Fire Giant Picker

Fire Giant Picker (CR 17)

Lawful Evil - Large - Humanoid (Giant)

Lore:	Know (Local)
32		49
Basic DC		Full DC

Initiative

31

Perception:
38	+28
Passive	Active

Ambush:

12+

on a d20

• Ambush Notes: Fire Giants have a difficult time laying ambushes, due to their heat and light.

Senses:

• Standard Senses
• Low-Light Vision
• Tremorsense 30 ft.

Movement Types:

• Walk 50 ft.
• Tunneling 10 ft.
• Lesser Climb 30 ft.

Defense

AC

40

Man Def

42

Monster Health
611	305	32
Hit Points	Bloodied	Hit Dice

Saving Throws
Fort:	+19
Refl:	+14
Will:	+14

Strong Against:

• Immune (no effect): Fire (energy, common)

Weak Against:

Offense

Size:	Large
10 ft.		10 ft.
Space		Reach

To-Hit

+25

Man Off

+31

Action

0

Points

Standard Attack (Melee):

• 1x Fiery Greatpick +25 (3d8+16/18-20 x2)
  as piercing (physical, common)
  plus: 17 points of fire (energy, common) damage

Full Attack (Melee):

• 3x Fiery Greatpick +25 (3d8+16/18-20 x2)
  as piercing (physical, common)
  plus: 17 points of fire (energy, common) damage

Standard Attack (Ranged):

• 1x White-Hot Glass +25 (4d8+17/19-20 x2)
  as fire (energy, common)
  (Increment: 50 ft.; Max Range: 150 ft.)
  plus: all creatures adjacent to target suffer 17 points of fire (energy, common) as splatter damage (no save).

Full Attack (Ranged):

• 3x White-Hot Glass +25 (4d8+17/19-20 x2)
  as fire (energy, common)
  (Increment: 50 ft.; Max Range: 150 ft.)
  plus: all creatures adjacent to target suffer 17 points of fire (energy, common) as splatter damage (no save).

Siege Damage: Not siege capable

Statistics

36

STR

14

DEX

38

CON

10

INT

14

WIS

16

CHA

Skills:

• Barter: 28
• Diplomacy: 28
• Intimidate: 28
• Perception: 28
• Sense Motive: 28
• Survival: 28
• All other skills: 23 (no ranks)

Languages: Giant, Common

Feats:

• Power Attack (EFFECT: This monster may take a -2 to all to-hits in exchange for a +12 bonus damage per attack.)
• Mobility (EFFECT: +4 AC against attacks of opportunity from movement)

Special Abilities

Fiery Challenge (Su)

Once per round as a swift action, a Fire Giant Picker may challenge a foe to mortal combat. The foe challenged must be within 50 feet of the Fire Giant to issue this challenge, and the Giant must have line of effect to the foe so they may hear them issue the challenge. Deaf foes are immune to Fiery Challenge. The Giant does not have to share a language with the victim, nor is line of sight required. Fiery Challenge lasts until the end of the target's next turn. While Challenged, the victim takes a -1 to-hit penalty on any attacks and caster checks, for any attacks or actions that do not target or include the Challenging Giant. Furthermore, if the Challenged foe fails to attack or include the challenging fire giant in at least one attack before the Challenge expires, the Challenged foe also gains the Burned condition. Note that it is possible for a single creature to be the target of multiple Fiery Challenges from multiple Fire Giants, but the penalty is never greater than a -1 to-hit or a -1 to caster checks, and the Burned condition does not stack. In such a case, that creature would suffer the penalty unless its attacks included or targeted each of the Challenging giants. This means that in order to stop the Burned condition from occurring, you would have to target and strike every Challenging giant before the challenges expire.

Catch Boulders (Ex)

Twice per round as a free action, a Fire Giant may roll a d20 any time a thrown or projectile weapon is fired at them or passes anywhere within their reach. This applies to giant thrown weapons, siege weapon projectiles, arrows, bolts, and bullets, or any other thrown weapon or ammo. Note that catching a projectile this way is a violent action that will set off alchemical bombs and similarly volatile items. If the Giant rolls an 8 or higher on this d20 roll, it successfully catches the attack, causing the attack to fail, unless it is an alchemical bomb or effect, in which case it effects the giant that caught it. Using this ability on a weapon with Returning means the attack is interrupted and lost but the weapon still returns to the wielder.

Heart Blast (Su)

Once per encounter, as a swift action that can only be taken after they have suffered damage from an enemy, a Fire Giant Picker can allow its fiery heart to blaze free. When triggered, the Picker is healed for 32 hit points, and all enemy creatures within ten feet of its space suffer 32 points of fire (energy, common) damage. If any enemy creature is caught in a Heart Blast while it is under the effect of Fiery Challenge from any Fire Giant, it immediately takes Burned damage as well as the 32 points of fire damage. This is all added together for purposes of overcoming ER. Affected enemy creatures may make a Fort save, DC 27, to suffer only half this damage, including any Burned damage inflicted by it.

Fire Giant Picker

Beneath the Earth, there is Fire.

It is rare for creatures on the surface to ever see this deep, cthonic furnace, but when it does break free to the surface, the spectacle and destruction is so terrible that it spawns legends. Under the Earth, the furnace of the Earth is well known, and there are vast regions of the Unterwelt that are choked with flames and lava.

Those portions of the Unterwelt are wastelands, uninhabitable by any of the 'usual' denizens of that dark, bleak realm.

But not because of the fire. Living in fiery regions would be simple for the Drow, for example. Their dark, Fey magics could harden them to easily withstand the flames.

No, the fiery portions of the Unterwelt are wastelands because of the terrible things that already live there.

Fire Giants are massive creatures, twice the height of a human and as broadly-built and sturdy as any Dwarf. Their skin is solid black, although when washed by firelight it can take on a million dark and smoky hues. Their teeth glow with heat, their eyes even more-so, and flames wreathe their wild manes of hair and suffuse their terrible beards.

Despite their affiliation with the wildest and most dangerous of the elements, Fire Giants are paradoxically stern, rigid, rules-abiding creatures. They form vast societies, with many castes and clans, societies and religions and cults and rules, they build precise cities of cruel black stone and fire-washed alleys. Fire Giants, despite their fiery natures, are creatures of discipline.

This means that a Fire Giant army is a terrible thing indeed, as they march and attack with discipline and unshakeable morale. An individual Fire Giant is a hard-hearted, cruel beast, but they have no lack of personal courage, even the most craven of Fire Giants being a bastion of doughty durability.

Fire Giants are immune to fire and revel in it, and despite their cruel, rigid lives, they produce astonishing works of art and music, amazing angular sculptures in a dozen styles, and their heavy suits of black-iron armor are subtly engraved with a myriad of intricate and astonishingly beautiful designs.

Fire Giant weapons are similarly well-made and beautiful, dark works of art steeped in the blood of the innocent.

Fire Giants are rarely seen on the surface world, but they can reach the surface by riding lava flows up inside volcanoes. Indeed, the use of lava to travel is a common thread in Fire Giant life, with red-hot currents bearing their black-glass boats far and wide beneath the Earth, and obsidian ships cruising a sea of lava is one of those sights that will remain with you forever, if you are able to survive the finding of it.

Fire Giants are not interested in slaves and plunder, directly. They are more interested in making long-term alliances with their neighbors from a position of strength, and then slowly grinding entire communities into economic thralldom. It is not unusual to find ogres and trolls and hill giants who have been serving a Fire Giant community for centuries, to the point that they really have no concept of life without their fiery overlords.

In battle, Fire Giants are terrible foes, their weapons suffused with searing, painful heat and able to hurl blobs of white-hot lava. Even worse, they are able to catch their enemies alight with a mere word, the supernatural flames nearly impossible to extinguish if you do not kill the giant which inflicted them. In melee, they are very capable, and will seek flanks so they can strike down unlucky victims with a few massive strikes from their burning weapons.

Fire Giant Pickers are the wanderers and wastrels of Fire Giant society, those who have fallen through the cracks, who are most often out and about looking for the odd bit of scrap iron or a left-over seam of coal. They eke out a mean, miserable existence...for a Fire Giant. They are tremendously powerful, like all Fire Giants, and as a result, Pickers are often allied with other groups, where their tremendous power is put to useful ends, and they can be relied upon to provide solid, reliable muscle and firepower.

Combat Tactics

Fire Giant Pickers are fairly simple foes, who will hurl White Hot Glass unless forced into melee. Against masses of enemies, this is devastating, as the splatter damage will mount quickly. This grows even worse if they are able to issue Fiery Challenges, as the Burned condition demands that attackers answer the Challenge.

Of course, in melee their attacks are just as nasty if not worse, the red-hot picks leaving terrible, searing wounds with every strike.

As they take damage, they will begin to use Heart Blast, for the small bit of healing, and far worse, to trigger the Burned condition on any foes that are Challenged.

They are smart melee fighters, and will try to use their Mobility to set up flanks. If they succeed in gaining a flank, or if a foe is otherwise at a disadvantage (Prone, etc), they will not hesitate to use Power Attack to try and end an enemy quickly. Getting flanked by Fire Giants is frequently fatal! Of course, going back-to-back to prevent flanks means that you are a juicy target for a volley of White Hot Glass, so that's a problem....

Once battle is begun, Fire Giants will not fight to the death against foes they believe to be lawful. If defeat becomes inevitable, they will often seek to negotiate terms of surrender, and if they can reach a state of quarter, they will abide with whatever they agree to.

Of course, their memories are very long, and woe betide you if you meet them again. They ARE evil, after all...

Out of Combat

Fire Giant Pickers are some of the most commonly encountered Fire Giants, as they roam widely, looking for treasures and resources to take back to their black stone fortresses and holds. Fire Giant Pickers are also fairly mercenary, and it is not unusual to find them working for other monsters, both above and below the surface.

Fire Giants are seriously powerful, a nation of fire and terror and pain, but they are curiously strait-laced. They are more interested in their internal politics and the eternal struggle against their hated foes, the frost giants, than they are in tormenting and subjugating their lessers.

That said, Fire Giants are not stupid, and if they think they can gain an advantage by allying with or conquering those around them, they will do so without hesitation, and a Fire Giant makes a cruel master, indeed....

Rewards

XP: 102,400

Treasure: Sellable Goods worth 51,444 gp.

Weight: 170 lbs.     Volume: 6.8 cu. ft.

Optional Treasure Rules: Roll a d20 on Table 1 below once per encounter (NOT per creature). Any items discovered are in addition to the normal treasure for the encounter.

Table 1: Remnant(s) Found
1 - 10	Nothing Found
11 - 14	1 Languid Remnant (tier 1)
15 - 17	1 Pale Remnant (tier 2)
18 - 19	1 Bright Remnant (tier 3)
20	Roll on Table 2
###	Nothing to see here!
###	Or here. Move along.

Table 2: Remnant(s) Found
1 - 5	3 Languid Remnants (tier 1)
6 - 10	3 Pale Remnants (tier 2)
11 - 14	1 Intense Remnant (tier 4)
15 - 17	1 Blazing Remnant (tier 5)
18 - 19	1 Vital Remnant (tier 6)
20	Roll on Table 3
###	Or here. Move along.

Table 3: Remnant(s) Found
1 - 5	3 Bright Remnants (tier 3)
6 - 8	3 Intense Remnants (tier 4)
9 - 11	3 Blazing Remnants (tier 5)
12 - 14	3 Vital Remnants (tier 6)
15 - 17	1 Prime Remnant (tier 7)
18 - 19	1 Mythic Remnant (tier 8)
20	1 Empyrean Remnant (tier 9)