Yesterday I rolled out some experimental rules for revising hydras and creating new hydroid creatures. Today we’re going to put them into practice with a few sample creatures.
Bear in mind that this is still an installment of an Untested column: The general rules for hydroids haven’t been tested and these specific monsters even less so. If you do find occasion to use them in your own games, please circle back and let us know how it went!
HYDRALING
Baby hydras — also known as hydralings – are two-headed serpents, only developing the legs of an adult hydra during adolescence. The mothers of hydralings have been seen to deliberately bite off one of the heads from their offspring, prompting the growth of an additional head. Some have hypothesized that this is because hydralings never truly sleep (since one of their heads is always awake), but it’s more likely an instinctual action which prompts (or is prompted by) the hydraling’s development.
HYDRALING
Medium monstrosity, unaligned
Armor Class 13 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points Special
Speed 40 ft., swim 20 ft.
STR 12 (+1)
DEX 15 (+2)
CON 12 (+1)
INT 2 (-4)
WIS 10 (+0)
CHA 6 (-2)
Skills Perception +3, Stealth +4
Senses passive Perception 13
Challenge 1/2 (100 XP)
Amphibious. A hydraling can breathe air and water.
Hydroid. The hydraling has two heads. For every 10 points of damage the hydra suffers, one of its heads dies. If all of its heads die, the hydraling dies.
At the end of its turn, the hydraling grows two heads for each of its severed heads, unless it has taken fire damage since the head was severed. A hydraling can have a maximum of five heads.
Multiple Heads. While the hydraling has more than one head, it has advantage on saving throws against being blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, stunned, and knocked unconscious.
For each additional head beyond one, it gets an extra reaction that can be used only for opportunity attacks.
While the hydraling sleeps, at least one of its heads is awake.
ACTIONS
Multiattack. The hydraling makes as many bite attacks as it has heads.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: (1d4 +2) piercing damage.
TENTACULAR ABOMINATION
A dog-size creature with eel-like skin. It has no head, but its back is a writhing mass of tentacles.
TENTACULAR ABOMINATION
Medium monstrosity, unaligned
Armor Class 15 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points: Special
Speed 30 ft.
STR 17 (+3)
DEX 12 (+1)
CON 14 (+2)
INT 6 (-2)
WIS 13 (+1)
CHA 6 (-2)
Skills Perception +5
Senses Blindsight 60 ft., passive Perception 15
Challenge 3 (700 XP)
Pack Tactics. The tentacular abomination has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of the tentacular abomination’s allies is within 5 ft. of the creature and the ally isn’t incapacitated.
Hydroid. The tentacular abomination has five tentacles. For every 10 points of damage the abomination suffers, one of its tentacles dies. If all of its tentacles die, the abomination dies.
At the end of its turn, the abomination grows two tentacles for each of its severed tentacles, unless it has taken acid damage since the head was severed.
Multiple Heads. While the tentacular abomination has more than one head, it has advantage on saving throws against being blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, stunned, and knocked unconscious.
For each additional head beyond one, it gets an extra reaction that can be used only for opportunity attacks.
While the abomination sleeps, at least one of its heads is awake.
ACTIONS
Multiattack. The abomination makes as many tentacle attacks as it has tentacles.
Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: (1d6+3) bludgeoning damage. The target is grappled (escape DC 13) by one of the abomination’s tentacles. Until this grapple ends, the tentacular horror can’t use that tentacle on another target.
LENGLIAN SERAPHIM
Wings. Dozens of wings clustered together as if shielding a central mass (although no such mass exists within the impossible dimensional toroid of the Lenglian seraph), with eyes opening and shutting between the wings. Some Lenglian seraphs are also known to emit smoke or aurora-like, multi-colored halos as their wings continue to fold and unfold, stretching, reaching, searching, beating the air around them.
(It is also not unusual for Lenglian seraphs to be confused for a swarm of winged creatures, particularly from a distance.)
LENGLIAN SERAPHIM
Large celestial, lawful good
Armor Class 17 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points Special
Speed fly 80 ft.
STR 22 (+6)
DEX 21 (+5)
CON 14 (+2)
INT 21 (+5)
WIS 16 (+3)
CHA 19 (+4)
Saving Throws Wis +7
Skills Perception +7
Damage Resistance Radiant; Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks
Condition Immunities Charmed, Exhaustion, Frightened
Senses Truesight 120 ft., passive Perception 17
Languages All, Telepathy 120 ft.
Challenge 12 (8,400 XP)
Innate Spellcasting. The seraph’s spellcasting ability is Charsima (spell save DC 17). The seraph can innately cast the following spells, requiring only verbal components:
- At will: bless, detect evil and good
- 1/day each: augury, commune
Hydroid. A Lengling seraph has thirty-five wings. For every 5 points of damage the seraph suffers, one of its wings is severed. If all of its wings are severed, the seraph dies.
At the end of its turn, the seraph grows two wings for each of its severed wings, unless it has been splashed with unholy water since the wing was severed or is under the effects of a bane spell.
Many Eyed. A seraph has eyes proportionate to its wings. While the seraph has more than one wing, it has advantage on saving throws against being blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, stunned, and knocked unconscious.
For every five wings the seraph has, it gets an extra reaction that can only be used for opportunity attacks.
ACTIONS
Multiattack. The seraphim can make one wing attack for every five wings it has.
Wing. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: (1d8+6) bludgeoning damage.
Radiant Gaze (Recharge 5-6). One creature that the seraph can see within 60 feet of it must make a DC 17 Constitution saving throw, taking 70 (20d6) radiant damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
LEGENDARY ACTION
Can take one legendary action. Only one legendary action can be used at a time, and only at the end of another creature’s turn. Spent legendary actions are regained at the start of each turn.
Buffeting Wings. The seraph beats its wings. Each creature within 10 ft. of the seraph must succeed on a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw or take 1d6+6 bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone. The seraph can then fly up to half its flying speed.
This would be a really interesting spin to put on Abominations. Creatures of another plane made flesh, but the flesh keeps replicating in a single form they have fixated on.
Beholders would be a ganglion cluster of eyes and neurons. Pierce an eye to burst and destroy it and two more will form to take their place.
Gibbering Mouthers are a writhing mass of mouths and tongues. Sever a tongue or smash the teeth and it roils and undulates replacing each mouth with two more.
Hecatoncheires are a flailing creature made of smashing and grabbing arms. Sever one arm and two more bud as baby arms from the stump and grow to replace them.
I like the way you think, Caz.
These look fun. The tentacular abominations will be perfect for an upcoming adventure my group will be on, so I’ll have to swing back by after I use them and share my thoughts.
My initial thought after reading the two posts is that it’d be an interesting way to handle Tiamat too. She’s not normally depicted as regrowing her heads, but given her deity status, I wouldn’t describe it as being beyond her ability to do so.
I’m going to try and adapt this to my pathfinder 2e campaign, this looks like fun.
Also:
“At the end of its turn, the seraph grows two wings for each of its severed heads”
I understand what you’re saying here, but…
This intentional?
“At the end of its turn, the seraph grows two *wings* for each of its severed *heads*, unless it has been splashed with unholy…”
Fixed!
I had a chance to run the Lenglian Seraphim last night and here are my results. I made a slight adjustment to fit the theme of my campaign, making it a celestial creature corrupted by evil so it registered as a fiend. It was guarding the entrance to a cathedral the party needed to enter. It was weak to Bless and holy water instead of Bane and unholy water. There were 7 Players, all level 6. After round 1: 43 wings; round 2: 73 wings; round 3: 91 wings. At this point my players were in trouble. Once it passed 70 wings, I changed the marker on the map from a large creature to a huge creature to help them realize they weren’t doing well. They had figured out it was a hydroid, but one player, a frequent meta-gamer used Chill Touch on several turns to prevent the monster from regaining HP, his go to move for standard hydras. Seeing as the monster had effectively no HP, the cantrip was only doing damage. This brings up an interesting point, how do spells like Chill Touch interact with hydroids? Should they effectively limit regeneration of wings? If yes, doesn’t that circumvent the idea behind no-HP hydroids which by design circumvents the standard hydra that you can pummel into submission?
The question was asked, what other monster in 5E can’t you subdue through brute force? I couldn’t think of one which honestly is the ‘Superman’ flaw of 5E; everything can be resolved be punching it hard enough in the face.
At this point I started dropping some really heavy hints as to how to resolve this encounter, “it’s a spell you’ve used already during this session” and when I discovered they didn’t have any spell slots to use that spell, “what are the components of that spell.” Once they figured out pouring holy water on the creature prevented regenerating, they used Suggestion to halt its actions and began to whittle it down. I hand waived the rest of the fight after two rounds because two players were really frustrated and I didn’t want to kill the momentum and vibe of the session as they slogged through 5-6 more rounds of whittling HP.
I really enjoyed running this creature, it was great to surprise long term players with something they’ve never seen or heard of before. The CR rating may need an adjustment. I know the formula is accurate, but a single Erinyes or Arcanaloth is also CR12 and clocks in at a medium difficulty encounter for a party of 7 at level 6. I wasn’t even using the legendary action (something the Erinyes or Arcanaloth don’t even have), because my party was definitely losing hard. The Radiant Gaze damage felt a little high. I used it twice, both con saves were passed, so both attacks did 70-80 damage and were halved for 35-40. That seems right, but the con save is a bit hefty. Though statistically unlikely, it does have the capacity to kill a character at level 6 outright. A CR of 17 puts it on par with an adult red dragon (CR 18 and you’re at demilich) and that seems like a more accurate frame of reference for this group. CR 17 is considered a hard encounter for this party, CR18 is considered deadly.
Overall, I think this is a great monster, but it may not be 5E friendly. In 5E, a lot of players are accustomed to winning. They refuse to run away (and couldn’t even if they wanted to with the seraphim’s 80 ft. of flying speed) and if they start to lose, they choose to punch it even harder (whether that’s a fault of 5E or a fault of the players that play 5E is up for debate). I would have loved to have them create this bulbous, gargantuan wing monster they needed to run from that they unleashed upon the world and they need to come back later and resolve, but I would have had some very seriously unhappy players and it’s beyond the scope of the current game I’m running. To make it 5E friendly, the sealing condition needs to be less dependent on a specific class or resource (bane/bless and holy water is pretty exclusively standard issue cleric equipment, and the party is in trouble without a cleric) so a damage type sealing condition might be necessary. Acid seems like a good choice, but it’s standard. As a winged creature, lightning might be a better choice because flying type Pokemon are weak to lightning attacks! XD
The seraphim might also need a maximum cap on wings as mentioned in part 1, a point where it can’t get any bigger because at 91 wings (455 effective HP), my players had no hope of defeating it through brute force without discovering the sealing condition, which without heavy prompting, they were nowhere close to doing that. Partially because they didn’t ask questions during the encounter, partially because they didn’t observe the monster before bull-rushing it; both faulty play styles of 5E players in my experience.