Author Topic: Managing a hydra  (Read 881 times)

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Offline OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol

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Managing a hydra
« on: June 28, 2022, 05:23:46 PM »
"Hail, Hydra! Immortal Hydra! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off a limb and two more…"
Oh, wait, wrong hydra.

So, this thread is about managing a RM2 hydra, of course. So, the question is: did any of you GMs ever have to use a hydra? If you did, how did you manage the headache that are its heads? We all know what a hydra (the magical beast, not the actual animal…) is: several heads, if one severed, two new heads spring from the stump, etc.
Okay.
The issue is that, RM2 not having a targeting system, how do you target the body, the main head or any other head? As a matter of fact, how do you even determine, without anyone purposely trying to target anything, whether the body, the main head or any other head is struck?
Of course, you may tell me that "in RM2, the critical table actually serves the purpose of a location system, specifying which body area is struck".
Fair enough. So, in order to determine which location of the hydra is struck, I merely need to roll on the critical table. Meaning, I merely need to determine which critical table to use.
Fair enough. So, let's see which critical table to use when dealing with a hydra. The hydra RM2 statistics state that the "primary head and body defend on (the) super large crit(ical) table, other heads use (the) large crit(ical) table".
Fair enough. So, since the critical table used depends on the location being struck, in order to determine which critical table to use, I merely need to determine which location is struck.

…waitaminute.
Houston, we have a problem…
The world was then consumed by darkness, and mankind was devoured alive and cast into hell, led by a jubilant 紗羽. She rejoiced in being able to continue serving the gods, thus perpetuating her travels across worlds to destroy them. She looked at her doll and, remembering their promises, told her: "You see, my dear, we succeeded! We've become legends! We've become villains! We've become witches!" She then laughed with a joyful, childlike laughter, just as she kept doing for all of eternity.

Offline EltonJ

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Re: Managing a hydra
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2022, 05:39:49 PM »
"Will you stop with the head slicing thing already!"

I never had to use a Hydra in my games, but it would be interesting to use.  I would think called shots is something I would use on a hydra.

Offline OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol

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Re: Managing a hydra
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2022, 06:07:52 PM »
Thing is: RMU has called shots, RM2 has not.
The world was then consumed by darkness, and mankind was devoured alive and cast into hell, led by a jubilant 紗羽. She rejoiced in being able to continue serving the gods, thus perpetuating her travels across worlds to destroy them. She looked at her doll and, remembering their promises, told her: "You see, my dear, we succeeded! We've become legends! We've become villains! We've become witches!" She then laughed with a joyful, childlike laughter, just as she kept doing for all of eternity.

Offline rdanhenry

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Re: Managing a hydra
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2022, 06:46:56 PM »
I think with something as large as a hydra, it may have been assumed that you could "attack the body" or "attack that head" without needed a "called shot", especially since the heads "operate independently", so are essentially many creatures on one body.
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Offline Jengada

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Re: Managing a hydra
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2022, 07:09:35 PM »
That may be one of the most broken creatures in the book! It doesn't appear to have been improved in RMSS, either, the text is much the same.

My first inclination is to split out the HP for body and heads, and treat as separate creatures. That allows adding heads easily, too. My first, totally unscientific (because, you know, there is a science to this), split would take the 380 HP and the most common 9 heads and say:
Each Head=30 HP
Body=110 HP
Those seem ridiculously low, but remember they all show up at once, and then they bring their friends.
You could get more specific and give more points to the primary head. Or you could look at the probabilities of the different #s of heads and figure, the expectation value of heads is 8, not 9. (I told you there's a science.)

I notice that C&T says the heads only need to be killed, not severed, which makes it easier to run but also more deadly.
The last part I would ponder is, how long does it take to cauterize a hydra neck? I'd probably let any fire-spell do it in 1 round, but torches and the like might do a maneuver roll (Hard, as long as the melee is going?) and the % result is how much you cauterized.

Side note, "Hard" really is hard. If used for an all-or-nothing maneuver with no bonus, there's only a 28% chance of success. Medium is 37%. I'd probably just go with Medium, on second thought.
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Offline Elrich Maltah

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Re: Managing a hydra
« Reply #5 on: June 28, 2022, 07:50:49 PM »
RM2 does have a set of rules for Strategic Targeting found in Arms Companion 4.15. That might be able to be modified to work against a Hydra.

Offline Spectre771

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Re: Managing a hydra
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2022, 04:54:13 PM »
RM2 does have a set of rules for Strategic Targeting found in Arms Companion 4.15. That might be able to be modified to work against a Hydra.

Beat me to it. lol.

The called shots penalties are pretty high so most of my players just roll the dice and take the crit result.  For something like a hydra, they would more likely opt for a called shot and deal with the penalty rather than have more heads pop out at them.
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Offline OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol

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Re: Managing a hydra
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2022, 07:59:47 AM »
Everyone, thanks for the input. Many excellent ideas there.
Here follows a report of how I managed the hydra, and how my players enjoyed it.

As an introduction, I looked at how RMU manages it. Well, not so well either… Though it's better in that, by default, one always hits a head, so the body may only be hit through a called shot, there's no ruling about how to determine that a head is "killed" or severed, nor how to stop it growing back into two heads. There's no "primary head" BTW.

Anyway, rdanhenry's initial idea of treating each head, the primary head and the body as independent opponents, furthered by Jengada's detailed answer was my starting point. I considered the primary head and body as a H/SL 380G AT19(40) creature without the breath attack, and gave each head 10% of the hit points, rounded up, so each was a H/LA 40G AT19(40) creature with a breath attack.
As I really think a head should be severed to "defeat", I ruled that a head only takes one third damage from any attack (including magical) not associated with a slash critical, with the body and primary head taking full damage. Once a head reaches 0 hit points, it is considered "severed" and starts to regenerate (in 2d10 rounds); whilst it's doing so, any heat critical cauterises it. For tries made from torch attacks, I "merely" used the "attack with torch" rules from the "Arms Companion" (chapter 6.27, p48). Oh, and it may not have more than ten heads in all at a given time. :p

I didn't use Elrich Maltah's suggestion about the A.C.'s strategic targeting rules, because I would have needed to create and assign the B.A.M. and random hit location table, since these rules are pretty much just the (old) RuneQuest location rules adapted to RM2… and a pain to do all by oneself.

All in all, my players loved it… meaning that they found the hydra to be a pain in the ass. Considering their experience as players, meaning they all knew what an hydra is and how it's supposed to be defeated, and the fact the characters were prepared, the hydra being able to go beyond their expectations, be a pain, and provide an interesting combat gaming experience is what I consider a success.

So, many thanks to all of you guys!

P.S. If any RMU's team member is reading this, he may want to go back and redesign the hydra in RMU. :)
The world was then consumed by darkness, and mankind was devoured alive and cast into hell, led by a jubilant 紗羽. She rejoiced in being able to continue serving the gods, thus perpetuating her travels across worlds to destroy them. She looked at her doll and, remembering their promises, told her: "You see, my dear, we succeeded! We've become legends! We've become villains! We've become witches!" She then laughed with a joyful, childlike laughter, just as she kept doing for all of eternity.

Offline Majyk

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Re: Managing a hydra
« Reply #8 on: July 09, 2022, 10:34:23 PM »
 Next to RM2s Elemental Companion for P.E.M. Poisoning for Elementals & Wyrms, Arms Companion is the next best supplement for great rules to spice up one’s games.

Congrats on a great session the group will tell memorable stories of in the future.

PS, hopefully nobody got any positional boni from the fight because…you know…
 ;D