Friday, 23rd July 2021, 06:12 by svendre
You're sort of lucky if you manage to have ice form and unarmed damage and enough ac and dodging to reliably kill hydras unless you take your time before diving into the lair. I'm not saying impossible, but going melee with a hydra early/mid game isn't for someone who isn't fairly confident they know what they are doing.
The game you can play with them (which applies to all characters) is something akin to rat-ball. What I mean by that is, use whatever dirty tricks you can. Mostly, early on, the most powerful dirty tricks come from evocable items, even if you haven't trained them much. Here's an example list of things that can help kill them, either on their own, or weaken them enough before melee that your odds increase greatly:
Wands of acid - you might stop after you get it corroded... or keep going
Wands of ice - they don't miss, so if you know you have enough space, and charges, you can reduce them heavily, and reliably
Any launcher with freezing brand - peg it with stones if you have to.. because it'll get slowed which could help you kill it with all other methods more easily
Wands of charming - lair has a lot of dumb animals.. so try charming them to help you fight the hydra or at least divert some of it's damage
Scrolls of vulnerability + wands of paralysis - you could do it without the scroll, but it's more reliable. The hydra isn't going to cast a spell at you, so it's a relatively safe option
Lightning rods - if you're lucky enough to find one early on
Potions of might, potions of haste, etc. - Well, there's a time to save them and a time to just use them. If you're in a close scrape to nail a hydra, I'd say, burn one or two.
Spells - even some low level spells can make a hefty difference in a fight. Take wereblood for instance, you could get +9 slaying killing rats before you engage a hydra
There's a lot more things, point is - don't fight something on it's terms. Minimize monster strengths and maximize your strengths. A Hydra is a high damage melee creature, so try not to melee it as much as possible! This stuff also kind of applies to early dungeon ogres too.
- For this message the author svendre has received thanks:
- grinrain