Hydras

[shadow_archmagi]

Ermm... the stats on a pyro/cyro hydra say its breath weapon is used every 1d4 rounds and deals 3d6 damage. Per head.

That means that a CR 6 pyro-hydra is capable of dealing 15-90 damage, or 7-45 if they make their reflex save. This seems a tad high to me, as my level 6 players have only a little under 60 hp each, and they're fairly high CON.

[Skjaldbakka]

a) Hydras are heinous for their CR
b) that doesn't sound right *runs off to check numbers*

EDIt- wow, that is heinous. 15d6 fire damage at CR6. Likely multiple times before you can take it down, with it 55 hp and fast healing 15. ouch.

Resist Energy only hits 10 at that level, IIRC. Ouch.

[The Glyphstone]

Or it could charge one player and bite him 5 times each for 1d10+3, then be sitting in the middle of the party taking 5 AoO against the first unfortunate sucker to provoke one....

Yes. Hydras are rather severely dangerous for their CR if not properly prepared for.

[shadow_archmagi]

Nope. Smallest one is 5 headed, 3d6 five times... 15d6. The numbers are correct.

[shadow_archmagi]

Or it could charge one player and bite him 5 times each for 1d10+3, then be sitting in the middle of the party taking 5 AoO against the first unfortunate sucker to provoke one....

Yes. Hydras are rather severely dangerous for their CR if not properly prepared for.

Its only got +6 attack. My players all have ACs of 20-24.

[Skjaldbakka]

As I recall, the way to take down a hydra is terrain control. Entangle, Web, Slow. Anything you can do to keep it out of melee, and then you just have to find a way to deal over 15 damage each round until you kill it.

[JBento]

As I recall, the way to take down a hydra is terrain control. Entangle, Web, Slow. Anything you can do to keep it out of melee, and then you just have to find a way to deal over 15 damage each round until you kill it.

Actually, the way to take down a Hydra is to get a Fighter with Improved Sunder and Great Cleave in melee range ALIVE (by, say, using summoned creatures to draw the AoOs) and then have him Sunder ALL of the Hydra's heads in one attack (yes, according to Wizards, if you sunder a Hydra's head it counts as "downing an opponent" for Cleavage* purposes

*Yes, I know it's "Cleaving", but it wouldn't sound as funny - eheh, Fighter has boobies :smallbiggrin:

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

No the way to take down a Hydra is with Ray of Stupidity. Or replace with Ray of Clumsiness and Exhaustion if you banned Enchantment.

[JBento]

Well, yes, if you're talking SPELLCASTERS... :smallwink:

[Saph]

Hydras are a real pain to deal with. The classic way to kill a Hydra is supposed to be by cutting off its heads - which you can't do unless you have Improved Sunder, since otherwise you'll get bitten to death by the AoOs.

They do make for fun battles, though. Each time I've seen a party fight one it's led to frantic scrambling as every PC tries to stay out of the Hydra's attack range and simultaneously do more damage to it than its fast healing is giving it back.

- Saph

[martyboy74]

The ideal way to take one down is by using Death Urge (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/deathUrge.htm).

[Azerian Kelimon]

Or using a swordsage with Baffling defense. Sense motive to AC = Borkened AC.

[Starbuck_II]

Ermm... the stats on a pyro/cyro hydra say its breath weapon is used every 1d4 rounds and deals 3d6 damage. Per head.

That means that a CR 6 pyro-hydra is capable of dealing 15-90 damage, or 7-45 if they make their reflex save. This seems a tad high to me, as my level 6 players have only a little under 60 hp each, and they're fairly high CON.

Remember, they don't deal 3d6 (average 10.5) x5 (51.0), they do 3d5 5 times (average 10.5 each time).
You get 5 saves. If you make the save each time, they deal only 25 total.

Get some resist energy 10 or 20, than they deal 10 less or no damage.

[SamTheCleric]

Resist Energy only hits 10 at that level, IIRC. Ouch.


It's not 15d6 all at once though, it's 5 different 3d6 attacks... so resist 10 actually comes in handy... right?

[Azerian Kelimon]

It does, but it's even better to use solid fog. Can you say hahapwned? No movement means you can down it easily.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Against Pyrohydras(won't work on cyro): Ready an action to cast pyrotechnics when it uses it's breath weapon.It loses the attack and is blinded, meaning it doesn't get AoOs for 1d4+1 rounds. Not an auto-kill, but a good way to start the battle so you don't have to use Imp. Sunder.

Or just use Deep Slumber.

[Person_Man]

Or you can have Karmic Strike/Rob's Gambit and a really high Dex. It's bite only does d10ish damage, a lot less then a well built meat shield. So if you're trading blows on a one for one basis, you should be able to kill it pretty quickly. If you have Double Hit or Claws of the Vampire, then the Hydra won't have a chance, even with its Fast Healing.

[Parvum]

I should point out that lop off two heads quickly and it is dead. A chopped head "deals damage to the body equal to half of the creature's total hit points". Two heads, bang dead.

[Adumbration]

Technically, you can wildshape into one of these through that feat in Frostburn.

Druid hydras all the way, yay!

[Squash Monster]

Every time I throw a hydra at my party, it dies almost instantly.

For their first adventure, the mid-way boss of the dungeon crawl was a hydra. The group destroyed it in the first round with their huge amount of immediate damage (this is what you get when you have three Swordsages).

Eventually I gave up on hydras, until I was testing a custom RPG system that I'm making. I figured that there was no good reason this should happen in both systems, so I gave the hydra a shot.

What happened there was that the party had a pixie (small character) with a stance called Wide Stance that makes her count as two size categories larger for the purpose of clutter penalties (every square you share with another creature gives you a -1 penalty to hit and to dodge). She was using a press weapon (weapons like axes and maces where the goal is to get inside reach) and had a feat that allowed her to ignore half her clutter penalty when using one.

The pixie ran into the hydra's space and activated the stance. Since she took up a 1x1 square area, she had 1 / 2 = 0 clutter penalty. The 4x4 hydra, however, had to treat the pixie as if she was 3x3, which resulted in a -9 clutter penalty. The hydra couldn't hit anything. Since it was also flanked, the character with the gigantic damage bonus against flanked creatures obliterated it.

Short version: a pixie got so in the hydra's face that it couldn't hit anything, then a rogue-type sneak attacked it to death.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

I should point out that lop off two heads quickly and it is dead. A chopped head "deals damage to the body equal to half of the creature's total hit points". Two heads, bang dead.

I should point out that it is not. :smallamused:


Losing a head deals damage to the body equal to half the head’s full normal hit points.
(My emphasis)

[KillianHawkeye]

I put my group against a hydra and they were afraid to cut off any of its heads because they knew two more would spring up eventually and didn't think they could finish it off fast enough. They opted to use ranged attacks instead (fortunately, they had the high ground in that instance).

[Rachel Lorelei]

Sundering a Hydra's heads is just plain a bad idea. You need to hit them with fire or acid after, and you would kill it faster just doing straight HP damage.

A good wizard is (as with so many monsters) vital to defeating a Hydra safely. High ground sure helps.

[AslanCross]

I should point out that lop off two heads quickly and it is dead. A chopped head "deals damage to the body equal to half of the creature's total hit points". Two heads, bang dead.

Misquote, as Lord Silvanos posted above. Each head has as much HP as the Hydra's max HP, divided by the number of heads, rounded down. Given that the number of heads seems directly proportional to the creature's HD, it roughly has 10 HP per head regardless of how many heads it has. That only means each head sundered only deals 5 damage to the body, which really isn't much given they have massive fast healing.

Strangely enough, the "most effective" way to kill a hydra actually isn't. (If I were to DM a fight with one, though, I'd say that Int-dropping spells have to be applied to each of the heads. Spread out autonomous nervous system, or something. Just to be really nasty.)

[FlyMolo]

One major problem is what is the AC of a head? what's the AC of a stump?

If they're tiny/small objects, which I think is about right, they should have an AC of 10+dex+NA+size, so about 17-20, depending on the number of original heads and whether they're tiny or small. I'd say small, because A human being has about a tiny-size head. Roughly.

[AslanCross]

One major problem is what is the AC of a head? what's the AC of a stump?



I'd use the "sundering a weapon" rules for severing a head, in which case it's an opposed attack roll. As for the stump, for simplicity's sake I'd just say that any successful attack with acid or fire that hits the creature while it has a stump sears the wound shut (unless the attack is a specific sunder attempt against another head).

[Frosty]

At level 6, how much can a pouncing barbarian do with Shock Trooper and Leap Attack? Should be enough to kill if both attacks land. But yeah...hydras are under-CRed unless you cheese.

[Yvian]

No the way to take down a Hydra is with Ray of Stupidity.

Would that work? I mean it's got more than one head, and thus more than one brain - would you say a ray would only affect a single head?

I ask because that idea was going though my head my I last faced a Hydra. Thankfully it snuggled up to our fighter which pounded it into the ground, but still...

[ladditude]

My DM threw a 15 headed Hydra against our level 10 party when we had no arcane spell casting. We were at a fork and had reason to believe the Hydra would come from the right branch, so my cleric went about twenty feet down the left branch to try and flank the hydra. Next turn, there was a dragon 15 feet away from me. So it promptly bit at me, but my super awesome 30AC amde it only hit on a 16+, so I took like 20 damage and kept my group from being hit by its 45d6 breath weapon. Then our glass cannon IotB with his +6 longbow slayed it.

The DM was kinda pissed.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

Would that work? I mean it's got more than one head, and thus more than one brain - would you say a ray would only affect a single head?

I ask because that idea was going though my head my I last faced a Hydra. Thankfully it snuggled up to our fighter which pounded it into the ground, but still...

1) As per the rules, it works.

2) It's a magic stupefying effect, if you hit someone in the toe they go brain dead, why would hitting a Hydra's toe only effect one brain?

3) The multiple heads are all part of one brain, just because something is spread out over your whole body (breathing for insects) doesn't mean that you are less effected by things that affect your whole body.

4) Does it say anywhere that they have multiple brains? Or are you just assuming? Does it also have X(2) lungs?

[EvilElitest]

Just as a causal question, would you allow the OOTS hydra trick?
from
EE

[Mal666]

i've generally found that a decent fighter deals enough damage to override the fast healing. if a rogue can get behind it (it still gets flanked) then it dies in two rounds.
also, ability damage (wounding weapons much?) will happily kill it.

something to note - it doesnt say that the hydra uses an action to breathe... just every D4 rounds each head does its fire attack. is that in addition to its regular actions?

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

something to note - it doesnt say that the hydra uses an action to breathe... just every D4 rounds each head does its fire attack. is that in addition to its regular actions?

Not only does the poor Hydra have a poorly worded entry it is also a bit lacking.

The breath weapons of a Hydra is intended to be Breath Weapons and as such they are supernatural abilities that require a standard action to use unless otherwise noted.

Having each head separately choose between attacking and breathing (as a standard action) may very well be the intention and would IMHO make a reasonable house rule.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Sundering a Hydra's heads is just plain a bad idea. You need to hit them with fire or acid after, and you would kill it faster just doing straight HP damage.

This is one of the things that always makes me rather sad about D&D. It's full of these lovely epic, mythic concepts reduced to resource-allocation exercises.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

This is one of the things that always makes me rather sad about D&D. It's full of these lovely epic, mythic concepts reduced to resource-allocation exercises.

Well yes, but this might also just be the creature where a reasonable DM will allow you to actually put your great cleave feat to good use. :smalltongue:

[mostlyharmful]

Wounding ranged weapon, works sooo well. combine it with flight, climb or levitate and your golden against virtually all 'big, dumb and ugly' until mid levels, combine with a smiting/disruption sling and the tactic'll work against most everything.