Hydra Rules

[pawsplay]

I emailed the following to Ask Wizards:

Dear Ask Wizards,

A few things about the hydra are unclear to me. First, when it states a hydra can attack with all of its heads when using Combat Reflexes, does that mean EACH of its heads, or all of its heads simultaneously (ouch)? Second, it states that heads cannot be killed by targeted spells. Is it still legal to kill a head with a ray spell? Third, cryohydras and pyrohydras have an ambigiously written breath weapon ability. If a pyrohydra has nine heads, does it breathe for 27d6 damage to anyone in the area, breathe nine times for 3d6 damage, or attack nine times for 27d6 damage (um, right)?


And I encourage others to email them as well.

In the meantime... thoughts, comments, playtests, previous responses from the drunken crew of the good ship Customer Service?

 

[pawsplay]

No one's touching this one?

 

[Someone]

It's been discussed here several times (the meaning of what "several" means has also being discussed, so it's not surprising something like the hydra question has).

Most people agree the wording means it can attack with all the heads at once when making attacks of opportunity. Personally I think it can use the number of heads as the number of attacks of opportunity per turn it can do, but I'm in the minority.

 

[Infiniti2000]

No one's touching this one?

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

 

[pawsplay]

Does anyone have a convincing argument why 9x 27d6 cannot be the correct answer by the RAW?

I'm torn on the breath thing anyway... many of my group have rings of minor fire resistance, so the difference between 9x 3d6 and 27d6 could be the difference between about four points of damage and around 40-80.

 

[frankthedm]

Does anyone have a convincing argument why 9x 27d6 cannot be the correct answer by the RAW?

Because the CR would have been set significantly higher if the designers intended that level of damage on an attack ability. The 9x 27d6 IS a possible result one gets by a literal reading of the ability.

 

[pawsplay]

Because the CR would have been set significantly higher if the designers intended that level of damage on an attack ability. The 9x 27d6 IS a possible result one gets by a literal reading of the ability.

Yeesh, what a mess. This is like buying a house and discovering it has foundation problems.

 

[frankthedm]

Yeesh, what a mess. This is like buying a house and discovering it has foundation problems.

The equivalent of foundation problems is the core druid. That text in th hydra entry is more of a glaringly obvious bank error.

 

[pawsplay]

I've been thinking about this more, and the description of the hydra using Combat Reflexes to attack with all of its heads seems to favor the weaker interpretation. After all, it if could attack with all of its heads on an AoO, it could do that with or without Combat Reflexes. So I think the idea is for the number of heads to determine the number of AoOs.

 

[frankthedm]

I've been thinking about this more, and the description of the hydra using Combat Reflexes to attack with all of its heads seems to favor the weaker interpretation. After all, it if could attack with all of its heads on an AoO, it could do that with or without Combat Reflexes. So I think the idea is for the number of heads to determine the number of AoOs.

I feel the one AoO per opportunity, with lots of AoOs to take is more in line with the majority of other CR4s, using the 5 headed hydra for example.

Having seen them in play, using "all heads on one AoO" is far too punishing on characters not focusing on AC. I saw one attack barrage send a front liner from full health to die hard. Now on its own turn that's a possibility with a critter that can full attack at will. Letting that happen on an AoO feels a bit overboard.