Giant (monster)

Template:Monsym/giant (monster) giant (monster) File:Giant (monster).png
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Weapon 2d10

Template:Monsym/giant (monster) giant (monster) File:Giant (monster).png
Difficulty	8
Attacks	Weapon 2d10
Base level	6
Base experience	127
Speed	6
Base AC	0
Base MR	0
Alignment	2 (lawful)
Frequency (by normal means)	0 (Not randomly generated)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	2250
Nutritional value	750
Size	Huge
Resistances	None
Resistances conveyed	Increase strength (50%)
A giant: has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso. is carnivorous. is a giant. is nasty. is strong. can throw boulders. likes gems. can pick up weapons and food. has infravision. can be seen through infravision.
Reference	monst.c#line1388

Giants are a category of monsters in NetHack. The giant, H, is also a monster which normally only serves as the base monster for the corpse left by killing a giant zombie or giant mummy, and is not normally generated; its stats are identical to those of the stone giant.

A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:

"Expand on some variants, at least the one-sentence sections, and flesh out strategy a bit more especially wrt boulders"

Monster attribute

Monsters with the M2_GIANT flag are considered giants; the artifact long sword Giantslayer grants a +1d5 to-hit bonus and double damage against monsters with the M2_GIANT flag when wielded. Giants are also considered kebabable; you receive a +2 to-hit bonus when using a weapon that uses the spear skill against a giant.

Monsters with the M2_GIANT flag include:

• H Stone giant
• H Hill giant
• H Fire giant
• H Frost giant
• H Storm giant
• Unique giant monsters:
  • H Lord Surtur
  • H Cyclops
• Z Giant zombie
• M Giant mummy

Common traits

All types of non-undead giant are part of the giant humanoid monster class, and thus represented by the H glyph; they can pick up and throw boulders, collect gems, and break down doors. Giants are carnivorous and either lawful or chaotic, and generally have low monster magic resistance. They are too huge to wear shirts, cloaks, and body armor, but they will pick up and wield weapons and wear other types of armor.

Giant corpses, including those of unique giants, have a 50% chance to increase your strength, similar to a non-cursed tin of spinach, when eaten in addition to any other intrinsics.

Despite sharing some of the above traits, such as their size and their corpses giving strength bonuses, ettin and titans lack the M2_GIANT flag and are not considered giants.

In addition to the normal responses for humanoid monsters, chatting to a peaceful, non-undead giant may cause them to boast about their gem collection, complain about a mutton diet, or shout "Fee fi fo fum!" and guffaw; this last result has a chance of waking nearby sleeping monsters.

Generation

Giants that are not undead can occasionally be generated in groups, and have a 50% chance of being created with a boulder, and are often generated with a small assortment of gems. They may also be generated in throne rooms, becoming eligible as early as dungeon level 13.

All non-undead giants are eligible for the usual offensive, defensive, and miscellaneous items; since they are all at least difficulty level 8, they can potentially receive a wand of death.

Strategy

Giants will often throw their boulder at you as soon as they can see you. Players can use these boulders as a defensive measure against other monsters, keeping them away and using ranged attacks to fire past the boulders and pick them off; giant boulders are especially useful for clogging up hallways. However, giants can not only freely pick up boulders, but can also start with and/or pick up attack wands, providing a nasty surprise for players. On the other hand, their low MR leaves them very vulnerable to wands and spells in turn; the only giants with any significant MR are the giant mummy and Lord Surtur.

Giant corpses and their strength bonuses are frequently sought after, especially by physically weaker roles and races; most non-elven characters will seek out giant corpses to continue increasing their strength after raising it to 18. However, giant corpses are also very high in nutrition at 750. This make it unlikely that a player will be able to eat a group of them; they will likely become tainted from the amount of turns required, and their high nutrition presents a choking hazard. A tinning kit is highly recommended, and will additionally make the corpses of giant zombies and mummies safe as well; unlike spinach, tins of giant meat provide a strength increase even if cursed.

Cavemen and Valkyries in particular benefit from having hill giants and fire giants as their respective second quest monsters, and giant humanoids act as their second quest classes; this enables potential corpse farming, especially with the co-aligned sanctuary available to Cavemen, but also carries the danger that a randomly generated H may turn out to be a titan.

Archeologists and Priests can also technically farm giant corpses, as well as ettin corpses, but mummies and zombies are the respective second quest class for them and only have a 3% chance of generation. Archaeologists have the advantage of starting with a tinning kit that makes undead corpses safer to each and much less immediately filling; Priests will not only have to procure one, but also find a way to lure them out of the quest branch and its graveyard levels, and will prefer the gains from luring wraiths instead.

Variants

Many variants make the giant eligible for a starting race.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, there is only a 25% chance that strength gain will occur when eating giant meat. This does not affect the chance of gaining any other intrinsics from the corpse. It is now possible to encounter normally-generated "plain" giants as well.

SLASH'EM also includes the giant court, a special type of throne room carried over from NetHack-- 3.1.3 that only contains giants, and introduces The Giant Caverns, a special level that houses several giants and a new unique giant, The Largest Giant.

SLASH'EM Extended

The gigant is a playable race added in SLASH'EM Extended that is considered a sub-species of giant and shares some common traits, along with its corresponding player monster. They start the game with a boulder alongside the usual starting inventory for their role, and can pick up and throw more; however, they also start with incurable hunger. Giants generated outside of special levels and the quest branch will be peaceful towards gigants; gigants eating giant corpses is not considered cannibalism, however, and the intrinsic hunger may allow them to get more out of the meal on average.

SLASHTHEM

SLASHTHEM reintroduces the large giant, a monster from NetHack-- that was not carried over from SLASH 6 and thus did not appear in the original SLASH'EM.

NetHack Fourk

In NetHack Fourk, giants are a playable race. Giants can be Barbarians, Cavemen, or Rangers. They can pick up and throw boulders, which makes it very easy for them to move past a boulder in a corridor. Their size prevents them from wearing most normal armor. They move at half speed and (aside from strength) has significantly lower attribute caps.

EvilHack

EvilHack adds the giant as a playable race.

GruntHack

GruntHack adds the giant as a playable race.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, both the gnoll matriarch and siege ogre are given the M2_GIANT tag. Giants also appear in the retooled throne rooms, where they can now only be found as part of the audience if the room's ruler is a titan.

Encyclopedia entry

Giants have always walked the earth, though they are rare in
these times. They range in size from little over nine feet
to a towering twenty feet or more. The larger ones use huge
boulders as weapons, hurling them over large distances. All
types of giants share a love for men - roasted, boiled, or
fried. Their table manners are legendary.

References

This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.4. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-364}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.