Trolls: unfairly tough?

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I have a couple of issues with trolls that make them seem quite unfair. Note that these observations are from experience and I would welcome confirmation / refutation from more knowledgeable readers.

• They are 6HD creatures. They are supposed to fall to the ground when you reduce their hit points to 0 and then you finish them off with a fire arrow or suchlike. However, they appear to spend a long time in the "near death" state so that you can sometimes do around 200 HP of damage before they fall down.
• Death Spell, Finger Of Death and vorpal hits cause the soul-leaving-the-body animation but they still get up again.
• They appear to have undocumented spell immunities. For example, I tried to even things up in the troll mound by casting Chaos. Several trolls showed the "confused" animation, but they did not act confused in the slightest. They continued to display the same determination to rip my characters' heads off instead of wandering off, attacking each other, etc. Similarly, I've never succeeded in affecting trolls with a Hold Monster spell.
• Some trolls somehow become unkillable. This often happens in the druid grove when you come across the battle between a group of trolls and a band of Shadow Druid lackeys. This makes a reload necessary unless you want to be chased all over the place by invincible monsters.

As I said, confirmation / refutation from others is very welcome. There's no doubt that trolls make you earn your 1400XP.

EDIT: I've just examined trolls with Shadowkeeper. They all have rings of free action, which explains why Hold Monster doesn't work.

 

I personally have never found trolls a challeging enemy, course, I have never played a druid, so I have never had to do the troll caves.

A couple fireballs and an acid arrow or two and they are done with. Anything that is left my fighters can mop up easy enough.

 

Just to clarrify what fade said, when a troll falls on the ground in the "near death" state, you generally have to hit them with some sort of acid or fire attack to finish them off (either one will do). This is how it's supposed to work. That's why you're given fire arrows by Captain Arat when you go to D'Arnise Hold.

Trolls are, IMO, easy if you have decent tanking ability.

 

If you get a troll that seems to be stuck in 'Near Death,' stop attacking it except for one character and he'll fall down. There's a weird engine problem where you can get stuck pounding on a troll--even with acid and fire--at near death and it won't fall down.

A big reason why trolls behave strangely is because of they way they're scripted. Basically they're two creatures. The regular troll is replaced via script once it "dies" with a troll that lies on the ground until hit with acid or fire. (They can also be killed by poison damage, even though they're not supposed to be.) If you don't kill the troll on the ground, then it will change back to a regular troll and you need to kill it again.

 

I'm not saying that trolls are hard to beat (although the Troll Mound is quite tough) - you just whack away until the job's done. I'm simply saying that they're unfair: they sometimes require dragon levels of damage to knock down and have unexpected spell immunities.

 

I've noticed the same thing Chris, although it seems to be explained above. I thought that trolls remained in the "near-death" but not falling down stage far too long as well. It seems I now have the explanation for this.

 

Trolls tend to stay in the near death state when you pound them too much too quickly, there just isnt time for them to fall down while you lay the smack down on them. Atleast that is how it seems to me. Many times I take a step back and stop attacking the troll and then it stands there for a second and then falls down.

 

Yeah the trolls that you fight just before the Shadow Druid lackeys (and I guess just after the Troll Mound Cave) were really tough for me! The last one got up like 5 times before I actually finally put it to rest, though I might argue with myself and say it was my weak melee abilities at that time!

They are a fun challenge. Bioware did a really good job on the Druid Grove/Trademeet quest!

 

I find the only hard trolls at low levels are the spirt trolls I think you need a plus 2 sword to hit them, does anyone know? Don't forget you can buy a flame sword in the first part of the game good for troll cooking.

 

Do any of you people remember trolls in pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons? They regenerated all damage that wasn't caused by fire or acid. The smallest piece of troll left unburnt would eventually regenerate into a complete troll. Amputated limbs and heads would continue to fight independently of the body. After you'd disabled one you would have to state explicitly that you were cauterizing all wounds with a flaming torch, or else use one of the flasks of oil that you used to carry around for just such an eventuality. All the while the DM would be adding 3 HP per round until it jumped up again. Afterwards, you'd no doubt poke the corpse with a ten foot pole and sit down to eat some iron rations. I'm glad that the coders of BG2 didn't make trolls like that.

As for small pieces of troll growing back into complete trolls, I remember that somebody had the idea of frozen troll meat. When the unwitting recipient thawed it out it would grow back into a troll and attack.

 

LoL @ that Chris ^^

BTW, trolls should be piss easy to kill. The druid grove is one of the frist quests I do, because 1400exp for killing something as easy as a troll (and there are many in the Grove) gives alot of exp

 

Chris Williams: Ever hear of the PMAMT? You take a troll, give it levels in Fighter, and surround it with a Anti-Magic Field. Oh, and Adamantine equipment.

 

A bit
There was once when I used the cloak of sewer to change to a troll, and recieve it's regeneration ability, but not it's ability to resist anything but fire or acid in near-death(If my character changed to a troll and is in near-death, he is still killable by non-fire or non-acid weapon).

 

That's probably only on the PC because it's in the rules that when your PC's HP reaches 0, he dies. If you put the Cloak of the Sewers on an NPC, then it might work like it's supposed to. I don't know.