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View Full Version : Hydras in 3.5



kjones
2008-12-14, 06:42 PM
Hydras in 3.5 have a lot of potential to be awesome, but in my experience their mechanics just don't measure up.

The basic idea is simple - lots of heads, lots of attacks, and fast healing until you cut off the heads. However, the "cutting off the head" mechanic is clunky at best, since it uses Sunder rules (and who ever takes Improved Sunder?) meaning that you'll be provoking every time you try. Even then, you'd better have fire ready, or your attack was worse than useless - the head regenerates, and you're behind where you started.

Every time I've sent a hydra against my party (including the most recent battle, a half-golem 8-headed pyrohydra) the party has simply bashed the poor creature into the ground, then commenced with the severing once it's unconscious. The fast healing simply isn't sufficient to counteract the amount of damage that a reasonable party can deal to something with low AC (and not-great saves) in a round. Sure, the fast healing decreases if you start cutting off heads, but you're better off just, you know, killing the thing.

Am I doing it wrong? I've tried hydras by themselves and as minion monsters, in several sorts of terrain, and not once has the party tried to defeat them by cutting off their heads. Any suggestions to make hydra battles be like they should be?

Mikeavelli
2008-12-14, 08:02 PM
I used the Stats for a Hydra in one encounter as some kind of souped-up sea monster thing.

The players were in an underground dungeon and there was a segment where they had to leap over segments of broken bridge one at a time with still waters down below. Once they were all separated, all the Hydra heads came shooting up out of the Water and started chomping on people. Nobody thought to go down and attack the body because they weren't prepared to go fight something underwater, so they had to fight the Hydra in the usual way.

It was memorable.

ChaosDefender24
2008-12-14, 08:08 PM
It works a lot better when the hydras are at weaker CRs. Fast Healing 15 is impressive for a CR 4 creature, but it scales at 1 fast healing per CR and that really won't cut it for long. I mean, the molydeus demon is a CR 19 with fast healing 30 (which is what a hydra would be at that CR, I think) that has tough-as-nails defenses and you're supposed to kill it the old-fashioned way.

Assassin89
2008-12-14, 08:21 PM
If attacking certain parts of the body is an option, the body of the hydra should have a natural armor bonus, making it more difficult to defeat it by only attacking the body. There should also be a drawback for the Hydra if it grows too many heads

Blood_Lord
2008-12-14, 08:37 PM
My recommendation is to either:

1) Accept that cutting off heads is a bad idea.

or

2) just divide Hydra HP by number of heads, declare that people cut off heads when it loses one whateverith of it's HP. Fast healing kicks in, and one or two heads grow back.

There is honestly no way to make cutting heads an ideal strategy. If you have any casters at all, they are better off crippling it, and once sufficiently crippled, it's no longer a real threat, and fast healing 15 only means it takes a couple more rounds to kill it.

You can actually kill a Hydra without ever cutting off heads, fast healing isn't regen, so if you can output decent damage, just grind it down. And since even the least optimized of parties, doing only damage, can do more then 77 HP in a single round at level 5 (assuming they are all set up to full attack/blast) there is no situation in which cutting off heads would be faster then killing it the normal way. (Combat Brute and Improved Sunder only brings it down to the same amount of time.)

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-14, 09:02 PM
I never understood why they can be killed by damaging their body, anyway. At the very least, the body should have obscene AC (10+ higher than the heads) and HP (say, 50 per head).

Eldariel
2008-12-14, 09:27 PM
The body should just have epic DR and resistances if we're trying to be mythologically accurate. But yea, D&D in general could benefit of better treatment of attacking bodyparts, climbing (or otherwise hanging on living creatures - no it's not a damn grapple check, the only reason it's possible in the first place is because the other participant is so damn big) living creatures and hitting attended objects. Would make fights with big things a lot more interesting, especially for melee types. But no, you strike the leg! (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1235)

RS14
2008-12-14, 09:40 PM
What do you think about changing the hydra entry to read "An opponent can strike at a hydra’s heads from any position in which he could strike at any region threatened by the hydra, because the hydra’s head writhe and whip about in combat." It makes it viable to kill it from outside of its reach, and makes the party feel clever when they have fire handy and manage to kill it by skirmishing and burning until it dies.


the party has simply bashed the poor creature into the ground, then commenced with the severing once it's unconscious.

Unnecessary. It dies like any other creature when it reaches -10hp. You're thinking of regeneration.


If you can output decent damage, just grind it down. And since even the least optimized of parties, doing only damage, can do more then 77 HP in a single round at level 5 (assuming they are all set up to full attack/blast) there is no situation in which cutting off heads would be faster then killing it the normal way.
The problem is (or should be) that whoever charges in to kill it provokes two attacks of opportunity and faces six more if he doesn't kill it in that round (likely, if he's not an ubercharger).

The Boyce
2008-12-14, 09:44 PM
Well there's also, at least in 3.0, the Learnean subtype which makes attacking the body of the Hydra pointless

MammonAzrael
2008-12-14, 10:25 PM
Just change it's fast healing to regeneration, and the only thing that overcomes the regen is head removal.

Starscream
2008-12-14, 10:29 PM
First of all I might increase the rate of the healing a bit, to make merely stabbing at it more frustrating, thus encouraging them to concentrate on the heads.

Second I'd rule that a critical hit severs a head. That way the players don't need to worry about provoking if they don't have improved sunder; if they prefer they can just concentrate on defense until a few lucky rolls turn the tide of the battle.

Blood_Lord
2008-12-14, 10:53 PM
The problem is (or should be) that whoever charges in to kill it provokes two attacks of opportunity and faces six more if he doesn't kill it in that round (likely, if he's not an ubercharger).

Um, not really, if the Hydra can attack you, you can 5ft step and full attack.

Rogue can tumble.

Wizard can cast Glitterdust so that it get's no AoOs at all.

Archers can put out more then 1/4th the damage to kill the thing in a single round Full attack.


Just change it's fast healing to regeneration, and the only thing that overcomes the regen is head removal.

He's already playing it like Regeneration, and all his players did was knock it unconscious and then cut the heads off. Because it's seriously stupid to actually attack the heads.


Second I'd rule that a critical hit severs a head. That way the players don't need to worry about provoking if they don't have improved sunder; if they prefer they can just concentrate on defense until a few lucky rolls turn the tide of the battle.

They'd probably kill it before they crit it six times.

RS14
2008-12-15, 12:27 AM
Um, not really, if the Hydra can attack you, you can 5ft step and full attack.
Right you are. Sorry, I misread the entry.


He's already playing it like Regeneration, and all his players did was knock it unconscious and then cut the heads off. Because it's seriously stupid to actually attack the heads.

Only because attacking the heads means it lives another round to full-attack you. If you take a standard action and then move away, as my suggested change makes possible, it's attack is not quite so damaging.

Also, it occurs to me that it should have a higher dex score to allow it to take better advantage of Combat Reflexes.

Blood_Lord
2008-12-15, 12:59 AM
Only because attacking the heads means it lives another round to full-attack you. If you take a standard action and then move away, as my suggested change makes possible, it's attack is not quite so damaging.

Also, it occurs to me that it should have a higher dex score to allow it to take better advantage of Combat Reflexes.

It gets a Full attack on every AoO, so if you attack and move away, it still gets the same attacks on you, you just didn't get as many attacks yourself.

RS14
2008-12-15, 01:07 AM
It gets a Full attack on every AoO, so if you attack and move away, it still gets the same attacks on you, you just didn't get as many attacks yourself.

I see. In that case, I agree with your original assessment.

monty
2008-12-15, 01:59 AM
Hmm...would a hastened hydra get two full attacks?

Blood_Lord
2008-12-15, 02:35 AM
I see. In that case, I agree with your original assessment.

Most creatures incidentally punish players for trying to conform to fantasy archetypes. But the Hydra is so perfect that it seems designed specifically to punish anyone trying to sunder heads.

The_Snark
2008-12-15, 03:20 AM
It gets a Full attack on every AoO, so if you attack and move away, it still gets the same attacks on you, you just didn't get as many attacks yourself.

I always interpreted that clause as meaning that it can make a number of attacks of opportunity per round equal to the number of heads it has, which would explain why it has Combat Reflexes with such low Dexterity. The actual wording they use is really vague, though, and could easily be interpreted to mean it like that... it just makes so little sense balance-wise that it never really occurred to me.

Hydras are neat, but they've got some poor design issues and a badly formatted entry. (Seriously, the ability to move and full attack should be more detailed than it is, and it ought to be in the stat block, not the combat tactics entry.)

monty
2008-12-15, 03:34 AM
Its single attack is a bite with all heads; therefore, any situation where it can make a single attack allows it to make a bite with all heads.

its_all_ogre
2008-12-15, 04:38 AM
silly notion: hydra with rogue or ninja levels.
flanking with an ally the 12 headed hydra rogue attacks adding SA on all attacks...
the ninja turns invisible (invisible hydra?!) and all attacks for that round get sudden strike damage...

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-12-15, 04:50 AM
silly notion: hydra with rogue or ninja levels.
flanking with an ally the 12 headed hydra rogue attacks adding SA on all attacks...
the ninja turns invisible (invisible hydra?!) and all attacks for that round get sudden strike damage...It's called Polymorph.

kjones
2008-12-15, 10:37 AM
You know, I'm not sure the "AoO with all heads" thing has ever come up. Maybe I've just forgotten about it in the heat of battle, but most of these fights have been either them blasting the thing at range, or having reach of their own. (The half-golem was handily whomped by a Divine Powered, Divine Favored, Righteous Mighted Favored Soul, dealing out ~75 damage per round after taking into account its DR 15/adamantine. Incidentally, this is why I think that additional DR to the body won't really help that much.)

Is this mechanical problem an inherent shortcoming in the ability of D&D to represent locational damage? I kind of think so.

Starbuck_II
2008-12-15, 10:38 AM
Hmm...would a hastened hydra get two full attacks?

No.
Haste only affects weapons by the wording.

Prometheus
2008-12-15, 11:06 AM
I gave the players a hydra without checking their equipment for slashing damage. Don't do that.

Coidzor
2008-12-15, 11:12 AM
maybe treat the body as an inseparable mount with several heads that share feats and saves but otherwise are dealt with separately (hp pools, squares if doing the hyrdas heads writhe out of the body's space)... have the heads make individual con checks to keep fighting for xdx rounds after body death.