Post/Author/DateTime	Post
underpantsgnome 01-02-04, 10:26 PM	My party was roaming about when we came across a hydra that had to be dealt with to get a gem we were after. But after my Forsaker dealt it 44 damage on a crit, the DM said that nothing happened. Being a forsaker and lacking magic, i couldnt do anything else but attack. Now chopping off heads had occured to me, but since i thought there were no called shots in D&D i had to retreat. now apparently you have to shop off the hydra's heads to kill it, so should the DM just assume that we attack tghe heads or what?
Aristocracy 01-02-04, 10:43 PM	You can make sundering attempts against the heads individually, yes. In this case, it's apparently not a called shot (go figure). The neck (which you target) has a special AC (I think) that's separate from that of the body. Having fought a hydra, that's what we did. The heads can regenerate too, if I remember correctly (unless you cauterize the wound, then they won't). The critical not doing damage, however, I have no idea about. I'm not quite sure how that would happen.
DM Zoc 01-03-04, 12:11 AM	I shouldn't be telling a player this, but the main body of a Laernean Hydra is invincible in 3.0, with hit points evenly divided among its heads. In 3.5, not so much, though it heals quickly.
DakezDarkenblood 01-03-04, 11:40 AM	My problem with Hydras is with regards to wizards. My groupl fought one early in the campaign and after the fighter was seen to sever a head the wizard's player's eyes lit up with inspiration. Very reasonably she asked 'since the heads can be targetted and the hit points are divided equally among them... what happens when I hit it with a fireball? It doesn't make sense that all the damage from the spell gets applied to one head.' To which I ruled that the fireball damage got divided up equally among all heads but she was of the opinion that each head should have been treated as a 12 hit point individual creature for purposes of damage spells. Similarly, I had the fighter asking if he could cleave if he dropped a head asking what's the difference between lopping a head off and dropping an orc... which could have led to a great cleave slaughter of hydras everywhere.
tarkin 01-05-04, 12:45 PM	The DM should have asked the players "Where are you aiming - body or head." or given some other clue that they were allowed to fight the heads individually. I would not let people cleave from one head to another. Cleave is already an over-powered feat.
UZI 01-05-04, 01:38 PM	Attacking a hydra head is a sundering attack. You cannot cleave off a successful sunder; unless by some freak condition, the damage dealt by sundering takes the hydra below 0 hp and fells the hydra, then you might be able to cleave a still attached head. Since at least 5 points of fire or acid damage must be dealt to a stump to prevent two new heads from growing back, and since an area fire effect is explicitly noted in the entry on the hyrda as being able to effect more than one stump, I would believe that you can effect multiple stumps with a fireball or burning hands, but I would generally rule that applies only to the stumps, and not to unsundered heads. In other words, the hyrda and each severed stump is counted as a separate target in the area of effect of a fire spell.