favorable to their spells, probably before the potential combat, and then rain down lightning and ice on their enemies.
If somehow, the giant realizes that it is LOSING! It will utilize its Gaseous Form spell to escape, fly to return to its home in the clouds and exhort its kinfolk to act in retribution.
Step 4) DM Tips and Observations
I believe in efficient creation, and the Cloud Giant almost gets there, I would assign a Cloud Giant a strength of 28 instead of 27, with the resulting increase in modifiers.
As suggested above, I feel that the stated Armor Class of the Cloud Giant is too low for a creature of this sort: If you take my suggestion and consider the base AC of the Cloud Giant to be a naked individual, then increasing by adding armors equivalent to that of their human sized counterparts brings this into line nicely.
A Breastplate and Shield bearing Cloud Giant would have an AC of 20, while a lesser Cloud Giant, wearing only Studded leather, would have an AC of 16.
Movement: A marching six-foot human, covering 30 inches per stride, takes 12 steps in a six second melee round. If we apply the same logic to the 24-foot cloud giant, they take each of their 12 steps is 12 inches in length. If we instead apply a 60-inch stride, then the giant can cover 60 feet in a six second combat round. I think it’s reasonable to assign a giant a movement of 60 feet per round.
While it may seem redundant, the Cloud giant should be considered proficient in Intimidation (+10), personally I would give them advantage with this skill if inside the cloud giant’s home.
The middle of the Cloud Giant spell list doesn’t fit their needs very well. Why would a Giant need Misty Step (30 feet of travel) when they can cross that distance in a few steps? Telekinesis is much the same: A giant can easily move weights allowed by telekinesis by natural means.
I suggest that instead of these spells, we substitute: Ice Storm and Call Lightning for Misty Step and Telekinesis.
I also suggest increasing their spells available to include Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm and the cantrips Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade.
The “Rock” attack: As Huge Creatures a Cloud Giant can carry over ¾ of a ton of weight (1,680 lbs.) Without doing a lot of tedious math (and believe me, it’s out there) this presents us with a rock roughly 16 inches in diameter. Rocks of this size are not uncommon so ammunition should not be a factor. The damage of such a rock is listed at 4d10 + 8, (+9) if you use my higher strength suggestion.
This seems quite low for such a blow. I would suggest damage of 9d10 + 9 instead. The Range should be increased as well, as the Cloud Giant is used to wide open spaces and great distances. I’d suggest 180/1800.
Weapon Attack: The massive Morningstar attack is impressive, but wouldn’t it be even more so if it were crackling with lightning that could Arc to other targets (Variant of Green Flame Blade).
What about the sound of it striking with such impact that it is literally held in place by the force of the impact (variant Booming Blade)?Why Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm – Because it provides a means doing damage that is thematically pleasing.
Finally, always remember that the Cloud Giant is an intelligent creature that enjoys collecting the strange and unusual. This can surely include magical items, some of which will be combat oriented. Possessed treasure should be generated in advance, and items that can be utilized by the giant will be utilized.