Trolls and Unarmed Attacks/Strategies

[InexplicableVic]

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).

[Mathis]

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.

[Kromm]

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.

[zuljita]

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.

[Anders]

Humongous clubs are always fun.

[Anthony]

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.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by InexplicableVic

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.

I'm going to start off by assuming there are about as many trolls as delvers.

Since trolls already have Extra Attack 2 and a built-in grappling bite, plus Size +1 and Unfazeable, the obvious go-to strategy is very aggressive: overrun, close combat, Deceptive All Out Attack (Determined) with multiple slams until the enemy falls down, followed by biting.

Let's say Bjork the Half-Ogre Knight has entered a room and found a troll 5 yards away from him. The troll is marginally faster than Bjork (6.25 vs 6.00). It immediately charges toward him, spending 5 movement points on movement and overrunning him as a free action for an attempted 2d-3 (thr-2 for ST 20) +2 (Brawling at DX +2) +4 (for moving 5 yards). If Bjork's weapon weighs less than 7 lb. he can't parry without risking breakage, and he can't parry at all with most weapons in close combat unless he retreats, but let's say Bjork has a greatsword and retreats and parries successfully, inflicting 3d+3 (sw+3) +6 (Weapon Master) cut damage to the troll's torso. Call it 30 points of injury.

It has High Pain Threshold and Regeneration and Unkillable and Overconfidence. It doesn't care about the injury. Assuming it passes its HT-15 check to avoid knockdown (HT 12, +3 for High Pain Tolerance) and its HT-12 check to remain conscious, the next thing it does is finish its move to follow Bjork back into close combat again and slam him again, Deceptively (using Determined to cancel out the -4 to hit for -2 to defense), for 2d+5 slam damage (extra +2 for now having moved 6 yards instead of 5) vs. Bjork's 1d+3 (thr-2 for ST 18 is 1d, plus +3 for the troll's movement). There's a decent chance Bjork falls right over, and if he doesn't, the troll can slam him twice more, and use any leftover attacks for a bite that will grapple Bjork too, giving him a total penalty of -8 on any close combat attacks he manages to pull off (knife or kick most likely).

The troll takes some major damage from the initial parry but after that it's all downhill for Bjork. And of course if Bjork has already used up his Retreat on another monster, he doesn't even get that initial hit.

And that is why trolls[1] should terrify even delvers who can do 3d+9 cutting damage multiple times per round.

P.S. But don't kill the troll either! Beat it unconscious and then stash it in Suspended Animation for the Bard to Mind Control as needed, later on.

[1] And puddings. There's very little reason for a pudding ever to NOT do an All Out Attack (Double) slam for 4d+3 to 4d+15 depending on speed, per slam. Its Bash attack is essentially redundant.

Originally Posted by Polkageist

First off, the not dying. The only thing that causes real damage to a troll is fire and acid. So, does the troll ever heal from that?
I think the answer is no! A troll regenerates nearly any harm to its body *except* that which is caused by fire and acid, which never really heals.

They don't have Unhealing and the troll description mentions "scars" from old acid or fire wounds. I think those wounds heal at the normal, nonsupernatural rate of 2 HP per day.