Snow Trolls and Combat Option

[mica]

Snow Trolls
At first glance they look like any other troll, but they play so different for two good reasons, they have both their primary attack and armour favoured. With an 8 attribute and Great Size, it makes them very difficult to kill but also frustrating from a player point of view.

The encounter was inevitable bardings are about as stealthy as a one-man-band. Over a week in a blighted region without a single shadow point but sneak past a troll cave hah!
As they are highly experienced they quickly knocked it down to zero endurance though two of them had been repeated battered a bit. I allowed the roll with damage to avoid being seized which was probably not to their advantage as it turns out.
I let the combat continue for a few more rounds though it was becoming obvious that having surpassed 150 endurance inflicted, this beast was not going down without wounds. So far all edges had easily been thwarted, due to 3d6+8 armour (favoured).
One character effectively sacrificed himself intimidating the beast and getting punished for it though the troll eventually ran out of hate and became weary.
All was not lost for the character doing the intimidating, by this point seized and about become tomorrows troll poo as the sword master danced a merry jig defending him, effectively jamming his shield in the trolls face whenever it attempted to chow down.
The battle then continued for some time with the characters systematically chucking the fate die looking for an edge result and becoming ever more bitter that despite their skills in combat it boiled down to this. No options, no alternatives, chuck the dice and hope both that they get an edge and the wearied troll will roll poorly.
They won but it did not feel like a heroic victory or even a well played tactical encounter just a slugfest.

Situational modifiers to hitting are all very well but to be honest, by this point noobs would have faired just as well against the troll.
In reflection it seems that there should be a combat option to reduce your edge but at the cost of attack dice. Something along the lines of reducing edge by 1 for every 2 attack die sacrificed while in the forward stance at a cost of a hope. I would probably call it desperate strike.

In the above scenario, they would still have had to intimidate to first reduce the hate of the troll due to its immense armour save, this would just have made the ending much smoother.

[Dunkelbrink]

No heroes with bows or spears? Those weapons both cause automatic piercing blows on Called shots (hit but only with greater success or extraordinary, which shouldn't be too hard for experienced heroes). In a case like this it might be good even for a close combat fighter with for example a sword to revert to his bow. Remember that an archer can aim for one round and inflict a piercing blow automatically if he hits the next round.

With tha said I agree that these fights against large monsters can turn into slugfests without the right weapons. Maybe allow lowering the edge by one if you sacrifice on success die as an ad hoc solution? Or just decide that the monster is down anyway if his Endurance reaches -80 (if he starts with 80).

[mica]

Called shot - bloody hell, cheers. You know, 2 years playing the game and nobody has ever bothered with this. Maybe because most things go down without the arse of breaking shields or disarming. I will berate them .

Move along, nothing to see in this thread

[mica]

Called shot - it states the the effects are in addition to normal effects and even states piercing blow.
This would then indicate that rolling and edge with a spear on a called shot actually results in 2 piercing blows. Am I reading this correctly?

[Arkat]

I'm no rules expert, but should't the troll become wearied when it was reduced to zero endurance?

[mica]

Not in the RAW. Only zero hate wearies them.

[Dunkelbrink]

No Mica - a maximum if one piercing blow per attack. This has been clarified by Cubicle 7. And the troll is weary at zero end - this rule is added in the revised edition.

[Arkat]

Hmm. You sure? I'm quite certain that Great Size in the revised edition states that the creature is wearied when wounded once or reduced to zero edurance. But perhaps snow trolls have some abilities that I don't remember to take into account.

[mica]

Oh yes so it does.
I tend to look at the GM screen, I never thought to read through all the monster abilities to see if they had changed.
Well, no need to mention it to the players...

Have any other monster abilities changed?

[Hermes Serpent]

The change to zero endurance equals Weary was an fairly early fix by Francesco (post Jan 16 2012 in the old forums).