Hydra
Hit Dice: d10
Level BAB Fort Ref Will Feature
1 +0 +2 +2 +0 Hydra Body, Hydra's Bite, Regrowth, +1 Str, +1 Con
2 +1 +3 +3 +0 Fast Healing, +1 Str, +1 Con
3 +1 +3 +3 +1 Growth, +1 Str, +1 Con
4 +2 +4 +4 +1 Growth, Scent, +1 Str, +1 Con
5 +2 +4 +4 +1 Hydra Skills, +1 Str, +1 Con
6 +3 +5 +5 +2 Hydra Hunger, +1 Str, +1 Con
7 +3 +5 +5 +2 Hydra Ferocity, +1 Str, +1 Con
8 +4 +6 +6 +2 Hydra Reflexes, +1 Str, +1 Con
9 +4 +6 +6 +3 Hydra Healing, +1 Str, +1 Con
10 +5 +7 +7 +3 Lasting Heads, +1 Str, +1 Con
11 +5 +7 +7 +3 Magic Fangs, +1 Str, +1 Con
Skill Points: 2+Int (x4 at level 1)
Skills: Intimidate (Cha), Listen (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str)
Proficiencies: Hydras are proficient with their natural attacks.
Features:Hydra Body: The Hydra loses all other racial traits, and gains the Magical Beast type which grants low-light vision and a 60 foot Darkvision. The Hydra also gains a natural armor equal to it's Con modifier, a 20 foot move speed and swim speed, and is medium sized.
A hydra has no limbs capable of fine manipulation, and has only two legs for moving around. It also has always just two head and neck slots, altough if the respective head/neck is cut off, another of the heads can instantly pick up any magic items on it. If the hydra is reduced to a single head and has two items on its head/neck slot, one of each falls to the ground at random.
Hydra's Bite: The Hydra gains two bite attacks (from having two heads) at first level that do 1d6+Str damage. Every new level of the Hydra class gives it another head that can make a new bite attack.
Regrowth: Whenever the hydra takes damage it instinctively "parries" it with their long necks. If it takes enough damage, the head is severed and two new sprout from the stomp 1d4 rounds later. An Hydra cannot have more heads total than 2*(Hydra level+1).
The damage needed to sprout each extra heads depends on the Hydra level:
Hydra Level Percentage of max HP lost to grow an extra head.
1 50%
2 33%
3 25%
4 20%
5 17%
6 14%
7 13%
8 12%
9 11%
10 10%
11 9%
12 8%
The hydra may grow several extra heads in one turn if it takes enough damage in a single turn. Roll growth time separately for each cut head.
So for example a 2nd level Hydra with 18 HP that takes 13 damage from a single blow would grow two extra heads, rolling two separate d4.
A 10th level Hydra with 100 HP who loses 50 HP would grow five extra heads, rolling five separate d4.
If the Hydra recovers HP, her extra heads wither and fall off at the same ratio it gains when hurt. So if the 10th level Hydra of the last example recovered 30 HP it would lose three heads.
Ability Increase: The Hydra gains +1 Str and +1 Con at every level of this class.
Fast Healing: A Hydra gains Fast Healing at 2nd level, equal to 1/2 it's HD. The Hydra may choose to not heal itself in order to keep extra heads.
Growth: At 3rd level, the Hydra grows to large size. Her bite attacks also improve from 1d6 to 1d8 damage. At 4th level, the Hydra grows to Huge size and her bite attacks improve from 1d8 to 1d10 damage in a non-standard damage progression.
Notice the Hydra is a long animal and thus her reach is only 5 foot at large size and 10 foot at huge size.
Scent: As the standard SRD ability.
Hydra Skills: An hydra gets +1 to spot and listen checks for each head the have.
Hydra Hunger:The hydra may attack with all her heads as a standard action or in the end of a charge.
Hydra Ferocity:The hydra can act normally when disabled or dying.
If an hydra drops below -10 HP, it doesn't die untill her true head is striken. The heads are identical, thus the percentile chance to hit the true head is 100/number of heads. If the percentile chance is reached and the Hydra is left at -10 HP or less she dies.
A character with cleave can re-roll this chance whenever it hits the Hydra. A character with greater cleave or whirlwind attack can cut all heads at once and auto-kill the Hydra if it's below -9 HP.
An area-damaging spell also automatically kills the Hydra if it leaves her below -9 HP.
Confirming a critical hit against the hydra that would leave it below -9 HP allows one to re-roll failed percentile chances a number of times equal to the weapon's critical multiplier.
Hydra Reflexes:The Hydra gains the combat reflexes feat even if it doesn't meet the pre-requisites, and whenever she's allowed an Aoo she can use all any and all of her bite attacks instead of just one, however bite attacks used for one Aoo cannot be used for other Aoos on the same round.
Hydra Healing:The Hydra's fast healing doubles. The Hydra can choose to fast heal less life than normal in order to keep her total number of heads.
Lasting Heads:Extra heads last 1 minute now when the Hydra recovers HP.
Magic Fangs:All of the Hydra's heads gain +1 Enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls. As a move action the Hydra can re-distribute her total enhancehment bonus among her heads, as long as the total bonus is equal to the number of heads.
No single head may be left with a bonus bigger than half the Hydra's HD, and no head may have an actual bonus to attack and damage bigger than 1/4 the Hydra's HD, although the enhancement bonus can be used to replicate special effects like flaming and holy, as long as the respective head already has at least +1 enhancement bonus.
Comments
So yeah the Hydra was one of those monsters that needed serious re-designing. It's rare for characters to have flaming weapons and improved sunder, but it's even more rare for monsters to have them to cut the PC's heads willingly.
On the other hand, I had to put something that discouraged the player from choping his own heads to grow extras.
So I made it tied directly to HP. You put your heads in the way of incoming, they fall, extras grows. The closer you are to death the stronger you get. Heal and you lose heads.
And speaking of close to death, Hydra ferocity means you can keep going far on the negative HPs, but then each blow has a chance of finishing you off. Area effects finish you instantly.
Removed the whole cauterizing wounds because the class is complicated as it is.
It grows to huge size at lv4 yes, but between weak Bab, being a long, slow creature and having no hands it can't really do much with it. The Hydra is specially vulnerable to ranged oponents, altough the next prc may help on that.
(PrC)
Pre-Requisites:-At least 4 levels in the Hydra class.
Hit Dice: d10
Level BAB Fort Ref Will Feature 1 +0 +2 +2 +0 Elemental blood, Hydra Breath.
2 +1 +3 +3 +0 Improved Hydra Breath.
Skill Points: 2+Int
Skills: Intimidate (Cha), Listen (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str)
Features:Elemental blood:Choose Acid, Fire, Electricity or Cold. The Hydra gains that subtype and immunity to that element. In the case of Acid they gain the [Earth] subtype and Electricity they gain the [Air] subtype (but not a flight speed).
Hydra Breath: Can breathe jets of the chosen element 5 feet long per HD and 10 foot high/wide as a standard action. All heads must breathe at the same time in the same direction, and must wait 1d4 rounds. Their combined breath deals 1d6 points of the chosen element per head. A successful Reflex save halves the damage. The save DC is 10 + ½ HD + hydra’s Con modifier.
Improved Hydra Breath: The Hydra Breath is now 10 foot long per HD and deals 1d8 damage per head, plus it gets a special effect based on the element chosen.
Acid-Failed reflex save leaves damaged targets blinded for 1 round per HD.
Fire-Failed reflex save leaves damaged creatures dazed for 1 round and taking 1d6 fire damage at the start of their turn for 1 round per HD.
Electricity-Failed reflex save moves the damaged creature 5 foot per HD on a direction of the Hydra's choice. This movement causes no attacks of opportunity.
Cold-Failed reflex makes creature move at half speed for 1 round per HD. Multiple failed reflex saves stack the duration.
