I've mostly played the smarter classes thus far and am thinking about a go with a giant.

I'm still a little intimidated by the low int and low wis.

Any tips on how/what/when to practice most effectively? I realize it will be slow going but if there's some things that are reasonably common knowledge about how to deal with so few practices and such slow learning, I would much appreciate the advice.

For what it's worth, I'm thinking about an Fire Giant A-P.

Thank you.

I read your post and was thinking good for you, then I saw what you intended to play. First thing to consider when playing a giant is the 500 exp penalty, its not so much of an issue at level 51 (although it will determine your pk range to the extent of non heros you can fight at 51). It does make the slog up a little tougher as Fire giant AP, you have three cabals gunning for you straight off, +- 2 more. Those that can harm you will regularly have nine titles on you etc. Which is fine if you dont intend on relying on your spells to much to deal with those sorts of threats. I'm far more likely to practice stuff like invis and detect inv just once. two pracs into stuff I need, and if I really need it 3 pracs to reach the 75%. mostly i think for parry, although with a little investment sub pk its an option to work on all your weapons and at least get them to 75% from 69%. Early on Protection + Giant resist is some very nice dam redux for leveling etc. Theres a massive void between giant learning and elf learning, so you want to utilized your skill learn, and also pray for learn from mistakes. A wise man once told me that with giants you should master dodge, and be drunk or something. You have no dodge, so i guess you are mastering sleep. Also remember giants live quite a long time, and also you will improve faster the older the character is, so theres nothing wrong with spending a bunch of hours at low levels getting some decent skills/spells and allowing the character to mature. (Thats only relevant if you like to play 300-400hour chars)

A big thing is that not every skill (indeed, probably most aren't) is worth practicing to 75%. 63% or wherever it is exactly that two pracs gets you is sufficient for most purposes.

Gain revert is your friend.

You can skip putting practices into some skills entirely, but there's not a lot of what I'd consider fat in the A-P skill and spell list.

Practice weapons from Balator are help with weapon skills, up to a point, if you're inclined to work on them.

There's help in the Consortium for magic.

All that being said I think something smarter like a human is a better first A-P if you don't feel like you have a pretty good handle on the class yet, exactly because you won't know yet what's skippable and what's not for your style.

Use bash liberally. Who needs weapon skills when you are bashing people and hitting them for 3 MANGLES with your vuln-hitting weapons (iron/mithril/whitesteel/etc). Who cares if you die. Just bash someone down.

Bash not working? Try doublethrust. Or pincer. Or flee. All are good choices.

Agree pretty much, hard to learn to appreciate the a-p skillset on your first fire giant.

Fire is good once you can do a-p though.

Personally, after playing so many fire a-ps and then trying duergar, it felt like an entirely different class, and I missed mah bash all-the-time anytime convenience. I couldn't kill anyone for the longest time as duerg a-p until getting in the groove of it, and I still feel like giant bash is just the better early charge builder. Also tough mobs are a deal even tougher without phys resist.