Are PyroHydras Immune to Mind Effecting Spells


Rules Questions

Sovereign Court

Hi

Situation came up in a recent game.

An Oracle of Heavens (with Awesome Display) threw a Colour Spray at a 9 Headed Pyrohydra. Hydra failed save (and counted as 2HD)

GM ruled:
1) All non severing attacks vs creature affect the body.
2) Since body has no mind, Mind Effects can't effect it, so immune to Colour Spray. (And every other mind effecting spell)

Is this correct?

Thanks
Paul H


No.


Why would the hydra's body count as 2 HD?


Blymurkla wrote:
Why would the hydra's body count as 2 HD?

There is a rather cheesy Oracle ability.

Dark Archive

PaulH wrote:

Hi

Situation came up in a recent game.

An Oracle of Heavens (with Awesome Display) threw a Colour Spray at a 9 Headed Pyrohydra. Hydra failed save (and counted as 2HD)

GM ruled:
1) All non severing attacks vs creature affect the body.
2) Since body has no mind, Mind Effects can't effect it, so immune to Colour Spray. (And every other mind effecting spell)

Is this correct?

Thanks
Paul H

That is an "interesting" interpretation of the rules. I doubt you'd find many who agree with it.

I think the furthest I'd go with colour spraying a hydra would be, unless the colour spray was aimed very precisely, to have some of the heads affected and not others.

And that's just because I find the idea of a mostly-unconscious hydra to be funny, not because I could justify it in the rules.


The Hydra Traits extraordinary ability is there for people who want to chop the heads off of the hydra and that's it. It gives them a clunky mechanic to do it.

So, the way that mechanic works - the heads of a pyrohydra are considered weapons not separate creatures. There's no justification as far as the rules go for claiming a pyrohydra to be immune to mind-effecting spells.

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

Quote:
N Huge magical beast (fire)

They can be effected by mind-affecting effects.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Targeting the body is to target to whole creature. The creature is not mindless. "The body" has a mind. Your GM is mistaken.


DM is probably just mad about all his monsters getting Color Sprayed.

Sovereign Court

Hi

Thanks guys

I loved the last post - probably too true!

Paul H


If your GM is really just annoyed about the Color Spray combo that is broken (for his campaign) then perhaps he should talk to the player about it rather than making up house rules to negate it.

If the GM and Player are both reasonable people they may be able to come up with a compromise.

Liberty's Edge

9 HD monster, CR 10. The oracle has a charisma bonus of 7. So at least level 8. And color spray has a range of 15'. A bit annoying, but the problem is mostly the Pyrohydra CR, it is too high, not the color spray ability.

Increasing the heads say "each added HD increases the hydra's statistics as appropriate" but a 20 headed pyrohydra isn't the same thing of CR 21 monster simply because it get slightly better saves, a few feats and stat increases.

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