This is always a question I see come up in fiction where a creature has regenerative powers. If someone can regenerate from nearly any injury, how much of them does there need to be intact in order to survive? If they're able to regenerate from the tiniest piece, does that mean any part of the creature would grow into a new one? Most fiction I've seen eventually settles on a "Core" for the creature (usually either the brain or the heart), and that part needs to be intact in order to regenerate the rest of the creature. Although I do recall one specific case in comic books that took this to the extreme... where Lobo's regeneration got hyper-powered temporarily, causing every single drop of blood he dropped to almost instantly grow into an entirely new Lobo (all the Lobos then brawled until the regeneration wore off and only one was left alive)
But is the hand a troll though? If there is one troll, and you cut off its hand, are there now 2 trolls?
I say no. Most people would say no.
This is all up to DM interpretation. Trolls don't exist in real life, so there is no real world analogue to compare it to. And when you say "most people" are you saying that you went out and did a survey? Regardless, what's important here is whatever drives the story to become more interesting. Regenerating from a body part could be a recurring motif of the campaign for Troll or Troll-like villains. Maybe the devs left the Troll regeneration ability intentionally vague to encourage this kind of exploration.
Yeah, I think people forget sometimes that the rules of a game are there to encourage fairness while also building a narrative world to share with one another. Everybody has a different method of interpreting rules, but my view is that tabletop RPGs exist to promote creativity and imagination, not to stifle it by narrow readings of rules.
Do remember this is the Rules forum not the DM forum, it's not about what you find fun as a DM but rather how the actual rules work.
Regeneration is a type of healing.
The rules say you cannot heal when dead.
A body part of a creature is not the creature.
If the Troll is alive at 0 hp, it can regenerate / heal if it was not damaged by fire or acid.
If the only thing left is not something that is the living creature - ie a hand - it cannot regenerate or heal regardless of whether it is the biggest piece - size of a part is irrelevant.
So if you chop off a hand, the hand does not regenerate ever. The troll might if still alive, but the lost hand doesn't.
A hand is part of you. It is not you. It will never be you, attached to you or not, biggest piece or not, it remains only a "part".
"You" are a brain. Everything else from your skeleton, lungs, heart, skin, muscles, eyes etc are not "you" they are parts of you designed to help you move, perceive, interact and acquire what you need for survival.
A troll head kept alive is still the brain, still the troll and can regenerate. Anything unattached to that becomes a lifeless piece.
So NO by all semblance of sanity, biology, D&D rules (which does establish brains and how they work, a vital part of Mindflayers and Intellect Devourers for example) and such all indicate that a the troll is not its hand. A severed troll hand is not, and never will be, a creature and therefore cannot ever regenerate into a troll - not by the regenerate trait, not by the spell, not ever by anything.
Those ARE the RAW. Now, if you want to have a nigh-immortal troll that could regenerate from a hand (or hell, just a few drops of blood) that's entirely up to you. If you find that fun, power to you, enjoy. But that is homebrew, and your homebrew has no place in a forum specifically about the rules. Nobody is saying don't have fun, just it's not what this discussion is about.
--
Also: putting the hand into a bag of holding where you have homebrewed that the hand is going to turn into a full troll is a very bad idea. Unless you want to lose that bag. Because a bag of holding is not big enough to contain the troll so it will rip when it becomes too big which will destroy the bag and send all contents and probably the wearer/holder to the Astral Plane.
However, if you have homebrewed that the bag of holding is larger and can contain the troll, sure. But it will suffocate and die and when dead will not regenerate unless you've homebrewed that rule away too.
I don't know if I fully agree that it wouldn't regenerate
What if you cut off the Trolls arm/hand with a Sword of Sharpness, and then reduce the troll to 0 HP with a Disintegrate spell? Does the arm then regenerate? I think it would. Just my 2 cents.
By the rules, it hasn't taken Fire or Acid damage, and a pile of dust can hardly regenerate... So why not?
Edit: this also makes me ponder on how Disintegrate and Power Word kill affect a troll... I suppose they'd be considered more specific than the Trolls regenerate ability. Maybe. Hmmmm.
I would probably rule in my game that the severed hand of a standard troll (they tend to mutate) would not regenerate into another troll, but also as a personal choice I would place the metaphysical center of a troll's life force in its heart rather than its brain. So that the main portion of the body that regenerates is the one connected to the heart.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I don't know if I fully agree that it wouldn't regenerate
What if you cut off the Trolls arm/hand with a Sword of Sharpness, and then reduce the troll to 0 HP with a Disintegrate spell? Does the arm then regenerate? I think it would. Just my 2 cents.
By the rules, it hasn't taken Fire or Acid damage, and a pile of dust can hardly regenerate... So why not?
Edit: this also makes me ponder on how Disintegrate and Power Word kill affect a troll... I suppose they'd be considered more specific than the Trolls regenerate ability. Maybe. Hmmmm.
A dead troll can't regenerate regardless of the type of damage that killed it. Spells with instakill effects never give the regeneration a chance. They effectively bypass the trolls regeneration.
And thats what I've been saying. Only a living monster has features. Limbs are not living creatures (unless made so by something). Corpses are not living creatures. Dust is not a living creature.
I'm not saying you cant do something creative for your campaign. But a rules question was asked and this is the rules answer. All other answers are house rules.
There is no RAW re: which body part of a Troll is the real Troll. Trolls are fantasy creatures for goodness's sake. There are no Trolls in real life and the MManual does not say where the regeneration originates from. If it did, there would be a straightforward rules answer. Assuming that the brain is the most essential part of a creature is merely extrapolation based on a modern scientific view of vertebrate animals in real life. The ancient Egyptians did not think of the brain as essential, for instance, and they had a very thorough cosmology of gods and souls and whatnot. Since D&D takes place in a fantasy universe, assuming that the head is the most important portion of the Troll is valid, but not definitive in any way.
RAW there are very few things that could create this scenario.
Only something like a Sword of Sharpness could sever a Trolls arm/hand, and only something akin to a Disintegrate spell could completely obliterate the Troll itself. So from a Rules perspective, it really comes down to "can Disintegrate bypass a Troll's Regeneration?" DxJxC and others say yes, but is this actually written in the rules?
It seems obvious that it would but honestly it's hard to say what the verdict is RAW. Disintegrate clearly states that if it leaves a creature with 0 HP, it is turned to dust. Regeneration however clearly states that the Troll only dies if it begins its turn with 0 HP and it has taken Fire/Acid damage since its last turn. I think the spell would trump the ability as far as "specific beats general" goes, but I'm not sure if this is true or not; if anyone does know and can cite the rules for it I would appreciate that. Logically, being turned to dust kills you, but the Troll can only die in a specific way, so... Hm.
In addition, the Troll's description states "If the monster loses an arm, a leg, or even its head, those dismembered parts can sometimes act with a life of their own."
So if you do rule that the Troll's Regeneration trumps Disintegrate, and it's lost a limb in the fight, flavoring it as though the Troll is disintegrated but then begins regenerating out of the severed limb would be an awesome way to do it.
Magic like Disintegrate would negate regeneration but if some inspired Artificer were to invent the D&D equivalent of a wood chipper, I rule that would not negate the regeneration and the largest piece left, the intact severed hand would regenerate.
People keep saying that but where in the rules is that written? I seriously want to know.
Trolls can only be killed if they start their turn with 0 HP and have taken Fire/Acid damage. Disintegrate reduces a target to dust, which would kill most anything, but a Troll would still technically be alive and begin reforming at the beginning of its turn unless it takes Fire/Acid. Disintegrate says "the creature can only be restored to life by..." but a Troll can only LOSE its life in a very specific way, and being disintegrated is not that specific way.
It's weird, and they contradict each other, but unless someone can point out where it's specifically written that a Spell trumps a Creatures Ability then I am not convinced that this is the correct ruling.
Disregarding the whole severed limb thing, does Disintegrate trump Regeneration and kill a Troll? Someone please point me to where this is actually clarified in the rules, because I don't just want opinions; I am generally curious as to what the ruling is and I can't think of anywhere I've seen an answer.
Power Word Kill specifically says "the creature dies." Disintegrate does not say this, just that the creature is turned to dust. Being turned to dust would of course kill most anything, but the way the Troll is written being turned to dust would not kill it.
Edit: I should add that I agree; barring the whole severed limb thing which is just fun, it is my opinionthat Disintegrate would kill a Troll. The flavor text of the Troll does state that the regeneration is a "property of the Trolls flesh" and obviously if they're turned to dust they don't have flesh. However, this is just an opinion, since the actual rules surrounding a Troll state that it can only die if it has taken acid/fire damage and starts its turn with 0 HP. Spells/abilities that literally say "the creature dies" can obviously bypass this, but Disintegrate is not technically one of them.
The description of the troll states that the regenerative ability resides in the trolls flesh. Disintegrate changes the flesh to dust, meaning that it is no longer flesh and the pile is no longer a troll. Dust doesn’t have the regenerate ability.
also, while the spell does not specifically state that the creature dies when reverted to dust, that can be inferred from the requirement of restoring the dust “to life”. Meaning that the creature is dead when reduced to dust
Flavor text has no jurisdiction on actual rulings; I mentioned it myself, but just because the description says it, the Regeneration ability itself is not dependent on the Troll having flesh.
I don't care about inference when it comes to rules; anyone can infer a whole lot of untrue things from the wording in 5e. That doesn't dispute the fact that disintegrate does not actually specifically say it causes a creature to die; it just assumes they would because 99% of creatures don't have a "you only die if..." clause, but Trolls regenerate unless they are dead, not just assumed to be.
Sure, you would assume that a creature turned to dust would die; it makes sense. But you would also assume that a creature being completely liquefied by a 10,000 lb gigantic boulder falling on them would die, yet a Troll wouldn't. It would regenerate from the puddle that was left, so why not from the ashes that are left? Ashes are no longer a living creature, but a pool of bloody goo is?
Obviously from a scientific standpoint the pile of goo is still an organic substance whereas the dust left from disintegrate is just a pile of carbon, but chemistry and biology have no place in DnD. Only alchemy ;)
I think RAW, the solution for Disintegrate could be: Disintegrate explicitly states that the target is "reduced to a fine gray dust". It's not actually killed - it's transformed from one thing into another thing, like with a polymorph spell. A fine gray dust is no longer a troll, and thus no longer has any regeneration property.
Same as if the Troll were True Polymorphed into something other than a troll, like a rock. The True Polymorph would end when/if True Polymorph says it ends, not when the Troll's regeneration somehow regenerates a troll from a rock. You can certainly defeat a troll by transforming it permanently into a rock, or into a fine grey dust - either way, no troll left to regenerate or fight you.
For power word kill, I'd guess the ruling is that "Specific beats general". In general, trolls can only be killed by doing fire or acid damage to them... but a specific spell that says "Kill the target" beats the general rule.
This is always a question I see come up in fiction where a creature has regenerative powers. If someone can regenerate from nearly any injury, how much of them does there need to be intact in order to survive? If they're able to regenerate from the tiniest piece, does that mean any part of the creature would grow into a new one? Most fiction I've seen eventually settles on a "Core" for the creature (usually either the brain or the heart), and that part needs to be intact in order to regenerate the rest of the creature. Although I do recall one specific case in comic books that took this to the extreme... where Lobo's regeneration got hyper-powered temporarily, causing every single drop of blood he dropped to almost instantly grow into an entirely new Lobo (all the Lobos then brawled until the regeneration wore off and only one was left alive)
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This is all up to DM interpretation. Trolls don't exist in real life, so there is no real world analogue to compare it to. And when you say "most people" are you saying that you went out and did a survey? Regardless, what's important here is whatever drives the story to become more interesting. Regenerating from a body part could be a recurring motif of the campaign for Troll or Troll-like villains. Maybe the devs left the Troll regeneration ability intentionally vague to encourage this kind of exploration.
Thanks Song, I appreciate someone not saying I run my game wrong for doing something I thinks is interesting to the story.
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Yeah, I think people forget sometimes that the rules of a game are there to encourage fairness while also building a narrative world to share with one another. Everybody has a different method of interpreting rules, but my view is that tabletop RPGs exist to promote creativity and imagination, not to stifle it by narrow readings of rules.
Do remember this is the Rules forum not the DM forum, it's not about what you find fun as a DM but rather how the actual rules work.
Regeneration is a type of healing.
The rules say you cannot heal when dead.
A body part of a creature is not the creature.
If the Troll is alive at 0 hp, it can regenerate / heal if it was not damaged by fire or acid.
If the only thing left is not something that is the living creature - ie a hand - it cannot regenerate or heal regardless of whether it is the biggest piece - size of a part is irrelevant.
So if you chop off a hand, the hand does not regenerate ever. The troll might if still alive, but the lost hand doesn't.
A hand is part of you. It is not you. It will never be you, attached to you or not, biggest piece or not, it remains only a "part".
"You" are a brain. Everything else from your skeleton, lungs, heart, skin, muscles, eyes etc are not "you" they are parts of you designed to help you move, perceive, interact and acquire what you need for survival.
A troll head kept alive is still the brain, still the troll and can regenerate. Anything unattached to that becomes a lifeless piece.
So NO by all semblance of sanity, biology, D&D rules (which does establish brains and how they work, a vital part of Mindflayers and Intellect Devourers for example) and such all indicate that a the troll is not its hand. A severed troll hand is not, and never will be, a creature and therefore cannot ever regenerate into a troll - not by the regenerate trait, not by the spell, not ever by anything.
Those ARE the RAW. Now, if you want to have a nigh-immortal troll that could regenerate from a hand (or hell, just a few drops of blood) that's entirely up to you. If you find that fun, power to you, enjoy. But that is homebrew, and your homebrew has no place in a forum specifically about the rules. Nobody is saying don't have fun, just it's not what this discussion is about.
--
Also: putting the hand into a bag of holding where you have homebrewed that the hand is going to turn into a full troll is a very bad idea. Unless you want to lose that bag. Because a bag of holding is not big enough to contain the troll so it will rip when it becomes too big which will destroy the bag and send all contents and probably the wearer/holder to the Astral Plane.
However, if you have homebrewed that the bag of holding is larger and can contain the troll, sure. But it will suffocate and die and when dead will not regenerate unless you've homebrewed that rule away too.
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I don't know if I fully agree that it wouldn't regenerate
What if you cut off the Trolls arm/hand with a Sword of Sharpness, and then reduce the troll to 0 HP with a Disintegrate spell? Does the arm then regenerate? I think it would. Just my 2 cents.
By the rules, it hasn't taken Fire or Acid damage, and a pile of dust can hardly regenerate... So why not?
Edit: this also makes me ponder on how Disintegrate and Power Word kill affect a troll... I suppose they'd be considered more specific than the Trolls regenerate ability. Maybe. Hmmmm.
I think my interpretation is technically RAW... from the AD&D 2e MM.... 😜
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I would probably rule in my game that the severed hand of a standard troll (they tend to mutate) would not regenerate into another troll, but also as a personal choice I would place the metaphysical center of a troll's life force in its heart rather than its brain. So that the main portion of the body that regenerates is the one connected to the heart.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
A dead troll can't regenerate regardless of the type of damage that killed it. Spells with instakill effects never give the regeneration a chance. They effectively bypass the trolls regeneration.
And thats what I've been saying. Only a living monster has features. Limbs are not living creatures (unless made so by something). Corpses are not living creatures. Dust is not a living creature.
I'm not saying you cant do something creative for your campaign. But a rules question was asked and this is the rules answer. All other answers are house rules.
There is no RAW re: which body part of a Troll is the real Troll. Trolls are fantasy creatures for goodness's sake. There are no Trolls in real life and the MManual does not say where the regeneration originates from. If it did, there would be a straightforward rules answer. Assuming that the brain is the most essential part of a creature is merely extrapolation based on a modern scientific view of vertebrate animals in real life. The ancient Egyptians did not think of the brain as essential, for instance, and they had a very thorough cosmology of gods and souls and whatnot. Since D&D takes place in a fantasy universe, assuming that the head is the most important portion of the Troll is valid, but not definitive in any way.
I rule that your theoretical “nexus” resides in the largest piece left.
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RAW there are very few things that could create this scenario.
Only something like a Sword of Sharpness could sever a Trolls arm/hand, and only something akin to a Disintegrate spell could completely obliterate the Troll itself. So from a Rules perspective, it really comes down to "can Disintegrate bypass a Troll's Regeneration?" DxJxC and others say yes, but is this actually written in the rules?
It seems obvious that it would but honestly it's hard to say what the verdict is RAW. Disintegrate clearly states that if it leaves a creature with 0 HP, it is turned to dust. Regeneration however clearly states that the Troll only dies if it begins its turn with 0 HP and it has taken Fire/Acid damage since its last turn. I think the spell would trump the ability as far as "specific beats general" goes, but I'm not sure if this is true or not; if anyone does know and can cite the rules for it I would appreciate that. Logically, being turned to dust kills you, but the Troll can only die in a specific way, so... Hm.
In addition, the Troll's description states "If the monster loses an arm, a leg, or even its head, those dismembered parts can sometimes act with a life of their own."
So if you do rule that the Troll's Regeneration trumps Disintegrate, and it's lost a limb in the fight, flavoring it as though the Troll is disintegrated but then begins regenerating out of the severed limb would be an awesome way to do it.
Magic like Disintegrate would negate regeneration but if some inspired Artificer were to invent the D&D equivalent of a wood chipper, I rule that would not negate the regeneration and the largest piece left, the intact severed hand would regenerate.
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People keep saying that but where in the rules is that written? I seriously want to know.
Trolls can only be killed if they start their turn with 0 HP and have taken Fire/Acid damage. Disintegrate reduces a target to dust, which would kill most anything, but a Troll would still technically be alive and begin reforming at the beginning of its turn unless it takes Fire/Acid. Disintegrate says "the creature can only be restored to life by..." but a Troll can only LOSE its life in a very specific way, and being disintegrated is not that specific way.
It's weird, and they contradict each other, but unless someone can point out where it's specifically written that a Spell trumps a Creatures Ability then I am not convinced that this is the correct ruling.
Disregarding the whole severed limb thing, does Disintegrate trump Regeneration and kill a Troll? Someone please point me to where this is actually clarified in the rules, because I don't just want opinions; I am generally curious as to what the ruling is and I can't think of anywhere I've seen an answer.
Power Word Kill specifically says "the creature dies." Disintegrate does not say this, just that the creature is turned to dust. Being turned to dust would of course kill most anything, but the way the Troll is written being turned to dust would not kill it.
Edit: I should add that I agree; barring the whole severed limb thing which is just fun, it is my opinion that Disintegrate would kill a Troll. The flavor text of the Troll does state that the regeneration is a "property of the Trolls flesh" and obviously if they're turned to dust they don't have flesh. However, this is just an opinion, since the actual rules surrounding a Troll state that it can only die if it has taken acid/fire damage and starts its turn with 0 HP. Spells/abilities that literally say "the creature dies" can obviously bypass this, but Disintegrate is not technically one of them.
The description of the troll states that the regenerative ability resides in the trolls flesh. Disintegrate changes the flesh to dust, meaning that it is no longer flesh and the pile is no longer a troll. Dust doesn’t have the regenerate ability.
also, while the spell does not specifically state that the creature dies when reverted to dust, that can be inferred from the requirement of restoring the dust “to life”. Meaning that the creature is dead when reduced to dust
Flavor text has no jurisdiction on actual rulings; I mentioned it myself, but just because the description says it, the Regeneration ability itself is not dependent on the Troll having flesh.
I don't care about inference when it comes to rules; anyone can infer a whole lot of untrue things from the wording in 5e. That doesn't dispute the fact that disintegrate does not actually specifically say it causes a creature to die; it just assumes they would because 99% of creatures don't have a "you only die if..." clause, but Trolls regenerate unless they are dead, not just assumed to be.
Sure, you would assume that a creature turned to dust would die; it makes sense. But you would also assume that a creature being completely liquefied by a 10,000 lb gigantic boulder falling on them would die, yet a Troll wouldn't. It would regenerate from the puddle that was left, so why not from the ashes that are left? Ashes are no longer a living creature, but a pool of bloody goo is?
Obviously from a scientific standpoint the pile of goo is still an organic substance whereas the dust left from disintegrate is just a pile of carbon, but chemistry and biology have no place in DnD. Only alchemy ;)
I think RAW, the solution for Disintegrate could be: Disintegrate explicitly states that the target is "reduced to a fine gray dust". It's not actually killed - it's transformed from one thing into another thing, like with a polymorph spell. A fine gray dust is no longer a troll, and thus no longer has any regeneration property.
Same as if the Troll were True Polymorphed into something other than a troll, like a rock. The True Polymorph would end when/if True Polymorph says it ends, not when the Troll's regeneration somehow regenerates a troll from a rock. You can certainly defeat a troll by transforming it permanently into a rock, or into a fine grey dust - either way, no troll left to regenerate or fight you.
For power word kill, I'd guess the ruling is that "Specific beats general". In general, trolls can only be killed by doing fire or acid damage to them... but a specific spell that says "Kill the target" beats the general rule.
Relevant tweet: https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1047626065194012672 .
It's certainly a difficult-to-adjudicate case though, not going to claim it's clear....
Yeah that's about as clear a consensus as we're going to get I imagine. Which is a shame because it is a fun scenario. Oh well.