Killing Trolls

[Xahn'Tyr]

Ok, so beat down the troll with your trusty sword, finally getting it's subdual damage above it's hit point total. Now what? Sure, you whack it a couple more times to put it at "negative infinity", but that doesn't mean it's going to stay down.

If you have just one flask of oil and pour it over the troll, you can't coup de grace, but can you assume that it will burn the thing to death eventally? Or does it just do it's 2d6 and burn out?
Same deal with acid?

You could try suffocating the thing, but it's got a 10% change of waking up after a minute regardless of it's subdual total. Given a Troll's CON, it's going to get at least 2 checks.

If you have a torch, could you use it's d3 fire damage to beat it to death? That may well take longer than a minute as well. How about CdG'ing with a torch? Does it count as a "melee weapon"?

Assume you build a fire around the thing, wouldn't that just do d3 per round (like standing in a pool of burning oil). If the troll is regenerating the "old" damage at 5 per round, it may very well wake up before it burns to death. Or do you arbitrarily increase the per-round damage for being more-or-less on a pyre?


Anyway, if a party happens across a troll in a barren cave or brick room (withou lots of handy furniture or flamables), it seems they could have a real problem keeping a troll down. Especially if there were a small group of trolls (so that not all could be simultaneously suffocated once subdued). But whenever I've run into trolls in actual play; we just beat it up with our (normal) weapons than say "we burn the corpse", someone marks off a single fask of oil or acid, and we move on to the next encounter. But looking at the rules, that may be a bit too flipant for these beasties.

 

[Darklone]

Well

It's not exactly by the rules but I allow CDG with a flask of oil or something like a torch. Players use finger of fire (ray of frost equivalent) more often.

 

[Crothian]

Trolls are very dangerous for the unprepared party. The party might not be able to kill it, so they have to think of alternative ways to defeat it. It's good to have PCs use their brains every now and then.

 

[Vaxalon]

If you have just one flask of oil and pour it over the troll, you can't coup de grace...

Why not? Isn't the standard procedure to pour the oil down its throat and light it?

 

[Xahn'Tyr]

Pouring a flask of oil on something is a ranged touch attack. Bows and Crossbows are the only range CdG weapons allowed.

Finger of Fire? So that does 3 points of damage max. Given the crit, that would be 6. So a FORT 16? That's not very hard for a 22CON troll to make...

 

[Savage Wombat]

Strange...

I thought it was in the rules that if a regenerating creature is unconscious from subdual damage, and you hit it with an attack that it can't regenerate, it died.

But I can't find that in the SRD. You'd think it would be there.

 

[Sodalis]

how about a party of five, each with a lit torch, and the fighter has multiple attacks

so you have one attack per char, with the fighters (prolly 2 in the group) with two attacks, that makes seven attacks a round. at 1d3 (or 2 pts) per hit, wouldnt that be 14 points. Doesnt that take him to -10, and dead?

who ever said you can only be burned once a round?

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Well that is how I always did it in Baldurs Gate.

Strange...

I thought it was in the rules that if a regenerating creature is unconscious from subdual damage, and you hit it with an attack that it can't regenerate, it died.

 

[Christian]

how about a party of five, each with a lit torch, and the fighter has multiple attacks

so you have one attack per char, with the fighters (prolly 2 in the group) with two attacks, that makes seven attacks a round. at 1d3 (or 2 pts) per hit, wouldnt that be 14 points. Doesnt that take him to -10, and dead?

No. It takes him to his starting hit points minus 14, and quite well, thank you.

Remember, regular and subdual damage are tallied separately. You fall unconscious when your subdual damage tally exceeds your current hit points. So a troll (who only takes regular damage from fire and acid) with 50 hit points who takes 90 hit points of weapon damage in a round (WHACK!) still has 50 hit points. The 90 hit points of subdual damage regenerates constantly, and when that number gets lower than its current hit point total, it regains consciousness. To take the troll to -10 hit points, you have to do 60 hit points (or whatever) of fire/acid damage-the weapon beat-down is irrelevant to this.

Now, one ought to be able to CDG the troll while it's unconscious from the subdual beat-down, but it is difficult to find a suitable weapon. I don't see any problem with treating a flask of oil or alchemist's fire as a melee weapon for this purpose. You're not throwing it at the troll in this case, after all ...

 

[Voadam]

Have the party rogue sneak attack with a burning torch on the subdued troll, the sneak attack damage counts as the same type of damage as the underlying attack, so the xd6 will be fire damage.

Christian is right about regen and subdual, he will still have full hp when subdual smacked, and to kill him requires killing with fire acid or instant death spells.