Creative Director
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The tarrasque's method of death is left ambiguous so that each GM can come up with his own method. If the method were "known," then chances are too good that some group of heroes in the past already did the deed, and the idea is that the PCs should be those heroes. So whatever the method is, it should be super obscure and super tough. The basic idea would be it'd be an adventure for 19th or 20th level characters to go on to even GET the tools or whatever needed to do the job.
In my original turnover for the tarrasque, it was a two page monster. We had to reduce the poor thing down to one page, because of realities of how many pages we had between the skeleton and the vampire, I believe (ONE page had to go between these two-page entries, and it was better to reduce a 2 page monster to 1 and therefore not "lose" a whole monster). That extra page had as lot of other flavor for the monster, including three sample methods of killing it. I think that, in this case, the entry's improved for losing those 3 samples, though since they started to drift into "world specific" content and we were trying to keep the monsters as world neutral as possible.
I might still have those words on my computer at work though. I folks are interested, I can post them here if I can find them... (or in their own thread, actually).
Personally I prefer 3.5s regeneration.
I think I might, too. With the much easier way to shut down regeneration in Pathfinder, I do believe that the troll will be much less dangerous. The wizard spams acid splash every round, and it's down just as soon as you deal enough damage to it. It doesn't cost you any more resources than HP, where as in 3.5, the wizard would need to likely expend actual fire spell slots to take one out. *shrug* Trolls are mean and all, but I think they've really lost their edge now.
I think to some degree we attatch meanings to words that may have no real relevance to the ability, for example...
To my mind, an undead cannot "heal".....it's dead.
But some undead (Lich for example) regenerate even after complete physical destruction (unless you have taken out their little box as well).
And it's different for each of us. For example, I have no problem with undead healing.
As for "but it's dead," sure, but it's also walking, talking, and trying to eat your brain meats. Once a corpse actually starts moving around again, I'm willing to assume it can do a lot of other stuff it shouldn't be able to do. Especially if it's creepy as hell. I had an undead councilman villain who still hired prostitutes. Gave my players the shudders, big time.
Heck, I have to assume that ghouls, ghasts, wights, mummies, and other kinds of undead supposed to prove as ongoing problems -must- heal, otherwise they won't last long enough to be tomb guardians, cairn haunters, and graverobbers in any longterm way... and what's the point of cheating death if it don't stick?
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Creative Director
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Personally I prefer 3.5s regeneration.I think I might, too. With the much easier way to shut down regeneration in Pathfinder, I do believe that the troll will be much less dangerous. The wizard spams acid splash every round, and it's down just as soon as you deal enough damage to it. It doesn't cost you any more resources than HP, where as in 3.5, the wizard would need to likely expend actual fire spell slots to take one out. *shrug* Trolls are mean and all, but I think they've really lost their edge now.
Well... My only request is to check out how it works in play before you abandon it. It might be that the easier rules make it attractive enough to use anyway, and it might be that wizards are going to want to do something more exciting in a fight than acid splash every round and might not be able to do this. Keep in mind, of course, that a fallen foe has a +4 bonus to its AC against ranged attacks and might gain concealment or cover if it falls in the right spot!
And when you DO try it... don't use just one troll. Use a few. Or several. As much as your group can handle. Because, honestly, a one-troll fight will play out pretty much exactly the same using either system (hit the troll till he's unconscious, then either spend 1 round killing it or a few dozen).
Anyway, just give it a try a few times.
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Personally I prefer 3.5s regeneration.I think I might, too. With the much easier way to shut down regeneration in Pathfinder, I do believe that the troll will be much less dangerous. The wizard spams acid splash every round, and it's down just as soon as you deal enough damage to it. It doesn't cost you any more resources than HP, where as in 3.5, the wizard would need to likely expend actual fire spell slots to take one out. *shrug* Trolls are mean and all, but I think they've really lost their edge now.Well... My only request is to check out how it works in play before you abandon it. It might be that the easier rules make it attractive enough to use anyway, and it might be that wizards are going to want to do something more exciting in a fight than acid splash every round and might not be able to do this. Keep in mind, of course, that a fallen foe has a +4 bonus to its AC against ranged attacks and might gain concealment or cover if it falls in the right spot!
And when you DO try it... don't use just one troll. Use a few. Or several. As much as your group can handle. Because, honestly, a one-troll fight will play out pretty much exactly the same using either system (hit the troll till he's unconscious, then either spend 1 round killing it or a few dozen).
Anyway, just give it a try a few times.
Oh don't get me wrong it's much simpler, I just didn't need the simplification, I do agree that a one troll fight will play out the same either way, but I just never had a problem with regenerations complexity. Am I the only person who likes the distinction of sub-dual damage vs. lethal damage? Besides, i'm playing Pathfinder rules, we switched over whole hog other than death and dying rules, which I created my own system for hodge-podged from the 4e rules. I don't really mind having only 3 house-rules, one for spiked armor, one for death and dying, and one for regeneration.
I don't know about others, but any troll that I have fighting players will do it's best to take out the caster that is "hurting" it. That might be an incentive for the caster to cast other things or to get out of the way until the troll is twitching on the ground, only needing a single acid splash to finish it off.
I like the simplicity of the current rules.
I had an undead councilman villain who still hired prostitutes. Gave my players the shudders, big time.
LOL, actually that's another "pet peeve" of mine....THERE JUNK CAN'T WORK.
I can't except that.....no undead bumping uglies....ROFLMAO
We got "stuck" with it because it's one of my favorite monsters and an icon of the game, actually.Anything that requires touching the tarrasque is, by definition, hard. :-PConsidering its natural form of attack is to swallow whatever annoys it whole? Cast the spell. Hold the charge. Walk up to it. Get eaten. Make a touch attack against AC 10. Take a bath.
It's still a puzzle monster. It's just a really obscure puzzle now. Heck, I assume that's how Golarion/generiPFsetting ended up stuck with it.
It's one of my favorites too. I used to have this discussion with a friend of mine about how WotC should make a Tarrasque D&D Minis Icon figure. He tended to agree but thought that it wouldn't sell too well. He then got hired to work at WotC for DDM...and then DDM was cancelled. Boo! ;(
Well... My only request is to check out how it works in play before you abandon it.
Why would regen function this way? Why would a short sword deal lethal damage to a troll just because the troll took a single point of acid damage the prior round?
The new regen seems to abandon the underlying concept.
Well... My only request is to check out how it works in play before you abandon it.Why would regen function this way? Why would a short sword deal lethal damage to a troll just because the troll took a single point of acid damage the prior round?
The new regen seems to abandon the underlying concept.
You are missing the point, the sword does lethal damage to the troll regardless of whether he took acid or not. All attacks that aren't subdual do lethal damage to a troll.
The only questions are :
a) Does he get to regenerate this turn.
b) What is the troll's current Hitpoints, if negative, what was the answer to a.
The answer to A is, did he get hit by acid or fire last round? If yes, then he doesn't regen this round. If the answer is no, he gets to regenerate this round.
The answer to B is, are they positive or negative? If he has positive hitpoints, it doesn't matter whether he regens, he's alive and snarling. If he's negative, then we get tricky. Is he negative more than his con? If no, then we continue on with the fight. If he's negative by more than his con, then we need to know the answer to A. If he got his regneration, he's still alive, even if he's at -500 hps. If he doesn't get his regeneration, he's dead.
The way regeneration works now, under 3.p, is that you are alive until you are dead and fail to regenerate. You can do 500 points of lethal bludgeoning damage to a troll, you can mash him into a paste on the floor with your mace. An hour later his body will recover and he'll come looking for you ticked off.
If you light the paste on fire, it shocks his system and shuts down his regeneration for a turn. Since he's taken so much damage it would kill him without the regeneration, his body just dies.
It's really that simple.
If you light the paste on fire, it shocks his system and shuts down his regeneration for a turn.
Again, why?
It's really that simple.
I didn't say it was not simple.
I asked why. Yes, I confused the further distinction of lethal vs nonlethal between 3X and PF. But the troll regening fire damage two rounds later no different than short sword damage just makes things worse as I see it.Was the old way in dire need of simplification? Or is there some justification for why regeneration is better modeled this way?
I'm perfectly happy to write it off as a silly change and house rule it. It isn't going to make me less happy with the overall system. But is there a reason this was a good worthwhile change? Or was it just a sacrifice to simplification?
If you light the paste on fire, it shocks his system and shuts down his regeneration for a turn.Again, why?
It's really that simple.I didn't say it was not simple.
I asked why. Yes, I confused the further distinction of lethal vs nonlethal between 3X and PF. But the troll regening fire damage two rounds later no different than short sword damage just makes things worse as I see it.Was the old way in dire need of simplification? Or is there some justification for why regeneration is better modeled this way?
I'm perfectly happy to write it off as a silly change and house rule it. It isn't going to make me less happy with the overall system. But is there a reason this was a good worthwhile change? Or was it just a sacrifice to simplification?
It's your game, house rule all you want. :)
As to why it works that way... Why does a sword cutting a troll's arm off not count as lethal damage under 3.5? Why wouldn't a caved in skull be considered lethal? This way is just as logical as the old way.
I put it down to system shock. The troll's body is geared towards healing as fast as possible, and it will continue to do so, long past it's ability to still be moved consciously by the troll's brain. But, it has issues with certain types of damage (acid and fire) and those types of damage temporarily overwhelm the troll's built in healing. If he happens to be heavily damaged already, the system shock sets up a cascade effect and his body just shuts down. Kind of like you can run a jet engine at 10,000rpms... but if you toss a penny into it at just the wrong moment, you could end up with the engine tearing itself apart over that tiny piece of copper. The troll's regeneration just flies apart because it was already overworked and the last straw broke the camels back.
LOL, actually that's another "pet peeve" of mine....THERE JUNK CAN'T WORK.I can't except that.....no undead bumping uglies....ROFLMAO
Hey, let an undead playa play!
Seriously, though, if I have to question if it's possible for daddy vampires and mommy humans to make dhampyrs (actual folklore entity derived from vampires sleeping with humans,) I have to start asking how the heck my PC's being chased by a skeleton what ain't got no leg muscles.
I just assume the undead work somehow, and the creepier the better.
===
As for undead not being able to regenerate, what bothers me the most about that is that undead trolls lose their D&D iconic ability. My ghoul troll can't regen! Bleh. Of course, I know I can always say that monsters have regeneration converted to fast healing in undeath (which I will,) but the fact that I have to stop and explain it to my Players is mildly frustrating.
But maybe my group gets too tied up in the rules, sometimes. I know I memorized 3.5 too OCDically.
It's your game, house rule all you want. :)
Of course. But if there is a good reason to change, I'm open-minded. I'd love to convinced. Thus, the question....
As to why it works that way... Why does a sword cutting a troll's arm off not count as lethal damage under 3.5? Why wouldn't a caved in skull be considered lethal? This way is just as logical as the old way.
And making a Succubus be a devil is just as logical as keeping it a demon. But some people don't like that change.
Traditionally a completely mutilated troll would fully heal from everything, but destroyed flesh was destroyed. Thus you could hack it into pieces and it would heal. But if it was burned up it had to heal new flesh, no regeneration.
Now, you can hack a troll to pieces and then hit it with a 0 level acid splash on its mutilated arm and just like that you have a hacked up, very dead but otherwise intact troll body. The traditionalist in me recoils from this scenario. Also, you can burn up a troll and as long as it gets away, the flesh will re-grow as soon as the regen turns back on.
Of course this is all just fantasy and can work any way the author wants. But from my personal D&D roots perspective, this is "wrong". It is far deeper a sin than making Succubus into devils.
Under 3.5 cutting off the troll's arm is not "lethal damage" because cutting off a troll's arm is not remotely lethal to the troll. Neither is running a trolls heart through. Neither is smashing in its' skull. If you want to do lethal damage to a troll you must destroy its flesh and the total amount of fire/acid damage done must exceed the troll's full HP. I like that. The troll is dead when there ain't no troll left.
Intact troll corpses make baby demon succubi cry.
It would be silly for me to say that one way "makes sense" and another doesn't. It is completely fantastic either way.
But I find the new way to be a bit less inspiring mechanically, and vastly less satisfactory from a "the way it *should* work" position.
Now excuse me while I explain to the baby that it's dad really is from the Abyss, no matter what these foolish bullies tell it.
The tarrasque's method of death is left ambiguous so that each GM can come up with his own method. If the method were "known," then chances are too good that some group of heroes in the past already did the deed, and the idea is that the PCs should be those heroes. So whatever the method is, it should be super obscure and super tough. The basic idea would be it'd be an adventure for 19th or 20th level characters to go on to even GET the tools or whatever needed to do the job.
In my original turnover for the tarrasque, it was a two page monster. We had to reduce the poor thing down to one page, because of realities of how many pages we had between the skeleton and the vampire, I believe (ONE page had to go between these two-page entries, and it was better to reduce a 2 page monster to 1 and therefore not "lose" a whole monster). That extra page had as lot of other flavor for the monster, including three sample methods of killing it. I think that, in this case, the entry's improved for losing those 3 samples, though since they started to drift into "world specific" content and we were trying to keep the monsters as world neutral as possible.
I might still have those words on my computer at work though. I folks are interested, I can post them here if I can find them... (or in their own thread, actually).
No, keep them to yourself.
I'm much happier with the world having to guess my ultimate vulnerabilies.
anybody?
anybody?
I responded once, you didn't like my answer. *shrug* Not much to say after that.
anybody?
I'm still undecided, both in regards to undead using regeneration, and using the new form of regeneration.
I'll probably give the new form of regeneration a "test run", but I'm thinking in the long run I'll use the 3.5 version.
Well, you really didn't address the D&D tradition issue.
And, fwiw, I don't see the connection between tossing a penny in then engine "at just the right moment" and hitting the troll on the arm for 1 point at absolutely any moment. The penny may equate to 1 point, but going from a critical location at a critical time to anywhere and anytime pretty much invalidates the analogy.
But beyond that, I'm certain that a justification for the new system can be made. Paizo has said that one of their issues was preserving classic elements of D&D. The nature of troll regeneration is one of those iconic elements and yet it has been completely tossed aside. And I was not even aware of anyone complaining about the old regeneration.
The question is: Why make the change at all?
I still love PF. It is an easy house rule. But this one change seems like a really ill-conceived and needless undercutting of the tradition.
The nature of troll regeneration is one of those iconic elements and yet it has been completely tossed aside. And I was not even aware of anyone complaining about the old regeneration.
What part of the tradition has been completely tossed aside? The troll is still vulnerable to fire and acid. I can see that it will require players and GMs to adjust their tactics from both sides of the fight, but I don't see that tradition has been violated.
I still love PF. It is an easy house rule. But this one change seems like a really ill-conceived and needless undercutting of the tradition.
I am not sure why you think it is ill-conceived. Which part of the new regeneration process? Or is it the "at will" cantrip acid splash tied in with the new regeneration that you object to?
Well, you really didn't address the D&D tradition issue.
I don't feel it needs to be addressed, honestly. Your talking about a rules tradition, not a flavor tradition. Flavor tradition is you hack on the troll forever and the only way you kill him is with acid or fire.
That flavor is still there with the new rules, just doesn't require as much acid or fire, the change is the timing of the acid or fire. The core is still, you need fire or acid to kill a troll. It's gone from a massive damage to a tactical use. Instead of having to use a gallon of napalm you can use a torch, if you do it at the right time.
And, fwiw, I don't see the connection between tossing a penny in then engine "at just the right moment" and hitting the troll on the arm for 1 point at absolutely any moment. The penny may equate to 1 point, but going from a critical location at a critical time to anywhere and anytime pretty much invalidates the analogy.
Because you are not paying attention to how it works. With those pennies, you could toss ten of them in the engine and they might not cause a catastrophic failure, they might cause damage to the turbine or slow it down, but not cause the engine to fly apart. That's the same as hitting him with acid splash first round. A little disruption to his healing, system shock sets in for a round and shuts down the regeneration, but the body is still alive, so it recovers.
Throw that penny in at just the right moment and you can jam up the gears and send the engine into a catastrophic explosion. That's the same thing as saying you have to time it right. With the acid, you have to send him into a system shock when his body is already overloaded from wounds. Otherwise the acid/fire doesn't affect him bad enough to kill him.
But beyond that, I'm certain that a justification for the new system can be made. Paizo has said that one of their issues was preserving classic elements of D&D. The nature of troll regeneration is one of those iconic elements and yet it has been completely tossed aside. And I was not even aware of anyone complaining about the old regeneration.
Because, I think, most people recognize that the flavor of the iconic troll is there. It changes an encounter with a troll from a raw combat to a tactical issue. You still need fire or acid to put him down for the count. Honestly, I think it makes trolls more dangerous, not less so. Before you did acid damage, they couldn't regen it. So you could whittle them down and slowly kill them by staying ahead of them and casting acid spells. Now, you can't do that, they'll chase you all day, or run off and heal and come back.
The question is: Why make the change at all?I still love PF. It is an easy house rule. But this one change seems like a really ill-conceived and needless undercutting of the tradition.
They already said why, to streamline combat. You know how many times I used trolls before? ALMOST NEVER. It was a pain in the butt to keep track of two different damage totals for each troll, and you usually needed a couple of trolls. Then you had to remember which ones had taken lethal acid and which hadn't. I like the new system personally, keeps the same flavor and makes my job as GM easier.
What part of the tradition has been completely tossed aside? The troll is still vulnerable to fire and acid. I can see that it will require players and GMs to adjust their tactics from both sides of the fight, but I don't see that tradition has been violated.
The troll is not at all vulnerable to fire and acid in the way that it always has been.
I described my issue in the post above. But before a sword cut was no worse than a hair cut to a troll. Now a sword cut deals lethal damage, only that lethal damage rapidly heals. Hack up a troll and then deal a single point of fire damage to it and it dies from the sword wounds. That competely goes against the tradition.
If you burn a troll now and it gets away for a couple rounds, the burns regenerate. This also goes completely against the tradition.
The troll still wants to avoid acid and fire, but the entire basis is changed and the way the troll functions has no resemblance to the icon.
They already said why, to streamline combat. You know how many times I used trolls before? ALMOST NEVER. It was a pain in the butt to keep track of two different damage totals for each troll, and you usually needed a couple of trolls. Then you had to remember which ones had taken lethal acid and which hadn't. I like the new system personally, keeps the same flavor and makes my job as GM easier.
OK.
That sucks. My DM life is plenty easy. I used trolls all the time and if I needed this kind of hand holding I'd just play a different game.
BTW, you fail to udnerstand what I am paying attention to. The regen shuts down any time the difference of whether it would recover or not is beside the point to the mechanic failing. And even if hurt bad enough to kill, a point of acid to the big toe does not equate to a penny in the engine.
Under 3.5 cutting off the troll's arm is not "lethal damage" because cutting off a troll's arm is not remotely lethal to the troll. Neither is running a trolls heart through. Neither is smashing in its' skull. If you want to do lethal damage to a troll you must destroy its flesh and the total amount of fire/acid damage done must exceed the troll's full HP. I like that. The troll is dead when there ain't no troll left.
That's not true.
Under 3.5, you and your friends could hack the troll to bits with ordinary steel swords and axes, then a level 1 wizard could walk up and deliver a coup de grace with his Acid Splash cantrip to kill the troll permanently.
It says so in the 3.5 Monster Manual:
A regenerating creature that has been rendered unconscious
through nonlethal damage can be killed with a coup de grace (see
page 153 of the Player’s Handbook). The attack cannot be of a type
that automatically converts to nonlethal damage.
Yes, some would argue that spells cannot deliver Coup de Grace attacks. I think that since ray spells are treated like normal ranged attacks (you can use feats like Point Blank and Precise Shot, etc.) that they should qualify.
Even so, delivering that one single coup de grace with a torch or with a flaming sword or acid sword would work better anyway - it still only takes the final coup de grace to be something lethal to the troll, and all the damage it took before that could be non-lethal, and it would still die.
You only have to keep track of one number, true, but now you have to keep track of whether or not the troll or demon or whatever was hit by a regeneration-nullifying damage type the previous round, which is almost more of a pain. Two numbers wasn't a big deal to me, but instead of the second number, you essentially have a switch that can be set to either on or off based on whether a certain kind of damage was dealt the previous round. I personally find this more confusing rather than less - maybe that's just how my brain is wired, though.
I tend to agree with ByronD on the fluff/lore/descriptive aspect as well. Maybe it had become a crutch, but I'd frequently clue players in to the presence of regeneration by saying something like "the cuts from your sword seem to be closing very rapidly, but the burns from the fireball still look painful", or something. It just seems weird to describe it now: "It looks like the 3 points from the acid arrow last round knocked out its immune system, because your sword blows aren't sealing themselves up right away." And I never minded the coup-de-grace acid splash either - I just chalked it up to applying it to the neck wound or in the eye or something equally crippling.
I dunno. It's not a huge deal, obviously, but it's a little bit of a head scratcher in that it was a change that didn't seem to be called for very vocally in the community. I'm not complaining too much - I like the vast majority of the changes Pathfinder made to 3.5 - but maybe that's why this one stuck out so much to me. :)
You only have to keep track of one number, true, but now you have to keep track of whether or not the troll or demon or whatever was hit by a regeneration-nullifying damage type the previous round, which is almost more of a pain. Two numbers wasn't a big deal to me, but instead of the second number, you essentially have a switch that can be set to either on or off based on whether a certain kind of damage was dealt the previous round. I personally find this more confusing rather than less - maybe that's just how my brain is wired, though.
Really?
Or are you saying that just to continue the debate?
Maybe it's just how my brain is wired, but after a whole fight is over (say, 5 PCs vs. 8 trolls) I could pretty much replay (without looking at my notes) that entire fight, telling you who damage what, who moved where, who got critted. I may not recall exact numbers like what Fred rolled on his attack roll or exact damage values, but I sure would know if troll #6 got hit with acid or fire the previous round.
Even if you can't do this, I'm sure you're writing down each troll's HP, and when he gets damaged, you're subtracting the damage and writing his new HP, or maybe you're adding up the damage, but whatever, you're almost certainly writing this down, right?
So when a damage is fire or acide (or whatever else if we're not talking trolls), then just circle that damage number. Then, when it's the trolls' turn(s), go add +5 HP to every troll that doesn't have a damage number circled.
Like this:
(it's long, so I hid it)
5 Trolls:
1: 63/51 - 45 -
2: 63/48 - 35
3: 63/
4: 63/
5: 63/52 - 40 - 30 - 18 - 9 - -4
The format I just used is MaxHP/Damage. Each damage number I have separated with a - (though I just usually cross off the old one and write the new one next to it; it's hard to cross stuff off in this text box). The damages that were caused by fire or acid I maked .
So in my example, troll #1 normally has 63 HP. He got hit for 12 normal damage, then for 6 more normal damage, then for 5 damage that was fire or acid. Troll #2 was hit for 15 normal damage and then for 13 normal damage. Etc.
Now it's the troll's turn. You would add +5 HP for the regen to troll #2 and #5 (and #5 returns to 1 HP so he can stand up and fight again). Then I would write the total for #1 and #4 again so it isn't circled (or
Super simple, no memory tricks or difficulty whatsoever.
Now it looks like this:
5 Trolls:
1: 63/51 - 45 - [ooc]40 - 40
2: 63/48 - 35 - 40
3: 63/
4: 63/ - 55
5: 63/52 - 40 - 30 - 18 - 9 - -4 - 1
Now another round happens, and a couple more trolls are damaged. Troll #5 is hit with a flaming sword this round and then somene hits him with a normal weapon to finish him off. Now it looks like this:
5 Trolls:
1: 63/51 - 45 - - 40 - 21
2: 63/48 - 35 - 40
3: 63/49 - 41
4: 63/ - 55
5: 63/52 - 40 - 30 - 18 - 9 - -4 - 1 - -25
Now it's the troll's turn. You add +5 HP to trolls #1, #2, #3, and #4. When you get to #5 you notice that the last damage is not but the damage before it is, and that damage occurred more recently than the troll's last regeneration, so that means the special damage occrred this round, shutting off the regen. Since the troll is at a -HP that is below it's -CON, it dies. No more regen, cross him off entirely, he's finished.
It's really faily easy.
In my mind, easier than keeping two HP totals for every troll.
I tend to agree with ByronD on the fluff/lore/descriptive aspect as well. Maybe it had become a crutch, but I'd frequently clue players in to the presence of regeneration by saying something like "the cuts from your sword seem to be closing very rapidly, but the burns from the fireball still look painful", or something. It just seems weird to describe it now: "It looks like the 3 points from the acid arrow last round knocked out its immune system, because your sword blows aren't sealing themselves up right away." And I never minded the coup-de-grace acid splash either - I just chalked it up to applying it to the neck wound or in the eye or something equally crippling.
Don't be silly. Go back and look at my spoiler just above.
After the first round (in my example, it's just after you apply the regeneration the first time, adding +5 HP to trolls #2 and #5).
You would say "Troll #2 and troll #5 seem to be regenerating because some of their wounds are visibly closing and healing on their own, but troll #1 and troll #4 don't seem to be regenerating at all."
(You would probably point at the trolls rather than verbally listing them by numbers)
That's all you need to say. Let the players figure out what attack caused the regeneration to stop; you don't have to tell them.
I dunno. It's not a huge deal, obviously, but it's a little bit of a head scratcher in that it was a change that didn't seem to be called for very vocally in the community. I'm not complaining too much - I like the vast majority of the changes Pathfinder made to 3.5 - but maybe that's why this one stuck out so much to me. :)
Hopefully, once you've used it a time or two, and found out that it's easier to work with and just as satisfying, you might change your mind.
I removed a post. Let's all stay polite here.
Yes it does, and worked the same way under 3.5 (as DM Blake pointed out above, thanks DM). So really, the only difference is you don't have to keep track of two numbers. I chalk that up as a good change, streamlined, to the point, and keeps the flavor.
I can't recall ever seeing the CDG method used. If there was some back door loophole that allowed all the coolness of trolls to be by-passed, then I am glad I missed it and it is a crying shame that it became the official method.
I can recall several awesome battle that featured numerous trolls. And my players always groaned with huge grins on their faces whenever the packs of trolls would show up. The requirement to bring a lot of fire (or acid, but fire is available of course)damage into the fray made the battles distinct and exciting. Things could get very intense and often one character would end up running around just tasked with keeping downed trolls down until the rest of them were out of commission and more permanent destruction could be brought into play. That flavor and experience is completely trampled out of the PF version.
I certainly never for one second thought,"this needs to be stream lined", I was too busy thinking "this is awesome". So if I'm trading "awesome" out to get "stream-lined" I don't need, then house rule here I come.
bummer
Now, you can hack a troll to pieces and then hit it with a 0 level acid splash on its mutilated arm and just like that you have a hacked up, very dead but otherwise intact troll body. The traditionalist in me recoils from this scenario.
To me, what actually happens in this scenario is sort of like a coup de grace. Being as the troll can't do much back, you're casting the acid splash to do away with the remains. Is it odd that a cantrip can produce enough acid to do away with a 7' corpse - probably - but I've always been the sort to say that if you're not otherwise engaged, your opponent is totally helpless, and you have means of dealing fatal injury, you can pretty much do what you need to do to kill it dead, troll or otherwise, if you take the time to do so. If you've got a torch, that doesn't mean dealing some abstract "d6 damage" and no mre - it means burning the remains which, in game terms, could mean "dealing d6 damage." This isn't as absurd as it seems, as d6 damage can be darn-near-lethal for a commoner. What is actually represented by a "d6 damage" effect is variable.
Also, you can burn up a troll and as long as it gets away, the flesh will re-grow as soon as the regen turns back on.
I've got nothing here, other than that I kinda like the idea of a troll sloughing off old, acid-burned flesh. It always seemed odd that it couldn't do this before (although it seems to call out for the "hercules exception" - if you slash an arm off and apply acid/fire, that arm's not coming back or, if it is, not for a good, long time.)
Hopefully, once you've used it a time or two, and found out that it's easier to work with and just as satisfying, you might change your mind.
Do you claim I will find it just as satisfying as the example kind of battle I described? I know you were not addressing me, so I'm asking if you believe this same suggestion applies to me.
As I see it, fighting a troll in no longer all that different than fighting an ogre. Yes, rend is still there, but that isn't what made fighting trolls so awesomely fun. I always thought that fast healing was very boring compared to regeneration because it didn't provide this effect. If a monster with FH got away, it was a free reset. And if it lasted several turns it was effectively a little tougher. But nothing remotely like regeneration. And now trolls just have FH and an afterthought cantrip thrown on at the end.
To me, what actually happens in this scenario is sort of like a coup de grace. Being as the troll can't do much back, you're casting the acid splash to do away with the remains. Is it odd that a cantrip can produce enough acid to do away with a 7' corpse - probably - but I've always been the sort to say that if you're not otherwise engaged, your opponent is totally helpless, and you have means of dealing fatal injury, you can pretty much do what you need to do to kill it dead, troll or otherwise, if you take the time to do so. If you've got a torch, that doesn't mean dealing some abstract "d6 damage" and no mre - it means burning the remains which, in game terms, could mean "dealing d6 damage." This isn't as absurd as it seems, as d6 damage can be darn-near-lethal for a commoner. What is actually represented by a "d6 damage" effect is variable.
I've got nothing here, other than that I kinda like the idea of a troll sloughing off old, acid-burned flesh. It always seemed odd that it couldn't do this before (although it seems to call out for the "hercules exception" - if you slash an arm off and apply acid/fire, that arm's not coming back or, if it is, not for a good, long time.)
Yeah, these seem to be good answers.
But the whole excitement of the pressure of most of the normal attack options being highly marginalized is still missing.
As to growing back burned away flesh, yeah, I can certainly see how that makes sense. And it is silly that a troll with a burned up arm would best be served by simply hacking off its own arm to grow a new one rather than waiting for it to "heal". But the healing fire/acid part never really played into the tactical fun. That part to me is just part of the purest lore. (And that goes back even farther than 3E CDG rules for me, probably why I either overlooked or somehow intentionally forgot).
Succubi are demons and trolls don't regenerate fire damage. These are not sacred cows, but they are both D&D traditions I really like and expected to be retained in PF.
So... here's something I always thought was a bit weird, right?
You have a troll, kay? It regenerates all over the place, swordy wounds just healing up.
Now that troll gets into a fight where there's a wizard that burns its left hand off, or scorches off a chunk of skin. Oh noes, that's permenent damage, the troll can't regenerate it and is down an arm or hit points for a while.
But wait! What if the troll rips its own arm off up to the elbow? Up above the burn? Does the whole arm come back as normal?
And can't flesh that's burned beyond recognition slough off or be scraped off, allowing the monster to regenerate as normal?
The new regenerate rules make sense to me for things like trolls because it seems (unnaturally) natural that unless there simply is no more troll left, the troll will keep regenerating as long as it is alive. Fire impedes the repair of ruined cells, but the fanatic flesh will (with slight delay) route around or cast off damaged mass to continue its work.
The new regenerate rules make sense to me for things like trolls because it seems (unnaturally) natural that unless there simply is no more troll left, the troll will keep regenerating as long as it is alive. Fire impedes the repair of ruined cells, but the fanatic flesh will (with slight delay) route around or cast off damaged mass to continue its work.
And that's fine for "making sense" as far as that goes. For me a hand waved "this is how the fantastic regeneration of D&D trolls behaves" is more reasonable than saying that 1 point of acid damage to the severed arm of a troll will shut down the regeneration of the body. If you want "sense" then give it some percentage threshold at least.
But I'm not really worried about sense. I want the really cool exciting battles, which are gone, and the classic troll regeneration mechanic, which is gone.
Again, to wotc, humanoid fiends being devils "made sense".
In Baldur's Gate II (2nd edition/2.5 edition) you could only kill trolls by using acid or fire on their bodies once they had been reduced to 1HP. This really isn't any different and is a lot easier to keep track of. This troll regeneration mechanic isn't really anything new. It's been done before.
I remember this from some of the old computer games. But only the old ones. And I always assumed the program just needed a simplification.
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Creative Director
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In Baldur's Gate II (2nd edition/2.5 edition) you could only kill trolls by using acid or fire on their bodies once they had been reduced to 1HP. This really isn't any different and is a lot easier to keep track of. This troll regeneration mechanic isn't really anything new. It's been done before.I remember this from some of the old computer games. But only the old ones. And I always assumed the program just needed a simplification.
And if a computer needs a simplification... then chances are good that the GM needed one!
I'd still like a few words on why the change.
And if a computer needs a simplification... then chances are good that the GM needed one!
Yikes, I really really disagree with that. There are quite a great number of things that the human mind can very easily do that translating into code isn't as easy.
Just for example, if the computer system for handling combat is in place assuming everything has one set of HP, having a second set of HP for one specific monster can be more trouble than it is worth. (Remember, these are much older games) But a human can track it very easily.
But, I guess I have it from the horse's mouth. Simplification is the answer. Consider my mind blown.
Was there *really* a call for this? I've been debating rules online since before August 2000 and honestly don't recall ever hearing a single hint of complaint.
I'd still like a few words on why the change.
I think we just got it. It was outside the boundaries of being simple enough. PF DMs "needed" more simple.
OK, here is a thought.....
Since one of the biggest complaints seems to be the idea that Ted the Troll, can be undone by taking as little as 1 point of fire/acid damage at just the right moment.....how about this?
Last round Ted was hit by a fire attack, that did 3 points of damage, and took his hit point total to -2.
This round, he does not gain his regeneration, because of that damage.
This round he is vulnerable to being killed because his regeneration is down from last rounds attack, AND his hit point total is below 0.
Ted has a constitution score of 23....
If our brave heroes hit Ted with 21 points of fire or acid damage, while his regeneration is "off line"....... Ted is DEAD.
In other words, to kill the regenerating beast, you must apply enough damage (equal to their con score) of the type that shuts down their regeneration (equal to their constitution...or maybe their charisma if they are undead)to kill them.
Am I crazy ???
I'd still like a few words on why the change.I think we just got it. It was outside the boundaries of being simple enough. PF DMs "needed" more simple.
Disclaimer: I did not work on the core rules in any way, shape, or form other than participating in the playtest. I'm speaking as a player and as a GM.
In this post and more recently in this post I outlined why I felt that the old rules for Regeneration did not work as advertised. (The discussion at that link may be informative, but I'll state the important bits below.)
At first glance, the Regen rules look great: the troll can only be killed with fire/acid, but other attacks can at least faze it and/or tire it out from the energy used to heal. All its wounds will begin healing immediately unless they were made by acid or fire.
The problem is that the mechanical incentives don't match what the flavor incentives are. In theory, the proper way to fight a troll is use fire and acid as often as is practical. But the mechanics don't bear that out:
Case study: A troll
1) The party beats the troll unconcious with non-fire, non-acid weapons, then coup-de-graces it with something fire/burns it on a pyre/drown it. Result: The fight behaved exactly like the troll had Fast Healing.
2) The party beats down the troll with a combination of fire and melee. Once again, the unconcious troll is dispatched in some manner. Result: Once again, the fight behaved exactly like the troll had fast healing, unless it somehow gets away long enough to regenerate all of its nonlethal damage.
3) The party uses ONLY fire (somehow). Result: Regeneration is negated. However, forcing a melee character to deal only fire damage usually reduces their damage output.
It gets even weirder that if you consider that if the troll has access to healing magic through class levels, magic items, or allies, mixing damage types is even more suboptimal, since healing magic will heal both lethal and nonlethal damage. At least for me, it strained my suspension of disbelief that what my character should have wanted to do (kill it with fire) clashed so badly with what I the player wanted to do (simply drop the troll unconcious and kill it through on of the many methods available for disposing of a helpless body.)
The problem is that what the mechanics do and what they encourage people to do clashed.
As cool as the image of finding a troll with fire-scars a day after a fight is, what does stop that troll from simply clawing that flesh off, allowing the new claw-wounds to heal properly? Do fire and acid actually leave an imprint on a troll's soul, so that a severed and regrown arm will bear the same fire-induced wounds?
Under the new mechanics, there is actually an incentive to use fire and acid on a troll as often as possible! Player and character agree on what to do! A fireball is still good for something once the troll has nonlethal damage. A fighter has a reason to dig out that +1 flaming longsword instead of the +2 shocking burst one he usually fights with.
It's still not perfect (no rule is), but I think its a heck of a lot closer.
Some very well-reasoned thoughts on regeneration.
Wow, excellent post. Well done!
