I'm going to be running an adventure with a 'Reverse Dungeon' half, there will be a rival bad guy party taking a different route to get the artifact at the end. The players will play characters in their half, and run monsters trying to stop the other party. The last encounter the players will run will be a five-headed chromatic hydra (red, blue, green, black, white) with individually intelligent heads, each with an appropriate breath weapon.
I need advice on mechanics and logistics. I'm thinking of giving each head a feat only that head can use, chosen by the player. I'm assuming four players, the red head controls movement of the body and the players will roll a d20 each round, whoever rolls highest runs the red that round. Each head will have different initiative, and players can choose improved initiative for their head (they could each choose the same feat, only one head benefits from the individual feat).
I'm looking for advice on mechanics- will the usual hydra mechanics work, or do they need tweaking? If the mechanics are tweaked the GM-run rival party will assume standard hydra tactics apply for at least a few rounds. Each head will be immune to the breath weapon damage they do, should all heads and the hydra have resistance to fire, cold, acid, and electricity? Are there any logistical considerations I've missed?
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I saw a 2nd Ed module with a single creature run by the party.
Basically, each player in turn controlled the dragon's actions, and the dragon's enemy responded before the next player went. This meant that turns would be Player-1, GM, Player-2, GM, Player-3, GM, Player-4, GM, Player-1, GM, ....
Each player could control the entire creature, but had a limited selection of actions to choose from. The bad guy was written to fight this particular battle in this way.
I think that while one feat per head is a neat idea, it also is a mechanical nightmare to implement on the fly. However, letting them choose four of the feats the dragon gets can work well if you fully stat out the dragon with feats before the session so that they can pass the sheet around for their turn [or each have a copy]. By prepping the dragon before the combat, you make it easier to have the relevant information available, and also know what your bad guy can and will do when the encounter happens. This lets you add/subtract to your villain to make the encounter suitably tough.
/cevah
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Interesting idea. My thoughts:
- It's going to be a mechanical pain, but doable if you consider all the issues up-front.
- Each head getting its own turn is going to dramatically increase the power of the Hydra (at least as I understand the elemental Hydras; they're not normally capable of using multiple breath weapons in a turn despite having multiple heads).
- I would scrap with one-feat-per-head thing, if only because a lot of feats are not inherently tied to the head. Like... what if, for whatever reason, a player wanted to take Fleet? Instead just let each player pick a feat, I think.
- If a player 'wins' the primary head and thus control of the body, they shouldn't get to roll for it again until everybody has had control. So first round everybody rolls, Fighter wins. Next round only Wizard, Cleric, and Thief roll, Thief wins. Next round only Wizard and Cleric roll, Cleric wins. Then Wizard wins by default. Then everybody rolls again.
- As Cevah said, definitely prep the sheets and have one for you as well as each player. Have the players pick the hydra feats the session before.
- I don't think the full body needs elemental immunity. Not much value to it really.
- Is each player intended to get their own element? I ask because going by dragon colors, Black and Green overlap. Perhaps make one of those sans a breath weapon and the primary head, and give the other four to the players.
- Give the players some time to work out combat tactics before the fight. It's natural that the creature's heads would be capable of working together, but with the PCs being unfamiliar, letting them talk and figure things out is reasonable, I'd think.
- The fact that it's not a normal Hydra should become extremely obvious by its tactics if the players are canny; normal hydras aren't highly intelligent after all (dolphin-like, so not stupid, but not true sentients either)
- Awesome idea and I'd love to know how it goes.
Thanks Cevah and kestrel287! If the villain party survives the PCs will have to fight them after the big boss fight, so this hydra and other encounters are designed to possible TPK the bad guy party. If players for different heads take grapple feats the hydra could be very dangerous, if the bad guys need to sunder a head and melee characters get grappled while other heads use breath weapons every 1d4 rounds it could be a TPK. Otherwise the PCs may get a video-game style level up, after fighting the red dragon guarding the artifact they'll level up with full hit points and spell and two rounds to prepare for the other party.
Sorry to necro the thread, but kestral287 wanted to know how it went. I ran the encounter by itself, four level 10 NPCs against four players running the five-headed hydragon. Each head had its breath weapon, and more than one can fire in a round with a 1d4+1 round cooldown. The NPCs were reasonably strong but not spec'd to fight the hydrgon. They consisted of a Kender antipaladin 3/swashbuckler 7, minotaur urban ranger 10, dwarf separatist cleric of Takhisis with the Tyranny and Healing domains, and elf admixture evoker wizard 10. The wizard had dazing spell, which could have been a problem for the hydragon. The kender, dwarf, and elf all went at the top of the order. Each dragon head had its own initiative, control of the red dragon head went around the table in a circle, and whoever rolled highest on a d20 each round controlled the body. The first round the wizard targeted four heads and the body with a dazing magic missile, all four heads saved against daze and the body failed. The kender charged and rolled a 2 against the red dragon head on the first round, and the dwarf cleric cast prayer. All the heads except blue and red used breath weapons on round 1, severely damaging the dwarf cleric and elf wizard (neither had spectacular reflex saves). The minotaur ran up and missed with a roll of 3. On round 2, the wizard cast a dazing magic missile and five rolls of 14 or higher resulted in five will saves against daze (a one round daze on one or more heads would be a big factor). The dwarf cleric cast breath of life on herself, and the kender got a critical hit and another hit to finish of the blue dragon head. The blue dragon had saved its breath weapon, making itself a target. Two of the remaining dragon heads targeted the kender and missed, the red dragon killed the elf wizard with its breath weapon, and one got a hit on the minotaur. On round three the kender got one hit on the white dragon head and the dwarf cleric used quicken channeling to do about 20 points of damage to each head and breath of life on herself. The other three heads used bite attacks to drop the minotaur to -6 hp. The body moved adjacent to the cleric. On round the cleric used quicken negative channel and flame strike. The kender ran to the room with the artifact, I decided the kender would take the opportunity to get to the objective of the bad guy party. The hydragon finished off the dwarf cleric.
The kender antipaladin/swashbuckler was surprisingly effective, with high AC, saves, and solid to-hit and damage both based on Dex. The minotaur was TWF and should have been THF, one successful two-weapon rend could solo a head but it was hard to hit. Instead of using called shots, I gave the individual heads higher AC to represent being harder to hit but counted as individual targets. The cleric and wizard performed as expected. It was weighted a little heavily in favor of the players and the hydragon, I assumed there would be a few failed will saves vs. dazing spells in the first few rounds.
I'll run the whole adventure, half players running PCs and half players running monsters trying to stop bad guy NPCs, in about two weeks. The players had fun, I had fun, and I got great feedback both mechanically and from a roleplaying perspective (one player suggested having each player write down their actions each round before learning what the others were doing to represent five minds attached to one body).
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