6-headed Cryo Hydra of DOOOOM!

[Uruush]

I'm putting a cryohydra into an adventure I'm brewing. Do hydras breathweapon with all their heads at once, or do you run them with some heads biting, others breathing, with the breath weapon recharge being calculated for each head individually?

If it's all at once, 18d6 of damage (six heads) seems like a LOT of damage to dish at once for a CR 7 creature. That seems like a recipe for a TPK of 7th level characters rather than an encounter that would consume 25% of a party's resources...

Thoughts?

 

[Casey_g]

Yes all of the Hydrs's heads breath at the same time.

All heads breath once every 1d4 rounds

MMpp123

However not all heads have to breath in the same direction. and the damage assumes the heads have not been severed yet. 10.2 HP slashing to the neck is very easily obtained by a 7th level party. and depending on the party they might be able to lop off 2 or more heads a round.

Also are the PC's going to have foreknowledge of the Hydra. If so they should be able to cook up some defense against the attack. I.e. . Tower sheilds in 3.0 to gain cover bonuses to saves, various magical resistances. Among other things I can think of.

 

[Jeph]

My GM did it all heads at once...It brought one of our party members to his knees in one round. Then we critted it with a ballasita and hit it with a fireball. It died.

 

[reapersaurus]

you had a BALLISTA all set up and aimed at the hydra when it attacked?

Man, talk about walking a monster into certain death... LOL

you didn't even have to get all munchkinny on it.

 

[Corlon]

yeah, well, a ballista set up for coolness then getting a crit plus a barbarian getting a crit when spearing it with his trident kind of does that "killing" thing to my poor hydra

 

[niteshade6]

The pyro and cryo hydras are both pretty under CR'd for their level. If they win initiatvie they can easily kill somebody, if not the entire party. That's one thing I hope to see scaled down, or to have it's CR raised.

 

[Corlon]

not really, after the party's first encounter with a cryo/pyro hydra, they should learn to spread out and avoid certain areas unless they have resistance spells/items (you generally don't just turn the corner and BAM there he is) and for the amount of damage they can dish out (once every four rounds that is, the others are pretty bad) they have a low amount of hit points.

 

[Darklone]

What about evasion and high Refl saves?

 

[niteshade6]

"not really, after the party's first encounter with a cryo/pyro hydra, they should learn to spread out and avoid certain areas unless they have resistance spells/items (you generally don't just turn the corner and BAM there he is) and for the amount of damage they can dish out (once every four rounds that is, the others are pretty bad) they have a low amount of hit points."

Well quite often fights with monsters do start at melee combat reason for any number of reasons. And even if you do manage to spread out before it gets to you, that just means only one or two people die instead of the whole party.

As for their hps, they are perfectly normal for the CR the creature has. They only seem low because the creature is capable of doing about as much damage as something with twice it's CR.

 

[Skaros]

Yes all of the Hydrs's heads breath at the same time.

MMpp123

However not all heads have to breath in the same direction. and the damage assumes the heads have not been severed yet. 10.2 HP slashing to the neck is very easily obtained by a 7th level party. and depending on the party they might be able to lop off 2 or more heads a round.

Also are the PC's going to have foreknowledge of the Hydra. If so they should be able to cook up some defense against the attack. I.e. . Tower sheilds in 3.0 to gain cover bonuses to saves, various magical resistances. Among other things I can think of.

Sure, if the characters think to try severing heads instead of going for the body.

I put a regular hydra against my players recently...they didn't think to target the heads. Probably an extension of how the rules normally don't allow called shots.

Skaros