Clarification: Regenerate

[Irranshalee]

Regeneration:

Regeneration (Ex) A creature with this ability is difficult to kill. Creatures with regeneration heal damage at a fixed rate, as with fast healing, but they cannot die as long as their regeneration is still functioning (although creatures with regeneration still fall unconscious when their hit points are below 0). Certain attack forms, typically fire and acid, cause a creature's regeneration to stop functioning on the round following the attack. During this round, the creature does not heal any damage and can die normally. The creature's descriptive text describes the types of damage that cause the regeneration to cease functioning.

Attack forms that don't deal hit point damage are not healed by regeneration. Regeneration also does not restore hit points lost from starvation, thirst, or suffocation. Regenerating creatures can regrow lost portions of their bodies and can reattach severed limbs or body parts if they are brought together within 1 hour of severing. Severed parts that are not reattached wither and die normally.

A creature must have a Constitution score to have the regeneration ability.

Format: regeneration 5 (fire, acid); Location: hp.

As it reads to me, you can kill a creature with regeneration if you bring its hit points below its constitution without using fire or acid (in the case of a troll).

I remember playing a top-down version of "The Temple of Elemental Evil". In that game (and I know it was not designed through Pathfinder) trolls did not die unless you did enough damage with fire or acid to bring it to death. Everything was non-lethal damage besides what was listed in the regeneration.

So regeneration was hit with the Nerf bat very hard or am I miss reading the spoiler?

[Chobemaster]

your argument being at -Con, then regeneration is not "still functioning"?

I think you still need to use acid or fire to cause cessation of functioning in the following round.

My read of this is that if you hack a troll down to -Con w/ an axe, then leave, he's getting back up. There's no specified cause for the regeneration to cease functioning, ergo, he can't die.

If you hack a troll down to -Con w/ an axe, then poke it with a torch to do 1 point of fire damage, regeneration ceases in the following round, and since he's at -Con, he's dead.

[selios]

Like Chobemaster said, it's really easy to kill a creature with regeneration now. It's just a little more useful than fast healing, and will not be in much cases the characters know what to do.

In fact I think in combat it's better to have fast healing now, because it can't be stopped. If you fireball a group of trolls, all their regeneration stop in the following round. They will lose at least one round of healing. Which won't happen with fast healing. How to nerf regeneration....

[Chobemaster]

However, now a troll will regenerate that fireball damage starting in round 3. This change is good for trolls hit by weak fireballs, bad for trolls hit by strong fireballs that very nearly kill them.

A solitary troll is CR 5...most generically, he's going to eat a 5d6 fireball that does 17.5 points of damage (assume he fails his save, but you could calculate the typical 5th level caster DC and reduce that accordingly). He's got 63 hp.

Yes, you're even more apt to use fireball on a gang of trolls, which is a higher-level encounter so you do more damage, assuming balance.