Trolls!

[Nebulous]

Well, the issue to me is that parties at paragon will have unlimited fire access, meaning that trolls will effectively never regenerate (aside from missed attacks), and they will become little more than ogres. At heroic level they would be much more frightening, so that a single troll in a battle will be a great opponent. I guess the best thing to do is approach this on a one-to-one basis depending on the group. If you have tons of access to fire/acid/alchemical, you can toss more trolls at the party. If not, use them sparingly, and incorporate set pieces such as pushing trolls into vats of oil or acid (which, incidentally, sounds a helluva lot more fun and memorable than just SB them).

Even at paragon, if the DM wanted to throw a monkey wrench in there, he could say you have to deal at least 10 points of fire or acid damage or the troll regenerates anyway. So, 1d6 torch damage will be insufficient. If you wanted to be REALLY nasty, you could say you must deal 20 points of fire or acid damage per round, so that PCs would be combining their fire/acid attacks in attempt to reach that minimum #. Just a thought.

 

[Nytmare]

So you don't feel it's a waste of space having MM detail a number of abilities that never come into play?

I don't know if it's really as black and white as that.

If a party has fire and acid damage at their disposal, it doesn't mean that the trolls regeneration doesn't exist. One still clearly affects the other, and the trolls abilities are not automatically trumped. "Reduced to 0 hit points by an attack that doesn't deal acid or fire" leaves a lot of leeway, especially in a party where every member doesn't automatically deal acid or fire with every attack.

Beyond that, I'm sure that a clever party that somehow finds themselves without any fire or acid can come up with a couple of good ways to make sure a regenerating troll stops being a problem.

And you don't feel it's a problem Trolls are described as fleeing flame/acid-wielding opponents while the module clearly expects them to stand and fight?

Trolls are described as "usually" trying to flee from foes that have fire and acid. I haven't run Trollhaunt yet, but I'm assuming that the trolls involved have a good reason to stick around and put that "usually" to good use.

 

[lukelightning]

...people in the world know (or at least think they know).

• Dragons are big lizards that breathe fire and stuff
• Trolls heal really fast unless you burn them with fire
• Werecreatures need to be killed with silver and if you get bit you'll turn into one
• Vampires die if they are hit with sunlight, need to have a wooden stake driven through their heart to prevent them from coming back to life, and can be held at bay by garlic
  *snip*

Heck, people in the real world know how to kill werewolves and vampires, and they don't even exist! (yah, I know the folklore is actually really variable, but if those things really did exist I'd wager the information would be more consistent, especially if there were dedicated professionals with special powers who spent their entire lives fighting them).

 

[Jhaelen]

So you don't feel it's a waste of space having MM detail a number of abilities that never come into play? And you don't feel it's a problem Trolls are described as fleeing flame/acid-wielding opponents while the module clearly expects them to stand and fight?

So, what you're really worried about is wasted space in the MM?
You'll be interested in hearing then, that there are so many different monsters in the book that it's extremely unlikely that you'll ever use even half of them in your game. So that's 50% of wasted space - outrageous! What did they think!

And as Nytmare already pointed out, the trolls in the module behave somewhat different from the norm because they're united under a strong and competent leader.

If you're really that worried about the trolls' well-known weakness against acid/fire, change it already! You have my blessings.
If you're going to play the module you can even rationalize it: their fomorian leader has discovered a ritual to protect them from their particular weakness.

But since you asked about opinions: I already gave you mine; it hasn't changed.

 

[lukelightning]

Please please please don't overdo it with giving trolls fire resistance. It's become so cliche it's surprising to find trolls that are actually hurt by fire; you might as well put a ring of fire resistance in the troll equipment entry.

 

[Victim]

When you have several trolls in an encounter, even a fire/acid at will isn't going to be enough to shut down their regeneration. And giving weapon characters a fire at will can be expensive - Flaming Weapons are the highest level for their plus.

And it can be difficult to make sure the killing blow goes to a fire using character.

 

[Tellerve]

What about having the acid or fire damage decrease the amount of regeneration per round instead of auto disabling it? So if you did 7 points of fire damage it would regenerate 3 hit points instead of ten. If you did more then 10 then it doesn't regenerate that round.

I kinda like this idea, and think I'm going to house rule my games this way.

 

[Blizzardb]

I have no problem with the trolls' vulnerabilities to fire and acid, even if the party has consistent means to attack them with such every round.

1. The party will not hit every troll every round, so trolls' special abilities will come into play.

2. If the party wishes to exploit the vulnerabilities as often as possible, it will be severely limited in the choice of its powers - I imagine the wizard having to make the strategic choice whether to use scorching burst every round, or flip his powerful daily that does ice damage. I doubt scorching burst every round will be the best alternative in every fight.

3. As someone already pointed out, many of the undead are particularly vulnerable to radiant damage, often having their special abilities shut down/crippled by such damage. I've seen both a party having radiant damage every round and a party that doesn't have access to radiant damage fight such monsters. Both situations are fun, even if the first party can take on a greater number of foes, potentially tilting the encounter balance in their favor.

 

[insanogeddon]

Specific Solution

In your game there is an issue. Fix should be simple and you don't want to alter the status quo to much with reskinning and all that jazz. Power creep has expanded the whole fire thing and wpns are easily available......

Make them acid vunrable only.

 

[insanogeddon]

Not your want, but worth a mention

Making them elementally vunrable x.servitors of the primordials might gain some props for campaign growth, monster politic and reasonable difference. The warty greenish ones are hit by fire, the metalic ones by electricity, the sweaty ones by cold.... fair to make it easily visible what type they are after the first nasty supprises and then you get to give everyone a chance to shine (maybe also silk like black trolls that all magic slides of but a blade rips like cloth).

What better servitors for ancient powerful beings that like stuffing with nature than creatures that can get up (once you have left) after your tantrum whence you force choke their mangy knecks for incompetence?

(whence urge satiated..)