Just had this idea:
A hydra, where each neck and head are a different color, for each element (fire, ice, lightning, acid, maybe add in light and dark, maybe not), while the body is covered in a scintillating rainbow pattern of scales. Each head gets a breath weapon of its respective type.
The body changes colors, but not super-fast, so that while it is one color, it gains resistance to that element and some additional ability (or abilities).
I'm looking for suggestions on what those additional abilities could be, what should trigger a particular color change (it would be interesting if the creature becomes a puzzle, where players try to figure out how to get it to change to, and stay on, the most beneficial color for their particular party, or even have one character change it to an element the party is strong against, and then another change it to one the party resists well), or anything else that seems relevant, interesting, or important.
Maybe the body change causes it to become immune to the associated element, and to absorb it, regaining HP and regrowing a head of that element?
Forget elements. Make its Breath weapon based on Prismatic Ray.
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I agree with Nathan. Use prismatic spray as your base. You have 7 colors and 7 unique effects right there.
If you're more keen on elemental damage you've got Fire, Earth (Acid), Wind (Cold or Damage from high speed wind blast), Water (again, cold or damage from high pressure water blast), Electric, Force, and Sonic.
You could go a step further and use the Nine Schools of Magic. Giving you an Undead Head for Necromancy, a Fiery head for Evocation, A head that breaths spell negating blasts for Abjuration, and so on.
Definitely like this idea, lots of possibilities.
9 schools I like!
I'd do Prismatic, but I'm running this in an E6 game, and Prismatic would probably wipe the party.
maybe make it prismatic flavored. same stuff just toned down. less elemental damage.
Red, Orange, Yellow: 2D6 respective damage.
Green: Non death poison, like giant wasp venom or something in potency.
Blue: Temporary paralysis instead of flesh to stone.
indigo: Confusion
Violet: Dimension door max distance away. (just takes them out of the fight for a couple rounds with travel time)
That sounds pretty cool!
Hmm...would you have it breath all of them at once? Or just the one for the color of the body? Or should the heads take turns?
I can through something kind of tough at them, as they're pretty sturdy for level 6s, and I have 8 players now that one of my friends' brothers moved to town. Still, I already basically killed one player unfairly by throwing an aurumvorax at them, so I want to avoid something that is too likely to kill someone quickly.
i would say sense each character can only be hit by one beam per breath let it act like the normal spray.
Just base it on a beholder, give it a higher AC and skin it as a hydra
That's decent, but I'd really like to tie in the changing colors somehow...give them an opportunity to affect what the thing is spitting out at them, though cutting off heads may just be the way to do that.
What if it has an acid, fire, cold, electric, and...some other head, each of a certain color. While all the heads are intact, the body's colors shift between those same colors constantly, and the creature gains immunity to all of those elements, and some additional benefits (maybe a sticky body like a mimic for acid, an automatic Heat Weapon effect for fire, an aura of lethargy for cold, shock shield for electric...). If a head is severed, the body no longer cycles to that color, losing the associated benefits. Each individual head only has its own associated effects.
2 heads spring up 1d4 rounds after one dies, but can be cauterized, so, unlike when fighting a normal hydra, where the best strategy is almost always to just go after the body, unless you have a character built to sunder effectively and repeatedly, in this case you'd really want to be targeting specific heads, and stopping them from regrowing, to open the body up to harm.
The added effects I listed are mostly retributive damage, but I'd prefer for that to not be the case, so the heads really pose different options as far as exposing the body. AC, fast healing, DR, debuffs (in an area, or to those who strike it), spell resistance, concealment...these are all options.
For the heads themselves, thinking a breath weapon each that deals 2d6 damage:
acid - line, and Fort save vs. some poison
fire - cone, and Reflex save vs. catching on fire
cold - cone, and Fort save vs. staggered condition
electric - line, and Will save vs. dazed
??? maybe sonic - cone, and Fort save vs. deafened?
How strong do you think it would be to take a 5-headed hydra and apply this to it? CR 8? 9? 10? How much do you think I should lower the base stats to curb the difficulty of the thing a bit?
That sounds pretty cool!
Hmm...would you have it breath all of them at once? Or just the one for the color of the body? Or should the heads take turns?
I can through something kind of tough at them, as they're pretty sturdy for level 6s, and I have 8 players now that one of my friends' brothers moved to town. Still, I already basically killed one player unfairly by throwing an aurumvorax at them, so I want to avoid something that is too likely to kill someone quickly.
The fun of the Prismatic spells is the random roll to see which ones hit you-- so I would make it breath all of them at once with the 1d8 to determine which hits (1-7 for the seven effects and 8= hit with two).
It wouldn't be too high of a CR bump to add a breath weapon-- look at the damage for Cryo and Pyro hydras-- 3d6 damage breath weapon for +2 CR, so +1 or +2 for any of the options discussed here would be appropriate.
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Great success!
So what I ended up doing, is I took a standard hydra (5 heads),with each head being a different element and color with a breath weapon (I did 3d6 for each weapon), elemental absorption for each element present in a head (that head, and the body absorb the associated element) and applied the following:
Fire (red) - If the head or body is damaged with a piercing or slashing weapon, the attacker takes 2d6 damage as its boiling blood spews out. Anyone that fails their Reflex vs. the breath weapon catches on fire.
Cold (white) - If the head or body is damaged, attacker is subject to a Chill Metal effect (wooden weapons) or 1d4 cold damage (natural or unarmed attack), and anyone that fails the Reflex vs. breath must make an additional Fort save or be Staggered for 1d4 rounds.
Acid (green) - This head and body gain DR 10/-, and anyone that fails Reflex vs. breath must make an additional Fort save or be subject to a (weakened version of) dragon bile poison (DC was same as breath weapon instead of the normally very high DC; and was changed to 2 consecutive saves to end the effect).
Electric (blue) - If the head or body is damaged, attacker is subject to a Shocking Grasp spell (CL = 1/2 hydra's HD), and anyone that fails Reflex vs. breath must make an additional Will save or be Dazed for 1 round.
Sonic (silver) - Head and body gains Spell Resistance 10+HD, and anyone that fails Reflex vs. breath must make an additional Fort save or be Deafened for 1d4 rounds.
Fire or acid could cauterize any of the heads except for those elements, while cold could be used to stop up the fire head's regeneration, and electricity could be used on that of the acid's.
Now, I gave the party some info ahead of time, so they went in with a plan...a group without any previous information would probably struggle a little to figure out which head had which effect, though I made sure to describe the scintillating body, and then note that one color would stop appearing when its associated head was severed.
I think it could have done with a little less retributive damage; I think Cold could have been changed to something else...maybe Lesser Fortification (describe a rime of ice covering its vital areas).
And the SR from Sonic felt...forced. Thinking maybe keep it at just fire, cold, electric, acid, where any additional head rolls 1d4 to determine element (maybe increases the associated effects while multiple heads are up: more damage, higher DCs, more DR or whatever) with heads not being duplicated again until all are doubled. Thus, on a 9-headed hydra, you'd have F, C, E, A, 1d4 (fire), 1d3 (electric), 1d2 (cold), acid, 1d4, ending up with 2 fire, 2 acid, 2 cold, 2 electric and 1 more of any of those.
The players had to decide which heads to target first for sundering (and really wanted to sunder, since attacking the body was dangerous and somewhat ineffective, though characters poor at sundering did that), and combine to get severed heads cauterized by the appropriate element.
The party of 7 players, a level 6 changeling ranger (high Str, 2 flaming claws), level 6 human monk (flowing archetype, Crane Wing), level 6 rogue (tiefling with Slow Reactions and the -1 Str or Dex on sneak attack talents), level 6 fire-specced human magister (sorcerer with some divine healing spells basically), level 6 samsaran oracle (used Aqueous Orb to deliver some damage, buffed people beforehand), level 6 gnome alchemist (fiery bombs and acid flasks for cauterizing),and a level 5 sylph witch (debuffed a lot with Evil Eye on AC, and Ray of Exhaustion) went through probably a little over half of their resources for the day.
The fight began with the ranger being the only one the hydra could see when he approached ahead of everyone, so took all 5 breath weapons, failed vs. two, but had imbibed some Energy Resistance potions, so only got knocked down to about 1/2 HP, and could ignore being set on fire. When the rogue got around to flank on the next round, he turned off the hydra's ability to make AoOs for the rest of the fight. The retributive damage was the most significant output of the fight, I think, because with their buffed AC, the hydra could hardly hit them BEFORE loosing 6 Str, and its AC was fairly pitiful BEFORE losing 6 Dex and getting Evil Eyed...and then losing 3 Dex from the rogue. Its CMD stayed kind of competitive for a couple rounds, but the debuffs took care of that. I think that, without Slow Reactions, it would have been more of a fight, since no one had Improved Sunder. They also had sufficient access to fire and acid damage to ensure no heads grew back.
As it stood, the fight was tough, but not too life-threatening, and everyone said they enjoyed it afterward.
I think they could have taken on another 2-4 heads without too much trouble, especially if I removed one of the retributive damage abilities.
Yeah, Hydra's are one of my favorite in general for being capable for a smart party to deal with earlier than the CR necessarily says they are-- and they have been since at least 2nd edition.
As a player in the encounter mentioned by the OP (the ranger), it was indeed fun. Though as I've mentioned before single monster encounters are almost always a bad idea in pathfinder. And it shows in the results of this one. In particular because if we hadnt buffed to the hilt prior, that opening round of breath weapons would have dropped me bellow 0 (though not killed me). To me thats a bit too much individual threat given the ranger is the primary frontliner of the party, and has (I believe) the highest HP total.
But because we had, eventually debuffs and the action economy made the encounter a lot less tense then it could have been. I didnt, for instance have improved sunder, but the rogue took care of the attacks of opportunity, and the buffs/debuffs made the cmb checks managable. So I was fairly easily cutting off a head a round.
If there had been multiple opponents even if the hydra wasnt as tough, the encounter would have been more difficult, 7 turns to the monster's 1 even if those actions are numerous (it had lots of action economy benefits from multiple heads and reactive defensive abilities) its still only acting once, and each round it got progressively weaker from repeated debuffs and my ranger lobbing off heads. 2 of those hydras with the young template or something I think would have made for a better encounter.
Two is something to consider for the future, but I don't think anyone would have been as impressed.
I agree with the rest of your assessment.