From: covin@tartarus.uchicago.edu (David Covin)
Subject: Trolls' regeneration
Organization: University of Chicago Computer Science
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 23:39:05 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.212012.6975@Princeton.EDU> tao@potato.princeton.edu (Terry Tao) writes:

   Brings up another interesting question.  What DOES kill trolls apart from
   fire and acid:: what about

   old age
   death spells
   suffocation
   poison
   freezing to death
   psychic attacks
   disease
   falling long distances
   petrifaction

   If trolls are immune to all of these, then I can think that trolls will
   be a major problem in an ice world without the secret of fire and 
   without enough chemistry to produce acid..

Well, there's always the nethack solution: eat them! :)

Doesn't take much knowledge of chemistry to produce acid, if you're
like most mammals...

I'll take a quick stab at the others:

  old age-- either trolls just *don't* die of old age (they live 
            until something kills them permanently), or old age is
            something they can't regenerate from, and kills them
            dead.  Might be worth a few charges off your Staff
            of Withering to experiment with this...

  death spells-- depends on the spell.  Most of them, I'd say, will
            send the troll to -11 hp or so, but it'll regenerate.
            Destruction (reversed Resurrection), which turns its
            target into a small pile of dust, will obliterate the
            critter permanently.
  
  suffocation-- like the death spell, just does h.p. damage.  The
            troll probably also can't regenerate until it gets air
            again.  Keeping it airless for a *long* time might cause
            it to die permanently.

  poison--  depends on the poison.  In general, I'd say the troll
            will regenerate, only to die again from the poison in
            its system; but each time some of the poison will be 
            eliminated, until it's all gone.  Nasty.  Note that some
            poisons (e.g. rattlesnake venom) destroy tissue, much like
            acid.

  freezing to death-- I'd be tempted to rule that trolls can be frozen
            solid and thawed out again intact, just because I think
            trollsicles are a neat idea, reminiscent of the old Horror
            Comics thing of having a caveman (or horrible beast) frozen
            in ice come alive again after it's thawed out. 

  psychic attacks-- depends on the attack.  A psychic power which causes
            the target's heart to stop would be just like a death spell,
            and the troll could recover.  H.p. damage caused by psychic
            attacks could be regenerated.  Damage to the *psyche*, on
            the other hand, would remain-- so a troll killed by Psionic
            Blast would probably regenerate physically but remain a
            vegetable mentally.  Not that you'd necessarily notice. :)

  disease-- do trolls *get* diseases?  I'd assume not.  Any magical
            disease that somehow infested and managed to kill a troll
            would have to have fought the troll's fierce immune system
            every step of the way, and won-- so I'd assume the troll's
            regenerative ability wouldn't improve just because it was
            dead.  The troll would stay dead.  Any weak, sickly, namby-
            pamby human coming anywhere near that corpse is probably
            going to be in for trouble, though-- would *you* like
            to catch a disease virulent enough to kill a troll?

  falling long distances-- this just does h.p. damage.  The troll
            regenerates just fine.  Falling *very* long distances (re-
            entry from outside the atmosphere) will, of course, burn
            the troll to death, which it can't regenerate from.

  petrification-- permanent until further notice (Stone to Flesh spell,
            etc.).  A petrified troll will be in slightly better shape
            than a petrified human, inasmuch as if the troll gets broken
            into pieces while petrified, and then is depetrified, it
            can regenerate from the damage; while a human won't normally
            do so.

If you think trolls are neat, you should look at the Runequest monster,
the "walktapus" (like an octopus, but it walks on land...).  It
regenerates, much like a troll-- but pieces cut off a walktapus
regenerate into *new* walktapi of their own.  

(Also, it's immune to fire and acid, I believe.  You either have Rune
magic (very high-level spells) or you run away, very fast.)

Just my thoughts...

--
David Covin                           covin@despair.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd