| Propsken |
They had been scouring town after town, tavern after tavern for two weeks straight now, and still no adventurer worthy of their own prowess had been found to join them in their quest. Then, one day, they saw an entire tavern's patronage flee in terror, yelling "Monsters! Monsters in the tavern!" as they stumbled by.
They nodded silently, drew blades, steeled themselves for what was to come, and entered.
What they found was no less than six Trolls, all awkwardly trying to sit on the far too small chairs, while an unassumingly-looking - if small - Gnome was innocently trying to convince the barkeep he was "only trying to by some ales for his buddies and him".
"He's hired," they chimed in unison.
I've been tinkering around with some funny/fluffy/memorable character ideas, and came up with the most hilarious thing: an undersized Gnome that has Trolls as friends - he got tired of being picked on for his size, so one day his imaginary "big friend" came to life and tossed his bullies around some. Picking a Summoner's Eidolon evolutions right can get you a fully-working pseudo-Troll companion by level 11, including size, rend and fast healing, so no problem there. Thing is, I'm looking for TrollS, plural. Provided a DM would allow it, of course, I'd love to get a Troll cohort (as per the Leadership feat) plus add Trolls to the Summon Monster list.
So I started doing some research. Looking at CRs of monstrous cohorts and most summoned critter options (referencing the OGL SRD for a full list in both cases) puts them at about the same power as a level 8 cohort, and would park them in the Summon Monster V list (including alignment-based templates). Does this sound about right?
I'm well aware that Trolls have regeneration, which makes them pretty powerful - not to mention that summoning a Fiendish Troll gives it resist 10 to both acid and fire. But let's not forget that certain other options, especially the summoned ones (I'm looking at you, Demons/Angels!) come with a crudload of utility, and that other options have vastly improved attack statistics.
I like to think it all balances out in the end, but still; I'd really appreciate some feedback from people with both different perspectives and more experience in the field than poor little old me. I'm looking forward to your reactions!
Friendly greetings from Belgium!