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Coup de Grace A troll with fire resistance Question
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<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 6058906" data-attributes="member: 22424"><p>Bear in mind that a coup de grace isn't an auto-kill even at the best of times - the attacker gets an auto-critical-hit (with sneak attack, if applicable), and then the victim gets a Fort save vs DC (10+damage). (Perhaps ironically, the last time this came up IMC, the target involved was indeed a troll - and it successfully saved.)</p><p></p><p>If the creature attacked has Damage Reduction, Energy Resistance, or similar, then the damage done is reduced first, and then the save is made. So, the save becomes easier. And if the Damage Reduction, Energy Resistance, or some other effect reduces the damage dealt to 0, then no save is required - the coup de grace automatically fails.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You would need to do a minimum of 6 fire damage. Any less than that, and the damage is reduced to 0, so the coup de grace auto-fails. (Worse still, even if you do 6 damage, the DC of the save is only 11 (10 + 1 damage, of course), so the troll saves on a 2 or better.)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The troll would be effectively unkillable by damage.</p><p></p><p>However... I would note at this point that once the party reach the point where all the trolls are effectively disabled (because any time it regenerates the fighter just puts it down again), I would be inclined to simply handwave some means for the PCs to finish it off. Otherwise, the game is liable to bog down and become extremely frustrating, because the PCs won't leave an enemy behind them (to regenerate and attack later), but also can't really deal with it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This also. However note that, per the DMG, some 20% of encounters should be 'trick' encounters - if the PCs work out the trick then they're expected to be quite easy, but if they don't then they should be very hard. Thus, a troll with <em>protection from energy</em> cast upon it is fair game - the 'trick' is that they should cast <em>dispel magic</em> to get rid of the protection.</p><p></p><p>But, sure enough, a blanket immunity to fire, or a protection that cannot be removed is excessively harsh.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Technically, I think you're wrong. The troll's regen works by converting real damage to non-lethal and then removing that <em>non-lethal</em> damage.</p><p></p><p>Drowning doesn't cause damage, technically, it <em>reduces</em> the victim's hit points to -1. Because of this, regen can't convert the damage to non-lethal, and can't then remove the non-lethal damage (because there isn't any).</p><p></p><p>But that's hellish nitpicky, rules-lawyer-y stuff. Honestly, if the PCs are at the point where drowing the troll is a viable tactic, we're probably at my "handwave a way to finish it off" stage anyway. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="delericho, post: 6058906, member: 22424"] Bear in mind that a coup de grace isn't an auto-kill even at the best of times - the attacker gets an auto-critical-hit (with sneak attack, if applicable), and then the victim gets a Fort save vs DC (10+damage). (Perhaps ironically, the last time this came up IMC, the target involved was indeed a troll - and it successfully saved.) If the creature attacked has Damage Reduction, Energy Resistance, or similar, then the damage done is reduced first, and then the save is made. So, the save becomes easier. And if the Damage Reduction, Energy Resistance, or some other effect reduces the damage dealt to 0, then no save is required - the coup de grace automatically fails. You would need to do a minimum of 6 fire damage. Any less than that, and the damage is reduced to 0, so the coup de grace auto-fails. (Worse still, even if you do 6 damage, the DC of the save is only 11 (10 + 1 damage, of course), so the troll saves on a 2 or better.) The troll would be effectively unkillable by damage. However... I would note at this point that once the party reach the point where all the trolls are effectively disabled (because any time it regenerates the fighter just puts it down again), I would be inclined to simply handwave some means for the PCs to finish it off. Otherwise, the game is liable to bog down and become extremely frustrating, because the PCs won't leave an enemy behind them (to regenerate and attack later), but also can't really deal with it. This also. However note that, per the DMG, some 20% of encounters should be 'trick' encounters - if the PCs work out the trick then they're expected to be quite easy, but if they don't then they should be very hard. Thus, a troll with [i]protection from energy[/i] cast upon it is fair game - the 'trick' is that they should cast [i]dispel magic[/i] to get rid of the protection. But, sure enough, a blanket immunity to fire, or a protection that cannot be removed is excessively harsh. Technically, I think you're wrong. The troll's regen works by converting real damage to non-lethal and then removing that [i]non-lethal[/i] damage. Drowning doesn't cause damage, technically, it [i]reduces[/i] the victim's hit points to -1. Because of this, regen can't convert the damage to non-lethal, and can't then remove the non-lethal damage (because there isn't any). But that's hellish nitpicky, rules-lawyer-y stuff. Honestly, if the PCs are at the point where drowing the troll is a viable tactic, we're probably at my "handwave a way to finish it off" stage anyway. :) [/QUOTE]
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