Troll

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Trolls are a class of monster in NetHack. They are notable because the corpses of dead trolls will revive (as do the endgame Riders). For that reason, trolls are one of the more annoying monsters. Trolls can also make good use out of polearms - the range they can hit things with a polearm in hand is equal to that of a character whose skill level in polearms is Skilled. They have a 50% chance of being generated with either a ranseur, partisan, glaive, or spetum[1].

The troll, T, is also the least powerful monster of this class. Other types of troll include ice trolls, rock trolls, water trolls and Olog-hai.

Players polymorphed into trolls should be careful of cockatrices; attempting to attack a cockatrice in troll form will cause you to bite it, turning to stone.

Strategy for troll removal

Generally speaking, for well armed characters, the problem with trolls is not so much to kill them, as to get rid of them without having them auto-revive. There are a large number of ways to kill a troll permanently, many of which fall into the general category of putting the corpse inside something:

  • Eat the corpse. It will disappear only when you are finished. During the meal, it may revive, or you may be interrupted, or you may become unconscious from rotten food. This is a readily available option as long as you are not satiated.
  • Let a pet eat the corpse. It will disappear as soon as the pet starts to eat, though not everyone has a carnivorous pet.
  • Tin the corpse. Easiest option for those with a tinning kit.
  • Lock the corpse in a container. Useful for trolls generated in throne rooms, though they may revive while being carried to their destination. Nesting a container more than 2 levels deep will also prevent reviving, as will a bag of holding 97.5% of the time.[2] You will receive the message "You feel less hassled" when a troll corpse stored in a container rots away.[3]
  • Just keep killing the troll, and eventually it will fail to revive (approximately a 25% chance each time you kill it).
  • Place the corpse in an ice box. The revival countdown will be paused. You can take it out later when you're ready to deal with it.
  • Stone the living troll with a cockatrice corpse. If there is a live cockatrice nearby, conflict can also (sometimes) induce the cockatrice to stone the troll.
  • Polymorph the corpse.
  • Throw the corpse into lava or water (if it isn't a water troll) and it will drown as soon as it revives.
  • Sacrifice the corpse.
  • Polymorph the troll and kill the creature. Make sure you're prepared in case the troll polymorphs to something like a master lich.
  • Find or dig a pit, place the corpse in, and push in a boulder to bury it. Water can also be used in the place of a pit (90% chance if the troll in question is a water troll).
  • Lure the troll to the Rogue level, where monsters don't leave corpses, and kill it there.
  • Crush the troll with a drawbridge.
  • Disintegrate the troll by standing between it and a black dragon, or just polymorph into a black dragon and fire a disintegration ray at it.
  • Digest the troll.
  • Turn the troll to slime.
  • Genocide trolls.
  • Put the corpse in a cursed bag of holding and repeatedly #loot the bag until it disappears.
  • Completely fill the level with monsters so that the troll has nowhere to revive.
  • Destroy the container with the corpse in it: a magical explosion for bags of holding, or polymorph for any container. Probably not worth wasting a container, though.

Trolls as pets

While not as strong as some other tamable creatures, higher level trolls are still reasonably strong, can make use of some weapons, and can auto-revive when killed (even though they do not always revive tame, the chance is small for them to revive hostile as long as you do not abuse them or kill them yourself accidentally). While they are not exactly so powerful that they're worth going out of your way to tame, a tame troll is still worth consider keeping.

Messages

If the troll revives and you can see it, you will receive the message "The [troll type] rises from the dead!" As a special case, if the troll revives while you are eating it, the message changes to "The bite covered [troll type] rises from the dead!". The "bite covered" part is not referred to again, for example in subsequent attack or death messages.

Individual information

Troll

The weakest monster in the Troll monster class. It has no special abilities beyond auto revivification, and is often generated in throne rooms.

Ice Troll

Ice trolls are immune to ice and part of its attacks are cold-attributed and therefore preventable with Cold Resistance. It hits slightly harder than regular Trolls if its cold attack isn't resisted. They have a slightly lower AC and some MR.


Rock Troll

Rock trolls are basically more powerful versions of your standard everyday Trolls. They hit slightly harder than Trolls and Ice Trolls, but have no remarkable attribute otherwise outside auto revivification. They have lower AC than Ice Trolls, but no MR.


Water Troll

Water trolls have higher MR than other trolls, but its AC is only on par with regular Trolls. They don't hit as hard as Rock Trolls, but they can swim, so dumping their corpse in water isn't effective at getting rid of them.


Olog-hai

Olog-hai are the most powerful type of trolls, having lower AC than all other trolls (no MR, though), and hit as hard as Rock Trolls. They have no special attributes beyond auto revivification.


Origin

The Troll in this form originates from Dungeons and Dragons.

In the folklore, it is typically large, very strong and dim-witted. It fears light or is turned to stone by it. The most notable difference of D&D Troll with other sources, is its regeneration ability.

It originally comes from Scandinavian folklore.

Encyclopedia entry

The troll shambled closer. He was perhaps eight feet tall,
perhaps more. His forward stoop, with arms dangling past
thick claw-footed legs to the ground, made it hard to tell.
The hairless green skin moved upon his body. His head was a
gash of a mouth, a yard-long nose, and two eyes which drank
the feeble torchlight and never gave back a gleam.
[...]
Like a huge green spider, the troll's severed hand ran on its
fingers. Across the mounded floor, up onto a log with one
taloned forefinger to hook it over the bark, down again it
 scrambled, until it found the cut wrist. And there it grew
fast. The troll's smashed head seethed and knit together.
He clambered back on his feet and grinned at them. The
waning faggot cast red light over his fangs.
[ Three Hearts and Three Lions, by Poul Anderson ]

Variants

UnNethack

if you genocide trolls, you get a YAFM:

  • *plonk* (for actual genocide)
  • S3n7 1n s0m3 7r0llz!!! (for reverse genocide)

References


This page may need to be updated for the current version of NetHack.

It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.1. Information on this page may be out of date.

Editors: After reviewing this page and making necessary edits, please change the {{nethack-361}} tag to the current version's tag or {{noversion}} as appropriate.