So what if I cut off its head?

[twjensen]

Ok, so I can't actually damage the troll with anything I've got. But I subdue it pretty heavily. Then I cut off its head.

Now what?

Does the head grow a new troll?

Does the troll grow a new head?

How long does this take?

Does it break the rules if the DM says the troll is freakin' dead already, stop dismembering it?

Do trolls need heads?

 

[hong]

If you've ever read _Three Hearts and Three Lions_ by Poul Anderson, you'll know the origin of the D&D troll. In the book, Holger and his friends fight a troll and chop it to bits, and all the bits are actively fighting back -- including the head. In the end, they only manage to kill it by hurling the bits into a bonfire.

To repeat my answer in the other thread, the troll grows a new head in 3d6 minutes (see the MM entry for "troll"). Alternatively, if the body is ripped completely to pieces, the head regrows a body, and this (presumably) also takes 3d6 minutes.

You could build a bonfire of your own and burn everything, and this would solve the problem permanently. For convenience, I'd assume you did this once you managed to knock the troll down to -50 hit points or some other arbitrarily large negative number.

 

[Moulin Rogue]

Their 2e entry pretty much said the troll's body would grow a new head (in a week, hmmm).

 

[CuriousBard]

My players tried to behead a troll after knocking it out with subdual........but they found they couldn't.

First of all there was no clear, defined (or exposed) neck. The monster was pretty much a hulking head atop hulking shoulders. Plus with all the knotted muscles and cordy bulk that made up the troll's body, they couldn't successfully hack through a space sufficient to cut off the head with one, clean swing. This meant trying to saw through it. But they found that by the time they had gotten through a good portion of the neck, the place where they had started was already sending out filaments and reknitting back together as the creature regenerated.

Simply put, there was no way to behead the troll.