Monster: Stone Trolls

Stone Trolls

Frequency	Uncommon
No. Appearing	2-12
Armour Class	3
Move	12"
Hit Dice	4
% in lair	70%
Treasure type	Qx2,X
No. of attacks	1
Damage/attack	1d8+2, or by weapon
Special Attacks	None
Special Defenses	See below
Magic Resistance	5%
Intelligence	Low
Alignment	CN(E)
Size	L (8' tall)
Psionic Ability	Nil
Psionic Attack/defense modes	Nil
Level	V
XP	175+6/hp

General

Stone trolls are large, unpleasant humanoids. Not exactly evil, they do tend to be violent and are xenophobic to an extreme degree. They like meat and will cause mayhem in farming areas but rarely resort to eating the farmers themselves. They will react very aggressively to any attempt by another race (such as humans) to punish them for breaking "stupid laws".

Stone trolls normally wield large tree branches or smaller stone clubs and axes doing 1d8+2 damage. If they use other weapons such as discarded bastard or two-handed swords or polearms then they do normal damage with +2 for their strength and mass.

They are very hardy and resist magic, heat, and cold. The first is represented by 5% magic resistance against wizard-level magic, and against heat and cold they automatically take half damage, with a save indicating no damage at all. They can survive in any environment where stone is solid, but they dislike ice and will avoid walking on it if possible.

Weapon Vs Armour, Speed

The trolls' skin should be treated as field plate -1 (ie, AT 2-1) if using UA tables (or my own), and as platemail/AT 2 if using the PHB tables.

Their own weapons use the modifiers for a footman's mace, but are somewhat faster with a speed factor of 5.

Lifestyle

Appearance

They are grey and their skin resembles schist or flaky slate. Blunt weapons do half damage against them but cutting and piercing ones do normal damage. However, non-magical, non-blunt weapons which strike a stone troll must make a saving throw against crushing blow or break.

Dress is basic "caveman" style and barefooted.

Lair

In lair will be twice as many females, which fight as 2HD monsters and will generally use improvised weapons such as thrown stones (treat as sling bullets with range of 1"/2"/4") or pots and pans (clubs, successful strike breaks item on a 1-4/d6).

Young will number half the adults -1d4. They will reluctantly fight as 1-1HD monsters AC6, using improvised weapons and grappling.

Lairs are invariably underground and reached from cave entrances or sinkholes. Stone trolls are excellent climbers and are capable of hunting mountain goats.

Society

Society is "Big Man" based, with the largest male running the show. Each lair represents one extended family and when the Big Man's eldest son reaches maturity he is expected to go and capture a mate from some other cave-dwelling family and head off into the wilds to start a new family along with any of his brothers, sisters etc. who will join them.

The only really civil relationship stone trolls have is with stone giants whom they revere as demi-gods. The giant's taciturn lack of appreciation for this respect only seems to make the trolls more fervent.

A child is considered an adult when they can light a fire from tinder by clicking their fingers, indicating that their skin has hardened.