Gilgamesh & Grendel: using D&D for ancient big folk

[CatharzGodfoot]

Does seem a little like that's what people want 'round here when they say "play a giant" though. I mean, +2 Str? Less than a 6' tall 210 lb Half-Orc? For my 10'6 1100 lb Giant?

Part of the problem with D&D is that becoming stronger gives you pretty much everything that being larger should give you (carry more, hit harder, grapple better). All that the actual size increase needs to give is reach, a penalty to hiding, and possibly a worse AC and an attack penalty (which could presumable come from a dexterity penalty in a better game). Instead, becoming larger also lets you carry more, hit harder, and grapple better.

So you have this weird situation where you arguably don't need to make big characters any stronger, but every single 'big' creature in existence is much stronger. A 'giant' without a significant strength boost will be out-wrestled by farm animals!

[Bihlbo]

Does seem a little like that's what people want 'round here when they say "play a giant" though. I mean, +2 Str? Less than a 6' tall 210 lb Half-Orc? For my 10'6 1100 lb Giant?

Maybe you're referring to something else, but I wasn't for a moment suggesting that the only racial ability score bonuses that giants get is +2 Str, -2 Dex, +2 Con. That's a baseline for what happens when you slap on the Large size quality, so any other racial bonuses are in addition to this.

So you have this weird situation where you arguably don't need to make big characters any stronger, but every single 'big' creature in existence is much stronger.

That's because larger creatures are much stronger in the real world. Not only because longer muscles are stronger muscles (so if you're limbs are longer they are stronger), but to move your bulk you must have more strength than something smaller. That's not to say that a Large-sized 3-headed half-toad razor-beaked pudding-lobster in D&D can't have a 5 Str, but it is kinda asking too much of people to swallow the idea of a Large humanoid without a good Str boost.

[tussock]

longer muscles are stronger muscles

All good, but just to nitpick for science, basic strength is by cross section. Cube square laws and all that.

[hyzmarca]

longer muscles are stronger muscles

All good, but just to nitpick for science, basic strength is by cross section. Cube square laws and all that.

The square-cube law should screw giants without lube. Giants would realistically have to face all the health problems that giant people face in real life, which would probably translate to a significant constitution penality.

It's one of that things that can really only be handwaved away with magic.

[tussock]

Nope. T-Rex was an active nine tonne biped on real planet earth, which could run on bent legs no less. Totally works.

Square-cube says big things are built on thicker frames, and eventually that frame gets to be too thick to be ambulatory if you use just scale up the small designs. But instead you can hollow out the bones, make the tendons do more stability work to take load off the muscles, have counter-sprung balances built into the gate to lower the energy outputs for walking, and so on, and so on.

Science says Giants would totally walk funny, no elevation of the centre of mass, massive sprung tendons providing the leg lift balanced by a big head bob and precise counter-rotation with the arms, muscles just providing small corrections and compensating for surface deformation, hard for them to stop or change direction in a hurry. Almost perfect self-stabilising balance due to certain death by tripping.