Playing a Troll?

[tadkins]

If I wanted to make a troll character, are there any good options? I'm thinking some sort of optimized fighting build would be best, but the straight-up troll from the SRD has a +5 LA that probably wouldn't work too well for a character. I'm not sure, but I figure if there's some sort of template, or variant, or somesuch out there that might work which you guys might know about.

In terms of an optimized fighting build (likely a heavy melee one), how would you go about building one to take the most advantage of being a troll?

[Spuddles]

You come with 6 giant HD, which are pretty terrible. They aren't the worst, but there's a lot better.

You'll probably get the most mileage with a ToB class, since you'll have a little class feature progression, thanks to how initiator level works. Warblade will give you some of the skills, HP, and BAB +5 LA eat up.

[Gwendol]

A lion spirit totem whirling frenzy barbarian seems to fit the bill pretty well. You get useful abilities already at first level that fit with the troll physionomy, and can choose to attack using weapons or natural weapons.

I suggest picking a different set of feats based on racial HD than those in the SRD. Improved natural weapon and multiattack are good choices. But I'd try and get power attack, imp bull rush, and knock-back as soon as possible.

[Tvtyrant]

Just find ways to be resistant or immune to fire and acid and you should be fine. Afterall, what does it matter if they can kill you if you have regeneration?

[tadkins]

Thanks all. Truth be told I had just finished re-watching LotR and liked the idea of playing a hulking monstrosity of a troll.

As far as natural weapons go, would there be times I'd want to use them over a regular melee weapon? Forgive me if that's a newbish question, I'm a bit new to the game.

[TuggyNE]

As far as natural weapons go, would there be times I'd want to use them over a regular melee weapon? Forgive me if that's a newbish question, I'm a bit new to the game.

Over? No, they're not as good. What you can do, however, is use them as secondary attacks; make a full attack, iteratives and all, with a manufactured weapon and then make one each of your natural attacks. That's actually roughly what the Troll Ranger does: it has a battleaxe, which plausibly takes one of its claws away, but then it can still use the other claw and its bite.

[Gwendol]

Well, when doing a full attack you get to use all of them (and the claws at your highest BAB), rather than getting iterative attacks based on your BAB. Whirling frenzy barbarian lets you do another attack, so you will essentially be doing a lot of attacks.
In D&D using a two handed weapon when being very strong is powerful because of the higher strength bonus to damage (1.5 STR rather than just STR), and you get more out of power attack (2:1 rather than 1:1). It's a matter of choice, really.

[tadkins]

Oh, wow. That sounds pretty brutal. That actually makes me want to give this kind of character a serious try.

Are there any items/feats/anything that would help to cover up the fire and acid weakness?

[AlanBruce]

Yu mentioned a troll. Which one? You have the standard troll, which is more than decent for making a melee character. But then there's the Bladerager from MM5 (not sure if it has a LA, though, but you could discuss that with your DM). This one has pounce. So charge away and full attack!

Then, there is the war troll, I believe from MM3. A troll even amongst trolls. This one progresses as a monstrous humanoid and has a plethora of defenses. Perfect for someone wishing to build a melee oriented character.

I barely recall the other trolls, mostly from MM3, but I think they have a very high LA or none at all to make them eligible as a playable race.

[Shapurnippal]

If you can convince your DM, might I suggest Oslecamo's troll class (currently to be found here (http://www.ruleofcool.com/smf/index.php/topic,637.0.html))? It's not game-breakingly powerful and doesn't require major munchkinry to do its job, but it is solid out-of-the-box, does what trolls do, you can play from level 1, and if you peruse the following pages of that thread you'll find more troll 'prestige classes' to represent war trolls and mountain trolls and stuff like that.

[Immabozo]

wildshaping druid that takes the form of trolls. You'll kick some serious ass

[Runestar]

I find that trolls are great at lower levels, where you get 3 natural attacks and a str bonus, but they rapidly become weaker at higher lvs.

I personally recommend that you play the bladerager troll in MM5 instead. Same ECL11, but way more benefits (such as immunity to mind-affecting abilities).

[Spuddles]

Keeping the claw attacks may be worth it for the rend. You also have a serious BAB deficit, depending on the level you start at, so two attacks at full BAB + rend isn't bad at all.

[Person_Man]

You can also just add the Half-Ogre template to any race. If you're small or medium, your base size increases by one size category. +1 LA in Dragon 313 or Savage Species, +2 LA in Races of Destiny (most recent, and thus RAW). Then head into War Hulk (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20030914a) and/or Hulking Hurler or Psychic Warrior or whatnot. That would give you the same basic LotR Troll feel, but without the terrible LA and racial hd.

[Zubrowka74]

Troll Monk for the lulz. Keep your whole claw/claw/bite attacks. Would it even stack on top of a full attack action in this case ?

[Morbis Meh]

Play as a wildshape ranger then go into master of many forms at level 6, at level 9 you can play as a cave troll and dominate everything, a few more levels you can play as a war troll. The more levels of MoMF you take the more things you can turn into and eventually you will get all of their Su abilities. Combine it with Warshaper or Nature's Warrior and dominate eveything.

[Slipperychicken]

You can also just add the Half-Ogre template to any race. If you're small or medium, your base size increases by one size category. +1 LA in Dragon 313 or Savage Species, +2 LA in Races of Destiny (most recent, and thus RAW). Then head into War Hulk (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20030914a) and/or Hulking Hurler or Psychic Warrior or whatnot. That would give you the same basic LotR Troll feel, but without the terrible LA and racial hd.

If you still want Regeneration, you can pick up the feat Troll-Blooded from Dragon Magazine. Gives you Regen 1, but fatigued in sunlight. Find some way to ignore Fatigue (horizon walker?), then with Regeneration and Large size, you can be pretty easily fluffed as a D&D Troll.

Regen 1 isn't too useful in combat, but it can potentially save your bacon from environmental hazards like traps and falling, or if enemies leave you for dead (or just don't have time to slooowly burn you to death). Also saves you charges on those CLW wands.

[Artillery]

For Fire Resistance. Swordsage has a stance that grant fire resistance based on tumble ranks. At 19+ ranks you gain immunity to fire. If he comes in with 5HD, then takes a level of swordsage he could have 9 ranks in tumble. So he would have Fire Resistance 10.

The stance is Flame's Blessing.

[SowZ]

For Fire Resistance. Swordsage has a stance that grant fire resistance based on tumble ranks. At 19+ ranks you gain immunity to fire. If he comes in with 5HD, then takes a level of swordsage he could have 9 ranks in tumble. So he would have Fire Resistance 10.

The stance is Flame's Blessing.

Nice. Then there are ways to get acid immunity and non-lethal damage immunity. Boom! Invinicible! Your DM may throw spheres of annihilation at you.

[Slipperychicken]

Nice. Then there are ways to get acid immunity and non-lethal damage immunity. Boom! Invinicible! Your DM may throw spheres of annihilation at you.

Just remember: there is no save against thrown DMG. Also, I can't imagine playing as the Emerald Legion would be very challenging or engaging. Unless the campaign goal is to die, that is :smalltongue:

[Darius Kane]

Just remember: there is no save against thrown DMG. Also, I can't imagine playing as the Emerald Legion would be very challenging or engaging. Unless the campaign goal is to die, that is :smalltongue:
If you're playing with an incompetent DM, sure. I wasn't playing Emerald Legion or an invincible character, but he was pretty close to undefeated. That didn't keep me from having fun or my DM to make the game fun and challenging. He simply had to make the goal to be something other than for me to not die. I mean, it's not really useful that you can't die when you have to prevent someone else from dying, or something from being stolen/destroyed, or summoning an Elder Evil, or whatever. Yeah, sure, you'll be alive at the end, but you failed your mission.

[Spuddles]

I played a trollblooded half minotaur water orc in a campaign. Went wolf spirit lion totem 2/monk 2/fist of the forest 2/frenzied berserker 3.

Eventually died in a frenzy.

Extremely fun character.

[ngilop]

I built a troll Warblade, asked the DM if I could swap out my RHD for class level. to which he said "yeah" so instead of just being troll11/WrB1 i was troll5/Wrb7

it was pretty awesome and a use 3/day itme fo fire/acid risitance 20 was more than enough to get me by any fire damage, I mean serisouly if you are worried about any damage spells .... welll....

[Jane_Smith]

Instead of a warrior class, why not go cleric of war/etc and take prc's like war priest, etc? So long as you keep the bare minimum wisdom to cast your highest levels of spells, you can focus on strength/constitution and divine metamagic/extra channeling/persistant metamagic to gain 24 hour long endure elements, energy resistance (Fire), lesser vigor, shield of faith, enlarge person, bless weapon, etc. And I forgot the prc, but there is one where you can use turning attempts to empower your attacks for several rounds, or spell slots. You would essentially be a warrior type role still, but you could mask your acid/fire weakness, boost your regeneration with fast healing/magic healing, increase your size, etc. Throw on some full plate, tower shield, and a morning star with your massive strength you can survive on the front lines forever.

And if your troll gets ANY charisma later, leadership with cleric abilities is kind of horrifying. An entire tribe of zealot trolls with mass vigor/mass energy resist (fire)? @_@

[Slipperychicken]

And if your troll gets ANY charisma later, leadership with cleric abilities is kind of horrifying. An entire tribe of zealot trolls with mass vigor/mass energy resist (fire)? @_@

You'd have to be pretty high level to get Trolls as followers, even if you waive the LA.

[ksbsnowowl]

Another possible option is the Ice Troll (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20030413b) from Unapproachable East. Same LA, but one less racial HD. It does have the cold subtype, however, which is good and bad (less good). It is also more intelligent than a normal troll, with slightly less Con.

I agree that Tome of Battle would be a good option.

Combat reflexes would be a good feat to take advantage of your natural reach, and natural boost to Dex. Large and in Charge (Draconomicon) is another good feat to help you control the battlefield.

On the claw/claw/rend vs. two-handed weapon debate, just before minmaxboards bit the dust, I asked that very question, and some of the numbers-oriented guys were running equations, and using a greatsword was the clear winner.

However, I was asking it as a DM; factoring +5 LA, and its loss on attack rolls, into the equation, and getting more attacks at your highest attack modifier might be better.

Working toward attacking at your highest bonus, making an AoO build with combat reflexes, deft opportunist, and eventually Robilar's Gambit might be a good goal.

[LTwerewolf]

Half-black dragon war troll.

[Runestar]

Half-black dragon war troll.

Any ECL21 PC is going to beat that...

[Jane_Smith]

If your dm would allow, there are a few feats from the original 3.0 edition Midnight campaign setting for la/hit dice based races a set of flaws that reduced level adjustment. Like being someones slave would make your race get -3 LA, due to the limitations and social stigma/etc, you could be one eyed, gained half blind penalties, etc, for -1. You could always ask your dm for a flaw from unearthed arcane that instead of granting a bonus feat, you could lower your LA a bit? This will allow you to keep up with other pc's in raw levels while still restraining your potential power level so long as the dm goes over what flaws you take.

[EarFall]

If I wanted to make a troll character, are there any good options? I'm thinking some sort of optimized fighting build would be best, but the straight-up troll from the SRD has a +5 LA that probably wouldn't work too well for a character. I'm not sure, but I figure if there's some sort of template, or variant, or somesuch out there that might work which you guys might know about.

In terms of an optimized fighting build (likely a heavy melee one), how would you go about building one to take the most advantage of being a troll?

Basically, to play a troll you just need to quote the original poster and misinterpret purposefully what they say.

And then try to play it off as a misunderstanding. :smallamused:

[danzibr]

I built a troll Warblade, asked the DM if I could swap out my RHD for class level. to which he said "yeah" so instead of just being troll11/WrB1 i was troll5/Wrb7

it was pretty awesome and a use 3/day itme fo fire/acid risitance 20 was more than enough to get me by any fire damage, I mean serisouly if you are worried about any damage spells .... welll....
I was actually going to suggest if the DM would allow swapping out the RHD. They're supposed to be like additional LA or something I think, but it's bad enough already.

[Yogibear41]

Theres a half troll template in fiend folio and has a level adjustment of +4 and there are no racial hit dice to worry about. Although it gives fast healing instead of regeneration its still a pretty great template imo, have a friend playing a half giant/half troll psychic warrior atm. Most of the party is still fairly low level think the highest is level 7 most are lower, but his AC is so high he rarely ever gets hit and when he does his fast healing usually tops him back off after 1-2 rounds. His ECL is so high its probably going to be another month before he gets his second hit die and I think hes about half way there.

[ksbsnowowl]

Theres a half troll template in fiend folio and has a level adjustment of +4 and there are no racial hit dice to worry about. Although it gives fast healing instead of regeneration its still a pretty great template imo, have a friend playing a half giant/half troll psychic warrior atm. Most of the party is still fairly low level think the highest is level 7 most are lower, but his AC is so high he rarely ever gets hit and when he does his fast healing usually tops him back off after 1-2 rounds. His ECL is so high its probably going to be another month before he gets his second hit die and I think hes about half way there.

As a first level character this guy is running around with 6th level characters. How is he not dead from a Fireball yet?

Even pimping out his Con, and assuming his first level was in Barbarian, the guy has, what? 19 or 20 hit points?

A 6th level Fireball deals an average of 21 points of damage, and this guy probably only has a ~40% to save against said fireball.

Not trying to knock it; just saying it isn't very viable, if you are playing by the rules.

[GreenSerpent]

Could be worse. Could be a Fire Troll (Dragon Compendium). Immune to Fire and Acid (in fact healed by fire), weak to cold but still regenerate it, vulnerable to electricity.

10 Giant RHD.

LA of... *drum roll* +12.

[Nagukuk]

Claws mix nicely with

Double hit (allows main hand and an off hand attack when you make an attack of opp)

+

Rolibar's Gambit (gives you an attack of opp when anyone tries to hit you)

IF both claws hit then you REND, so in effect you hit someone 3x to their 1,

look up Jack B Quick, because of REND ... as a troll you would "hit" more often than he if you could fit the feats he uses. Even some of them as i stated above.

PLUS you have reach regen dex str con even nat armor to spare.

As stated above it is better to change into a troll than to be one unless the racial HD can be converted or ignored or some such.

If you are really worried about fireballs get evasion, via magic or class. or go the cleric route as mentioned above to allow you to heal the fire/acid damage or become resistant or immune in the first place.

never neglect a good missile weapon ... extra style points if you use detach and throw your claws at your opponents, in second and first ed,, you could have even used your head lol, but im unsure if you could do that in 3.x

"I pull the head off of my body and hurl it at him!"

chewing off faces at range but yet not at range :smallbiggrin:

LOL mix in blood storm blade and or the returning weapon property and have your parts return to be thrown again.


Call him Nagukuk ... its a good ShadowKnight Troll name :smallwink:

[Yogibear41]

As a first level character this guy is running around with 6th level characters. How is he not dead from a Fireball yet?

Even pimping out his Con, and assuming his first level was in Barbarian, the guy has, what? 19 or 20 hit points?

A 6th level Fireball deals an average of 21 points of damage, and this guy probably only has a ~40% to save against said fireball.

Not trying to knock it; just saying it isn't very viable, if you are playing by the rules.

He has 22 hit points I don't know how seeing as his 1 dit die is a d8 I know he his con is at least in the 20s but that should still leave him short of 22, havent looked at his sheet or anything so I suppose he could have toughness or something, but yes you are right a spell caster would basically fry him alive fortunanetly for us our recent endevors have been against gnoll slavers in the area and while a few of them have spell casting abilities 80-90% of them are rangers and can do very little against him. We as a group also make it a point to target the spell casters and eliminate them first.
He also has powerful build and possibly the monkey grip feat so his weapons are 1 or 2 sizes larger he usually does around 18-20 damage a hit with a 1 handed weapon. He did have the pleasure of getting into a scuffle with a local blackguard in a town and getting his butt wooped though lol.
He also had a carbon copy of his character that another PC killed because we thought it was an enemy our cleric 1 shot him with the Ice Axe spell. lol