D&D 5E Chill touch vs Troll regeneration

[Paxanadu]

Actually by the book "Only acid and fire can arrest the regenerative properties of a troll's flesh."


In the MM there are many creatures that have regeneration no all of them say there is a specific way that it can be shut down such as "Regeneration. The oni regains 10 hit points at the start of its
turn if it has at least 1 hit point."


SO by the book chill touch wont shut down troll regen but can shut down any regen that doesn't have a specific counter to shut regen down.


This is my take by reading the books.

You must be confusing the fluff part with the actual rule mechanic part, which is very clear:

Regeneration. The troll regains 10 hit points at the start of its
turn. If the troll takes acid or fire damage, this trait doesn't
function at the start of the troll's next turn. The troll dies only if
it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn't regenerate.

Being serious for a second here: it's not 0.03%, it's 3%.


Slaad make great opponents IMO because they are relatively beefy and high-CR creatures, and they're easy to produce: a single Red Slaad can impregnate dozens of humanoids with slaad eggs, creating a whole slaad epidemic on its own. Red and Blue Slaad should be by far the most common given the spellcaster requirements on Green+ Slaad, but for any scenario where you'd normally consider orcs, ogres, or giants, Slaad also work well. Their main weakness is their lack of ranged weaponry, so they only work in relatively closed terrain, but their regeneration partially offsets that and prevents them from being whittled to death by regular human troops with longbows. Slaad infestations are fun, especially if you threaten to infect and/or impregnate human peasants if the PCs don't intervene in time.


I don't think Chill Touch is OP, but it's pretty good. Decent damage (d8), good damage type (necrotic is rarely resisted), decent range for a spell (120'). It's on my short list of ranged cantrips to consider taking, and which I have taken in the past. Competitive with Fire Bolt and Ray of Frost IMO.

I like slaads too. They can make for a great campaign arc, once the players are beyond the typical goblins / orcs / etc. stage, but before the true epic stuff.

However, Chill Touch remains weak even then. Most Slaads would indeed be blue or red, and those wouldn't regenerate ANYWAY if brought down to 0 hp.

So typically, there is absolutely zero difference in outcome between A and B below:

A: Whole party gang up on one slaad, with a "Chill Touch" as a "finisher" (Ready action needed?).

B: Whole party gang up on one slaad, with ANY damaging spell another cantrip or whatever, anywhere in the turn order too.

So yeah, definitely not an argument that the cantrip is "too powerful".




Another side-note that most people seem to miss: he healing prevention lasts only until the BEGINNING of your next turn.

This means an enemy cleric might ready a healing spell to go off "the next time that Chill Touch loving wizard tries something" ergo "after the start of the wizard's turn, but before he can complete another casting of Chill Touch".

While forcing an enemy that wants some healing to use a Ready action can be nice, it's nowhere near as powerful as COMPLETELY negating all healing. If a big baddie is super wounded and is going to cast Heal on himself for a true "second wind", he probably won't also try to move out of reach anyway, as normally that would provoke opportunity attacks, unless he ALSO has high maneouvrablity talents.

Villainous low-power healing is next to stupidly useless in a fight; when things go bad for the villain and he is losing, why would he try to heal for say 20 hit points, when the heroes all gang up on him and deal him over 60 damage per round? He might as well try to do one last evil action, curing himself would be way too anticlimatic. The *ONLY* way it's worth it is if the bad guy with it's single turn can cure himself of MORE damage than a full party entire round's worth of damage. This means SUPER STRONG healing we're talking Cure Wounds using a quite high spell slot here ! How often does the bad guy not only have access to high level healing, but is ALSO able to move out of melee without provoking opportunity attacks? So yeah using a Ready to heal back up isn't sch a sacrifice. *EVEN THEN* the bad guy would probably be better off doing something else anyway. The only way the healing tactic works is if the action economy is in your favor, such as a tank blocking off a corridor with the healer safely behind the tank and healing him, and there, again, moving around isn't needed.


So yeah Chill Touch's special benefit is easily bypassed with a Ready Action, thus isn't going to prevent magical healing based on actual spending of actions. Maybe the first time that it happens in a fight, but not afterwards. So it's mostly god vs the regenerating monsters, to quicken the fight by maybe half a round.


It's not overpowered at all.

I prefer it's anti-undead feature.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

However, Chill Touch remains weak even then. Most Slaads would indeed be blue or red, and those wouldn't regenerate ANYWAY if brought down to 0 hp.

Slaads all have the exact same regeneration BTW. (Except for tadpoles, which aren't slaad yet.)

So typically, there is absolutely zero difference in outcome between A and B below:

A: Whole party gang up on one slaad, with a "Chill Touch" as a "finisher" (Ready action needed?).

B: Whole party gang up on one slaad, with ANY damaging spell another cantrip or whatever, anywhere in the turn order too.

So yeah, definitely not an argument that the cantrip is "too powerful".

You don't need to Ready an action to cast Chill Touch. You just cast it, secure in the knowledge that preventing 10 points of regeneration is like a 10 point damage bonus. 2d8+10 Chill Touch beats 2d10 Fire Bolt.

It's even better against vampires because the effective "damage bonus" is +20 there.

 

[Tom Davies]

bump

 

[Guest 6801328]

This may be getting off-topic, but I'm not sure I would let Ready Action work the way described above. There are two triggers you could go for:
A) The start of the Wizards turn.
B) The Wizard starts casting Chill Touch (or even "the Wizard starts casting")

I would flat out prohibit case A. The Wizard's turn is a metagame construct, not something the character is aware of. (I'm generally ok with players metagaming but I draw the line at characters metagaming!)

In case B, when the Wizard starts casting the healer also "starts casting". Who finishes first? If it's not a tie, I would rule the Wizard in this case for two reasons:
1) If the spells take the same time to cast, the Wizard has a fraction of a second head start
2) If you want to start making stuff up about which cast is faster, I'd give it to the Cantrip

 

[Dausuul]

This may be getting off-topic, but I'm not sure I would let Ready Action work the way described above. There are two triggers you could go for:
A) The start of the Wizards turn.
B) The Wizard starts casting Chill Touch (or even "the Wizard starts casting")

I would flat out prohibit case A. The Wizard's turn is a metagame construct, not something the character is aware of. (I'm generally ok with players metagaming but I draw the line at characters metagaming!)

In case B, when the Wizard starts casting the healer also "starts casting". Who finishes first? If it's not a tie, I would rule the Wizard in this case for two reasons:
1) If the spells take the same time to cast, the Wizard has a fraction of a second head start
2) If you want to start making stuff up about which cast is faster, I'd give it to the Cantrip

Standard ready rules, the readied action takes place after the triggering event, unless the readied action specifically says it interrupts the trigger (e.g., the shield spell).

So, yeah, assuming you're not allowed to ready for "someone else's turn" (and I also would not allow this), this wouldn't work unless the wizard did something else before casting chill touch. To say nothing of the fact that holding a readied spell requires concentration, and can be disrupted the same way.

 

[mcooperm]

Standard ready rules, the readied action takes place after the triggering event, unless the readied action specifically says it interrupts the trigger (e.g., the shield spell).

So, yeah, assuming you're not allowed to ready for "someone else's turn" (and I also would not allow this), this wouldn't work unless the wizard did something else before casting chill touch. To say nothing of the fact that holding a readied spell requires concentration, and can be disrupted the same way.

You are right that the beginning of a turn wouldn't be a valid trigger, but Chill Touch reads:
"On hit, the hand grabs the target, dealing 1d8 necrotic damage. The hand then remains there until the start of your next turn."

This means that at the start of your next turn the hand lets go of the target or fades away, which I would argue is a valid trigger for a Readied Action.

E.g. "The second this spooky hand lets go, I'll cast Cure Wounds on myself."

 

[Yunru]

What is with the flood of new members practising thread necromancy?
Did google change it's search algorithms again? Did another DnD board close?

 

[BacchusNL]

What is with the flood of new members practising thread necromancy?
Did google change it's search algorithms again? Did another DnD board close?

Does it really matter? Arn't old-school members busy filling up another 20 pages about rope trick semantics anyway ?

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

Hahaha, so true.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Actually, I would rule it slightly differently. Chill Touch would prevent troll regeneration during combat, however, it wouldn't work as a "finisher": as soon as the duration of the spell expired the troll would start to regenerate, even from zero hp.