Regeneration questions

[sdt]

I have some questions on regeneration for anyone that has an opinion:

1. What is regeneration supposed to look like? When you hit a troll with a normal sword does it cut normally or does it rebound off?

2. If I hit a troll with a flaming sword is all the damage dealt considered fire or only the d6 flame damage?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

1. What is regeneration supposed to look like? When you hit a troll with a normal sword does it cut normally or does it rebound off?

Depends on the creature. It's important that your players know what's going on, and that regeneration doesn't look like Damage Resistance, so they can tell the two apart.

Remember that regeneration changes all damage except those from a particular type into non-lethal damage. For trolls, it's fire and acid.

So, a normal sword hit actually hits the troll and cuts it, but the body basically sews itself up behind the blade. There's a limit to how much a troll's body can cope with, however, and it's possible to beat the troll up faster than it can completely heal itself. Thus, you can knock a troll out with normal weapons. I generally describe it as the troll being comatose, but with the wounds still slowly stitching together, with the arms and legs still twitching.

Any fire or acid damage has a readily visible effect - the part that's damaged doesn't grow back as quickly and, eventually, it doesn't grow back at all.

2. If I hit a troll with a flaming sword is all the damage dealt considered fire or only the d6 flame damage?

Just the 1d6 fire damage is actual fire damage. Everything else is slashing (or whatever the weapon is).

 

[Jdvn1]

Depends on the creature.

And the GM.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

And the GM.

Goes without saying, of course!

 

[Jdvn1]

Goes without saying, of course!

Well, I'd think so, but I've seen too many people trying to argue that abilities like this look a certain way according to RAW... I don't know where they get it, but they never even try to support themselves with the RAW.

 

[kenobi65]

IMC, regeneration generally would look like what Patryn said: your weapon damages the critter just fine, but the wounds get much better really quickly. (If you've seen the X-Men movies, think about how it looks when Wolverine gets cut.) Remember that with regeneration, it's not that the critter isn't suffering damage; it's that its body is repairing the damage at a rapid rate:

Creatures with this extraordinary ability recover from wounds quickly and can even regrow or reattach severed body parts.

OTOH, damage resistance would generally look like either (a) your weapon didn't hurt the critter as much as you would have thought (if some damage got through), or (b) your weapon seemed to just bounce off of it (if the DR completely sucked up the damage).