Sundering Hydra Heads

[isoChron]

I thought you must down a foe not a part of his body to get a cleave ?!

 

[Skaros]

I thought you must down a foe not a part of his body to get a cleave ?!

Yep.

From the SRD:

If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop (typically by dropping it to below 0 hit points or killing it),
you get an immediate, extra melee attack against another creature within reach.

You'd have to consider each hydra head to be a separate creature...or house rule it for flavor reasons.

Skaros

 

[Hypersmurf]

Q&A with Customer Service:

Customer Service very, very rarely get anything right, do they?

From the Main FAQ, p52:

There is no set limit to how far away a spellcaster can be
when delivering a touch spell, but the basic requirement is
being able to reach into the space the creature occupies. For
example, a human occupies a 5-foot space. Thus, a foe must be
able to reach into that space to deliver a touch attack, even if a
piece of the human’s equipment (such as 50 feet of dangling
rope or a manufactured reach weapon) sticks out of the space.
A creature with natural reach is an exception to this rule—
you can use a touch spell against such a creature by touching
one of its natural reach weapons, even if its body is out of your
reach. Such a tactic might require some preparation, however.
If a creature can reach you with a natural weapon (such as a
bite, claw, or tentacle), you can ready an action to use a touch
spell against that natural weapon when it is used to make a
melee attack against you.

-----

Now, this is from an answer to a question about touch spells, which is why it talks about touch spells.

But the principle is clear - when a creature with natural reach makes an attack, a readied action on the part of the defender can be used against the natural weapon.

-Hyp.

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

Very interesting, Hyp. It does seem that accepting the disadvantages of a readied action (not getting to act as soon as possible, possibly losing your action if the triggering condition is not met, not being able to make a full attack, etc.) is a fair trade for being able to hit something out of your reach from a safe distance. I suppose one COULD argue that the situation in the faq does not apply to attacks because in the one case you just have to touch the thing (barely is fine), whereas with weapons you need to be able to make a good solid hit, which might be excessively improbable when striking just as a limb or something flashes into your square briefly. I certainly like the idea, though. It encourages strategy. One thing I would NOT allow when trying this manuever is flanking, that is, if you don't get within your reach of the creature, you can't flank it. That requires getting up close and personal, not just being on the opposite side and pretending the foe's square temporarily increases in size when it lunges at you with reach.

I also like the idea of allowing cleave to work on multiple heads. Sure, the rules talk about downing foes, etc. etc., but the hydra is a strange case, because it is one creature, and yet each of its heads operate much like separate creatures. They attack separately, each one gets its own personal attack of opportunity (its Combat Reflexes feat does not operate normally, giving it a Dex-based number of AoOs to the whole creature, but rather 1 per head). Most importantly, each head has its own hp pool and can be "killed" separately. I just can't see telling the barbarian's PC who just pulled a Hercules and critted a head that he can't follow through on another because, technically, the head is just part of the one Hydra. Hey, if he wants to pull that trick, remember that he had to be within normal reach of it, putting him in more danger. No readying to attack when a head bites from a distance and then cleaving into others.

I think I'm sending the wrong sorts of questions to Customer Service. Their answers seem to be for people who can't read the book properly, rather than those grappling with ambiguities and strange situations that require more than rereading the section in question. Maybe I should be emailing the sage.

 

[Gort]

Would it then logically follow that you'd be allowed to ready an attempt to sunder an enemy reach weapon when he attacked you, although he himself is outside of your normal attack range?

 

[Magus Coeruleus]

Would it then logically follow that you'd be allowed to ready an attempt to sunder an enemy reach weapon when he attacked you, although he himself is outside of your normal attack range?

I think it would logically follow and I also think that while it may have no basis in the standard rules, it would be a fine house rule. Sundering attempts are not all that tactically advantageous unless you have the appropriate feat, and if you do, I think these are not unbalancing ways of allowing that feat to add color to combats. Actually, if you had a PC ready as action as follows: "I ready to sunder the first weapon that comes close enough to strike me in melee," could you really, in good conscience, deny him to attempt just because it's a longspear and not a sword? I mean, it's not the weapon in and of itself that has "reach," but the wielder using that weapon. The longspear is no "safer" than a sword when it comes to potential sundering; it's the wielder that is safer with the longspear. Besides, unless the person has the Improved Sunder feat, the longspear wielder is going to get an AoO before the Sunder attempt. To each his or her own, but I'd allow it.

 

[jabberwocky]

Would it then logically follow that you'd be allowed to ready an attempt to sunder an enemy reach weapon when he attacked you, although he himself is outside of your normal attack range?

I think this makes perfect sense, and if I'm remembering correctly, it even has a historical basis. The Landesknecht (German Knights) used massive two handed swords specifically to chop the heads off of pikes, and then shifted their grip on the sword for the inclose battling. Of course, considering the size of these swords, I can easily imagine them being reach wepons when gripped properly.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Would it then logically follow that you'd be allowed to ready an attempt to sunder an enemy reach weapon when he attacked you, although he himself is outside of your normal attack range?

Potentially. The reason touch spells don't work is because the end of the weapon is "too far" from the body. You can touch his tower shield and get him, but not the end of his spear.

Some people even allow Trips and Disarms to be taken as AoOs against Reach weapons - it the guy tries to Disarm you with his longspear, say, they feel he provokes an AoO, and since the end of the spear is in your threatened space, you can take the AoO on the spear (pulling him off-balance as a Trip, or yanking it from his hands as a Disarm, I guess).

I don't agree with the AoO interpretation, but some espouse it.

-Hyp.