| Just because you see a monster doesn't mean you're able to take it out. A hill giant is a challenge rating of 7 in D&D 3.5. That means an appropriately moderate encounter for a party of 4 7th level PCs with full 7th level gear. Eight level 1 PCs is approximately a 2nd or 3rd level party, nowhere near enough to take on a hill giant. Now, it is possible to take the hill giant out at level 2-3 if you're very clever and very well prepared and get fairly lucky, but it's really hard. I don't know if co8 made it even harder or not, but it probably did (Livonya's work made just about everything harder).
Similarly, just walking around the map you can run into 4 trolls. That's technically a challenge rating 9 encounter. It's not actually that tough by a long shot, but way more than your average 3rd or 4th level party can handle.
Survival will let you avoid random map encounters until you're ready for them, and the hill giant can be avoided entirely. In fact, you can sneak up at night and steall all the cool stuff off the ground without him noticing, then come back in a few levels to kill them off.  |