Best medieval weapons to fight giants: FANTASY RE-ARMED
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ม.ค. 2018
- A fun nerdy discussion on what the best historical medieval weapons human adventurers could use to fight fantasy giants.
Best weapons for a Giant to use: • What medieval weapons ...
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No armour, heavy bows, retreats to the safety of the forest... So you're telling me the ranger is a giant's natural enemy?
An Elf ranger, Elves are the perfect enemies of Giants. They are fast, agile, are very commonly associated with forests, and are also typically portrayed as masters of bows.
Russ Epp-Leppel Just like in nature as the pile is the hole's only natural predator
@@sherrigofdenmark2823 wrongly portrayed tho, unless when elfs are stronger than humans.
@@sherrigofdenmark2823 a nonsensical portrayal
Would you prefer an Elvish ranger, or an Ewok?
Look we found a setting for the fantasy babarian on the first try.
"Throw away your armor. It will do you no good."
Actually, that's an interesting idea. A barbarian culture in proximity to (and often in conflict with) a population of giants would make a lot of sense for unarmored combat
I really think you've discounted the single greatest weapon a human could use against a giant... their stomach. Given how much larger the giant is, and that they normally have the same speed and proportional strength as a human, a giant will need so much more food than a human. To the extent that I really don't think giants could evolve beyond small family groups - the larger tribes needed to start developing agriculture proper wouldn't be sustainable for giants in the same way as they were humans - they'd be stuck as migratory hunter gatherers, in my view.
That'd mean a relatively small band of humans could, through scaring off the animals the giants need to eat, effectively starve whatever group of giants they were facing. Even if they could survive on gathered fruits and vegetables - unlikely, given their calorific requirements - the giants would be weakened considerably as they're deprived or protein and other nutrients.
The best way to fight a giant would be to treat it as an army in its own right - attack its supplies, deny it forage, and refuse to meet it in the field until it's breaking down already.
Merzendi Great point!
Or prepare a feast, with loads of tasty food the giant will smell 3km away, and set a pit trap. You will be then able to enjoy the feast oven its dead body. Or let the giant eat it, aften you put enough poison in it to kill an entire army (add some rotting flesh and feces, just in case the giant is immune to poison, but not to bacterial infections).
I think fire would be a greater weapon. Especially if their armor is flammable.
I would say the problem would be depending on the diet and what the Giant. The way I could say them living in larger groups or tribes would they would be mainly eating trees themselves. or raising mammoths like you see in skyrim. Of course a human wouldn't be able to survive on tree bark and leaves for long but I think a adaption or something along the likes that allows Giants to get their calories that way, in a sense, deserts would be death traps for giants. for many reasons but mainly the lack of any food and the heat during the day.
Jurassic and Cretaceous ecosystems seemed to have adequate carrying capacity for many giants.
The ultimate question, How fast will one very, angry Pixie kill a giant.,
20 minutes by slashing the carotid artery and letting the giant bleed out, or instantly by severing the spinal cord between the atlas and skull by using a pixie sized great sword. :D
Or they could just pierce the eye.
Pixie flys up the giant's nose to dispatch at liesure. Be wary of sneezes though.
B1 Laxson the pixie may have successfully killed a giant, but no other pixie will ever want to touch it because its been up a giants nose.
Poking an eye out does not cause death. If it did, there wouldn't be a huge glass eye market. :P
We need a shadiversity D&D guide to fantasy creatures
So you want nobody to ever win an encounter again?
@@luzfire7523 More like *You want Everybody to always win an encounter?*
@@donutlovingwerewolf8837 No, I mean how does anything below Demigod kill a Swarm of Pixies aiming for the Eyes or a group of mobile Siege platforms with more damage than a Trebuchet?
Orc Warbow Battalions overrun most capitals and anyone going ionto the Labirinth is sure to encounter the "Pain Train". A simple Skeleton encounter would now be a Life-or-Death Fight for a War Hero of the Humans. Not a single person would ever cross a body of Water without a flipping Warship, because Merfolk. A single Pixie can utterly devastate a complete party of normal adventurers, simply by slitting open the Throat of one and then disengaging until he died, just to return to finish of the Next
@@donutlovingwerewolf8837 Everything that the players can do, can be used against them (if your players grapple a lot, use that as well)
@@luzfire7523Torches for pixies; even if it doesn't hit them directly, the convection would hurt them.
12:19 what about just making massive Lego bricks?
What are you thinking man, do you want to blow up the continent? Legos are the only thing more dangerous than pommels!
That's a warcrime
By the way, I always felt that the giants in Skyrim were fairly realistic. About twice the height of the player character, slow and lumbering, typical weapon is a large club. Will kill you in one hit (and send you soaring into the sky, which is perhaps less realistic).
I can totally see the bug reports from the playtesters being ignored and the glitch being left in because everyone thought it was funny.
Yup, the giant space program is awesome. Fun fact: It is actually survivable. Maybe not for yourself, but it is. I had this happen to Lydia once and when she dropped down like 10 minutes after she was still alive...
I used to rather enjoy giant baiting in skyrim, the lunar forge ruin is a perfect place to shoot the neighboring Giants from as well as the herd of mammoths they keep. It's also a good way to level your archery skill.
Darthplagueis13 your companion can't die unless they were hit after they are down
My Hentai Girl in vanilla that's true. Though I don't know many people who enjoy skyrim that play it for the vanilla game, or, for that matter, any Bethesda title.
15:37 "your best chance is to dodge"
*Dark souls music intensifies*
Tbc, I never killed a giant in Skyrim. I mean, they are such chill dudes, why would you want to kill them? They even kill dragons for you. Giants are the best naked thing ever!
now that you mention that goblins hate music. It just makes me want to see Gimly just wip out the lute in Moria.
You know, I think we should have an official name for when a character does impossibly acrobatic feats in combat in movies/shows. We have one for slashing through armor, the "lightsaber". So I think impossible combat acrobatics should be called the "Legolas" since he seems to be the go-to example for that sort of thing. Comment and let me (and Shad) know if you agree.
Chill Luna I like the name tbh
I really like your take on whether Giants would overheat. If you look at most fantasy role playing and games, it naturally seems that the smaller giants are found in the foothills and warmer areas. While the largest are usually found in the cold Northern areas or high elevation mountains.
Shad, since my childhood I've always dreamed about becoming a game developer. I'm an IT student right now and I'm studying various game development tools (as well as making simple games). I always felt like most fantasy games (and books and movies) lack so much depths in weaponry. And you are doing such a great job not only pointing it out, but also explaining it in detail and offering solutions. Thank you for that.
One day I will design a AAA RPG, implementing many things I've learned from you (and Lindibeige). You guys are the reason I haven't gave up on my dream and your ideas are what keeps pushing me towards it. Thank you for you great work.
It's a true honor my friend, I wish you all the best in pursuing your dreams!
Are you done with IT?
I pray for a high fantasy show that has actual realistic combat.
Waffle Spankz wait five years mate: )
GoT?
GoT isn't really High fantasy. Don't get me wrong its a great show.
Whats happening in five years?
The problem is with tv show and movies is that they are all about the show off, combat to the death is the opposite. The only examples of entertaining "real combat" are the ones that shows the possible movements the opponents can do in the mind of the protagonist and he prepares a strategy to defeat them, but the actual fight is just a couple of seconds long. That's because if you show too much of your technique and combat style to your opponents they could adapt to it.
Poison, lots of poison. On all the arrows and all the pikes. Also fire, clay pots full of burning pitch. Preferably POISONOUS burning pitch... Which is oddly enough what I've always thought halflings/hobbits should use.
Or a squad of trained attack pixies with poison.
@@samarchist74 consider Shad's video on fairies, I think that would be terrifyingly effective. They would be the size of Nats to these giants.
You know difficult finding a fly is? They could simply blind the giants, and then leave it to die. So far the most terrifying things I've seen in this series are fairies.
Next would probably have to be the snake people's constriction.
I'm betting on the short kid with the rock and the sling. It's the Only instance we know of where a giant was actially killed.
Not so; the Israelites fought giants on multiple occasions; David is just the most well known one.
US marines reportedly killed one in a cave in Kandahar using variations of the AR15 and a SAW.
I have been writing a "Medieval" Fantasy novel and have been watching your videos for advice for fantasy creatures in combat...Thank you, Shadiversity.
Chris Graves this is how I prep for dnd world building
The problem with being realistic is, it's usually not very exciting. You really have to world build to explain stuff with various altered/made-up physics. it's why high-fantasy can get way with a lot of stuff, because "the wizard did it".
You most certainly CAN make stories that are both realistic and exciting. It's harder, possibly, but I've read great stories set in a real-life medieval setting. I mean, just listen to Shad in this video, he describes several different tactics and approaches that could be employed against "realistic" giants, with great potential for storytelling as well!
dude dodging giants might not sound very exciting to you, but it sure does it for me
I, too, have been working on a fantasy book, though mine incorporates a great deal of science fiction in its lore. The magic in my book is fully scientifically explained and it incorporates two versions of multiverse theory to support the state of the world in it. I actually found this TH-cam channel last night while researching the effectiveness of various forms of melee weaponry against big game (to determine with what weapons a hunting party would arm themselves against the Gordagui, which are essentially trolls), and I have since watched every video Shad has made. My biggest obstacle thus far in terms of character/creature design is the square-cube law; I’m so glad he brought it up in some of these videos, people rarely consider it
I have a recommendatuon that you seem to have overlooked. Cavalry. A horse gives men a huge momentum, mass, and speed. Put that behind a lance and you have powerful puncturing weapon. Being lightly armored the horses would be much quicker and more difficult for the giants to catch. The best thing would be to tempt the giants with a clump of infantry and flank them with rotating cavalry charges. The riders would have to be very skilled to be able to get in and get out as quick as possible. This might also serve to split the giants up, they angrily start chasing these fast horses, maybe lose their cohesion or formation and allow individuals to be singled out easier
Deadcell900 I think Shad did not include shock cavalry because it would not be effective against giants using weapons. A horse moving at full gallop does not have an amazing turnaround time, once you deliver a blow strong enough to hurt the giant (especially through armor), another giant will kill the horse/rider. A formation of giants will not just wait for the lance to strike them either. A giants wingspan with a weapon would be more than enough to hit the horse before you can even strike with the lance. If you distracted the giants, it MIGHT work once, but it would be really risky. Mounted archers would be a better option for distracting giants and luring them into traps.
Kolby Williams a giant would move a lot slower, more like an elephant.
Spamme Loop not so slow that it cannot hit a horse that is within arms reach trying to turn a 180 to get out of there, as I said, not a great turnaround time. Shock cavalry was effective because it broke formations and ranks, therefore it didn’t have to turn around, it just ran right through. That won’t work if the giant behind the one you hit is just going to kill you or the horse because you can’t run it down. Plus they have greater reach with a weapon. They’ll more often than not just kill your horse before you can even strike. Like I said, it might work once if you distracted them, but after they know you are there, it wouldn’t work again.
A few mounted men with lances could be great against a single distracted giant. I would plan on sinking the lance deep and then leaving it behind, don't try to recover it, that will slow your escape.
miohe
If you had proper timing that is much more feasible against one single giant than it would be in the scenario Shad presents.
Giants could also use staff slings, which would mean even bigger rocks. I guess that when fighting against humans slings are powerfull enough and they are swifter to reload. A staff sling maybe could be usefull in sieges, where they would want to use the heaviest bombardment they could afford.
Also a staff sling for a giant would pretty much be a small tree with a sling on top, they could use it just as effectively as clubs to splat people
The thought on body heat can also be semi-supported by the fact that a larger creature would likely have a slower metabolism so the would just produce less heat in general. Though, a slower metabolism may make their lifestyle slower as well so they would be less active. So, the trope of the lazy giant actually makes sense.
So we also need to question whether the giant will even engage you in the first place.
TLDR argument: The amount of energy released scales with the amount of oxygen absorbed linearly, as does lung surface area, so the cooling via lung surface works the same regardless of size factor and metabolic rate. Only the cooling via skin differs on different scales
Long version with some quantitative (plug in numbers) stuff:
Doing some terrible biology (sorry I am doing physics, not sorry) their take the ratio of their metabolic rate the the ones of humans and call that m, assuming that they have roughly human cells, further assume they are scaled up in the up/down direction by s and s*sqrt(s) in the other 2 directions, so their mass/cell count factor is s^4.
The amount of oxygen they need is thus m*s^4 times what ever a human needs. Since we absorb via lung surface area rather than volume, their lung surface area needs to be scaled up by a factor exactly that factor. So their lungs need to scale up by a factor of sqrt(m*s^4)=sqrt(m)*s² using s=2 and the metabolic rate of an African elephant/a human according to noticing.co this yields lung larger by a factor of 3.5 in every direction. Obviously this exactly cancels the additional energy released, since the amount of energy releases scales linearly with the amount of oxygen used.
Fun fact: human lung surface areas vary wildly, from ~25-50m², so a giant's would be between 87.5m² to 175m² both of which are larger than my flat :P
However: only a small percentage of our cooling happens via the lungs. Using the same argument as above, one can easily see that any cooling processes related to the metabolism, like heating water from ambient to body temperature, would scale up by the same factor. Meaning the only cooling mechanism that differs is cooling via the skin. To compensate for that we can assume that a giant would follow similar basic methods as other large land based mammals. So we could expect giants to adapt any number of the following strategies:
A: large ears
B: no hair
C: sweat
D: larger than normal lung size (maybe a factor 4 instead if 3.5)
E: search contact with water.
In conclusion I would say I tried to science the giant so far, that I created a human-elephant hybrid throwing stones at me because I poked him with a stick
Now I'm imagining giants as a large pacifist monk or something keeping yaks or cattle as more like sheep.
Best way to fight a giant? Become friends, now you have a giant for an ally
Mitchell Line *You got a White Tree Branch* “I help anytime.”
Estoc equipped r1 r1 r1 r1 r1.....collect hawk ring
A very big barrel of mead would be a a good "weapon" for this sort of approach. Come to think of it, getting the giant drunk would increase your chances of being able to trip him up if things went south...
That method is probably the ideal strategy for pretty much everything other than a sentiant pair of nunchucks.
"What are the best weapons to fight a giant?"
"Well, you have to remember that fighting isn't always the only option..."
XD
(So good!)
Jojo's secret technique
The horse. They already run faster then humans, and have always contemplated why humans always go into battlefields on purpose, let alone bringing the horse, instead of having the sense to run away. Having high speed and high sense the horse is your best pick. Only downside is that though the giant would not be as fast, he would have more stamina.
I think that you omitted one crucial element - humans have horses. And horses are best friend of human when it comes to war. Horses speed is 45 km/h. Add to it humans with lances (which can be as long as six meters if you make it hallow) or even tuck swords (or better yet Koncerz since it's feet longer) and gigant should be impaled nicely.
Albus As mentioned in the beginning of the video though that involves getting close to the giant which may have an even longer weapon
Since the stride of a giant would be insane in short sprints they would be able to catch up to a horse. Your best bet would be harassment or endurance since in speed you'd probably lose to a giant even on a horse.
@@lemons1559 Yes, but they probably aren't nearly as maneuverable. Get a bunch of guys on horses, preferably armed with powerful bows, and you could probably harass a giant until someone managed to hit something vital, or got an eye shot.
@@tumach4796 Possibly. I think a better idea would be to shoot it with siege bows from range. Harassing it with horse archers is cool and all until he throws gravel at you, which for the horsemen would be a hail of fist sized rocks.
That would only work on smaller giants like ogres though for something larger like a game of thrones giants it would just piss of the giant.
Well Shad, my answer is simple and practical.
A squadron of archers with war bows (aiming for the groin) and laying caltrop patches in front of the giant. While the giant moves to fight the archers from a distance by tossing stones (with a sling?), a fleet of dragons armed with ballistas descend upon the giant spewing their flames at its nape and unleashing their mounted payload.
Fantastic video brother 🍻
Larger creatures do have body heat issues despite larger lungs. Ie. Elaphants has giant floppy ears which increases their surface area to dissipate more heat.
But they live in Africa and have dark skin which means their heat load would be far higher than a giant living in a cooler climate.
I had this same thought, and another idea for a solution for giants. Run a lot of blood very close to their skin.
What if you where writing a story and the way to beat giants was to go for veins that were larger that transfered heat.
The large blood vessels would still be pretty deep, to dump heat you would want a web of tiny blood vessels as close to the air as possible. It'd still be fairly hard to hit a big vein, but any cut would bleed profusely and you could do a death by a thousand cuts where everything and everyone gets absolutely covered with blood and the giant slowly grows to weak to fight.
Larger animals also have slower metabolisms which means they generate less heat. Directly scaling up a small animal would cause it to overheat and die while shrinking a large animal would cause it to freeze. I'm going to assume that in addition to everything that was mentioned giants would simply have slower metabolisms and need to deal with less heat than we might otherwise assume. However that might bring its own problems. Who knows.
About the giants overheating, what if they don't produce as much internal heat as a human and would have a slower metabolism (like an elephant). There's this video by Kurzgesagt ("How to Make an Elephant Explode with Science") that goes into some detail of why switching the size of an elephant and mouse would not be good due to this.
A small elephant freezes to death, a big mouse burns to a crisp
i wonder how big an animal would be when there was no more need for endothermy while still keeping the higher activity endotherms enjoy. my mind goes to dinosaurs immediately since aren't they thought to be in a middleground of endo/exo-thermy. comparing to the biggest carnivorous dinos with some napkin math that's make a giant human like 30ft tall.
I used to be a giant warrior like you. Then I took an arrow in the eye.
Another variant on this series you could do could be the various fantasy races against each other, particularly if any have specific classical rivalies, such as elves vs dwarves.
MEANWHILE IN DRAGON AGE
Elf:I buy a drink!
Dwarf:Hell yeah!
Both:PARTY TIME!
Meanwhile, in The Elder Scrolls...
Altmer: "Fuck all of you humans! Also, all of you other elves are lesser elves."
Nord: "Fuck everyone who's not a Nord! Especially the elves!"
Dunmer: "Just stay out of our territory and we won't kill you."
Argonian: "Just stay out of our territory and it won't kill you."
Khajiit: "Khajiit has wares if you have the coin."
Ryan Cauffman I pretty sure that nord doesn't say that in any place in and outside Skyrim. Nonetheless. XD
Just Noob More implied (mostly in Solitude)
Arnis Estrila (Mean one)Mostly in Windhelm if I correct. Pretty sure that even in Windhelm you still can open a business if you want.
If Dark Souls taught me anything, it is that hitting giants in the heels enough times can kill them outright
If you do it smarty, you can hit them into the ankles in a particular way that makes them fall of their tower :P
Lung capacity? Giants with blowpipes! I dread to think how powerful that would be.
Or giants with bagpipes - the perfect terror weapon!
Same problem as a giant with bow and arrow - only does pinpoint damage.... Wouldn't a bow and arrow be far more effective anyway?
"This dart is two inches wide and two feet long, and covered in a poison that will kill nearly instantly."
"Why did they need the poison?"
"They got the schematics from a halfling and scaled it up, I don't know why they thought the poison was important at this point."
Watch ADHD world for the 100 Nerf rival darts they basically made a representation of the power of one.
Yep, arrow through the eye was my first thought. Even if it didn't kill the giant, it would impair his vision. I enjoyed the video and all your ideas, Shad; great work!
I imagine that a blind, enraged giant in agonizing pain would be even more dangerous.
If I had time to prepare against giants I would equip cavalry throwing spears, so they could hit and flee the less agile giant, maybe even harpoon the giant in a gore fest to demoralize enemy troops.
How is that for an Idea?
What about pulling an Odyssey, and spearing them in the eye. You could even make specially designed spear points with two points to get both eyes in one jab. A duodent if you would.
that would be like bird hunting arrows, I could see that happening, but it would be hard to be that precise in the heat of battle, achievable though.
But if the giant had a sling shot as proposed, it would be very hard to defend against that.
Mounted archers would be fine - they would be able to shorten distance to shoot it in the eye, and to run away if they miss. Of course, you have to deal with substancial casualties fighting giant, but I guess if giants exist you know what to expect. Basically, you treat giant like heavy tank - you know that if you are not extremely lucky, you can`t take it down without losing some people.
I think treating a giant like an elephant might be more appropriate.
Clearly the safest way to kill a Giant is to find one that's been around for a while and wait for it to die of old age. Or use something similar to a Ballista or whatever one of those big spear throwers were. They could get a few good spikes to go through the giant. (All of this said before the end of the video, so I don't know if you actually say something like this)
Definitely Not Ben Maybe just poisoning his food/water/booze with heavy metals or something and waiting till that stuff accumulates and shortens his life span or gives him cancer or something.
Actually, there is a much simpler solution to the body heat problem. They simply need to have a slower metabolism, which means they generate less heat per pound of living tissue and have a net body temperature similar to that of humans. Thats how elephants and other big animals cope with this issue.
So perhaps giants need to have really big ears?
TLDR argument:
The amount of energy released scales with the amount of oxygen absorbed linearly, as does lung surface area, so the cooling via lung surface works the same regardless of size factor and metabolic rate. Only the cooling via skin differs on different scales
Long version with some quantitative (plug in numbers) stuff:
Doing some terrible biology (sorry I am doing physics, not sorry) take the ratio of their metabolic rate the the ones of humans and call that m,
assuming that they have roughly human cells,
further assume they are scaled up in the up/down direction by s and s*sqrt(s) in the other 2 directions, so their mass/cell count factor is s^4.
The amount of oxygen they need is thus m*s^4 times what ever a human needs.
Since we absorb via lung surface area rather than volume, their lung surface area needs to be scaled up by a factor exactly that factor.
So their lungs need to scale up by a factor of sqrt(m*s^4)=sqrt(m)*s²
using s=2 and the metabolic rate of an African elephant/a human according to noticing.co this yields lung larger by a factor of 3.5 in every direction.
Obviously this exactly cancels the additional energy released, since the amount of energy releases scales linearly with the amount of oxygen used.
Fun fact: human lung surface areas vary wildly, from ~25-50m², so a giant's would be between 87.5m² to 175m² both of which are larger than my flat :P
However: only a small percentage of our cooling happens via the lungs. Using the same argument as above, one can easily see that any cooling processes related to the metabolism, like heating water from ambient to body temperature, would scale up by the same factor. Meaning the only cooling mechanism that differs is cooling via the skin. To compensate for that we can assume that a giant would follow similar basic methods as other large land based mammals. So we could expect giants to adapt any number of the following strategies:
A: large ears
B: no hair
C: sweat
D: larger than normal lung size (maybe a factor 4 instead if 3.5)
E: search contact with water.
In conclusion I would say I tried to science the giant so far, that I created a human-elephant hybrid throwing stones at me because I poked him with a stick
[I answered this to another comment as well, please don't be angry for double post, this science stuff is long]
It occured to me that the best tactic would be to hire another giant. So now I have this idea for a fantasy setting where the nobility is all giants! It's pretty much how Biblical giants like Goliath were described - as elite warriors - so a giant-led society isn't actually too out there!
"The Holy Bible (God's words) never lies."
...Sun revolving around the Earth anyone?
that's interpretation, you do have to realize the bible is rarely literal when it talks about things like that. still, it's a good source of inspiration for stories
PlayerSkillFTW there's actually nothing in the Bible about geocentrism. However everyone, pagans included, believed in that as scientific fact and of course Christians relied on pre-Christian scientific "knowledge" until of course someone came up with a better theory/evidence.
@@PlayerSkillFTW book, chapter and verse.
@@lemons1559 Psalm 93:1, 96:10, Chronicles 16:30, Ecclesiastes 1:5, and Joshua 10:14, in pre-1650s Bibles.
After the theory of Copernican Heliocentrism (Sun at the center, with Earth and planets orbiting it) started gaining ground among scientists in the late 1500s, and Galileo further supported it in the early 1600s, the Catholic Church branded it heresy, and the 1615 Roman Inquisition persecuted it. Galileo was tried for heresy, and suffered numerous assassination attempts by Christian fanatics because of it.
Later on, those parts of the Bible were revised out of it. The Bible has undergone so many different revisions and versions over the millennia whenever it's undeniably proven wrong by science.
Maybe your goblins can hear outside the human range and their reaction is just like dogs ( as in their ears are hurt by the sounds we cannot hear )
Altogether, it seems to me giants would have been most viable during the last Ice Age. Few trees, nice and cold, relatively smooth and flat underfoot, and lots of big animals to hunt. What about rope traps to trip them over? A heavy fall, then difficulty getting up again, at least gives you time to do something to them while their heads are near(er) the ground.
Patrick Holt heavy wind would do that naturally, they are vulnerable to wind shear. Of course you can always stub their toes or go for their knees.
Yes, Star Wars teaches us both 4-leg and 2-leg walkers can be felled by rope traps.
I believe giants did exist during the last Ice Age. I dont find the idea ridiculous at all. We know there were giant elk, sloths, bears, etc. Why wouldnt it be possible for giant humanoids to exist as well?
Especially in North America, the natives lore is full of stories of giants. Different tribes literallly have stories of how they fought a war and annihilated the giants.
Funny side note: Elephants can neither jump nor run, they just walk quickly. Rhinos on the other hand have huge, reinforced thighbones to support massive thigh muscles. That allows them to run smoothly, as if they weighed much less.
But what about dragons ?!
I was kind of disappointed here... you mention the bows, but not crossbows of similar power equivalency. I don't feel like enough time was given to discussing polearms. While you did discuss targeting the larger eyes, no time was given to discussing the larger arteries in a giant which are also great targets to shoot and thrust for... also no discussion on targeting a giant's genitals which would be a much better target due to the height difference. Also possible to bring would be attacks to the knees and maybe the achilles heel.
I do love that you touched on discussing a giants vulnerability to heat but then you didn't go very far with it. For example, no discussion on setting their hide, layered, or padded armor on fire via flaming arrows or thrown or slung clay jars of flaming or just hot pitch, oil, tar, or other incindiaries.
And again you didn't mention poison. Poisoned arrows, spears, other polearms atlatls, and bolts have been a very large part of hunting elephants, whales, and other large game. I find it odd you keep not mentioning this in any of your battles vs larger creatures discussions. And while much more prevalent in the ancient world the medieval world still features poisoned arrows in the Slavic cultures until the 12th century (I'm still looking for data on Baltic peoples who may have used it even longer), while the Moors, and other African cultures in contact with Europeans also used them in the medieval period. Feel free to drop me a line on facebook at "Gehrig JonLou" I'd love to discuss this with you more.
That heat thing sounds like a really neat idea for a fantasy novel! I can already imagine a scenario where the heroes are far in the north, and create a trap for a giant by lighting up several bonfires, and then tiring out the giant until it passes out.
"Curses...i cannot stand hot conditions..."
"bear with it, brother. The giant will find them even more discomforting."
I could make a pommel joke , but that would be beneath me There must be another way you could pommel a giant into submission
a couple armies of swords men worth of pommels could maybe just piss it off.
Poison covered caltrops could help kill it as you don’t have to worry about its arms because you don’t need to go towards it. Or dig a large hole, fill it with sawdust and a bit of sulphur, add a tiny layer of soil to hide it, lure the giant over and it’ll be blinded by a cloud of sawdust getting in it’s eyes, then make a fire and it’s in a burning cloud of sawdust and sulphur.
Hey Shad, I think you might have touched on a very important weapon when fighting giants early in your video, but then you didn’t give it enough credit. Fire. Especially if the giants are using the optimum armor you described in your previous video on best weapons for giants, I think that some sort of accelerant applied via a sling, modified ballista, or even a trebuchet would be devastating when coupled with an ignition source (flaming arrow). The super thick padded armor (now on fire) would suffocate them with heat and smoke, and would be extremely hard to get off in battle. (Then if they do, shoot them cause no armor.) I think that this could also cause the giant to panic, somewhat like armored elephants, and possibly rampage through their own battle lines, or off of a cliff.
Thanks again for producing content. Keep it up!
You are doing great job. You should consider your enemies using fantasy creatures to combat same kind of creatures. Example giants using weapons designed to slay other giants. Like the many weapons on battlefield had to be able to counter: horses, armor and men. What about armored giant fighting with a warhammer or poleaxe to slay other giants.
the problem with equipping giants is the lack of resources, i bet giant's gear would be pretty much just made of wood, rock and maybe a little bit of leather. But i like your suggestion of giants vs giants, would like to see stuff like winged people vs. , and snake people vs. too
Shad:You need to be as light as possible to dodge giant attack!
ME:OK
*Havel Ring + Ring of Favor + Chloranthy Ring + Wolf Ring + Havel Set + Grass Crest Shield + Ledo's Great Hammer*
ME:I'm gonna distract that thing while you all retreat
Isn't fighting Havel in the Undead Burg a little like fighting one of Shad's giants? You dodge and poke him repeatedly when we isn't looking/busy. I also didn't know Shad played DS
Jonas Kr. Yep, kinda XD. Pretty sure he know a bit of DS even if he don't he can just use either of my equipment on google to know what crazy effect it had.
When Shad mentioned traps, all i could think of was using chains attached to boulders to trip them and Ewok-style rolling logs.
I just thought of a cool character. A giant hunter whose legend says they never fail to kill a giant. We see them and they shoot an arrow at the giant's eye and miss and we think "welp, legend's a lie" but then as we flee, the hunter set up a trap that we led the giant into. They don't kill the giants every time because they're super strong or super accurate, but because they plan ahead and set traps.
Make sure to dip your arrows in poop before shooting them at the giant. Sure your arrows won't do a lot of damage, but you'll cause wounds that start to infect and kill the giant a few days down the line. Sure it won't help you in a fight, but it'll all but make sure that the sucker goes down.
If you're more interested in surviving the fight yourself, how about tar-dipped arrows with flame? At the very least, it'll be disorienting to them as you light their clothes on fire.
Daniel Staal Fire arrows don’t work.
Hilde ofc they do. Thats why theyre called "fire arrows".
Its probably not the most effective weapon in open battle, but the concept of fire arrows was known and used in medieval times. Think of sieges and naval battles.
The ancient Greek word for arrow is Tox or toxus. Nowadays toxin means poison. So poison and arrows at some point were connected, so not to bad of an idea.
Greek fire would be better though with their heat management
I remember reading somewhere that horse manure mixed with blood and left to ripen was used to coat weapons with to cause serious infections. But sadly I can't find the source. :/
Good stuff, but the best by far was the part about “the more realistic approach” you know, to fighting giants.
Fun fact: in the original Hebrew, the "stone" David killed Goliath with could also be translated as "Pommel".
;)
If the giants aren't wearing armor, a higher draw weight war bow would be all you need. The majority of the giants pictured are no more massive than elephants in the real world, and bow hunting elephants is a real world thing. It isn't a quick kill, but it is quite possible to inflict a lethal wound wing a single arrow on a creature of that size if the correct locations is hit. There are videos on youtube of people hunting elephants with bows, but I won't post a link because they might be more graphic that people might like.
Actually with elephants they usually used throwing spears rather than bows. Throwing spears especially with leverage assistance have more power than arrows. However arrows have more accuracy but against a target as large as an elephant accuracy isn't really an issue.
@@MrMarinus18 With modern bows there are actually compound bows with such high draw weights they can pierce 1cm thick hardened steel.
@@wilberdebeer4696 Arrows are still light and compound bows don't have higher draw weight. The draw weight of medieval bows was already at the limit of humans. The advantage of modern compounds is that they can get that same power from a smaller bow. Also modern bows have mechanisms that makes the bow no longer peak at full draw but at mid draw which makes it easier to aim.
Modern bows are more convenient and accurate but not anymore powerful.
Best weapon for giants: spears
Best weapon for fairies: spears
Best weapon for elves: spears
Best weapon for nagas: spears
Best weapon for orcs: spears
Best weapon for dwarves: spears
Well spears *are* pretty good.
Well, historically, pointy stick has proven their effectiveness more than enough occasion.
you've made a grave mistake commenting here without answering the question: *What about dragons?*
Or. Heck. Use something like mantlets that have a built-in caltrop. Three men, pick it up and start moving towards the giant. When the giant puts down his boot, bunker down, wait for the giant to stomp you.
Do that with an army and the giant will have no where to stomp down! It'd be kind of like a siege, except you're sieging a giant. Now there's a fantasy idea. Giants carry archers on their back to try and defend the giant. People in hedgehog mantlets try to literally pin the giant down while they try to avoid being shot with arrows. Arrows demand that people use heavy armor, which slows them down and makes them easier to kill...
Yeah, I'm liking this.
giants form symbiotic relationships with goblins. four-five goblins can fit on a giant making it possible to to really do a mobile seige unit
Those have to be some really sturdy mantlets and this could struggle with a giant who prefers kicking with sabatons. But having different fighting forces adapt to one another could make for some really interesting storytelling.
That seems to be a very big giant
Why does this reek of sonic fan-fiction?
since giants now effectively have riders, they're now much slower, making their eyes easier (relatively speaking) targets, which makes the giant now having to wear a kind of blind fold and relies on the archers/rider to guide them; now the battle become how to effectively take down the rider without climbing up the giants.
I LOVE THIS ! You're now making the contrary:
Instead of going: "What could fantasy creatures use to fuck with us in battle" You go "What could humans go to DESTROY those other beings ?"
you have mostly talked about fighting 1 giant , what about fighting an army ? I think giants if they could prapare for a battle they would put some quick defenses on a battle field like rather big trenches and little walls where they can easily jump over this way all charges of a human army wouldn't be possible and they wouldn't really be slowed down when they charge themselves (also they are giant so digging a trench could be done way faster)
a different idea I had was siege weapons if they would have to siege a city with enormous walls (that can't be broken with their sling/trebuchet) they could put a giant in a siege tower kind of box around him that protects him with some kind of battering ram, that would look amazing a movie or something
I just had a thought, a giant Mage could potentially lift incredibly large boulders and bypass the issue with the square cubed law by using a telekinesis spell on the boulder at the same time. The giant could also use the telekinesis while throwing the boulder to accelerate it even further. It would be the equivalent of throwing a meteor at something!
I love these videos, keep up the good work!
Depends on how telekinesis works, does it cancel gravity, or does it set the mass of the rock to 0? the latter case would force the rock to always move at the speed of light, no acceleration possible. The former one would keep the limits of giant biology in place limiting the throw to 8x the human rock throw energy. (check my post or ask for details)
Jonas Kr. Or does telekenis just allow you to use mental/arcane energy to lift the rock instead of physical strength. Then this would not effect it at all because everyone knows giants dont have much magical or mental energy
What about greek fire? Or barrels of lit oil/pitch/petrolium fired from a trebushet?
Another advantage for using bows, or ranged weapons in general, is that most animals don't like things hitting their head. A determined squad of archers keeping a continuous stream of projectiles flying near the face could manage to drive a single giant off (or at least distract it for another approach to work, such as mounted troops attacking the knees or groin)
I'm suddenly reminded of that scene in the second 'Night At the Museum' movie. The tiny gladiators and cowboys are using their swords against the normal sized enemies. You see them slashing and thrusting their weapons and then it pulls back to show the men hopping on one foot, holding the other in pain.
POINTY STICKS! Lots and lots of POINTY STICKS
G12ad Poisoned pointy sticks.
throwing pointy sticks, shooty pointy sticks, stabby pointy sticks, the more the merrier!!
gabriel ferraz
LONG! Pointy Sticks
Or maybe even..."three hitty pointy stabby stuff"!
dang this one was nice, here, have a like.
i'd really like it if you could talk about magic and such, like, how tactics and equipment would change to adapt to it.
also, how medieval equipment could have evolved if gunpowder wasn't invented or in case it wasn't effective (like in the case of vs. monsters or magic )
Travis’s eyes split wide open. I could see the fear carving away at his usual stoic countenance. Thump, thump. We meant to hunt bear. We should have never left the safety of the mountains. It’s a shame. The air is so refreshing down in the valley. Thump, thump. “Travis, we need to get out of here.” I whispered to my elder brother. He pointed across the meadow. “When I say so, run like hell to that forest. Don’t look back. We will regroup and figure out what to do.” It has been nice having him back from the war this fall. He has really grown into his beard. War does that to ya I guess. “Now! Run, Godfrey!” I left the shadow of the bolder and immediately I saw our villain. A giant, ready with his sling. I guess we were not alone in the hunt, and we were his game. The forest once across the field seemed now across the continent. It took what felt like 15 minutes to reach the tree line. When I got there I could taste the copper flavor of blood from running so hard, but the air was thick enough to sustain my body. I could have ran a normal pace for hours. “Godfrey. Get over here.” I ran to my brother. “How are we going to get out of here? There is a giant between us and home now.” Travis looked me in the eye with contempt for his foolish little brother. “We can do plenty of things. We can walk deep into the woods and circle the valley. We could climb this mountain out of the giants range of breathable air. We could, shit!” By now, I really needed to, but I knew that he wasn’t talking about that. Smoke. I could smell smoke and the horror of it took my heart. It hadn’t rained in two moons. The forsaken forest floor was covered in red dry leaves. He was trying to smoke us out. “No no no!” Travis exclaimed. He thought for a second. There is no way we could outpace a forest fire. “Godfrey, nock your bow. Get in as close as you can, then take out his eye.” “How am I supposed to get in close to that?!” “I will distract him. Walk up behind him when you are close, wait till he releases his stone from the sling then yell. When you see his eye, take it out and run back home.” “Releases his stone? Don’t tell me you are making yourself bait!” “We don’t have time, Godfrey! Follow my orders and do it quickly! Now you go left around the fire, I am going right. Aim small, brother.” He began to run from me before turning and shouting, “Now, Godfrey!” Then he was off. I approached the left of the fire at the tree line. The giant was slinging his rocks the size of two of my heads at my brother a hundred yards away. His back was turned from me as planed. I approached the giant as quickly and quietly as I could. The longer Travis was out there the more likely we wouldn’t get out of here. One of them almost got him. He was slowing. Fatigue was eating away at his plan. I stopped. I could get closer, but I needed to do something. As I raised my bow I could hear Travis yelling faintly under the sound of the swing of the sling, “Closer, Godfrey! Closer!” I knew that he was right, and the fear of missing took me by the throat. I imagined the giant’s great boot crushing my frame like a beetle.” I awoke from that nightmare. The giant had released his stone and was now reloading his sling. I yelled a yell to wake the dead and fired my bow when I caught his eye. Direct hit! By some wonderful magic, the day was saved!
The giant fell to the ground, and revealed the price of that black magic. “God no.” Travis vanished. I ran past the giant and my fears possessed my legs to a sprint. “Travis!” No “Travis!” The tall grass had a long impact in it. The the sight of the bent over grass turned my stomach, and I began to hurl. Only then did I begin to understand why. Blood, legs, his rib cage. He’s gone. Sure everything that made up Travis was laid opened up to my observation, but the structure of God’s handiwork had been miserably defaced. The life of a man not seconds ago correcting my approach in his usual demeaning tone, extinguished. Smoke of an orphaned forest fire blocked out the sun. I still can’t get the smell of my brother’s blood out of my nose. Even today that damn smoke blocks out my sun.
Woo! I love that you're doing this from the other way around now.
I'm going to incorporate your ideas into some world-building because I really like the verisimilitude it provides.
A giant ballista that fires great swords. I think that would work. Lol
"You're going to backstab him with a ballista" - "Uh-huh" - "With a fucking siege weapon?" - "Uh-huh"
I'm going to upgrade mine to fire great sword pommels. It feels safer that way.
Hermon ThyGreat That will end him rightly
BUT WHAT ABOUT DRAGONS?!
No, I mean what about war elephants? On one hand you could make the size difference even by just using such a large mount. Humans already have a hard time fighting against a horse without proper equipment, but elephants can be weaponized even more (tusk swords come in mind). Though on the other hand, elephants might be scared of such large humanoids and panic... and if the giant managed to get around the dangerous front, he could easily grab the puny humans trapped on top... hm... so, what about giants mounted on elephants (maybe manmoths) then? :D
Probably wouldn't work, a giant would weight more than 16 times as much as a human (more because you need to scale them by 2*sqrt(2) in the x and z direction (assuming y is up)). So lets assume they literally weigh a ton, because that is fun to say. According to elephantsforever.co.za (great website name) elephants can lift ~50% of that
You (accidentally?) cited what an elephant can lift with its head and trunk. But truth to be told, elephants are very ill equipped to be mounted, and even a single person of average weight can cause pain in their back. I'm really more interested in how effective cavalry (no matter if horses, camels or elephants) would actually be against giants. The elephant riding giants are rather meant as a joke ;)
yes, that was an accident, I am sorry :( But I read the part about them being hurt by even light work and basically decided I didn't want to read the rest
You need to lay off the cheeseburgers if you think 8 people make a ton.
8 Americans sure, but most people only weigh like 130ish, which would scale up to 1040 which would put them pretty close to the elephants' limit you posted.
sorry, I forgot a factor 2 in there that comes from the surface area of a horizontal crossection scaling up linear with mass, it should be 16, but I had the 2*sqrt(2) in there. You could quickly see my error by multiplying 2 * (2*sqrt(2)) * (2*sqrt(2)) =/= 8
I'm gonna say before finishing I think an atlatl and spears/javelins would be good (hells, it took down mammoths so why not giants?) and for closer range halberds/poleaxes to take them down and get the advantage sound pretty decent to me (even if it might cost lives doing that).
After the video. I like that you went into tactics too. I would definitely say if there are any marshy areas those would be safer against giants and much easier to fight them in. Also pit traps as an extra wall fortification in a fantasy setting sounds absolutely legit. Especially if magic could be used to sculpt super sharp stalagmites(or is it tites? I can't remember) since they might last better than metal or wood impalers.
I also think a decent sized groups could manage to trip a giant if they set up an ambush so brush concealed the rope and the teams on each side could hide and pull at just the right time (especially if it was around/in a high elevation area with any drop-offs).
A lotta fun tactical things to think about with this ^_^
Makes sense it's how they used to fight armored elephant units.
You missed the most obvious attack. Fire. Throw your lantern onto the giant then run away. As he falls down, run back and STAB STAB STAB!
David Larson remember to throw your extra oil too
Well we could have warm climate giants with giant ears, like african elephants or fennec foxes :D Would probably look funny but work
There are people who actually have naturally pointed ears-- yes, real human people, not in fantasy-- and if you look at these people, they are all from intensely warm places. Elongated pointed ears would probably happen rather than having big, floppy ears.
So that's why the BFG had those ears!
@Selene3016
made my day!
I heard they made a movie... I should see that one day...
Back sail, like the spinosaurus.
Cold climate giants might be hairy like mammoths.
"Ummm... I'm going to need a bigger sword"
If a small group faced a giant, the best way to cripple him would be by a sword or axe cut to the back of his knee, hamstringing him. Alternatively, a spear stabbing behind the knee-joint would also bring a giant down.
Heavy cavalry could lance a giant, too. Then there is a tactic described in The Malazan Book of the Fallen series, where multiple riders snare larger enemies with lassos tied to their saddles and then pull them apart.
I'm so happy about this! This sparks my imagination so much. I can imagine a movie illustrating the points in each of these videos, and each one would be well worth watching
First weapons that came to mind for me seeing the title of the video was pikes or javelins.
Unless you include siege weapons.
So your advice for fight giants is to dodge, duck, dip, dive and......dodge.
If you can dodge a giant you can dodge. . .
Shadiversity Machicolations?
Shadiversity I had the exact same joke running in my head when I read the comment. Good on you for beating me to the punch.
Awesome video Shad!
Thanks again for such interesting video series, you're one of few people I know who goes in such awesome micro details in terms of fantasy races.
It always nice to hear nerdy stuff in terms of biology and science about different fantasy species.
The giant's sling could also be used to throw a cluster of smaller sling stones, like canister or grapeshot did for cannons with similar effect. It would be hard to counter something like that. Still, being more mobile (by mitigating it's mobility with caltrops, punji pits, harpoons (some of the northwestern tribes in North America used thrown versions against whales) a leg snare of some sort or advantageous terrain) combined with accurate fire to the weak points (you forgot throat :) ) would be quite effective in bringing them down in the absence of siege equipment. I almost want to suggest mounted archers except the horses would be fairly easy targets for the sling...
Cool video as always, love this series!
There is one important point I think you did not consider in this fight: bleeding out. Granted, if the giant wears that big gambeson type armor, it is really difficult to hurt. But if it doesn't (more babaric giants) and you manage to deal a few deeper wounds, you can wait for it to bleed out. Possible weapon for this would be throwing spears (it is speculated that this was used against mammoths during early stages of human development)
I agree with your statement however the type of throwing speer used would be a atlatl that is actually what they used against mammoths and such cause you can throw it accurately from a much farther point then you would be able to by hand. Also it would pierce deeper and has more force then a arrow from a long bow since the Speer has more mass... you would only need to be about 50 -60 yards away from it also
Thanks for the addition; wasn't that clear on the details any more
Also, others in this discussion solved the armor problem for me: fire
If the gambeson or fur armor of the giant is set on fire, he has to tear it of his body and the bleed out plan is applicable
i think Greece developed a super flammable oil so i think you could use a sling and throw pots of it to get the fire started
a ballista. from very very very far away.
But they can shoot back you, most likely faster then you can reload.and that's saying their be only one of them.
GunRunner how bout a team of em
a whole phalanx of em.
yes ballistas, scorpions and what not, I thought shad would bring these devices up, but perhaps in a future vid.
A close combat ballista can do the job in my opinion 🤔
The issue with using the environment against Giants is that the giant would likely avoid the types of environments that give them disadvantages.
I look forward to seeing more of this series. Also on a side note if you end up publishing your books, I would definitely read it. I'm sure your other fans would to so please keep us updated. Thanks for the great content as always.
But what about Drag- oh wait you already made that video!!!!!!!
Also, could you perhaps do a video on fantasy creatures versus each other? I really want to know your thoughts on two dragons fighting each other! (BUT WHAT ABOUT _TWO_ DRAGONS???)
Glad to have this information. It's literally becoming my point of reference for my novel where a brotherhood of knights are sent to reinforce a northern castle that is besieged by giants. This and the weapons giants would use are helping me keep my realistic and gritty setting in tact.
When you mentioned the giant caltrops piercing the giants' feet, I winced in sympathetic pain. Ouch!
Everyone knows slings get +3 vs giants. It's in the bible.
Maybe if you put a pommel in your sling?
+Darthplagueis
That would break the world! A pommel, in a sling against a giant. Madness!
No, the math adds up. But the pommel has to be specially designed.
Balearic slingers historically used lead pommels.
I thought they used shaped stone shot, or if lucky cast metal shot. Realistically a pommel would be to big.
It'd be cool to see how an average castle or fort might hold off an attack from a group of giants. Provided I'm watching with telescope from far off.
Aconitine poisoning. Now you don't have to hit the eye.
Don't call me chivalrous and don't call me sporting.
Eric Lestick Would it really work?
You would still have to hit the exposed face, hit it hard enough to put poison through its skin, make sure to put enough poison to circulate its Gigantic bloodstream and make sure your poison is not inactivated by its high body temperature.
Well a lot of people here seems to mention arrow in the eye, so a barrage of hollow arrow filled with poison would probably work
Amitabha Kusari A longbow arrow has quite a punch. If it can pierce mail it should also go through a giants skin. With many poisons you only need a couple of milligrams for a deadly dose.
Wouldn't really need to really have any special type of poison really or specialty delivery systems, an arrow head treated with deadly snake venom(there are tons of different type of poisons and venoms that can be used) and a direct hit should be sufficient. A scratch would kill a normal human
Eric Lestick You are chivalrous and sporting.
this level of thought combined with a well-written scene that correctly and efficiently conveys the emotions and thoughts of the people fighting the giant would make for excellent reading.
Thank you, shad. You're videos have been pretty entertaining, informative, and have been a pretty great help for me to create my fictional fantasy setting.
Hey I have a challenge for you my good sir make a castle that would be best suited for defense against fantasy creatures it would be nice
absolutely brilliant video Shad.
Wooooow Shad, this was utterly AWESOME, ok? Keep It up, all those consideration were so interesting And intense.
Really, i wuold pass My afternoons discussing with you about topic like this. Great video
In the Biblical account of David vs Goliath, David rejected his king's armor, presumably because he wasn't used to its weight, and opted for a less armored approach. He also selected a sling as his ranged weapon, as opposed to King Saul's weapons, and carefully selected stones to attack the giant from a distance. David struck the giant with a stone in the forehead, then once he was down, cut Goliath's head off with the giant's own sword (which David kept afterward). It seems your approach is similar!
Only problem IS the giant could just use the sling in close quarters like a flay so it wont do you any good to close the distance
Look at elephants eyes, large animal, small eyes.
If I can recall, hunters in ancient times were able to take down large animals like Elephants using similar tactics. You cannot 1v1 an Elephant without either a lot of time and planning or a modern high-powered weapon. So they hunted in groups, chasing and wearing down large prey using coordination and keeping distance. And trapping
"Hit the giant's eye" best thing I heard today.
Yeeeess! I've been wanting more "best to fight" ever since dragons!
No load screaming, no dragon, no sword, no castle and no MACHICULATIONNNNN ? Who are you and what have you done to Shad ?
Horacious Barelian He's in the analysis of fantasy physics to an extreme degree.
Another kind of terrain that would be great would be a swamp or marsh -- where the giant's greater weight would make them sink and get mired while lighter beings could still move.
For a perfect example of how caltrops work - get a handful of four-sided dice (the pyramid-shaped ones), then scatter them on the floor for someone to step on while barefoot.