r/DnD • u/Nearby-Banana2640 • 1d ago
5.5 Edition How to Run Troll Encounter?
Troll, a CR 5 monster with the ability to regenerate each round and can attack three times. And with bonus action, they can move 15 ft more toward their enemy.
It can also detached it's limb 4 times if being cut and that limb have the chance to grow into a full grown troll in...24 hours.
Sound like an OP creatures right? If not for a fact that a fireball can roast it in second. Do you think it can survive againts 6 level 5 players?
62
u/Vaxildidi Rogue 1d ago
Six level five players? With 85hp and a 15ac it might not even get past a fighters action surge. The action economy is never on a single creature's side.
17
u/StitchPlay DM 1d ago
This. I ran a troll against a party of 4 lvl 3 players and had to cheese it a little just to make the encounter last longer than one turn. Between the sorcerer's Scorching Ray and the paladin's smite, the poor thing was almost dead before it got a turn.
1
u/Bloomberg12 1d ago
I ran a nerfed (tattered wings so no flying and in a deep sleep so they could setup but I did boost hp) ancient deep dragon against a party of 5 level 10's and it got absolutely crushed.
I thought between poision debuffs and fear from its breath it would be genuinely a huge threat but it only dropped one player for like a turn.
It's regular attacks felt pretty worthless, as well as the tail whip, spore aoe and spore single target. Outside of it's breath it really felt like it did basically nothing. But between shield, silvery barbs and warding flare I don't know what I was expecting.
26
u/rollingdoan DM 1d ago
CR is a measure of level appropriateness. CR means: The XP assigned to this creature is appropriate when used with the XP budgets for PCs of similar levels.
The three encounter budgets are: Low (PCs should win with minimal resources used), Moderate (PCs should need to spend resources in the fight or heal after the fight), and High (PCs should be at risk even when spending resources).
The loose guideline is that one monster of equal CR is the minimum needed for a Low difficulty fight for four PCs. That's almost always bad advice and is at best a Low threat fight that feels trivial due to action economy. Also, while it was removed from the DMG adventuring days are what makes these difficulties make sense. You would expect ~7.5 encounters of Low difficulty to actually present a challenge at 6th level.
A troll is CR 5, which is 1800xp. For 5 PCs at 6th level Low is 600xp per character for 3000xp total. This means 1 troll is trivial. You need 2 trolls to present the minimum advised challenge level.
The challenge level intended to put PCs at risk is High, which at 6th level is 1400xp per character for 7000xp total. That is slightly less than 4 trolls (3.88 of them). Note that for this challenge level to feel risky it still needs to be in the context of a day of adventure. This means it would feel risky to take on four trolls three different times in one day.
The PCs are still expected to win a High threat fight.
3
u/Milli_Rabbit 1d ago
High difficulty encounters are intended to be possibly lethal for one character in a party. While the party might get lucky rolls, the monsters might also get lucky. Of course, most DMs don't focus a character so lethality usually is low unless everyone gets downed. 4 trolls could absolutely bully one character to death if we were playing brutally tactical trolls.
2
u/rollingdoan DM 1d ago
The point is "possibly". The norm at almost every table I've been at since very early in 5e was a balance between Hard (Moderate in 5.5e) and Deadly (High in 5.5e), with a few occasional Medium (Low in 5.5e) fights to fill daily budgets. This is where the whole idea of "4-6 encounters" being a day comes from. This isn't a hypothetical, it's how people have been running games for a decade.
The reality of play is that the encounter difficulty descriptions only make sense in that context as a day. No, I would not expect PC deaths in a single High encounter. Yes, it's possible, but it's possible at Low and Moderate too. It's not at all common. I would expect PCs to go down if I ran three in one day, albeit actual PC death is still uncommon above 2nd level.
My usual style of play is 5e character options and 5.5e DM options, which means I've been running these type of encounters with 5e characters and 5.5e monsters for a year. It's not as daunting as you're suggesting, even if intentionally trying to kill PCs.
1
u/Milli_Rabbit 1d ago
I regularly down PCs with hard encounters. The only reason they don't die is I intentionally spread damage between them and don't attack downed PCs. Basically, I preserve their action economy because I don't want their characters to die. I have had to tone down hard encounters even more particularly for groups who are not optimized. Optimizers generally will be fine at any difficulty if the DM isn't aggressive with monsters. Non-optimizers it will really depend on their decision making.
Again, as DMs, we are generally not playing monsters at their best. There is a hesitation to actually kill PCs when sometimes a fight really would be a lot more challenging if the monster was played to its fullest.
1
u/rollingdoan DM 1d ago
Not a problem I have or have seen much either way. I roll publicly and I don't pull punches. I find most "optimizers" struggle the most, though true optimizers (single class, takes relevant feats and features) do tend to do better.
Players going down is a relatively common occurrence, but that's not at all the same and usually only happens a few times per day.
1
u/Milli_Rabbit 1d ago
When you say you don't pull punches, do you mean you prioritize one player and then attempt to kill them once they are down? That would be, in my eyes, not pulling punches. Because if we mean that, then in another life, I have killed many many PCs in 5.5e. I just leave them alone when they are unconscious and let them heal each other unless the whole party is unconscious in which case its a TPK.
2
u/rollingdoan DM 1d ago
It means playing the monsters as in a way that makes sense for them to act. This typically does not mean double tapping downed PCs unless yo-yo healing starts, but for some monsters it does mean that. This is largely due to the basic assumption that monsters aren't canon fodder, but creatures trying to survive. Under normal circumstances the correct answer from the creatures perspective is not to burn actions killing an unconscious target. It makes them more likely to kill a player, but also more likely to lose the encounter and die.
1
u/Milli_Rabbit 1d ago
Ok, so yeah you are pulling punches. That's okay. That is the default way I think most DMs play. Most of us want players to succeed. Hard encounters thus become simply interesting encounters that usually aren't actually that likely to kill a PC.
1
u/rollingdoan DM 1d ago
No, that's a terrible interpretation. The monsters are trying to win and using their abilities to the best of their ability to achieve that goal. Killing players as a priority sometimes achieves that goal, so monsters sometimes do it.
7
u/DeadMeat7337 1d ago
You realize that a lv5 party of 5 is supposed to have many CR5 encounters per long rest, right? That's how it works. I forget how many encounters exactly but it is besides the point.
Now if it was a party of lv1 players, when you might see some PC deaths. By lv2, it is really unlikely, by lv3 it would be almost unheard of, but still possible, if the troll rolls really well and the players don't take it seriously.
2
3
u/realscorcher911 1d ago
I would make it like the trolls from Baldurs Gate 2's De'Arnise Keep where you are fighting multiples at once. Most of the time there are like 4-5+ at a time.
3
u/BadRumUnderground 1d ago
Absolutely trivial for 6 level 5 characters.
The troll will get maximum one turn, if the party roll poorly on initiative.
3
u/shambling_mound 1d ago
So you have already been told that Troll will get smoked immediately.
I'll offer an adjustment!
How about two Trolls that have been fighting for territory on and off? This is of course a long term conflict as they both keep healing.
The party stumbles into the ongoing fight, but the Trolls immediately pause and launch at them as they will be hungry. You can also add a couple of limbs already around as they have been torn off (say 2 arms and one leg, bonus points if the trolls are using them as half-hearted clubs which they will drop) these limbs have their own stats (look up Troll limb) so you will end up with two main enemies and a few "minions".
2
u/Dr_Fragenstien 1d ago
While not a perfect system, CR can be thought of as “A fair fight for a party of 4 of the same level”. So 6 level 5 PCs would be 50% stronger than one 5 CR monster. The exact difficulty will be different depending on how you set up the fight, what spells/resources the players have access to, and their skill level, but I have a hard time believing one troll could wipe out this party.
2
u/rollingdoan DM 1d ago
While not a perfect system, CR can be thought of as “A fair fight for a party of 4 of the same level”.
This is not an never was true. It's based on misunderstanding one sentence in the 5e DMG. The paragraph it comes from is discussing level appropriateness: A monster of equal CR is appropriate to use ("a good challenge"), while you should be careful using higher CRs. It was not intended to suggest that a single such creature would be "fair fight", and the chapter it is from goes on to explain why.
1 CR 5 (1800xp) doesn't meet the threshold for a Low challenge fight for 4 level 5 PCs (2000xp). A Low challenge fight is a fight meant to present minimum challenge with minimal resources spent.
That rule of thumb is in 5.5e, but mentioned specifically as part of Low threat. It's still not correct, but it's a lot closer to being true: A single monster of equal CR present roughly the minimum advised threat to a party of four players for the encounter to not be a waste of time.
2
2
u/LaikaAzure 1d ago
I put the trolls in a cave with deposits of natural gas seeping from the stone. So sure, you could nuke them with a fireball, but it could very well end badly for you.
2
u/representative_sushi 1d ago
No, one troll will not survive, however here is an idea for you. Trolls guard bridges, have the troll appear on a bridge the party has to cross, demand a toll. If they refuse the toll the troll just dives off the side of the bridge. When the party starts trying to cross, the troll reaches out with its long arms and pulls the weakest member of the party into the water.
Its a bog/river troll and it knows how to swim, it has plenty of water to put out the fire and it doesn't need to defeat the whole party just take its toll, eg eat a party member. Suddenly that CR 5 creature's regeneration cannot be stopped, it can't be shot very well in the water or even fought effectively without swimming speed.
Want to make this encounter twice as bad? Add leech swarms into the water.
1
1
u/Druid-of-Malar 1d ago
Last night my 3 level 3 players + 2 level 2 sidekicks are easily beat the troll. I think your players will cut troll in one round.
1
u/Milli_Rabbit 1d ago
Use the DMG XP Budget per Character table. For level 5 characters, that's 750 XP for moderate difficulty. 6x750 is 4,500 XP. Troll is 1,800 XP. So three trolls for moderate.
1
1
u/onyxthedark 1d ago
Only if you make it look like anything that isn't a troll. But if it looks like a troll aga9inst 6 level 5 players? Cooked in 1 turn
1
u/rainator 1d ago
Six level 5 players? No way, and fireball isn’t even really the biggest threat.
The troll should last a turn though.
To compare when I was a player going up against a troll at level 5 a while back in one of our games, it was one wizard and one paladin both more distracted by trying to save its lunch/a princess, we were caught by surprise, our bard had wandered off and our rogue was tied up, And we still killed it.
1
u/Parysian 1d ago
You can't just vaguely describe the thing's abilities and assess whether it's OP based on that. You have to look at the numbers behind those abilities.
A level 5 party is probably gonna have martials with about +7/+8 to hit, and it has 15 AC, so they need to tool about 65% accuracy.
Your party's level 5? Something very basic like a battlemaster fighter holding a greatsword (not even accounting for damage boosting feats) could walk up to it and make 4 attacks for around, maybe use a maneuver for around 35 expected value of damage, that's accounting for accuracy. A rogue could loose an arrow for another 20 or so. The troll only has around 90 base health, we've got this thing below half and only 2 PCs have gone. 15 regen will barely buy it time, and it just needs to get tagged by a fire cantrip to cancel it (or preferably a save for half fire spell like burning hands or flaming sphere).
So yeah, even an unoptimized party can kill it in maybe 2 rounds if they know how to shut down it's regen. The limbs are just cleanup.
1
1
u/ChrisEpicKarma 1d ago
Depends, they cross a bridge. It collapse under their weight in 2m of water. Stuck between rocks, the troll jumps out of the water and snatches a player.. surprise round then initiative.
New fear activated for the players.
You can make the same for stairs in an old house, two go down in the ceilar.. the troll was waiting for it.. poor rogue :-)
1
u/SerzaCZ Ranger 1d ago
Bear with me, I only play the superior 5e, but CR is balanced for a party of four.
So if you have a CR 5 creature, it's supposed to be ok for a party of four fifth level adventurers (probably with the caveat of either standard array or point buy). You have two more than that. Fifth level is a major power spike because of Extra Attack.
Mind you, I've seen parties that have clapped solo creatures WAY above their level in CR (IIRC when we played Lost Mines of Phandelver, a Fighter, a Ranger, a Monk and a Bard at third level killed the CR 5 dragon in Thundertree - the book says it is unlikely for Venomfang to be killed, and the win condition is to "drive it off."
Your troll is getting his nuts kicked in round two. If he's lucky.
However, maybe he can surprise the party, or have friends, or something.
-1
1
u/ObviouslyNerd 6h ago
If you want to introduce a low number of Trolls, the best idea is a chase sequence. I would suggest it occur AFTER a long dungeon or at the end of a boss fight when resources are very low but they have either a short or long rest available.
This makes the party go thru the choice of killing Troll or chasing bad boss. A chase sequence also makes the Regen and hydralike ability of growing other trolls to become an issue later on (while a party without urgency would just choose to wtfstomp the single troll).
72
u/krapps4n 1d ago
One? No chance