Skyrim:Giant

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Giant
(lore page)
Location Giant Camps and Blackreach
Species Giant Soul Greater
Level 32 Type Monsters
BaseID 00023AAE
Attacks
Abilities
Other Information
Health 591 Magicka 0
Stamina 150
Faction(s) Creature Faction; GiantFaction
Drops
A Giant

Giants are enormous humanoids with a primitive, albeit very artistic, culture. They are very territorial, and will raise their clubs above their heads and shake them at you if you walk too close to their camps. If you continue to approach, they will stomp on the ground and become hostile. Giants are normally seen herding mammoths; if you hurt their mammoths or threaten them in any way, the giants will attack. Unprovoked giants are passive creatures.

For more information, see the main lore article.

Combat[edit]

Giants' main method of attack is using their large clubs. Every time a giant uses a power attack with its club and the attack kills the targeted opponent, the victim will be sent flying hundreds of feet into the air, from where much of the surrounding landscape can be seen. This affects all entities, including you. Hostile giants refuse to enter water, and will eventually walk away if you remain in a body of water.

Battling giants early game is an extremely dangerous proposition. Giants are level 32, and their mammoths, who are likely to aid their masters, are level 38. Their attacks, even if successfully blocked, can kill you in one hit. Early on, the best defense is dodging their attacks entirely. Attempting to kill them with melee attacks at this time is practically impossible.

Giants can be ragdolled with all three words of Unrelenting Force, the CycloneDB shout, a werewolf's moving or sprinting power attacks, or a vampire lord's Vampiric GripDG spell. These powers can make it a lot easier to defeat them in the early game. A werewolf can kill a giant with one sprinting power-attack. A magician can attack from afar with relative little fear of retaliation, using Frost spells to slow them down, or an archer can snipe them from a vantage point.

The Command Animal power or Animal Allegiance shout can be doubly helpful when used to turn mammoths against giants, considering the mammoths would likely be attacking you otherwise.

Exploiting the terrain by staying on cliffs where giants can't reach you can help survival rates, but be wary of their long weapon reach. Alternatively, you can lure a giant from its camp to an area that is simply inaccessible for it, for example, hiding in a doorway that it cannot come in from, and pelting it with attacks. You can also use big boulders to keep a distance between you and a giant, as you whittle down their health.

Notes[edit]

  • Occasionally, you may encounter a giant leading a cow painted with symbols along one of Skyrim's roads. These giants will only turn hostile if directly attacked. Various groups of NPCs have been known to attack giants that have strayed too close to the road.
  • Giants do not level up with you, but instead have their level set at 32. In contrast, most dragons in the game level up with you. Because of this, a giant can easily win a fight against a dragon when you are at low levels, and you can take advantage of this by leading a dragon to a giant to be killed. Be careful not to stay near the giant once the dragon is close or you may end up having them both attack you.
  • It is possible to loot a giant's treasure chest right in front of them, as long as you don't stay near them long enough to turn them hostile.
  • Frost Giants are added with the Dawnguard add-on. Karstaag, the spirit of a named frost giant, is added by Dragonborn.
  • There are three different appearances for giants. Each appearance consists of a different set of animal hides and furs.
  • The giant encountered at Pelagia Farm has different statistics than other giants. It does only 5 damage with its club instead of the usual 60, and has less health at lower levels. Unlike most giants, however, the one at Pelagia Farm is leveled, so from level 28 onwards, it will actually have more hit points than other giants. Also, the corpse does not have the regular giant loot on it, so there is no hides, gems, armor or weapons like usual.
  • Giants have 13 different grunts they use in battle, but they all share the same line of dialogue: "Ayarg garag gar!", and it is untranslatable.
  • The only named giant in the game is Grok. Another one, named Goldar, was meant to play a role in a Civil War quest, but this quest didn't make it into the final game.
  • Jonah Lobe, the artist responsible for the giant model in Skyrim, created them to look like his father.[1]
  • If you hop onto a surface (or into a body of water) they cannot reach, they will sheathe their club (it disappears from their hand) and retreat to a certain distance and stay there until you either exit the surface/water or they forget your presence.
  • The Wabbajack will exclusively deal elemental damage to giants, and cannot be used to transmogrify or instantly kill them.
  • It is possible to dodge the club slam (usually performed by the giant while he is running towards you) and the stomp by sprinting directly past the giant as he performs the attack. You might still get staggered and a tiny bit of damage, but the damage from the attacks are situated directly in front of the giant, not area-of-effect, like what might be expected.
  • Only NPCs (including followers) will be sent flying high into the air by the club slam; you, atronachs and dwarven automatons do not get sent flying but rather get heavily staggered. However, if you are killed by the attack, your character will end up flying high into the sky.

Bugs[edit]

  • Sometimes, after killing him, a giant's club will start to float slowly up into the sky until it is no longer visible. ?

References[edit]