Are Regenerating Trolls "immune" to Disintegrate?

[ksbsnowowl]

I'm sorry for repeating this, but unless you find a way to have the Disintegrate spell deal acid or fire damage, the troll won't turn into a pile of dust. It just keeps adding up to the subdual pile of damage.

If they took enough real damage to knock them below zero, then they'd start to bleed out like anyone else.

The bigger question is what happens if a creature with Fast Healing gets knocked below zero... as Fast Healing says it works like "normal healing", but faster. Normal healing doesn't work at all when you're below zero. That has its own special rules.

Could you point me to a RAW source on this? I don't have time to use my google-fu on this

Which part are you wanting RAW on?  The Fast Healing, or a troll bleeding out if dropped to below 0 hp?

[NunoM]

The bleeding part. Thanks.

[ksbsnowowl]

Regeneration
Creatures with this extraordinary ability recover from wounds quickly and can even regrow or reattach severed body parts. Damage dealt to the creature is treated as nonlethal damage, and the creature automatically cures itself of nonlethal damage at a fixed rate per round, as given in the creature’s entry.

Damage dealt to a troll is converted to nonlethal, unless it is fire or acid.

Disabled (0 Hit Points)
When your current hit points drop to exactly 0, you’re disabled.

You can only take a single move or standard action each turn (but not both, nor can you take full-round actions). You can take move actions without further injuring yourself, but if you perform any standard action (or any other strenuous action) you take 1 point of damage after the completing the act. Unless your activity increased your hit points, you are now at -1 hit points, and you’re dying.

Healing that raises your hit points above 0 makes you fully functional again, just as if you’d never been reduced to 0 or fewer hit points.

You can also become disabled when recovering from dying. In this case, it’s a step toward recovery, and you can have fewer than 0 hit points (see Stable Characters and Recovery, below).

Dying (-1 to -9 Hit Points)
When your character’s current hit points drop to between -1 and -9 inclusive, he’s dying.

A dying character immediately falls unconscious and can take no actions.

A dying character loses 1 hit point every round. This continues until the character dies or becomes stable (see below).

If a troll is at 0 hp's (due to taking 63 points of fire damage), any damage he takes (such as taking a standard action) will be converted to nonlethal, and regenerate.  So, he could claw the last party member, hopefully hit him, but then takes one point of nonlethal damage, fall unconscious, and fall prone.  The next round he'll regenerate it, and if the party isn't alive any more, he'll stand up, and go about his business.

However, if the troll takes 64 points of fire damage, he is at -1 hp, and the next round, if he doesn't make the 10% roll to stabilize, he loses one hit point.  Note, it doesn't say he takes one point of damage, but rather that he loses one hit point.  This isn't converted to nonlethal, because it isn't damage, it is an effect of the dying condition.

[Nickname Jr.]

The troll is no longer there to treat that damage as non-lethal, though.   While you've been busy converting the damage to non-lethal, the spell itself has already converted that same damage..... into a successful disintegration.   So it's not any kind of damage anymore, subdual or otherwise.   It's a state change into oblivion.  Oh well, I don't really care all that much about this as it may seem, so I'll drop it here.  I just got the impression from Adv. 2nd edition that the spell was to be treated as a very specialized attack that ignores regeneration as your blurb attested to.   But it seems the current thinking is that the spell is more survivable and its effects aren't as absolute. 

[ksbsnowowl]

The troll is no longer there to treat that damage as non-lethal, though.   While you've been busy converting the damage to non-lethal, the spell itself has already converted that same damage..... into a successful disintegration. 

There is no "conversion."  The troll doesn't ever take it as damage.*  It is never lethal damage, and never lowers the troll's hit points.  Since it never lowers the troll's hit points to 0, he is never disintegrated.

*"Damage dealt to the creature is treated as nonlethal damage..."
Note, it doesn't say damage dealt to the creature is converted to nonlethal damage, which would indicate it actually takes the damage as lethal damage, and then converts it to nonlethal.  Rather, damage is treated as nonlethal, which means it never affects the troll's actual hit points.

I just got the impression from Adv. 2nd edition that the spell was to be treated as a very specialized attack that ignores regeneration as your blurb attested to.   But it seems the current thinking is that the spell is more survivable and its effects aren't as absolute.

That's the problem with WotC trying to "balance" spells.  In 2nd Ed and 3.0 a successful disintegrate didn't deal damage, it merely disintegrated the target.  No damage = not able to be regenerated.
In 3.5 they changed it to a function of damage.  I'm sure it was completely unintentional, but since it is damage, and not a type that overcomes regeneration, all it will ever do is knock a troll out.  This is because the disintegration affect is contingent upon the creature being brought to 0 hit points.  Disintegrate can't actually lower a troll's HP's, but rather only racks up the nonlethal damage.

Again, it could technically be argued both ways, as the notation in the 3.5 MM on regeneration is an obvious hold-over from 3.0 when disintegrate didn't actually deal damage on a success.

[NunoM]

The lethal fire/acid damage and the disintegrate vs. Regeneration wasn't an issue for me, but thanks for looking it up.


As for the bleeding troll thing...

[...]
Note, it doesn't say he takes one point of damage, but rather that he loses one hit point.  This isn't converted to nonlethal, because it isn't damage, it is an effect of the dying condition.

...the underlined part sealed the deal for me Also, we could interpret it as an "unnamed loss" of HPs and not damage "per se", which would also be valid in this situation.

Just for kicks, i thought of mentioning a tactic we used a few times against trolls in my gaming group, when firepower and acid sources were scarce:
Step 1: Carry a barrel full of water on the party wagon
Step 2: beat the crap out of the creatures
Step 3: Repeat step 2 until they're KO and then some more for safe measure (i.e.: precious time to perform next steps)
Step 4: Drown the creatures 1 by 1 by dumping their heads (still attached to the bodies) into the water barrel
Step 5: Collect encounter XP and go on adventuring...

Note: Also works for aquatic trolls, by dragging them out of their element...

This got me thinking... Would a "Create water" spell work to cause the effects of drowning, if it was cast inside an unconscious creature? I guess it would, since an unconscious creature is considered "willing". What say you?

[phaedrusxy]

We've cast it down their open mouths, and then held them shut to drown them before. It takes a bit of interpretation, but makes sense I think.

[ksbsnowowl]

We've cast it down their open mouths, and then held them shut to drown them before. It takes a bit of interpretation, but makes sense I think.

Yeah, that would work for me.

My players inadvertently figured out drowning works.  They were fighting a Beast of Malar for the first time (regen overcome by Good/Holy) and couldn't figure out what to do with it after they had beat it unconscious and tried burning and acidifying it (and electricity, and cold, and sonic...)  They had one vial of holy water which dealt damage that didn't regenerate, but then didn't know what to do, because they had run out.  They tied its unconscious body up and dumped off the side of their longship on a trailing rope.  A half hour they pulled it up and it was dead.

They then figured that water killed them...