Real Ultimate Power for 40 Build Points, Are Trolls Too Strong??? Options

[mrobviousjosh]

Hey Guys, I haven't had a chance to play 4th edition yet but wondered, are trolls as strong as they were in previous versions of the game? I realize they are 40 build points but if you look at the stats for trolls, coupled with character creation rules, you get 4 free points of body (equivalent to 40 build points), just by choosing a troll. That also means you get +4 Str (another 40 build points), thermographic vision, and +1 Natural Armor. Am I wrong about their relative strength? This is of important concern to me since they also don't have to buy stat points to reduce negatives to a positive stat in this version of the game. What do you guys think?

[mrobviousjosh]

As a note, I used the body point examples in particular to show that the troll choice paid for those and then some.

[hobgoblin]

i think there was something about them only increasing the max. as in, you still have to buy that stat up. but im going by old memory here, not the book.

allso, we are talking about something 2,5 meter tall and 1 meter wide (or something in that area). basicly, your going to be realy visible. and unless you pay the premium to have your guns and similar modified, you get -1 dice (or -2 if said item is dwarf modified).

[mdynna]

Trolls have always been imposing physical characters but a little thin on the "finer" points of life. As long as you're looking at their huge physical bonuses take a look at the other attribute's new maximums:
AGI - 5
CHA - 4
INT - 5
LOG - 5

This is even more dramatic for SR4 character creation because it means you need to pay 25 BP for that "last" point. So forget being a Troll and being a decent: Shaman, Hacker, or Face.

Personally, I think Orks are way more "cost efficient". They are cheaper, still have good bonuses, and far less penalties than a Troll.

[mdynna]

Also, SR3 used to have a rule that Trolls had to buy Troll-sized gear at an extra 20% cost. I don't remember seeing that in SR4 though...

[Azralon]

Trolls get +4 Body, -1 Agility, +4 Strength, -2 Charisma, -1 Intuition, -1 Logic. Extra modifiers (thermovision, +1 reach, +1 natural armor, faster landspeed, and 125% gear costs) aside, that's a net attribute shift of +3. You're getting 30 BPs of attributes for the cost of 40 BPs.

Also, RAW karma costs create a situation in which capping out extremely high attributes (such as a Troll's Body and Strength) are very expensive. A Human capping Str would pay 18 karma; a Troll capping Str would have to pay 30. So you have a higher cap but it's harder to reach it.

So are Trolls strong? Yes, if you want a melee god, you probably want a Troll. Are they underpriced? Well....

Humans get +1 Edge. That's a 10 BP value at a cost of 0 BP.

Orks get +3 Bod, +2 Str, -1 Cha, -1 Log, and lowlight. That's almost a 30 BP value at a cost of 20 BP.

Dwarves get +1 Bod, -1 Rea, +2 Str, +1 Wil, thermovision, +2 vs Tox/Path, a slower landspeed, and 125% gear cost. That's almost a 30 BP value at a cost of 25 BP.

Elves get +1 Agi, +2 Cha, and lowlight. That's almost a 30 BP value at a cost of 30 BP.

So technically Trolls are the "least efficient" buy. But hey, they offer performance that you can't get anywhere else.

[Thanee]

The problem with the attribute penalties is, that they do not really cost you any BP, since you still start at 1 and every point still costs 10. It just limits what you will be able to achieve eventually. Trolls are pretty extreme on that behalf.

I also think that orcs are the best of the bunch, from an efficiency viewpoint.

Elves look not so great, but considering, that Agility is so important and high Charisma is just totally awesome if you are a shaman, they do have their upsides (and no downsides) for sure.

And never forget...

1. Trolls are mammals.

:D

Bye
Thanee

[stevebugge]

[Akimbo]

The purpose of a troll is to flip out and kill people.

[Dissonance]

With +1 range.

[Azralon]

[Magus]

Plus now with the lower stun track, and trolls have a natural +1 to Armor any armor they wear get that +1. So it is far far easier to stun a troll than kill him.
STUN THE TROLL after
GEEK THE MAGE!!

[emo samurai]

Trolls can kill anyone they want.

[Azralon]

[Magus]

[Glyph]

Trolls aren't quite the combat kings that they were in SR3. The problem is that most combat skills, and a whole lot of other ones, are tied to agility. So the elven sammie with an agility of 8 or so has an advantage in ranged and melee combat.

Trolls start out tough right out of the box, no doubt. Attributes are very important, so getting to spend the equivalent of 280 points to a human's 200 points is a huge advantage. However, they also have some pretty brutal limits to agility and most of their mental attributes, so their advancement potential is stunted in many ways. With the hard caps being set lower, this becomes a factor more quickly than it would in SR3.

[NeonWraith]

In terms of knocking a troll out/stunning them vs. blowing them full of holes, there's one thing to consider. For the most part, in order to stun/knock out a troll you'd have to get near them, and doing that really wouldn't be too great for your continued breathing.

[Abschalten]

I was doing some world-class min-maxing and numbercrunching, and came up with a troll adept who did 11P per punch and had 7/7 armor (including his racial bonus) even while he was totally naked. He had 7 Body, so he could wear 14/14 armor before slowing down. Which comes out to be 21/21 armor, +7 Body on the damage resistance tests. Purchasing Magic at 6, I even had enough PPs left over to get +2 in Unarmed Combat.

I didn't have very many points left over for anything else (gear/resources, contacts, skills, etc), but goddamn if he wasn't the toughest one-trick pony I ever created.

If you look purely at the net BPs, trolls come out -10. But you're not really paying for just those, as you're also investing in the ability to have those really high attributes later on down the road. I'm not saying it'll be easy, I'm just calling it how I see it.

[Kleaner]

I heard that there was this troll who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the troll killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a troll totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.

[Zen Shooter01]

The thing that gets forgotten most often about trolls is their size, and that is a big drawback. You simply don't fit in a lot of automobiles. You are taller than a lot of rooms, and as wide as many hallways - as a GM, I often give trolls a -2 dp for melee inside what is for them a very small space.

It also makes finding cover more difficult.

[Clyde]

It's important to remember the effects of the fixed target number, tho. +4 Body is worth only 1.33 points of damage off of any given hit. Even counting the natural armor, the troll's net defense works out to less than two points. Load EX explosive rounds and you more than offset that. In fact, you go a ways toward offsetting the extra two points of physical damage track. Trolls are tough, but they can still be beaten.

[Brahm]

[Dissonance]

Trolls are interesting. It's not really like playing any other race. Nowadays, it seems like if you want to be the mighty-meat, going ork is where it's at. You won't cap out as high as a troll, sure, and you won't get the point of natural armor, but it looks like you get a heck of a lot more in the way of diversified growth.

However, if you're looking at a gang-style campaign, get a troll with a polearm and you'll have a good day.

[fool]

actually as far as advancement goes, trolls can advance faster because they dump their bp's into their strength and bod leaving other attributes low meaning that advencing those low attributes comes faster/cheaper than the high attributes

[Glyph]

I've noticed that about SR4. If you min-max to make your character great in one area, you are "punished" for it by having low attributes or skills in other areas, which are easier to improve later. :)

You can also do the opposite, though - taking the still-respectable 5 minimums to start out with your other attributes high. It gives you pretty high stats all around, at the expense of limiting your advancement potential. It still works for certain builds, though.