Defeating a hydra as a melee fighter

[Lord Pendragon]

You clearly don't know the same fighters I do! Um, cautiously close to melee range and go nuts with powerattack 'till its dead.

Our party fighter is the same. Except for the "cautiously" part.

 

[satori01]

Fighters do fine against Hydra's, they have to suck up the pain, but they can be effective. Most will not have Improved Sunder, but you can still sunder heads, w/o it, just have to suck up the pain.

Charge, Spring Attack, Power Attack, Cleave, rinse repeat is an effective strategy, of course you cant be wearing heavy armor.

Charge, Mobility, Combat Expertise, Whirlwind can also be an effective combo.

Ranged Sunder especially with Order of the Bow, can be a Hydra's worse nightmare.

I Imagine a Whirling Frenzy Barbarian with Power Attack, Cleave, Combat Reflexes and Karmic Strike and a flamming weapon, buffed up with AC and Con Boosters, and the all important Shield Other could deal quite a bit of damage by himself.

Barb Charges, takes AOO, Barb Power Attack/Sunders Head, Barb takes AOO, Barb gets his own AOO from Karmic Strike Sunders another Head. Barb player argues he can get a Cleave Attack from sundering head, (which I imagine most DMs would allow)...the Barb wont last long, but he will Hurt the beast nastily.

 

[Machiavelli]

the Barb wont last long

Which is where the Cleric he adventures with comes in handy. Or, heck, if we're messing around with Lvl-10 character here, he may bring along a Geomancer, who can provide buffs before the battle, then lightly bread and fry the hydra with divine-metamagic-inhanced fireballs before the Barbarian gets to it, then heal the Barbarian some 300-or so points during the ensuing battle.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Most will not have Improved Sunder, but you can still sunder heads, w/o it, just have to suck up the pain.

Suck up twice as much pain as a fighter who does have Improved Sunder, since the hydra's AoO consists of an attack with all of its heads. This is no small thing.

Call me crazy, but I think they really missed the mark with the hydra. Their design notes claim that it's to reward characters who have Improved Sunder and parties who coordinate attacks. To me, a swamp-dwelling melee nightmare with a move of 20 looks like a reward to clerics who have sense enough to prepare water walk before going into the swamp, and then calmly avoid the damn thing.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

If you have Ride-By Attack, would that negate the AoOs from all 12 heads when making such an attack? If so, a mounted fighter might be very effective making strafing attacks.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If you have Ride-By Attack, would that negate the AoOs from all 12 heads when making such an attack?

Yup.

-Hyp.

 

[Felix]

12 headed Hydra
129 HP
Each time you sunder a head you deal ~10 HP damage, so unless you have some way of keeping those heads from groing back (read: the rest of the party) then this is a bad, bad tactic. If the sword you have is flaming, you're money. 12 hits later and you're done.

AC 22
This isn't too high, so a fighter should be able to Power Attack the heck out of him. Let's say +1 Shock Greatsword, 22 Str... 3d6 + 10 + 10 (5 PA)... ~30 HP on a successful hit, which will hit 6 to 7 out of 10. Ish. But you're fighting something with 12 attacks at +17 for 2d8+6. You just can't last against that.

---

If you ain't got Sunder, get it from range. Lead it down a pit, or something.

 

[Land Outcast]

~30 HP on a successful hit, which will hit 6 to 7 out of 10. Ish. But you're fighting something with 12 attacks at +17 for 2d8+6. You just can't last against that.

And... you'd have to hit At least twice per round to stand a chance (Fast healing 22)

Attack Bonus:
+1 Greatsword, +2 Feat, +6 Str, +11/+6 Bab, -5 P.A. = +15/+10

1st attack hitting: 65%
2nd attack hitting: 45%

Only one attack hitting: 53.1%
Two attacks hitting: 29.25%

So, a highly sinthetic (and approximate) analysis would say that every round you have about 75% chances of dealing 45 damage (which would get cleaned up, resulting in a net 23 damage).

Highly sinthetic, and useless in specific situations, but here it goes: 75% chances of dropping it in 6 rounds of uninterrupted full attacking.

And if in one attack you don't hit... you are seriously screwed.