Trolls | Monsters of 5e Dungeons and Dragons | Web DM
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- čas přidán 31. 07. 2024
- Trolls are an iconic monster in D&D and other TTRPGs and we love how they make for a gross and creepy encounter - but if your group can spot them, then combat can be over quickly. Here's why we find them inspiring and how we keep trolls fresh in our dungeons and dragons campaigns.
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Time stamps:
0:00 intro
1:41 Why trolls are awesome
2:53 description of a troll from Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson
6:00 Troll regeneration
7:31 the problem with d&d trolls
12:17 Solutions for troll problems 1- never call it a troll
13:34 Solution 2 - loathsome limbs
16:57 Solution 3 - think of trolls as Wolverine in a slasher flick
19:21 Troll tactics and environment
20:38 Reimagining the troll- Reskins!
24:57 Changing regeneration
26:35 Troll TIDBITS to inspire you
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We need a video for best 3rd party wildshapes. Especially from tome of beasts 1 and 2
@@wilfredofigueroa7970 Thank you for the request!
This is one of the best videos you've ever made. There was some serious gold in here.
Thank you. 🙏
I was in a homebrew game where trolls healed d10+10. If it was under the effect of fire or acid, the +10 was removed, but it still healed the d10 roll. It really reinforced the ability and forced us to come up with some new tactics.
Nice!!
How about MORE DAMAGE?
@@yaldabaoth2 If I remember correctly (it's been a few decades), I am glad they did not also have a damage buff. They drained enough resources with the regen.
Really great tips as always Jim! Great video! I had a blast with Pathfinder Kingmaker where a plot point was how a villain was making Trolls immune to fire, its fun to come up with ways to enhance these creatures so they don't grow stale.
Thank you so much!!
Huh. I just did a side-session where a solo player helped a troll become immune to fire (he's meant to be a future campaign boss or NPC). The session featured an elemental fire dungeon, and the troll kept trying to "inoculate" himself by burning one arm every night. The player willingly taught him Burning Hands, and the dungeon turned out to be a pre-apocalypse dwarven war factory with a portal to the City of Brass... So now "King Gorger" doesn't just have four arms, he also has a crown of flames between his horns, and burning coal eyes.
The crazy thing is I only rolled nat 20s for that troll all session. He deserves a lair that can be rearranged or destroyed in segments. Can't wait for the Four Winds to meet him.
When I run trolls, they regenerate every round. Dealing fire or acid damage doesn’t stop it, but whenever they take acid or fire damage their hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the damage taken. They only die when their hit point max is 0
That is really interestion
Now, for troll variants that radically change their "biology", I have some ideas:
1) Fairy-eater Troll: A classic "gnoll", a troll that ate fey creatures, like pixies or gnomes, until they're saturated with the power of illusion. Can cast Minor Illusion at will, and Silent Image 3/day. So it's preferred hunting method is to hide inside an illusion, luring prey in with the sound of dying animals or distressed villagers. Erupting from what appeared to be a solid cliff-face or overturned log, or from a disguised pit trap. Has Magic Resistance, so magic (including anything that deals fire or acid damage) is less effective and less likely to work at all.
2) Aquatic Troll: Amphibious, covered in slimy scales, webbed fingers and toes. Fire doesn't disrupt its regeneration, because it's just so damp. Instead, _Lightning_ damage takes Fire's place. Found in rivers, swamps, bogs, and oceans.
3) Bigarm: Like Bigfoot, except with a single arm. Covered in fur, and with one huge arm ending in a meaty fist. Long reach, high damage, Disadvantage to escape its grapple checks (because it can grab an entire person in its grasp).
4) Dwarf Trolls: Miniature trolls the height of dwarves (possibly related?). Still regenerate, weaker in CR, but faster and hunt in packs. Use pack tactics to swarm over prey. Some will grab attention, while others sneak up from behind. Maybe serve or even worship larger trolls, and act as their minions/fodder.
5) Many-Maw Troll: Every laceration inflicted on the troll rapidly changes into a toothy maw, ready to bite and tear. Like a lesser version of the hydra, the more the troll takes Slashing damage, the more attacks they get per round. Any of these can be used to grapple or catch weapons. (A variant of this might be a spellcaster, in which case each mouth also chants spells, though their idiotic mumblings make the spells random.)
6) Troll-Taur: Has consumed many horses and/or bulls (or centaurs and/or minotaurs), until its body erupts with a random assemblage of horns and hooved legs. Runs faster, and gains extra damage on a charge.
Jesus... on that many maw one could give it the gibbering thing from gibering mouthers. That would be effing terrifying.
Bravo man holy shit, this sounds like you could make a troll hunter campaign out of these!
Great job with this one! Really like it when we can let the monsters just be nasty, horrible things. I will admit to missing Pruitt on the show, but you're knockin' it out of the park here lately, Jim (and of course everyone behind the scenes, as well)!
Wait I haven't watched in a while. What happened to Pruitt?
@@ThePizzaGoblin he’s still part of the team (I believe) and just stepped out of the co host role for these videos
@@wadecarefully aw. Sucks
Jim man you are always an inspiration for me and my DMing. I love the stuff about the Troll and them all being different and they are what they eat. Hope you feel better soon bud I know how those type of pains feel.
Thank you;
Great video! Trolls while sometimes seen as a overdone monster is so rich with adventure potential. One time I made a troll that had a headband of intellect get jammed in its head and attempt to find a cure for their fire vulnerability.
love all the gross things you can do with trolls! did it figure out how to become invulnerable?
@@WebDM They eventually managed to trap a fire elemental in a set of armor that was then branded into their flesh. When the PC's fought them I had the melee attacks deal fire damage and any limbs grapple players and explode.
Web DM: Troll surgeon
Me: Thank you *_YOINKS_*
"They have a Cave Troll!"
Classic line from the most iconic troll combat scene put to film. I don't think it takes anything away from the scene that we all know it's a troll, or that the heroes do.
I'd imagine one way to make trolls that much scarier is to make the healing factor slow down when hurt by acid or fire instead of shut down completely. Like yeah you defeated it with fire and looted it but in an hour it's going to slowly stitch itself back together, forget you ever slaughtered it, and carry on with its murdery hungry day
In my recent RotFM campaign one of my players got killed by a dragon, and they brought his body to a mad wizard to bring him back to life. The wizard sent them to get a troll heart, which resulted in an intense fight against 2 immature frost trolls.
When they brought the heart back, the wizard performed a grizzly ritual where he put the heart in the dead players chest. He then came back, but over time developed an insatiable hunger for humanoid flesh and had to eat some each day. He also gained an ability to use a bonus-action to use a hit die to heal himself lol
Now THAT’s a cool resurrection!
Poul Anderson's a great Author; the Broken Sword is also well worth a read - his take on Elves is also really inspiring. As far as Trolls go, now you mention it, I believe the main problem with their stat block vs the narrative, is that you can very easily negate their regeneration - if you simply tweaked it, that *nothing* can stop them regenerating, except to actually burn or dissolve them completely (i.e. dead), maybe tweak the speed of the regen, then they should play out a lot closer to the scary narrative we get from Three Hearts and Three Lions...
Oh using "covered in thick mud" as a type of armor (with an hp pool) against fire and acid has serious potential. Allows for chars to figure out clever solutions on the fly too
Control Water or Move Earth, anyone?
Yes!!!!
@@Ultimus31 Oh yeah, transmutes also!
I love how much you love the game. "Because that's what trolls do!"
I like to use trolls like the Alien in my campaign. They are, to me, the best D&D implementation of this monster, and the signs of a troll in the area (the total lack of critters it has already eaten) chills the blood of my players, no matter what their level
When I first heard of Three Hearts and Three Lions, and that it is where Gary got his idea for alignment - I miss heard it as Three Hearts and Three Minds and thought it was a philosophy book.🤣🤣🤣
I like the idea of a non combat encounter with a troll where giving into whatever demand it has or somehow showing it respect is much easier than killing it
Quit Trolling us with your well informed and insightful videos.
dawwwww you are the first person to troll us with a kind comment today!
I'm glad Pruitt is happy doing his own thing but man its tragic we didn't get one of his pun filled openers with this one, I can only imagine it would have been legendary.
The concept that every single piece of a troll’s dna is attempting to kill is great. Blood blinds or burns, severed limbs creating issues and grappling.
Awesome video! So many great ideas and perspectives here for one of the most classic, iconic D&D monsters.
this was such a great video Jim! really turned what was in my head a dull monster into something cool and terrifying with so many potential variations and uses. especially love the tidbits at the end and hope you continue to offer those, I particularly liked the troll hounds idea, and immediately thought of them as reminiscent of super mutant hounds from fallout
A simple fix is to make it so that fire and acid damage decrease the Trolls max hp rather than prevent the regenerate.
Jim Davis, what I've just heard leads me to believe that I can run The Thing as a one shot and make the troll the Thing... thank you!
This video made me love trolls, and now I am inspired to think this much about every monster in my game. Things were feeling stale and now I'm very inspired.
In this video, we see the results of Jim rolling a Nat 20 in performance. This was great!
I love the addition of the loathsome limbs ability, really surprised my players the first time it happened.
Nice idea for a war trolls from Eberron having metal plates under their skin. Loved it!
The troll is the Terminator of D&D. "It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."
Did something very similar for my home campaign. Big chaos explosion rocked the country side and the players were trying to figure out what happened. Ran a pair of dire trolls that I gave the class features of Wild Magic barbarian
"Snake-like guts" should be a loathsome limbs ability. You disembowel it but now it's guts are wrapping around you weapon and/or limbs.
My headcanon now is that shambling mounds are trolls that regenerated around plant matter.
This was beautiful. Adding it to my version of The Infinite Labyrinth. One of Baphomet's many experiments. Thank you, thank you.
Back in 3.5 one of the monster manuals had a “war troll”, a higher CR troll that - among other things - had it’s regeneration only shut down by acid instead of acid and fire. Some other splatbook introduced the void mind template, basically where a mind flayer eats the brain then does some chicanery to what’s left. They gained an acid attack, a creepy tentacle that sprouts from the head, and (critically) acid immunity.
I threw the two together at a high level party. They were in an isolated high mountain mining village that had gone silent. They picked their way amongst the cabins, finding nothing of note, until a massive fist punched through a wall, grabbed one of them, and drug him through the hole. Because of the “empty” CR adjustment I was paying for that template, it wasn’t a very tough fight, but that it just kept coming back, relentlessly hunting them, never staying down really made it an effective (and terrifying) monster. I think they killed it 3 or 4 times before resorting to luring it into a tunnel and collapsing the tunnel on it, leaving it buried.
Now obviously that’s a bit far away from just being able to pull out a troll and go, but the story you read at the beginning reminded me of that story.
Another inspiration for trolls I like is from the spiderwick chronicles. It paints them as far more cunning and manipulative, but no less bloodthirsty. Also, HUGE. Trolls just grab things as big as horses and drag them under
Really good video. One of your recent best IMO. Great background and details for inspiration.
I always add back the old Rend ability to the troll. if they hit with both claw attacks they can use a bonus action to use rend and do an extra 2d8 damage.
i like the idea of mixing Fey troll elements with dnd troll elements, and havining there agressive regeneration be like, the forest spirits mimicing humanoids but a little more fucked up
Had a game where the bbegs had soldiers sustained with troll meal. It was alchemically treated troll flesh that regenerated at the same rate of digestion. But if their soldiers died or ate anything but water, it would grow into a troll. They would kill the minions, only to have to deal with trolls a while later. Describing the wet pooping and ripping sounds became a trigger at my table. It was fun
My world has a small village where the town doctor is a troll. He's not a particularly good doctor, but he will remove his own body parts and graft them onto injuries (i.e. a severed arm).
If a PC were to have a grevious wound and need a limb replaced or something, they have access to him, but they would have to deal with graft versus host and would be stuck with an ill fitting hand or whatever.
What insipires trolls for me is an 80s zombie flick called the Return of the Living Dead. In that movie's lore zombies just kept going on no matter what. Destroy the head and it'll continue walking around without a head. Chop it to pieces, and the pieces keep crawling forward on their own. Even if you _burn_ a zombie to ash you've just generated zombie dust with millions of individual zombie particles, and when that rains on graves it reanimates more zombies.
So apply that to trolls. To kill a troll you need to burn it on a pyre, but two weeks later whererver that smoke landed troll parts start popping up. Turn over a rock and you'll see a troll face looking up at you. Go fishing and pull up a wriggling troll arm. Tree branches start to get coated in long strips of troll skin hanging from them like slimy vines. And if you breathed in that smoke? That's not going to end well for you.
Thank you for this video on Troll's your tidbit about Demon Trolls gave me an idea, one of my players drew the Flames card from the deck of many things "A powerful devil becomes your enemy". So I was thinking that the first time the party does Fire damage to the troll is will burn off the top layer of skin to reveal demonic symbols and they will have to fight a demon troll sent by whatever devil sent it at the party. Now to the drawing board to do up some stats
PS. I use some mutation rules for my trolls in my games if a troll gets away from the party it gets stronger (typically based on how the party beat it the first time) and tends to try tracking the party to get it's revenge
Deep sea troll is a classic. One of those climb up onto a ship? At night? Massacre.
I once had a giant that was infused with troll blood to heal and regenerate. The giant had screaming scares that were mouths as the retention would heal wring and create a new screaming mouth. The part's face when the fighter hit it with a big slash and then there was a giant screaming, gnashing mouth across its chest. Only rivaled by when it got hit by an arrow that left a small, high pitched screaming mouth.
Jim's always fascinated me with his rare asides about trolls. They're some of my favorite, most adaptable DnD creatures, even for social encounters. I've got to have troll types and competing types in every biome and civilization on my map! This is a great resource for stealing or generating more. Thanks, Web DM. Here's one I homebrewed a couple years ago: *Shadow Troll.* (no stat block, CZcams comments aren't formatted for that)
After grafting antlers to her shoulderblades as extra armor (and social dominance), a particular troll and her husband tracked an expedition of elves into the arctic north. There, they discovered the Walls of the World... And the Shadows which lurked under them. In this hellscape of dry, silent lightning, rainbow forcefields obstructing the sky, and near-endless nights, the trolls ambushed the elves deep beneath the ice of the Wall's corner, where a magic gate lured in Shadows and other undead for magic waste disposal. There, after devouring the elves and making ice sheets of their skins, the trolls found themselves lost deep within glacier caves. With nothing to eat but themselves and the Shadows, the wife chose the Shadows... And the Shadows chose *her.*
Now, the husband has escaped to the surface, albeit starved to insanity. Perhaps he can be a weakened troll tutorial for new players, or a horrific Ice Troll of your making. And the Widow... The Widow sloughs off rinds of oozing, necrotic troll flesh like blown-out tires. Her blood runs in the air, and grafts itself to her surroundings like black tendrils and goop. Anyone who spreads her blood finds it clings and strings, weightlessly, from their arms and armor. The first time she reaches half HP per fight, the Widow "Shadow Sheds" and unleashes a blast of Necrotic damage within 30 feet, DEX Save CON (I suggest DC 18). But this only affects creatures and objects that have her shadow-blood on them.
She can also turn 2D as more of her flesh shell is stripped away, and use a bonus action to hide with advantage in shadows or dim light. If you play in Roll20 or a similar program, stretch the token to simulate the effect of light "stretching" her in shadow form. Optional abilities to add for larger parties or higher level games: *Bonus action Shadow Touch with her shadow, but you'll need to carefully track light sources. Shadow Jaunt, for teleporting around (if only in her Lair, which should have smashable ice floors and plenty of big icicles).*
For best effect, add Loathesome Limbs. I had her throw arms and legs into a player's compound, to lay siege to his cabin. The party ended up burning the whole thing down and going out the escape tunnel, before tracking her to her lair for vengeance. But the paths to her lair were covered in trollflesh, all of it necrotic and active, from arms to legs and even heads, and even carpets of hairy, rotten-tire skin. There were also a couple half-formed "baby" Shadow Trolls with their ribs and spines hanging out, and no legs, that were partially frozen to the walls.
Trolls, man. I like to think that they absorb their environment not just by eating, but by accumulating it *on their skin.* Like, a troll that rolls in grass will come up with patches of grass and sod infused in their outer flesh. A troll crawling up a mountain will rub some of the stone off on its hands, feet, and abdomen. And a swamp troll or sea troll always looks like "Part of the crew! Part of the ship!"
(troll blood is also highly flammable and renowned for its glue-like properties, which help them stick their limbs back on, but acid damage causes the blood to foam-blast like a tick injected with hydrogen peroxide)
Yeah more Monster videos! So sorry to hear about the hip Jim, I really hope it all heals well and keep up the amazing work!!!
Years ago like early 2000s, My Godfather ran an adventure with me in 3rd edition where we were investigating an ancient elven tomb. We found this old sarcophagus with engravings of some ancient elven king or wizard or some such. We opened it up expecting loot, and what we found was this lanky, nasty grotesque monster that my godfather described to us as a troll in rotted elven clothing.
From then on it became lore in our group that if an elf lived to long, it became a troll and could not die until we completely and utterly destroyed their every cell. It took my years to realize this wasnt standard monster lore for Faerun, But I kept this lore true for any game I ran. It is by far my favorite take on a troll that as far as I can tell my Godfather was the one who came up with. That is unless he saw it in a supplement that I never saw.
I really like the tidbits section!
I created a troll monstrosity called the blood troll for a one-shot, which combines it's rapid healing with hemophilia. The creatures own blood was a weapon that it utilized when the fighters cut into it. This got a really visceral reaction from my players. The one defensive mechanic I added, which also tied into its description, was the boils and packed pockets full of blood about its limbs and torso, ready to burst on the party should they strike it. When the blood does burst on the party it heals on the opponents armor and face leaving sticky, blinding flesh engulfing them and attempts to strangle them.
Τhis is a great video. I love how it both provides little known information but also spark my imagination to embelish my troll encounters my personal way!
How I deal with Trolls Regenerative shortcomings is by booting the Healing a troll gets making it’s regeneration scale like the Fighter’s Second Wind along with setting a Minimum Fire and Acid threshold basically to keep the party from cheesing the Regen with chip damage I basically say that their is a minimum amount of acid or Fire damage you have to do to stop the healing and goes up as the troll gets stronger
Outstanding video! Loved the tidbits!
Give Trolls spellcasting! "Troll" comes from Norse mythology and is a cover all term for magical creature, but also refers to witches and spellcasting giants. Give a troll a couple levels of Druid, make it so it's so connected to it's swamp or forest that it can tap into Druid spellcasting. It can wildshape, use entangle and poison spray, stuff like that. Makes it much stronger and much creepier. Any beast in the forest at night could be the troll watching you. The swamp comes alive and entangles you while it laughs and regenerates. Imagine spike growth as your fighter charges at the troll, the ground twisting into spikes around them. Druid Trolls could be horrifying
This is a great look at trolls, lot's of inspiration. Thanks Jim!
I designed a fire troll for my homebrew campaign. Whenever it takes fire damage, it's regeneration is increased on the next round and it had no weakness to acid. If it takes enough fire damage in a single round, it gains the ability to breathe fire once.
The only way to properly defeat it is to freeze it for at least an hour.
Playing a Pathfinder 2e campaign, Rise of the Runelords, and my character has the Giant Hunter background. He specifically hates trolls, and had a lot of trauma around them, so I REALLY wanted to play up just how horrific trolls are in his backstory.
I imagined his White Whale was a troll priest, known as Trezzahn the Baker. Named for his tendency to roast victims alive to honor the Trollfather, being granted resistance to fire and a fiery whip as rewards for his service. The horror of this gangly, intelligent monster that burns you alive and laughs in honor of their God, before ripping his own guts out to see what they say of the future. Really hope the DM plays up just how terrifying this guy is.
I love the idea of a Tree-Troll..a troll that just ate a tree lol
An army that keeps trolls to feed themselves - a renewable food source that moves itself.
A horde of Trolls were temporarily united to kill a Red Dragon that specifically hunted their kind. After killing the Red Dragon, they eat it, look draconic, and become fire immune.
Badass
I'm only 6 and a half minutes in, but on the idea of "body horror" one idea that I immediately thought of was "the wounds never stop bleeding". Imagine a small dungeon room or corridor, or an outdoor encounter. "After a few rounds, you realize that the blood has made the floor too slick to traverse easily" whether it turns the dirt into mud, or slicks the smooth stone all into a grease trap.
Edited for spelling...
More vids like this! Great content and got the creative juices flowin for me
Oh man, these reskin ideas and tidbits are AMAZING!!
Listening to this episode has inspired me to run a troll fight. My mind is aflame with devious thoughts.
I hope you bring up your troll gang boss npc from Save or Dice season 1. That guy was pretty cool.
Loved the video, thank you for enriching my game as always.
(Pruitt if you are reading, be well dude. Thank you for fighting on the front lines for the last 2 years)
Thank youso much for your work! I understand that it must be very hard to do the show app by yourself!
Love to see more monster vids and vids on people like Volo. Love your stuff
Anyone else hear Pruitt whispering tidbits in the background? Thanks Jim for the tips on one of the best monsters in D&D!
TIDBITSSSSSS
Troll Surgeon out here just tinkering with Chimeras.
Great video. I'm working on trolls right now because of this video.
Electrock is a Troll who ate a couple of Blue Dragon Wyrmlings and now spits lightning bolts.
I'm fond of Troglodytes but they're surprisingly lacklustre in 5e whereas they seemed tougher in AD&D. I converted the Troglodytes from 4e and now they're about CR4. The Shaman and the Warrior are the elite while the regular Troglodytes are treated as minions. I've had to give the Rust Monster some oomph as well. Troglodytes don't use metallic weapons and thus often have Rust Monsters as pets.
Wow. I've been thinking ALL of these same things lately. Well Sir, you've done it! I'm now inspired to run a Troll themed adventure.
I love 3 Hearts and 3 Lions! The part with the troll was so terrifying. I feel like if a DM could pull off that level of weird terror with trolls it would be unforgettable. Sadly now everyone knows the troll’s weaknesses and trolls are often used as damage sponges with an annoying habit of getting back up if you don’t take advantage of their weakness.
So, you're telling me that Loathsome Limbs is the perfect segue for a severe application of the Farmer's Axe to the idea of a troll as an in-universe phylosophical debate?
Good to have ya back guys!
Related to the creative uses of troll regeneration at the end of the video: in Pathfinder there's a group of oracular trolls that tell the future by cutting themselves open and performing haruspicy on their own entrails. Not sure if that's the most convenient way to glimpse potential futures, but it sure is a hell of a party trick.
Omg that's grotesque
The dnd troll reminds me of warhammer 40k/fantasy Orcs. That'd actually how i plan on running my trolls.
31:38 "Regular old fantasy Joe & Jane Doe, until something happened to them..." I don't know what it is (yet) but I really want to take that statement and make a monster out of it. Joe and Jane weren't a couple, maybe they didn't even know each other, and now they're 1 monster sharing all kind of things that they didn't want to know about each other.
Thanks for the idea.
Awesome video! Thanks Jim!
I watched this video before, but wanted to come back because it's a totally inspired outlook on running trolls and just monsters in general, I think it's too easy as DMs to ahear to the book monsters but ever since this video I have been just dying to run a scenario where the troll is front and center. Really miss Web DM you guys had amazing input
The Dragonlance novel Flint the King had a pretty good troll in it from what I recall. It had been defeated years prior to the story and as soon as Flint returned to its territory, the thing caught his scent and started tracking him again.
I'm reminded of the Thing, perhaps once decapitated it head crabs around. Lairing in a magic dead area is fun esp when characters have begun relying on magic as opposed to torches and oil.
I rarely comment on yt videos. But this was an amazing view and well done deep dive. I'd love to see more with this concept for other monsters. I especially love the reflavours and reskin ideas.
Thank you so much!
A Troll with the Dryad's ability to meld into and teleport between trees would be TERRIFYING what an amazing concept, using Fey creature's innate abilities to make a game-changing troll.
In the original Eberron Campaign Setting the nation of monsters used trolls to fed everyone. The trolls used their own guts. It was said to be spicy.
I was iffy when I clicked on this video, but as always you came through with excellent DM and RP ideas. I’m excited, thank you thank you for another great idea!
I'm sad to see less of Pruitt but I'm definitely gonna stick around for Jim and his ramblings! I'm loving the new solo content for entirely different reasons.
I like the idea of a troll based on DCs Doomsday, where the troll will return to life from even a speck of matter. Every time it comes back to life it adapts to the last way it died, i.e. it gets resistance to slashing, then if it gets killed by slashing again it then gets immunity to slashing.
This could be an recurring villain that pops up during many different times during the campaign and could be a major boss towarrds the end of the campaign.
I would even have it adapt to fire and acid.
Ideas on how to enhance trolls to make them feel more like they should:
1. Instead of a set regeneration rate each round have it roll a number of hit dice each round. I'd start at 4d10, though you could in theory even use it's full hit dice total, so half it's hit dice dependent on the number of players and how much fire and acid damage they can do. Each time it suffers fire or acid damage you reduce the regeneration rate by 1d10 for a round, so it takes time to actually attrite it.
2. Whenever it takes damage from piercing or slashing weapons if it doesn't severe a limb you need to pass a strength check or else the wound heals around your weapon disarming you. For that option I'd describe the troll as already having several rusted and broken blades embedded in it's flesh.
As far as the physicality of trolls goes, I do really like the three hearts three lions description, but I'm also partial to their ape-like appearance in elder scrolls games
Every restaurant needs a troll for free regrowing meat supply.
A Web DM video on trolls? Is it my birthday?
I like the idea of a horror campaign with a troll like creature eternally following the party. Every time they "kill" it, it develops resistance towards whatever did the most damage to it. Eventually becoming a gigantic looming threat until they're able to finally put it down for good.
Perfect! My upcoming campaign will focus on the giants.
Frost Giant Everlasting One.
I would make their regeneration 1 or 2 d20 +their con modifier. Maybe even con modifier + proficiency bonus.
I give every troll something special based on what it has eaten. be it aesthetically (feathered, scaled, furred, etc.) or mechanically. My favorite was one that just drank so many water elementals it became resistant to fire and acid. It could basically melt itself and reform to sneak around as an ooze, and normal weapons had little effect as its body just flowed around it. I would've accepted a few different strategies to kill it, like bottling it pieces so they couldn't reform. They hit it with cold, then smashed the frozen parts with a warhammer before it could recover. As the fight went on it was oozing, the water slowing the recover to the point they could whittle it down to the stomach and destroy it. That was essentially its heart as far as I was concerned, freezing and shattering that killed it.
I've also just had trolls with all sorts of extra limbs it stole from other trolls or creatures. one that stuck 100 bird wings to itself to try and fly, or gained fire breath from eating a clutch of dragon eggs, or petrification from cockatrices. First thing my players ask for is a detailed description, because even if they do suspect it's a troll their first thought is always 'what can THIS troll do?'
This video was such a wealth of inspiration. I’m thinking of running a troll or two in my next story arc. I’m imagining something like John Carpenter’s The Thing if it didn’t bother with stealth and impersonation.
I especially love the idea of trolls being created rather than born. Maybe it’s a transformation giantkin seek out as a twisted form of immortality
Also, glad you're all back and feeling better!!
I have primeval trolls in my campaign. They are gargantuan legendary creatures from before recorded time that are nigh indestductable. These ancient beings were *too* well adapted to any situation, so over time the trolls de-evolved into the more streamlined beings you see today.
An idea could be the regeneration is half its health - any fire or acid damage done during that round.
So at 100 health, you do 20 fire damage, it regenerates 50-20 so 30