Trolls/Fire
- Thread starter kinjiru
- Start date
WalterKovacs
First Post
In our currnent group, we have a flaming weapon, a mordant weapon, and a spellcaster with a fire at-will. So, of the five of us, we have two 'always on' fire attacks, and a third that someone can use if necessary. That does mean that any trolls dropped by the striker that doesn't have one of the weapons needs to get someone to finish it off, thus wasting an attack for one round.
I do recall a different group where we were facing a single troll early in our career, so we were lower level, and didn't have the fire or acid at our disposal outside of some encounter/daily powers. So while we were able to get it down to low hp, we couldn't actually kill it with fire. So the 'end' of the fight involved the group either readying actions to kill it every time it woke up, or pulling down the curtains, gathering up some oil, and trying to start a fire. It was an interesting sort of mini skill challenge, but would have been annoying if we had to fight multiple trolls before getting a chance to get more practical solutions. (If nothing else, some cheap alchemist fire's, that deal fire damage even on a miss, would be useful).
Personally, when I was running the Trollhaunt (the first paragon adventure) I just went with dropping below 0hp on a round where it had it's regen turned off by fire/acid was good enough, just to speed things up. But they hardly needed to be made 'easier' to deal with, they were already pushovers.
I do recall a different group where we were facing a single troll early in our career, so we were lower level, and didn't have the fire or acid at our disposal outside of some encounter/daily powers. So while we were able to get it down to low hp, we couldn't actually kill it with fire. So the 'end' of the fight involved the group either readying actions to kill it every time it woke up, or pulling down the curtains, gathering up some oil, and trying to start a fire. It was an interesting sort of mini skill challenge, but would have been annoying if we had to fight multiple trolls before getting a chance to get more practical solutions. (If nothing else, some cheap alchemist fire's, that deal fire damage even on a miss, would be useful).
Personally, when I was running the Trollhaunt (the first paragon adventure) I just went with dropping below 0hp on a round where it had it's regen turned off by fire/acid was good enough, just to speed things up. But they hardly needed to be made 'easier' to deal with, they were already pushovers.
wlmartin
Explorer
Unless I read the Troll Page wrong in the MM, they can be killed by any means but Fire / Acid just stops their Regen.
IE if a Troll is at 25 HP and is yet to act, a Paladin slices into him with a massive attack doing 28 dmg - its dead.
Since any monster, unless they have a specified effect (such as Discorporation) stop getting turns when they are dead, the Regen can never kick back in
Am i missing something?
keterys
First Post
You are indeed missing a very important ability:
Troll Healing Healing
If the troll is reduced to 0 hit points by an attack that does not deal acid or fire damage, it rises on its next turn (as a move action) with 10 hit points.
It means that trolls can almost always swing or charge on their next turn, unpeturbed by being dropped... or require a followup attack from an ally.
I've done a 4-PC adventure once against two encounters _full_ of trolls, including troll minions, that all had this ability, and we had only one PC who could do fire... as a single target ranged attack. And we didn't know we were running trolls ahead of time.
So, yeah, it can in fact suck
Troll Healing Healing
If the troll is reduced to 0 hit points by an attack that does not deal acid or fire damage, it rises on its next turn (as a move action) with 10 hit points.
It means that trolls can almost always swing or charge on their next turn, unpeturbed by being dropped... or require a followup attack from an ally.
I've done a 4-PC adventure once against two encounters _full_ of trolls, including troll minions, that all had this ability, and we had only one PC who could do fire... as a single target ranged attack. And we didn't know we were running trolls ahead of time.
So, yeah, it can in fact suck
wlmartin
Explorer
You are indeed missing a very important ability:
Troll Healing Healing
If the troll is reduced to 0 hit points by an attack that does not deal acid or fire damage, it rises on its next turn (as a move action) with 10 hit points.
It means that trolls can almost always swing or charge on their next turn, unpeturbed by being dropped... or require a followup attack from an ally.
I've done a 4-PC adventure once against two encounters _full_ of trolls, including troll minions, that all had this ability, and we had only one PC who could do fire... as a single target ranged attack. And we didn't know we were running trolls ahead of time.
So, yeah, it can in fact suck
Ahhhhhh
Not ran into a Troll in 4e yet, thats quite cool.
I suppose the lesson is... carry some Acid / Fire weapons, even if they are 1st lvl weapons just in case... I don't like that it has to be the weapon that drops them, after all if the weapon drops them and someone goes in and rubs some acid into the open wound... surely the DM could rule that would be enough to bypass the ability
Thankfuly they made the rise from the dead a move action so no DMs get it into their head to give him Regen on the same turn - Personally I think that it should sacrifice all of its actions on the same turn as well... thus giving the player hitting at the Troll the chance to beat it back down.
Yikes, well Trolls are one of the classics, its not like we are sat here complaining that Beyholder Eye Stalks are a bitch... I think I learned the true pain-in-the-arse with Trolls when playing Baldurs Gate (I or II I forget) and had to fight some Trolls... Took me ages to figure out how to beat him down without fire or acid and I still can't remember how I did it, only that he rose about 30 times!
MarkB
Legend
That is how most people seem to run the ability, and it's not entirely contrary to the way it's written - if you hit a downed troll with a fire / acid attack, you're technically reducing it from zero down to zero hit points, and triggering its death clause.
Balesir
Adventurer
I can't remember where I saw it (clarified in the Moster Vault, maybe?) but I'm pretty sure that "hitting an unconsious troll with fire or acid kills it" is intended to be the way it works. I'm currently running Trollhaunt Warrens with the trolls replaced with MV versions and/or updated according to the MM3 'standards' and it's pretty well balanced, so far.
Dr_Ruminahui
First Post
Right in 1 - the MV does contain language where a hit dealing fire/acid damage while it is unconscious kills it.
Just ran an encounter where the PCs fought about 8 trolls (first in a group of 3, then 5)... they had enough fire damage that most rounds the trolls didn't get a regen, but at one point they knocked down a troll only for it to get back up and the players went "oh yeah, we didn't do fire damage to it last round."
wlmartin
Explorer
Indeed, Trolls are quite powerful when all you have is non-acid / fire but if everyone has fire or acid weapons... they are just big lumps of ugly smelly puss!
I remember someone telling me about a Troll encounter they he run - he, the DM put them in front of some Trolls and they plowed through them way too quickly, the DM got a bit defensive and in the filler encounter between that one and the next one he spent half the time redoing the next encounter, another Troll Encounter.
He basically upped the level of one of the trolls, removing some of the others and gave the Lead troll a resist fire necklace. The entire encounter (after they quickly despatched the normal trolls) with them surrounding this Troll Chieftan smashing into him with their Fire Weapons only for it to do no damage. It took them ages to figure out that he had resist and even longer to realize that the resist was coming from a magic necklace.
To their credit they got quite smart, they teamed up to pin the Troll to the ground so they could rip the necklace off - one of them died doing it and they beat him down.
Sounded like lots of fun
Dr_Ruminahui
First Post
Well, to be fair, although the PCs were never in any serious danger, I did make the pacifist healer cleric go through all his healing triggers, something I've never managed before... so even with all the fire, it wasn't a cake walk.
