Pyrohydra

[frankthedm]

A 3.0 hydra is far easier to do a readied headslice on since attacks that target the heads won't provoke AoOs. The AC is higher though. and all the damage has to come from a single chop IIRC.

Ready an attack "Once the hydra is close enough for me to 5' adjust twards it and strike"

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/5082/areadyps0.gif

 

[frankthedm]

Out of curiosity... what is the face / reach of a hydra?

3.0 20'x20' base / 10 reach.
3.5 15'x15' base / 10 reach.

 

[geosapient]

3.0 20'x20' base / 10 reach.
3.5 15'x15' base / 10 reach.

If only they used facing... I wonder if that would make this discussion easier or harder.

 

[Nail]

A monk considers any limb as a weapon... So, Combat Reflexes feat allows him to use all his limbs for attacks of oppurtunity.

Only if the Combat reflexes feat was modified for the human creature entry as it is for the hydra entry. It's not, so....nope.

 

[frankthedm]

Sweet diagram, frankthedm...

...Each head getting a jet of fire (or cold) that does 3d6 damage is also consistent with the pyro-(cryo-)hydra's CR.

But not consitant with the text of the breath weapon.

I too now think each head launches a 3d6 jet with a seperate save. 1st example

The way the text actually works out though, is all the heads breath a single jet dealing 3d6 points of fire damage per head the hydra has. 2nd example

If the hydra was supposed to have multiple jets, the wording of the text "Each jet deals 3d6 points of fire damage per head." would have the breath dealing thermonuclear damage if the jets all overlap. 3rd example

 

[jbuck]

even if you use the thermoneuclear breath weapon reading the hydra still has the same tactic that will beat it every time
stand on a ledge 100ft above it and peper the thing with arrows.
becides hydras are almost cirtain to kill you in close combat if you try to melee with them. even if they can only use 2 AoOs in a round (2 attacks not 2 lots of 6 AoOs), they are a CR 4 creature with 6 attacks in a round, not the kind of thing that you want to meet in a stand up fight.

 

[geosapient]

Only if the Combat reflexes feat was modified for the human creature entry as it is for the hydra entry. It's not, so....nope.

Actually I was borrowing from Hyper's assumption that monk is equated to creature from the forbidden monk and INA threads (I was opposed to this assumption in that thread) (and yes I'm one of those people that would argue a point only to use the opposing argument later if it suits me).

Anyway, I guess a better argument to the equating all of the hydra's heads to one great sword would be to compare sundering one great sword to sundering all of the hydra's heads.

 

[pawsplay]

So a 6 headed Hydra has a supply of 12 AoO's for each round?

That's how I roll.

 

[pawsplay]

A monk considers any limb as a weapon... So, Combat Reflexes feat allows him to use all his limbs for attacks of oppurtunity.



Edit: Out of curiosity... what is the face / reach of a hydra?

Actually, I have always read monks as having one weapon... the monk's unarmed strike. Nowhere is it stated that hands, feet, foreheads, etc. are themselves weapons. Supporting evidence from the rules is that monks can benefit from two-weapon fighting with a weapon, but there is no such thing as an off-hand attack while making unarmed strikes.

 

[prospero63]

No... the Hydra still has 12 DEX, so each head has the option to deliver 2 AoOs per round.

If a character were to do 2 (or more) different stupid things (which provoke AoOs) in a round, while threatened by a 12 headed Hydra... the character should expect 24 bites at him.

Mike

FWIW, this is how we do it. Just had a party of 3 with 2 NPCs encounter a "10 headed dragon looking thing". It wound up being quite the comedy. The cleric NPC (who is at his heart a coward) is trapped and can't bypass the creature. He enlists the party to help, who think "man, this guy is a real wuss... it's only a hydra". Gotta love the "wait, this isn't 1st edition anymore" mistakes... anyway, they head down some spiral stairs that leave them pinned for a readied action. Breath cold. Deal 108pts of damage (save for half). The unicorn NPC drops. The rogue dodges it all. The warlock is near death. The barbarian has suffered "a flesh wound". Retreat is called. Cleric flees (he was just out of range for AoO). Warlock touches the unicorn and d-doors out. Rogue stays hidden and invisible. Barbarian hits it, takes a ton in return, then realizes it healed almost everything. Next round the barby goes down (falling down the stairs to the bottom). The rogue leaps after him (provoking but with invis and scent, the 50% miss chance was more like 80% misses). Eventually the warlock returned and with a twinned maximized blast managed to get the hydra to retreat and got a potion of revivify into the barby before his time expired (house rules on both revivify and potions).

Now, I think that next time they will finish it off with little to no effort, but they definitely underestimated a hydra the first time. Especially when they realized that targeting heads is a sunder attack which provokes without improved sunder (and what PC has that after all!?!?!).