The many faces of the Hydra

[xiphnophunq]

I plan on throwing my players against a hydra in the next session, and am disappointed that the head-severing mechanic is missing from 4th Ed.

I seem to recall a developer mentioning either an earlier multi-headedness mechanic or his own houserule that was not, after all, broken. Sadly, I haven't been able to find the post (I assumed it was on this site, but perhaps I was mistaken).

Does anyone have that post, or the mechanic?

 

[keterys]

They haven't posted the actual mechanic they used far as I know, just talked about dropping it to simplify things. I posted a couple options, including one at the end of my brutes playtest pdf and a vastly downleveled version with a twist that I used in one of the games I'm DMing:

 

[szilard]

I'm working on a version that models the hydra as multiple creatures, myself.

-Stuart

 

[blargney the second]

Very cool hydra, keterys. I particularly enjoy the head swarm.

 

[Cor Azer]

I'm working on a version that models the hydra as multiple creatures, myself.

-Stuart

I was thinking the same thing - I was basically thinking a main hydra body with one head as an elite or solo brute (leader), and then modeling its extra heads as minions that can only take a standard action. Give the main hydra an interrupt ability to grow two new hydra head minions when one is killed by anything except fire or acid (up to some maximum number), some ability to combine heads into a stronger attack, and if you want to limit it's total actions, maybe have all heads above some threshold contribute to some sort of swarm like aura instead of taking their normal action.

 

[Goobermunch]

I was thinking the same thing - I was basically thinking a main hydra body with one head as an elite or solo brute (leader), and then modeling its extra heads as minions that can only take a standard action. Give the main hydra an interrupt ability to grow two new hydra head minions when one is killed by anything except fire or acid (up to some maximum number), some ability to combine heads into a stronger attack, and if you want to limit it's total actions, maybe have all heads above some threshold contribute to some sort of swarm like aura instead of taking their normal action.

If you're going to go this route, give the main body the ability to slide its heads up to 3 within 5 as a minor action, simulating the reach that the hydra has. You'll have to accept the fact that your hydra won't be able to move very fast, until most of it's heads are dead. Maybe you can give each head the ability to slide any adjacent head as a minor action as well. That, at least, would allow you get the hydra train moving.

It seems like a rather complicated system though.

--G

 

[Lord Sessadore]

I was thinking the same thing - I was basically thinking a main hydra body with one head as an elite or solo brute (leader), and then modeling its extra heads as minions that can only take a standard action. Give the main hydra an interrupt ability to grow two new hydra head minions when one is killed by anything except fire or acid (up to some maximum number), some ability to combine heads into a stronger attack, and if you want to limit it's total actions, maybe have all heads above some threshold contribute to some sort of swarm like aura instead of taking their normal action.

If I were to make a hydra as 5 normal monsters, I'd make it even more like 5 monsters. They all occupy the same space, act on the same initiative, and move together, but aside from that they are different creatures. Each 1/5 of the hydra's hp decapitates a head, and either give it an ability to regenerate heads via a second wind mechanic, or reduce its max hp and let it regenerate heads more often, or maybe even give each head 'monster' a regenerate value, with some sort of threshold it has to reach before it's actually active again. Give it some kind of combined attack, like Lich Vestiges have, that does more damage, and maybe an 'aura' that either deals a non-random amount of damage (possibly modified by number of heads left) or allows a bite attack for each character in the aura.

Ok, so I meandered a bit from the solo-as-individuals idea into what I would give a hypothetical hydra solo. I like the idea of setting up each of the hydra's heads as an individual monster, though. I'd just keep them acting on one initiative count - the individuality would be purely for DM benefit (the 1/5 hp = one head thing), or transparent to the PCs (which head would you like to attack?)