The Slayer's Guide to Trolls

[Graywolf-ELM]

Title: The Slayer's Guide to Trolls MGP 0008
Author(s): Johnathan Richards
ISBN: 1-903980-24-0
Publishers: Mongoose Publishing

Genre: D&D Fantasy
Class: 3rd Edition D&D, OGL, d20
Orientation: DM vs Player 93%/7% This product is weighed heavily
toward DM use
Length: 30 pages of content, out of 32
Cost: $9.95 US

• • Creative concept - 2
    • The Trolls guide is one of a series published by Mongoose publishing.
      I found the book to be a little old in keeping up with the times. The Troll alternative species were either environment related, or based upon size increases. The two-headed troll, and the partial Hill-Giant troll were not much of an improvement on the normal trolls.
      
    • The book did include an interesting perspective on troll tribes, and provided a small Troll cave environment as an example encounter. Trolls in a typically matriarchal society is not a new perspective.
  • Mechanics - 2
    • The book did not propose much new in the way of mechanics. The feats could have used more explanation, in regard to adding additional limbs, and what kind of attack rating it should have, and what feats the troll might need to make them more effective. The gunge spell is interesting, and does give lower level characters a way of meeting trolls on an earlier timeframe, CR-wise.
  • Liking/Lacking - 2
    • The best part of this material, I would have to say, is the gunge spell, and the troll feats. Even the feats needed additional work to make them more usable in a game while understanding how attacks, and additional natural attacks work.
      
    • The worst part of this material, was the alternate Troll types. Larger creatures with weaker attack values, and little variation to differentiate them from standard trolls, beyond, 2 heads, bigger and dumber looking, etc.
  • Readability - 3
    • spelling/readability errors were not enough to warrant any points off. The running story of troll interactions was typical, and not bad but did not cover much new ground. I would have liked to seen something stat-wise that showed that a pregnant female troll is the most fearsome creature to encounter(one of their statements). The overall formatting was good, the art was pretty well done as well.
  • Fun Factor - 3
    • Call me optimistic, but I liked the vicious female troll idea, and used them in my campaign. I added a level of barbarian or two to represent this, but the idea was theirs. I tried using the graft feat to add additional limbs to a troll, and had to figure out the additional attack values, and decide if the troll would get additional rend for the second pair, or if any 2 claws struck. I enjoyed the ideas but had to modify them for playability. The players like the different take on the Trolls for the encounters. The Hill-Giant troll flopped miserably as any kind of different view to the players.

Overall: 2 (2.4)
The book had good groundwork to build from, but failed on the follow-through. There were good ideas to use, but the information behind them was not as useful as it could have been to the game. There were bright spots in the resource that have been noted. I will buy the slayer's Guide books after this, for the ideas at least.

Reviewer: Graywolf
PlayTested: Yes
Obtained: FLGS