Playing one of these wouldnt make the game to easy? I mean, on paper they have huge bonus to stats and a troll can start with 50 hp or so. Also would it be normal for people in homlet to see them going around? I was planning to play a troll wizard with two dwarf rogues as bodyguards
The level adjustment means that you don't level up from the XP you gain early in the game, and that can make you surprisingly vulnerable. I made a hill giant barbarian and headed off to the moathouse (can't remember who his fellow PCs were, but it was a party of 3). At first it was fine, as he rarely missed, and killed whoever he hit, so he was pretty much guaranteed a kill each round, and he has Cleave, too, so the early fights are deadceasy. However, by the time I was getting to the bugbears and gnolls on the lower level, one of two kills a round weren't really enough, and his hit points weren't lasting against raging gnolls with barbarian levels (come to think of it, I think I picked a Warmage as my arcane caster, so had fewer battlefield control assets at my disposal than usual). My hill giant barbarian has an equivalent level of 17, and while he has Cleave as a feat it will be a long time untill he starts gaining XP and is able to advance (not sure if he'll need 1000 or 17000 XP to gain a level) He's vastly better than a human or half-orc at first level, but he's losing out on feats and class skills very early on (he won't get extra rages or uncanny dodge for ages. In a small party he's a disaster; in a larger party he might be an asset initially but one to let go after a while. A troll mage will likely be relying on his handful of first level spells until deep into the temple, if s/he can survive that long.
Hommlet was originally set up so that people wouldn't even speak to you if you had undead in your party (possibly Lareth too, I don't recall) - I mean they'd floatline some comment about being afraid of your followers for memory - so be careful what you wish for I know trolls' favourite class is Fighter but I saw one in a splatbook that was a druid, picking mushrooms no less - love that idea.
As an addendum, I went back to have a look at that party. The main reason why I gave up was that the giant doesn't fit through a load of the doors in the moathouse, and isn't classes as a Person for the purposes of Reduce Person spells. In addition, he's wielding his glaive in one hand, so doesn't get optimum use from his high Str.
Note that I've made an optional mod that sets their bonus HD to 0 so they suffer much less of an xp penalty. However they'll still have the flat Level Adjustment as specified in the official rules. Naturally they'll also be squishier early on. You can download it at modDB. Other than that they're obviously meant as a goofy option.
I once made a party that included a troll dual wielding glaives. Overall, I found it too overpowered to enjoy for long, but fun in a temporary passing time kind of way.
