On the strength of trolls, Hooom Hmm..
well that invaluable chap Treebeard comes up with some information. He explains that trolls were 'bred' by Morgoth in mockery of Ents. Ents were stronger (and perhaps taller?) than Trolls, in, I guess, much the same way that elves were stronger than orcs. Treebeard explains that it would take a strong axeman to wound an ent, that an ent's punch would crumple armour and that they're hurt but not seriously wounded by arrows. Therefore a Troll should have strength somewhere between a man and an ent.
Trolls apparently have some sort of tough scaly hide (or armour?), after all Boromir's sword glanced off the troll in Moria. However, this armour could be peirced by 'magic' swords such as Sting and the blade of Westernesse. Hurin famously slew 70 trolls (only v1.0 though!) but I'd guess he had a fairly decent blade since he hung aroud with all those high powered elf types! I imagine a good warrior could kill a troll with a stab from an ordinary sword, but would be more likely to have the blade turned if he used a slashing stroke.
I think Trolls should be portrayed (in RPGS, films etc!) as very strong and tough, but slow and rather clumsy. ie. if a troll hits you, you're out of it, but if you're quick you should be able to avoid the blow. For me, the film troll was far bigger than I'd imagined. (Surely they havn't changed things to heighten the dramatic effect!! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] )
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Rumil of Coedhirion
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