How would you handle this?
My group erupted into a predictable argument as I ruled that the splash would not be much (getting oil on the Troll).
Cleric in the back pulls out scored flask of oil, Troll is about 25 feet away. Cleric declares he is targeting in front of the troll so it will get some oil on him and create a flammable area. I told him to roll vrs Troll ac and he missed so we rolled a die to indicate where around the troll the flask fell, and ruled that that spot and 5 feet around it had oil on it (this included the troll).
Next round Wizard casts produce flame and targets the ground around the troll. Again what is the AC? What are my DC #s for this act? I ruled it was an AC 15, he hit now troll was not target so gets 1 point of fire dmg thus stopping his regen.
This seemed incredibly cheesy to me. I was irritated and I normally allow players to do anything and really try not to take it personally.
How would you handle this and what numbers (DC's, AC's) and things would you use?
Here's my thought. This requires four actions: draw, throw, two action cantrip. That's twice the actions for alchemist's fire. It's cheaper, so that seems like a fair trade-off. As a result, I would have the oil attack resolve against full AC- however well it hits determines the damage the same as alchemist's fire. (A hit is standard damage, a critical will deal double and also ongoing, and a miss deals one splash damage.) Then, I'd resolve the cantrip against AC 5 to trigger the damage already secretly determined. In this case, it would be a point of splash damage.
Honsetly I see no issue with the senerio as stated. It did one fire damage to the troll at the cost of 4 actions. If a melee character or two had torches and were swinging at it they would likely hit one out of 4 times I'm sure probubly for more damage too. Now is the Troll stuck in a hole? Is it unable to move? If the troll moved from the oily spot it would make it less likely to be burned (They would have had to actully hit the troll).
What lvl are the characters that they need to resort to oil to put down a troll during combat? They have a Wizard with produce flame does said wizard have true strike? That would likely make sure it hit unless they are lvl 1 or 2 vs this troll.
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Oil: You can use oil to fuel lanterns, but you can also set a pint of oil aflame and throw it. You must first spend an Interact action preparing the oil, then throw it with another action as a ranged attack. If you hit, it splatters on the creature or in a single 5‑foot square you target. You must succeed at a DC 10 flat check for the oil to ignite successfully when it hits. If the oil ignites, the target takes 1d6 fire damage.
Looking at the entry for oil in the CRB, it's interesting to note that oil does not have splash at all, so you'd either have to throw it directly at the troll or hope the troll moved into the space you hit. Considering oil has negligible bulk rather than the light bulk of most bombs, I'd say there simply isn't enough liquid in a vial of oil to splash in any meaningful way (a few drops of splashed oil won't suddenly ignite due to fire 5ft away).
Considering your players want to just hit with oil rather than prepping it to ignite directly, I'd borrow the DC 10 flat check to say that if you hit something with oil previously, you'd roll the flat check to see if the oil ignited and add an extra 1d6 fire damage when hitting it with fire damage. As for just getting oil on the ground and inflicting fire damage that way, I'd rule that you'd need a lot more oil to do so, to the point it probably wouldn't be realistic in combat unless you had a barrel of oil nearby in the environment.
[Also note that Trolls have weakness to fire, so even 1 point of fire damage will trigger 10 more.]