Trolls and Unarmed Attacks/Strategies
 

Trolls do not have "Treat as weapon, not as body part" in their description for their attacks. Would you agree--against strong delvers (doing 3d of damage) can pretty much chop these guys up just with successful parries, right? I suppose they could move to close combat, but if there's retreating room, that might be a problem.

What's the best way to combat this? Deceptive attacks by the Troll, to reduce skill to 11 (Deceptive -2) to make it more likely to hit or miss, less likely that there will be a parry? Start off with a Slam as part of the first attack, which is not likely to be parried (but blocked by a shield user), and then try to grapple with Extra Attack 2 afterwards (given those will be at 9s)?

With 325+ point guys that are optimized well for combat, I'm looking for some ideas. Of course, it could be more trolls, stronger trolls, etc. But I am looking for some ideas with the standard troll. Even one-on-one against a Knight with 20 skill in a weapon, a large shield, combat reflexes, shield wall training, weapon bond, weapon master... You're looking at a parries of 17/15/13 right there. It could go Parry 17, Block 16, Parry 15. Those are all likely to work, and likely to hurt the Troll. I think the main guy does 4d+a lot of damage (maybe 4d+9 or 4d+10...weapon master is amazing).

Re: Trolls and Unarmed Attacks/Strategies
 

My party have just fought trolls and this is what I wish I had done from the start.

Make the trolls gang up on the heroes.

The first troll runs into close combat and draws the retreat. The second troll runs in with three attacks and tries to grapple.
Remember that a succesfull bite is a free grapple against SM 0 heroes. A grappled hero is a hero in trouble as theres no more retreats.
Trolls have high pain threshold and an effective HT 16 against stun, even with aggressive parries to the face they'll stay in the fight on a 11 or less.
Don't bother with deceptive attacks, they need to hit for the heroes to defend and the extra crit chance can be deadly

Use slams against lightly armoured skirmishers like swashbucklers, martial artists and scouts. Don't bother with slams against knights in full armor, trolls have DR0 and will be the ones that bears the brunt of the damage.

Re: Trolls and Unarmed Attacks/Strategies
 

See the box on p. 39 of Monsters, particularly the second-to-last sentence. Ruling that trolls have reach C-2 not because of long arms, but due to long, rock-hard claws, is entirely reasonable and supported by the rules.

Re: Trolls and Unarmed Attacks/Strategies
 

At 325 points, I would be giving the trolls weapons and skill. Unless you prefer to deal in massive numbers which is another approach that works pretty well. Giving them "counts as a weapon" on claws helps. Also if you're using an older print version of DFRPG it may be helpful to recognize that there was an errata on troll regeneration. In effect they pick up two HP per turn.

Re: Trolls and Unarmed Attacks/Strategies
 

Humongous clubs are always fun.

Re: Trolls and Unarmed Attacks/Strategies
 

I solve this kind of problem by simply ignoring the Hurting Yourself rule completely. For delvers as well as monsters. From a realism standpoint, while getting a punch parried is likely to hurt you if you're not wearing armor, it's not going to be a powerful strike -- certainly shouldn't be doing Swing, probably shouldn't even be doing Thrust.

Re: Trolls and Unarmed Attacks/Strategies
 

That's a good point. Maybe replace it with 1 point of whatever damage type the weapon deals?

Re: Trolls and Unarmed Attacks/Strategies
 

Thanks for all the advice. I am thinking of one of either two ways here:

1. Using "Treat as Weapon, Not as Body Part" as per Kromm's suggestion; or
2. Giving the troll skill 16 in Axe/Mace and an oversized Knobbed Club. Does 3d+4 crushing, Parry 12, can attack 3x per turn...that might be helpful. Maybe he goes for the bite once he can get into close combat and the person can't retreat, and tries clawing and biting then.

Re: Trolls and Unarmed Attacks/Strategies
 

Beef up troll ST to 24 and give them a humongous club.4d+8 cr right in the kisser.

Re: Trolls and Unarmed Attacks/Strategies
 

Another idea: if you are hunting the trolls in their lair, make sure to use darkness penalties, foul stench (go with Nausea from Exploits p.65) and maybe a slick floor covered in something truly foul (go with something like -1 to all DX rolls/DX based skills). The trolls are right at home in such conditions and suffer no penalties.