D&D 4E Why I hate the Hydra: —and other dumbed down 4E monsters—
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The Little Raven
First Post
Kamikaze Midget said:
With slight changes, this applies to me.
frankthedm
First Post
Well...chaotix42 said:
Scott_Rouse said:
Jack Colby
First Post
Don't think of them as dumbed-down. Just accept that they were too complicated from the start, and 4e has finally fixed them. 
I was actually kind of disappointed with the lycanthropes in the MM, too. They're basically wolfhead guys, who can also look like wolves or guys.
I would have been fine just not having werewolves in the game. Since the "lycanthropy as disease" sounds cool, but usually just makes characters either broken or unplayable. Lycanthropes have always been just bruisers with animal heads (check the werewolf/tiger/elephant/etc from 3.5). If you want to change their stats then change them. They have +2 squares movement in animal form, and in human form can't bite and deals 2 less damage.
Thankfully, now that the monsters are so simple, you can just add whatever abilities you want to them and quickly judge what that should do to the monster.
For the Hydra
First, give it regeneration 10
Second, reduce the HP (because we're giving it regen) 500 should do it
Third, give it the next two abilities:
Head Loss
If the Fen hydra takes 40 damage in one round it loses a head.
If the Fey hydra is bloodied it loses a head
Regrow Head (move action, encounter, recharge
, special)
Special: the hydra must have lost a head for every time it uses this ability.
Effect: the Fen hydra grows two new heads and recovers 10 HP.
40 damage is the approximate damage of 2 dalies, or 3 Encounter powers. Meaning that it's all about balancing doing damage with not giving the hydra extra heads.
This may be a bit tougher, but you can adjust the numbers for chopping off a head or regenerating on the fly. I did this in 30 minutes (and most of that time was just looking up the average damage of a level 12 daily and reading through the monster creation rules for the first time)
At this point you say "But I don't WANT to have to stick rules in", well ... I'm actually fine with the hydra being a big ball of HPs that attacks a whole lot. Being able to make 5 or 7 attacks is a pretty big deal.
I would have been fine just not having werewolves in the game. Since the "lycanthropy as disease" sounds cool, but usually just makes characters either broken or unplayable. Lycanthropes have always been just bruisers with animal heads (check the werewolf/tiger/elephant/etc from 3.5). If you want to change their stats then change them. They have +2 squares movement in animal form, and in human form can't bite and deals 2 less damage.
Thankfully, now that the monsters are so simple, you can just add whatever abilities you want to them and quickly judge what that should do to the monster.
For the Hydra
First, give it regeneration 10
Second, reduce the HP (because we're giving it regen) 500 should do it
Third, give it the next two abilities:
Head Loss
If the Fen hydra takes 40 damage in one round it loses a head.
If the Fey hydra is bloodied it loses a head
Regrow Head (move action, encounter, recharge
, special)Special: the hydra must have lost a head for every time it uses this ability.
Effect: the Fen hydra grows two new heads and recovers 10 HP.
40 damage is the approximate damage of 2 dalies, or 3 Encounter powers. Meaning that it's all about balancing doing damage with not giving the hydra extra heads.
This may be a bit tougher, but you can adjust the numbers for chopping off a head or regenerating on the fly. I did this in 30 minutes (and most of that time was just looking up the average damage of a level 12 daily and reading through the monster creation rules for the first time)
At this point you say "But I don't WANT to have to stick rules in", well ... I'm actually fine with the hydra being a big ball of HPs that attacks a whole lot. Being able to make 5 or 7 attacks is a pretty big deal.
Hydras always were big bags of hit points. If anything, they didn't have enough hit points in 3E, because a good party could often take them down in 2 rounds. So now at least they're tough enough to take a beating.
The hydra's big downfall is total lack of ranged attacks, making it meat against a group of ranged strikers. But that's hardly unique for melee brute types.
The hydra's big downfall is total lack of ranged attacks, making it meat against a group of ranged strikers. But that's hardly unique for melee brute types.
Well, I can't say I recall anyone ever being scared of lycanthropes in previous editions. The only thing that would have made them conceivably more scary than other tooth-n'-claw monster is making them unkillable without silver weapons. But no edition ever backed that up, instead giving them the weakest DR available, which allowed +1 weapons to chop them to bits.
Now, at least lycanthropes actually have regeneration, which a lot of folks long clamored for in place of DR. OTOH, the vulnerability to silver is kind of a joke, as it just stops the regen for 1 round--again, another instance of reducing some effect to 1 round for the all-important goal of simplicity.
Anybody else notice that there's a dire werewolf in the picture, but no stats for it?
Now, at least lycanthropes actually have regeneration, which a lot of folks long clamored for in place of DR. OTOH, the vulnerability to silver is kind of a joke, as it just stops the regen for 1 round--again, another instance of reducing some effect to 1 round for the all-important goal of simplicity.
Anybody else notice that there's a dire werewolf in the picture, but no stats for it?
