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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1125273" data-attributes="member: 3146">Well there are two factors at work here.First, the hydra is only CR 11. And your party's additional size means that they're equivalent to an eleven to twelve member party. So, at most, the fight should have taken 20% of their renewable resources. At that level, two rounds is pretty typical for an EL=APL fight. But if it took one or two high level spells from the party's spellcasters and/or inflicted a bit of damage, it did what it could be expected to do. If you want a tough fight for a large party, the EL you're looking for is APL +2 (challenging) to APL +4 (deadly).Second, considering that the hydra DID manage to close and attack by the second round, that the party "kept out fo its reach most of the fight" is a pretty meaningless contention. Apparently being "slow" means only that it can't necessarily munch a PC on round 1. I also wonder about the "well armored" party members being immune to the hydra's attacks. Since its attacks are at +17, how heavily armored is your 12th level party? Apparently they didn't need to be very heavily armored because the hydra was down to a strength of 3 (I do wonder how the Shadow managed to drain that much strength in a single round without a full attack though). Try the strong interpretation with the hydra at full strength and I imagine you'll see an entirely different situation.</blockquote>