Troll

Version 0.13: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

This page is about the player species. For the monster, see Troll (monster). If you were looking for monstrous trolls in general, see List of trolls.

Trolls are like Ogres, but even nastier. They have thick, knobbly skins of any colour from putrid green to mucky brown, which are covered in patches of thick fur, and their mouths are full of ichor-dripping fangs. They can rip creatures apart with their claws, and regenerate very quickly from even the most terrible wounds. They learn slowly indeed - as slowly as High Elves - and need a great amount of food to survive.

Innate Abilities

• Shaggy Fur 1 and Tough Skin 2: Trolls get +3 AC.
• Claws 3: Trolls have claws for hands, as well as an unstated to-hit bonus when using them. These claws inflict heavy bleeding and can decapitate hydras.
• Gourmand: Trolls can eat chunks at any time.
• Regeneration 2: Trolls heal very quickly.
• Fast Metabolism 3+: On top of the +3 hunger penalty from this mutation, trolls receive an additional +3 racial penalty, for an unmatched base metabolism of 9 food/turn.
• Saprovore 2: Trolls can tolerate rotten meat, and have a reduced nutrition penalty from eating contaminated meat.
• Trolls are large and can use giant clubs and giant spiked clubs (unlike smaller species), but their bodies do not fit into boots, gloves, gauntlets, helmets, or most body armour. Bucklers are too small for them to use, but they can handle shields and large shields easily.
• Trolls are large enough to attack normally while standing in shallow water, but they still move slowly in it.

Preferred Backgrounds

• Warriors: Fighter, Gladiator, Monk, Hunter
• Zealots: Berserker, Death Knight, Healer
• Mages: Wizard

Level Bonuses

• +1 strength every 3rd level.
• 30% more HP than average.
• 20% less MP than average.
• +3 magic resistance per level.

Starting Skills and Equipment

Trolls start with the skills and equipment listed for their background, with these exceptions:

• Incompatible body armour is replaced with an animal skin or robe.
• Helmets are replaced with caps.
• Meat rations replace bread rations, and trolls receive an extra ration.
• Any Armour skill is replaced with Dodging.
• If their background does not start with Unarmed Combat skill and offers a choice of weapon, trolls have the extra option of "claws" (and Unarmed Combat skill).
• Troll hunters are offered a choice of large rocks instead of javelins.

Difficulty of Play

Despite terrible aptitudes in many skills, Trolls are a very easy species. They have extremely high health and regenerate quickly, and they excel in Unarmed Combat. Specifically, Trolls enjoy +6 damage in unarmed melee combat (from the Claws 3 mutation), a passive +4 to hit bonus, and their attacks occasionally inflict the bleeding condition upon warm- or cold-blooded enemies. (For a short period of time, enemies bleeding from a Troll attack will lose 9% of their health per turn.) Thanks to their large size, Trolls can also throw large rocks. With innate penetration and very high damage, even at low (or no) skill in Throwing, large rocks are easily the most damaging thrown weapons in the game. Trolls' have a very fast metabolism, but their Gourmand intrinsic allows them to eat everything, at any time. Assuming you stick to eating corpses whenever possible, you can generally stay at full or above for the majority of the game and still have more than enough permafood to survive some of the optional corpse-less branches, should you choose to do them.

While they have a huge health pool, Trolls do tend to have a harder time than most species when it comes to getting good AC and EV. Trolls can only wear caps/wizard hats and cloaks in their peripheral armor slots, and can only wear robes, animal skins, troll leather armor, and the various dragon armors on their torso. Do note that if you are relying on unarmed combat with your Troll, it is often a good idea to stick to armors with encumbrance rating of -11 or lighter.

Trolls' large size gives a small, direct malus to Evasion, which is also hindered by their low dexterity and, to a lesser extent, by their poor dodging aptitude. Nonetheless, training dodging on Trolls is typically a very good idea—it will just take a larger experience investment to reach good levels of EV. Putting one's stat up points into dexterity every three levels is highly recommended, unless you are actively relying on casting spells—and not just planning to cast spells at some point down the line—in which case going for either dexterity or intelligence would be wise.

Trolls are too large to use bucklers, but Trolls are still extremely lethal in unarmed combat, even when wielding a Shield, and the added damage mitigation is generally worth it on Trolls using their claws.

Skill aptitudes

The higher the value, the better the aptitude.

Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude	Skill	Aptitude
Attack		Miscellaneous		Magic
Fighting	-2	Armour	-2	Spellcasting	-5
		Dodging	-2
Maces & Flails	-1	Shields	-1	Conjurations	-3
Axes	-2	Stealth	-5	Hexes	-4
Polearms	-2			Summonings	-3
Staves	-2	Invocations	-1	Necromancy	-2
Unarmed Combat	0	Evocations	-3	Translocations	-3
Throwing	-1	Shapeshifting	-1	Alchemy	-3
				Fire Magic	-3
Short Blades	-2			Ice Magic	-3
Long Blades	-2			Air Magic	-4
Ranged Weapons	-4	Experience	-1	Earth Magic	-1

Strategy

Trollish intelligence and magic aptitudes are some of the worst in the game. While this doesn't rule out magic entirely, trolls require intense effort to get access to higher level spells, and it's generally not an efficient use of experience. However, many L1 and L2 spells, such as Swiftness and Repel Missiles, provide a lot of return for their skill investment. Confusing Touch is particularly useful to Trolls, since they will nearly always being fighting unarmed.

Rods are also a viable option for Trolls, since their Evocations aptitude is not too terrible. However, good rods are by no means guaranteed to generate.

A vital resource that is guaranteed to present itself are gods. Trollish Invocations has an astounding aptitude of -1, and there are a number of excellent gods to complement their limited skill set:

Recommended

• Okawaru's Heroism buffs Unarmed Combat performance tremendously, as does Finesse, and his armour gifts occasionally include early dragon armour.
• Trog's abilities require no skill training to activate, and provide free berserking, magic resistance, even greater health regeneration, and very abusable summons.
• Elyvilon's normal hunger restraints are less of a concern for the voracious troll, who benefits immensely from excellent panic buttons and the ability to pacify most dangerous opponents with smite targeting.
• Jiyva's random mutations don't get in the way of your equipment slots, as most of them are already off-limits, and the various resistances it grants you can protect you from elements you'd otherwise have difficulty with. Slimify is a very effective method for disabling dangerous opponents, and his jellies will help keep you well-fed as they devour every item in sight. Just be prepared to occasionally lose a lot of your strength when Jiyva decides to shuffle you.
• Ashenzari provides sizable boosts to your skills through cursed equipment. Although you can't improve unarmed combat this way, cursing one's jewellery grants you bonuses to your magical skills which go a long way toward getting spells online, and it's always helpful to know when a band of monsters is lurking around a corner. Without a weapon to curse, however, farming piety might take a while.
• Kikubaaqudgha's corpse deliveries can provide you with snacks. Also, trolls aren't entirely useless with Necromancy if you should choose to dabble in that, and the ability to invoke torment (which you'll partially resist) on powerful foes goes well with the fact that you regenerate faster than them.

Finally, don't use trollish unarmed combat against hydras. It's a very bad idea. Large rocks, powerful attack wands, god abilities, or simply retreating are your best bets here.

Guides

• Elynae's Troll Conjurer guide newbie-friendly, Chei, Oka, Makh, Veh
• Buddy23Lee's Troll monk of Jiyva ("slime troll") guide (0.12)