To kill a troll

[Neverwinter Knight]

Have I understood the MM correctly?

When you drop a creature with regeneration below 0 hp, can you permanently kill it with a coup de grace ???

At least that's what I think it says in the Regeneration description of the MM.


Thanks,

da KNiGHT

 

[AuraSeer]

Have I understood the MM correctly?

In a word, no.

The SRD says: "An attack that can cause instant death, such as a coup de grace, massive damage, or an assassin's death attack, only threatens the creature with death if it is delivered by weapons that deal it normal damage." (Emphasis mine)

"Normal damage" means damage that can kill you. Trolls take normal damage from fire and acid; everything else is subdual damage. So, you could CDG a troll with a flaming sword or a vial of acid, but not with a regular weapon.

 

[Stalker0]

ACtually this is an interesting point, because there's another thread talking about whether you can CDG with subdual damage.

 

[Forrester]

While I guess you could figure out some way to CDG a troll, it's unlikely you'll do so by reducing it to fewer than zero hit points. Most damage the troll takes is subdual damage, and so it's official hit point total is not going below zero unless it's taken a ton of fire and acid damage.

Now, I would suppose that if a troll were knocked unconscious because of subdual damage, you could try to CDG it then.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Killing a troll is easy. Beat it into unconsciousness, then pile some wood around it and light it on fire. You can even use a Flaming Sphere or Wall of Fire for this, or summon a fire elemental.

 

[gfunk]

So let's say you CDG a troll with a flaming sword (1d8 + 1d6 fire). Does that mean that only the 1d6 counts towards the CDG Fort save? How about strength?

 

[James McMurray]

Only the 1d6. You're better off turning the sword on, laying it on the troll, and grabbing yourself a quick meal of trail rations.

 

[Aleph]

Only the 1d6. You're better off turning the sword on, laying it on the troll, and grabbing yourself a quick meal of trail rations.

Trail rations? Heck, break out the hot dogs!

 

[James McMurray]

Nah, the last thing I want my hot dog to taste like is burnt troll.

 

[Celebrim]

This is how you kill a troll at (relatively) low level.

Step #1) Beat the troll into hamburger by normal means (e.i. subdual damage 4 or more than thier current h.p.)

Step #2) Take a torch and perform a coup de gras action. Specifically, tell the DM that you are going to hold the torch against the trolls brain pan or other sensitive surface.

NOTE TO NEW DUNGEON CRAWLERS: Just because you have magical lightsources does not mean that you shouldn't be carrying around torches. Fire has infinite uses.

Step #3) Your torch does 1d2 fire damage to the troll. Because it is a weapon, and you are performing a coup de gras action, you do double damage (2d4) AND equally importantly the Troll must make a Fort save (DC 10 + damage dealt). Since the average troll has a Fort save bonus of +11, there is only between a 5% and 15% chance that the Troll will recieve critical damage on any given round. However, since the troll is recieving damage roughly as fast as it can regenerate it, it is only a matter of time before you kill it one way or the other.

If you have a flaming weapon, this works even better.

Now, if your DM is really sick (like me), he lets you kill trolls like this a few times until it becomes routine and then he runs you up against trolls with a few levels of cleric and both Endure Elements (Fire) and Endure Elements (Acid) cast on them. Suddenly trolls become feared opponents again.