Colossal Troll

[Celebrim]

If you want to go mythic, give it an ability that when its blood is spilled, the blood regenerates into another (normal-sized or at least smaller than it) troll.

Cheers!
Kinak

That would be an example of suitable immunity to armies, but it's probably also a bit to epic for the scale of campaign he seems to be shooting for.

 

[Kinak]

That would be an example of suitable immunity to armies, but it's probably also a bit to epic for the scale of campaign he seems to be shooting for.

Yeah, if I have a weakness on stuff like this, it's usually that I go straight over the top.

I usually start things pretty gritty, actually, but by the point PCs can return the dead to life multiple times a day, I usually step things up to be pretty gonzo.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Dandu]

While I don't agree that it has to be flight and teleportation, I do agree that any CR 11+ creature worth it's CR needs responses to the normal sorts of strategies that high level characters might employ, including flight, invisibility, save or suck, etc.

Flight can be countered in several ways:

a) A sufficiently long ranged attack that you can respond to death from above or at least reduce its efficiency to a level that becomes trivial. If you decide to fly and it beans you with a rock for 4d6+18 damage, then it stops looking so great. If the characters have to fly a mile over the target, the number of hits they are going to make practicing high altitude bombing makes it very resource inefficient to try to take it on that way, especially if it regenerates.
b) Less long ranged attack, but ensuring that the creature is always encountered in an sufficiently small area - a cave for example - that you can't take cover simply by getting out of range. With a sufficiently small enclosure, the creature can rely on melee and possibly jump.
c) Giving the creature a burrowing speed, which thereby creates an impasse. Alternately, giving it the amphibious trait and placing it near to water can create a similar impasse.
d) Giving the creature flight, or allowing the creature to summon things that can fly.
e) Giving the creature various immunities and resistances to ranged attacks, such as with Weather Control or the ability to create suitable concealment for itself (clouds of fog, etc.), or the ability to catch/deflect missiles, etc.

Invisibility also needs a counter. In general, the above sample troll has scent and high listen and spot so it has minimally sufficient ability to counter invisibility, but probably not flight + improved invisibility (plus say a 10HD wand of fireballs). If you are really worried about that and your party tends to optimization, all the above suggestions plus rolling in the elite and replacing the fiendish with the Half-Fiend template produces a reasonably effective CR 17 monster.

But yes, flight is the reason the CR of a simple brute sort of creature has to be effectively capped.

If this is happening at levels 16 and above, there will be numerous ways of countering ranged attacks, as well as spells capable of reshaping the battlefield. A small cave becomes a cavern of magma with Polymorph Any Object, for example.

 

[Celebrim]

Yeah, if I have a weakness on stuff like this, it's usually that I go straight over the top.

I usually start things pretty gritty, actually, but by the point PCs can return the dead to life multiple times a day, I usually step things up to be pretty gonzo.

Cheers!
Kinak

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a sweet idea and I think I'm prepared to endorse it but it's the sort of unbounded ability that has the potential to become campaign wrecking.

I will say after thinking about this, don't reskin the Tarrasque. There is no need. It's so easy to make monsters in 3.X and if you are going to make a campaign around a boss monster, there is no reason not to take an hour or two and figure out exactly what you want.

 

[Celebrim]

If this is happening at levels 16 and above, there will be numerous ways of countering ranged attacks...

If a 16th level party encounters a CR 16 monster, we wouldn't expect it to necessarily represent a significant challenge. By targeting the CR at the 'mid teens', my assumption was that he was aiming for the PC's to be no more than 13th level or so. You can't expect a very epic fight when the CR of a monster is less than about 4 above the PC level.

as well as spells capable of reshaping the battlefield. A small cave becomes a cavern of magma with Polymorph Any Object, for example.

You can fill 16 10x10' areas with magma to the depth of 1' as the most generous interpretation. Creative and a rules headache for a DM who must now decide how hot you can make something with a polymoph, how quickly it cools, how fast the air heats up, how much damage is the result of exposure, etc, and avoid the nonsense of trolling players that will want to claim that you should sink in magma like in the movies, but that's what, a 40'x40' area? We can presume that the lair of a colossal creature has relatively more surface area, and for that matter if we assume the usual SRD rules for magma, the 2d6 damage it does per round of contact won't even noticeably harm a creature with fire resistance 10 prior to cooling to mere extreme heat. I get your point, but I still don't agree that a monster with CR in the mid-teens must fly and/or teleport to earn it's CR. I only agree that say a gargantuan Tyrannosaurus isn't necessarily a big challenge because its easy to obtain an absolute advantage over it.

 

[Greenfield]

Have you looked at the War Troll, from MMIII? Or the Mountain Troll?

I'd look at using one of those, as a base. (Just dropping my 2-cents in).

 

[Celebrim]

Have you looked at the War Troll, from MMIII? Or the Mountain Troll?

Wow. The mountain troll looks REMARKABLY like my triple HD troll, right down to the suggestion to add rock throwing and slippery mind. The main difference is that it's scaled down in size to buff AC and 'to hit', and gets more feats (per pathfinder rules), but otherwise its like someone went through the exact same thought process.

 

[aglondier]

Many gaming groups, including most of the ones I've been involved with over the years, have adopted the classic line "if it has stats, we can kill it" as their own.

From the original description, it looked like you were aiming for fantastically ancient, nigh on troll god, not another beast-of-the-week.

For a mythic scale creature like this, there should be little or nothing a party of mortal PCs could do to affect it. The entire point is to send them off on an epic quest to acquire a suitable weapon to defeat it. (reference Wrath of the Titans for a good example).

Just my 2cp...

 

[ksbsnowowl]

As far as countering invisibility, give it the Primordial Giant template from Secrets of Xen'drik. At will Invisibility Purge with a CL equal to its HD.

For a massive troll in my Norse-themed game, I just stuck the Half-Troll template, the Primordial Giant Template, and the Mineral Warrior template on a Mountain Giant. Note that the listed CR on the Mountain Giant is screwy; at best it is a CR 16. That would make the above one CR 19.

He sits in front of the entrance to a troll king's howe, and given his rocky appearance, looks like a cliff face until he moves.