The False Hydra 5e d&d

The false Hydra 5e is a fan-made homebrew monster that gained quite a lot of popularity for wicked Dungeon Masters. This creepy bugger tossed around a long time with a bunch of different models and iterations. 

Still, you can thank a guy named Goblin Punch for the first idea from his article here. Why did a homebrew critter get as much attention? Because it’s creepy, terrifying, and will screw with the minds of any party that needs to face it. The false Hydra is over a monster to fight. It’s a paranoia-inducing experience that will linger with your gamers forever. So sit back and attempt to keep your memories as we proceed through whatever you will need to know.

Hypothetical analysis

Imagine you walk into a small city; everything seems alright except it’s a little away. The town appears to be pretty big, but you do not see nearly as many people as there ought to be. Dozens of houses lie vacant and dilapidated, and everyone you ask says nobody lived in them. Animals maintain freaking out suddenly, you trip over seemingly nothing. You arrive at an inn run by a beautiful married couple. In the morning, only the spouse remains, and she claims she married, yells when you press her about it, and she does not know why.

This town is the unwitting lair of a mythological hydra, and you have likely already seen it and forgotten about it a dozen times since you have here.

If you are a Doctor Who fan, the fictitious Hydra is essential “the silence” in D&D monster form. Stat-wise, it’s not just weak, but it only has a couple of crucial bite and claw attacks. Its real power is its “blind tune”, which makes everyone forget that they ever saw anyone or it has eaten.

This whole notion is CREEPY and is a massive goldmine of roleplaying opportunities. People around the party keep disappearing, and they’re left to hunt for clues because their heads reject the creature staring them in the face.

FALSE HYDRA STATS

There is no “official” variant of this False Hydra because it started as more of a roleplaying concept rather than a stat block. But a free ruleset has become the agreed-upon standard that you may find on the DM’s Guild.

Blind Song: All hostile creatures which may hear the Hydra sing should make a DC15 Wisdom rescue throw at the beginning of their turn. In the event the Hydra participates with more than one mind, all hostile creatures have to subtract 1d4 in their rescue. On a failure, the monster forgets the Hydra is there.

ACTIONS

Multiattack: The Hydra can make use of a claw strike along with a bite attack on its turn.

Bite Melee Weapon Attack: range age-dependent +11 to strike, one target. Hit 23 (4d8 + 5) Piercing harm. If the goal is a very big or smaller creature, it is about grappling (escape DC 18) and requires 13 (2d8 + 5) constrict damage at the start of each of its turns before the grapple ends. The fictitious Hydra can grapple one monster per head at a time. Strike 5 (1d6 + 2.) 

The false Hydra engulfs a Huge or smaller creature grappled by it. The engulfed goal is blinded, controlled, and unable to breathe. It must succeed on a DC 25 Constitution saving throw at the beginning of each of the fictitious Hydra’s turns or accept 13 (2d8 + 5) bludgeoning damage. If the fictional Hydra’s head goes or it’s body moves, the engulfed goal moves onto it. The false Hydra can have only one creature destroyed in a time. If the target’s HP falls to 0 while consumed, or expires, it is immediately absorbed. See Grow Heads.

Sonic Blast

Sonic Blast (Recharge 5–6) The fictitious Hydra let’s out a vicious scream. Creatures within 60 ft of the mind that screams it must succeed on a DC 18 Constitution rescue throw or take 32 (5d10 + 5) sonic damage and be stunned for till the conclusion of the Hydra’s next turn. On a successful save they take half damage and aren’t stunned.

BONUS ACTIONS: The Hydra can use a bonus action to stop singing or maybe to start its tune with an extra head. The Hydra can make use of a bonus activity to begin regrowing a mind that has died. It requires three Regrowth bonus activities to regrow a sense fully. It regains 20 hit points each time that it uses Regrowth.

REACTIONS

The Hydra will make two responses per round provided that it’s three or more heads. After taking damage, the Hydra may utilize a reply to wail. Creatures within 5ft of the Hydra as it wails take 2d4 psychic damage.

Physically, the false Hydra resembles a “dull” hydra at a superficial way but is a creature altogether far more disquieting and menacing. It’s pallid, almost white skin. And while it has multiple long-necked heads such as a hydra, each head is uncannily humanoid in shape with savage teeth and blackened pits set up of eyes. It prefers to devote its time mostly underground. So the first and frequently only time observed is as a single white humanoid head snaking up from the floor and dragging its prey underground and devours.

Seeking these stats, you need to notice several minor templating errors (it’s homebrew content after all). But there’s also something rather significant missing, the CR. It is HP and its most vital skills ties to the number of minds. So it is a sort of throttle to produce the monster easier or more difficult. It advocates using “several minds equal to half of the amount of PCs + 1” that for the state the standard celebration of 4 players will mean three heads.

My Interpretation

It’s never explicitly stated (unless I was a bonehead and missed it somewhere) the way you kill every “head”. The “standard” hydras have rules concerning chopping of heads that the false Hydra is sorely missing. I urge either lopping off a head every 100 hit points or to make it a bit easier, a head each time it takes a critical hit.

This danger throttling makes it hard to judge CR, but I would not throw even a one headed variant at any group lower than grade 6. I feel as the charming place here is a degree 7 to 8 encounter. Any higher and the Hydra’s real attacks start to feel token and unimpactful. CR calculators will put it around CR 10. Still, it is weighted so heavily onto the quite frankly ridiculously high hit points that I’d place it a bit lower.

Though, this is a roleplaying encounter, not just a monster slugfest. Your players should slowly become more paranoid and concerned before the actual fight. The stat block on DM’s guild comes with a whole city worth of those experiences that can blend up beautifully to the gut-wrenching climax. But, you can set up false hydra scenarios in almost any setting.

Assumptions

Set your town with plenty of little clues and unexplained mysteries. Emphasize people lost, the survivor’s missing memories, and elude to townsfolk only to have their very memory missing the next day. I also adored the animals responding to the 5e false Hydra and individuals tripping across the beast to forget it immediately.

Assuming three heads, so your PCs will soon be making a DC 15 Wisdom save with a – 2d4 modifier since they enter the town. The odds are in favour that they will all fail this at the beginning, but if they don’t, they’ll all fail. It happens every turn, and even when they succeed, they get glimpses at the beginning (don’t want to spoil the fun early).

It would be best if you run your players through multiple encounters with townsfolk that give them more and more reason to think something isn’t right. Eventually, however, you’re going to need to provide your players with a chunk of information to use. Let them find a publication using a legend of the fictitious Hydra, or even a spiritual story with obscure illusions to a memory eating demon. Maybe you could offer them a crazed NPC holed up in town with plugged up ears.

5e False Hydra

Nevertheless, they finally figure out what is going on; they’ll still need to find a way to fight the false Hydra without forgetting it. You can let them come up with their strategies. But they’re usually are three ways they could do it, and you will need to offer hints for one of these:

Plugged Ears: Logically, this must work, the Hydra’s tune can’t impact them if they can not hear it. If they go this route, they should all have the deafened condition throughout the fight.

Mirrors: Just Like fighting Medusa, you can leave hints that utilizing mirrors to combat the creature allows you to recall it due to the degree of separation. Should they do so, have them make their strikes at a drawback.

Authentic Seeing/ Similar Divination:  Suppose the party has a caster with true sight or comparable effects. They ought to have the ability to resist false Hydra without worrying about it. (Or at least may still observe the threat each round, even if they forget how it got there).

Mindsong

Mindsong: The false Hydra sings a harrowing melody that’s heard by anyone within 5 miles. Just one mind needs to sing, and having different heads join the song provides no benefits. Creatures are attending the song gain openings in their memory. If a person enters a room with a false hydra, the music will cause the person to forget that the Hydra has been there.

This song does not alter reality, just perception. A woman who lost her husband might find it confusing to find men’s clothing in her home as she recalls no husband. This effect doesn’t work on individuals that are deaf or centred on the thing the gap replaces. For example, the girls above may witness the Hydra eating a guy, and recall it all during the occasion, but forget it the moment she looks away.

As individuals are victims into the mindsong, they risk gaining split minds. The victim does not notice this. But the half of the brain that could see (but not hear) may try to notify the victim of this Hydra. Each half controls half the body. The half that can not hear does not restrain address. That may appear as the left hand inserting text into a notice that the victim is composing, or scratch letters into their chest as they sleep. Since the mindsong still impacts the right mind, they may never observe the correspondence. However, the scars on their chest are more challenging to blank out of their mind.

Innate Spellcasting

Innate Spellcasting: The 5e false Hydra’s inherent spellcasting capability is Charisma (spell save DC 20). It could innately cast the following spells, requiring no components:

• At will: detect ideas
• 3/day: dominate monster
• Legendary Resistance (3/Day) If the false Hydra fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

Multiple Heads: The false hydra profits another activity per turn equivalent to the number of heads it has. If the fictitious Hydra has three heads, then it has three actions on it which turn (along with manoeuvre and bonus activities ). It does not gain extra move and bonus activities. Each head can extend several hundred feet from its body based on the time of the fictitious Hydra. See the table:

• Young (1-2 Heads): 120 ft. range
• Teen (3-4 Heads): 240 ft. range
• Mature (5-6 Heads): 480 ft. range
• Elder (7 Heads): 1240 ft. range

A head can recoil into its own body or take out into the complete range for a move action. The heads motion may provoke an attack of opportunity, and all areas of the neck and head become a target if protracted.

Grow Taller

Grow Taller: The false Hydra eats animals. It has a cumulative prospect of developing a new head. For every creature size below with an Int of 4 or greater, the false Hydra includes an incremental opportunity to cultivate a new mind upon consumption.

• Tiny: 1%
• Small: 3 per cent
• Medium: 5%
• Big: 8%

When the creature has class levels, raise the chance by 2%. By way of instance, a Little Fighter is a cumulative 5% chance. Suppose the fictitious Hydra subsequently ate a Big Wizard. In that case, he’d obtain an additional 10% chance for a total of 15% chance to grow a mind. After a head increases, the percentage chance reduces to 0.

The untrue Hydra can take three legendary actions, choosing from the choices below. It may take only one legendary action at one time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The fictitious Hydra regains spent legendary acts at the beginning of its turn.

Bite The false Hydra produces a sting attack.

Sonic Pulse: The false Hydra aims a creature within range of one of it is heads and blasts it with a cone of sound. Creatures within a 15-foot cone take 15 (5d6) sonic harm.

Summary of False Hydra 5e d&d

My closing note for conducting the 5e false Hydra is don’t be too cruel by it. Once the players are catching on to what is going down, you should let them work it out and do not keep “mind-wiping” them when they get close. Also, be conscious of the false Hydra’s burrow speed. It’s fair to use it to lure the PCs into an underground lair for the final fight, but don’t be bothersome and use it to play keep away. The false Hydra ought to be all about paranoia and fright, not frustration.

Should you end up in a fictitious hydra lair (and you are naughtily looking up hints here). You’re stuck before you can identify the problem. That is going to depend on which tidbits that your DM provides you or some excellent Wisdom saves.

I will say that this battle is prone to metaknowledge issues, and you ought to try and play as if your memories wipe out whenever you fail against the tune.

After you and your party can work out the issue, the easiest solution is plugging up everyone’s ears and simply hacking the thing to pieces. The deafened state is moderate as a punishment, and while the memory loss is daunting the fictitious Hydra’s actual attacks are rather lacklustre.

The only wrinkle in this simple final fight is the fictitious Hydra’s burrow speed, which won’t be a factor unless your DM wishes to be incredibly irritating. If the DM wants to play store, try going for a grapple or a hold monster spell to help keep the thing from scurrying away in the last minute.

The False Hydra 5e d&d

The false Hydra 5e is a fan-made homebrew monster that gained quite a lot of popularity for wicked Dungeon Masters. This creepy bugger tossed around a long time with a bunch of different models and iterations. 

Still, you can thank a guy named Goblin Punch for the first idea from his article here. Why did a homebrew critter get as much attention? Because it’s creepy, terrifying, and will screw with the minds of any party that needs to face it. The false Hydra is over a monster to fight. It’s a paranoia-inducing experience that will linger with your gamers forever. So sit back and attempt to keep your memories as we proceed through whatever you will need to know.

Hypothetical analysis

Imagine you walk into a small city; everything seems alright except it’s a little away. The town appears to be pretty big, but you do not see nearly as many people as there ought to be. Dozens of houses lie vacant and dilapidated, and everyone you ask says nobody lived in them. Animals maintain freaking out suddenly, you trip over seemingly nothing. You arrive at an inn run by a beautiful married couple. In the morning, only the spouse remains, and she claims she married, yells when you press her about it, and she does not know why.

This town is the unwitting lair of a mythological hydra, and you have likely already seen it and forgotten about it a dozen times since you have here.

If you are a Doctor Who fan, the fictitious Hydra is essential “the silence” in D&D monster form. Stat-wise, it’s not just weak, but it only has a couple of crucial bite and claw attacks. Its real power is its “blind tune”, which makes everyone forget that they ever saw anyone or it has eaten.

This whole notion is CREEPY and is a massive goldmine of roleplaying opportunities. People around the party keep disappearing, and they’re left to hunt for clues because their heads reject the creature staring them in the face.

FALSE HYDRA STATS

There is no “official” variant of this False Hydra because it started as more of a roleplaying concept rather than a stat block. But a free ruleset has become the agreed-upon standard that you may find on the DM’s Guild.

Blind Song: All hostile creatures which may hear the Hydra sing should make a DC15 Wisdom rescue throw at the beginning of their turn. In the event the Hydra participates with more than one mind, all hostile creatures have to subtract 1d4 in their rescue. On a failure, the monster forgets the Hydra is there.

ACTIONS

Multiattack: The Hydra can make use of a claw strike along with a bite attack on its turn.

Bite Melee Weapon Attack: range age-dependent +11 to strike, one target. Hit 23 (4d8 + 5) Piercing harm. If the goal is a very big or smaller creature, it is about grappling (escape DC 18) and requires 13 (2d8 + 5) constrict damage at the start of each of its turns before the grapple ends. The fictitious Hydra can grapple one monster per head at a time. Strike 5 (1d6 + 2.) 

The false Hydra engulfs a Huge or smaller creature grappled by it. The engulfed goal is blinded, controlled, and unable to breathe. It must succeed on a DC 25 Constitution saving throw at the beginning of each of the fictitious Hydra’s turns or accept 13 (2d8 + 5) bludgeoning damage. If the fictional Hydra’s head goes or it’s body moves, the engulfed goal moves onto it. The false Hydra can have only one creature destroyed in a time. If the target’s HP falls to 0 while consumed, or expires, it is immediately absorbed. See Grow Heads.

Sonic Blast

Sonic Blast (Recharge 5–6) The fictitious Hydra let’s out a vicious scream. Creatures within 60 ft of the mind that screams it must succeed on a DC 18 Constitution rescue throw or take 32 (5d10 + 5) sonic damage and be stunned for till the conclusion of the Hydra’s next turn. On a successful save they take half damage and aren’t stunned.

BONUS ACTIONS: The Hydra can use a bonus action to stop singing or maybe to start its tune with an extra head. The Hydra can make use of a bonus activity to begin regrowing a mind that has died. It requires three Regrowth bonus activities to regrow a sense fully. It regains 20 hit points each time that it uses Regrowth.

REACTIONS

The Hydra will make two responses per round provided that it’s three or more heads. After taking damage, the Hydra may utilize a reply to wail. Creatures within 5ft of the Hydra as it wails take 2d4 psychic damage.

Physically, the false Hydra resembles a “dull” hydra at a superficial way but is a creature altogether far more disquieting and menacing. It’s pallid, almost white skin. And while it has multiple long-necked heads such as a hydra, each head is uncannily humanoid in shape with savage teeth and blackened pits set up of eyes. It prefers to devote its time mostly underground. So the first and frequently only time observed is as a single white humanoid head snaking up from the floor and dragging its prey underground and devours.

Seeking these stats, you need to notice several minor templating errors (it’s homebrew content after all). But there’s also something rather significant missing, the CR. It is HP and its most vital skills ties to the number of minds. So it is a sort of throttle to produce the monster easier or more difficult. It advocates using “several minds equal to half of the amount of PCs + 1” that for the state the standard celebration of 4 players will mean three heads.

My Interpretation

It’s never explicitly stated (unless I was a bonehead and missed it somewhere) the way you kill every “head”. The “standard” hydras have rules concerning chopping of heads that the false Hydra is sorely missing. I urge either lopping off a head every 100 hit points or to make it a bit easier, a head each time it takes a critical hit.

This danger throttling makes it hard to judge CR, but I would not throw even a one headed variant at any group lower than grade 6. I feel as the charming place here is a degree 7 to 8 encounter. Any higher and the Hydra’s real attacks start to feel token and unimpactful. CR calculators will put it around CR 10. Still, it is weighted so heavily onto the quite frankly ridiculously high hit points that I’d place it a bit lower.

Though, this is a roleplaying encounter, not just a monster slugfest. Your players should slowly become more paranoid and concerned before the actual fight. The stat block on DM’s guild comes with a whole city worth of those experiences that can blend up beautifully to the gut-wrenching climax. But, you can set up false hydra scenarios in almost any setting.

Assumptions

Set your town with plenty of little clues and unexplained mysteries. Emphasize people lost, the survivor’s missing memories, and elude to townsfolk only to have their very memory missing the next day. I also adored the animals responding to the 5e false Hydra and individuals tripping across the beast to forget it immediately.

Assuming three heads, so your PCs will soon be making a DC 15 Wisdom save with a – 2d4 modifier since they enter the town. The odds are in favour that they will all fail this at the beginning, but if they don’t, they’ll all fail. It happens every turn, and even when they succeed, they get glimpses at the beginning (don’t want to spoil the fun early).

It would be best if you run your players through multiple encounters with townsfolk that give them more and more reason to think something isn’t right. Eventually, however, you’re going to need to provide your players with a chunk of information to use. Let them find a publication using a legend of the fictitious Hydra, or even a spiritual story with obscure illusions to a memory eating demon. Maybe you could offer them a crazed NPC holed up in town with plugged up ears.

5e False Hydra

Nevertheless, they finally figure out what is going on; they’ll still need to find a way to fight the false Hydra without forgetting it. You can let them come up with their strategies. But they’re usually are three ways they could do it, and you will need to offer hints for one of these:

Plugged Ears: Logically, this must work, the Hydra’s tune can’t impact them if they can not hear it. If they go this route, they should all have the deafened condition throughout the fight.

Mirrors: Just Like fighting Medusa, you can leave hints that utilizing mirrors to combat the creature allows you to recall it due to the degree of separation. Should they do so, have them make their strikes at a drawback.

Authentic Seeing/ Similar Divination:  Suppose the party has a caster with true sight or comparable effects. They ought to have the ability to resist false Hydra without worrying about it. (Or at least may still observe the threat each round, even if they forget how it got there).

Mindsong

Mindsong: The false Hydra sings a harrowing melody that’s heard by anyone within 5 miles. Just one mind needs to sing, and having different heads join the song provides no benefits. Creatures are attending the song gain openings in their memory. If a person enters a room with a false hydra, the music will cause the person to forget that the Hydra has been there.

This song does not alter reality, just perception. A woman who lost her husband might find it confusing to find men’s clothing in her home as she recalls no husband. This effect doesn’t work on individuals that are deaf or centred on the thing the gap replaces. For example, the girls above may witness the Hydra eating a guy, and recall it all during the occasion, but forget it the moment she looks away.

As individuals are victims into the mindsong, they risk gaining split minds. The victim does not notice this. But the half of the brain that could see (but not hear) may try to notify the victim of this Hydra. Each half controls half the body. The half that can not hear does not restrain address. That may appear as the left hand inserting text into a notice that the victim is composing, or scratch letters into their chest as they sleep. Since the mindsong still impacts the right mind, they may never observe the correspondence. However, the scars on their chest are more challenging to blank out of their mind.

Innate Spellcasting

Innate Spellcasting: The 5e false Hydra’s inherent spellcasting capability is Charisma (spell save DC 20). It could innately cast the following spells, requiring no components:

• At will: detect ideas
• 3/day: dominate monster
• Legendary Resistance (3/Day) If the false Hydra fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

Multiple Heads: The false hydra profits another activity per turn equivalent to the number of heads it has. If the fictitious Hydra has three heads, then it has three actions on it which turn (along with manoeuvre and bonus activities ). It does not gain extra move and bonus activities. Each head can extend several hundred feet from its body based on the time of the fictitious Hydra. See the table:

• Young (1-2 Heads): 120 ft. range
• Teen (3-4 Heads): 240 ft. range
• Mature (5-6 Heads): 480 ft. range
• Elder (7 Heads): 1240 ft. range

A head can recoil into its own body or take out into the complete range for a move action. The heads motion may provoke an attack of opportunity, and all areas of the neck and head become a target if protracted.

Grow Taller

Grow Taller: The false Hydra eats animals. It has a cumulative prospect of developing a new head. For every creature size below with an Int of 4 or greater, the false Hydra includes an incremental opportunity to cultivate a new mind upon consumption.

• Tiny: 1%
• Small: 3 per cent
• Medium: 5%
• Big: 8%

When the creature has class levels, raise the chance by 2%. By way of instance, a Little Fighter is a cumulative 5% chance. Suppose the fictitious Hydra subsequently ate a Big Wizard. In that case, he’d obtain an additional 10% chance for a total of 15% chance to grow a mind. After a head increases, the percentage chance reduces to 0.

The untrue Hydra can take three legendary actions, choosing from the choices below. It may take only one legendary action at one time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The fictitious Hydra regains spent legendary acts at the beginning of its turn.

Bite The false Hydra produces a sting attack.

Sonic Pulse: The false Hydra aims a creature within range of one of it is heads and blasts it with a cone of sound. Creatures within a 15-foot cone take 15 (5d6) sonic harm.

Summary of False Hydra 5e d&d

My closing note for conducting the 5e false Hydra is don’t be too cruel by it. Once the players are catching on to what is going down, you should let them work it out and do not keep “mind-wiping” them when they get close. Also, be conscious of the false Hydra’s burrow speed. It’s fair to use it to lure the PCs into an underground lair for the final fight, but don’t be bothersome and use it to play keep away. The false Hydra ought to be all about paranoia and fright, not frustration.

Should you end up in a fictitious hydra lair (and you are naughtily looking up hints here). You’re stuck before you can identify the problem. That is going to depend on which tidbits that your DM provides you or some excellent Wisdom saves.

I will say that this battle is prone to metaknowledge issues, and you ought to try and play as if your memories wipe out whenever you fail against the tune.

After you and your party can work out the issue, the easiest solution is plugging up everyone’s ears and simply hacking the thing to pieces. The deafened state is moderate as a punishment, and while the memory loss is daunting the fictitious Hydra’s actual attacks are rather lacklustre.

The only wrinkle in this simple final fight is the fictitious Hydra’s burrow speed, which won’t be a factor unless your DM wishes to be incredibly irritating. If the DM wants to play store, try going for a grapple or a hold monster spell to help keep the thing from scurrying away in the last minute.