Ooze Intelligent Race? 3.5

[MycdRuba]

Is there such a thing? It seems that there is a race for every type of creature: Construct, Abberation, Outsider, Animal. What I haven't seen yet though is an ooze.

I wish to find or create an ooze race for a gestalt game I am playing in. It is level 12 so LA isn't really an issue. What I would be looking for is the ooze type, the immunities attached to that, the ability to shift into goo (perhaps as gaseous form or swarmshifter varient template), and perhaps the ability to shift limbs into a weapon of my choosing.

Is this possible? Does it exist or do I have to wing it and create what I want?

[Chilingsworth]

Savage Species has an Ooze creature template (not sure if it's actually called "ooze creature," though.)

There are also a few sentient oozes in some of the later monster manuals.

[MycdRuba]

I remember that but as with all oozes it leaves them with an int of 0/-, making them useless as a playable race

[Togath]

Um, what?, where does it say ozzes can't have an int score?, looking at the description of the ooze type it says that Most oozes are mindless, it doesn't say they can't be smart ooze, though I can't think of any creature of the ooze type like that off the top of my head that isn't a homebrewed one, it would be easy enough to make one.

[Dragonsoul]

Apply Fiendish Template to an ooze, it boosts it to int 3 (Now has mental image of a succubus going up a gelatinous cube... "Hey stranger" brrr)

[Togath]

That reminds me of the conflagration ooze, I'm pretty sure that one had a fairly high Int score(also has advanced stats with the half-fiend template apllied), from mm3, I knew that I had seen an intelligent ooze in a rulebook somewhere

[Ravens_cry]

The Cursed Cold One from Sandstorm may be an Aberration, but it looks like Jello with pineapple chunks inside. And by pineapple chunks, I mean a person (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sand_gallery/87612.jpg). Sounds oozish to me. +3 LA I believe.

[MycdRuba]

hmm...I'll have to show it to my dm. He is hesitant of savage species, more so with sandstorm since my walker of the wastes character...

Any ideas on my last two pieces? the gooey escape plan and the morphing weapon?

[Tanuki Tales]

Gelatinous creature doesn't make you an Ooze, fyi.

[Person_Man]

While this isn't exactly what you're looking for, there is an Ooze themed Slime Lord prestige class in the Player's Guide to Faerun. It gives you a fairly strong Paralyze attack, Charm Monster, Supernatural Alter Self at will with no cap on duration or number of uses (which can be very potent if you know what you're doing), and a fairly useful list of ooze-like immunities.

There's also the Oozemaster in Races of the Wild, but I can't remember if it's any good or not.

[MycdRuba]

I will go look at both, since I have never looked at them before and may prove to be useful

[CTrees]

Sentry ooze! Dungeonscape, I think? Seem to remember that gave Int >2.

[Greenish]

Is there such a thing? It seems that there is a race for every type of creature: Construct, Abberation, Outsider, Animal. What I haven't seen yet though is an ooze.Is there a playable race with animal type somewhere?


Sentry ooze! Dungeonscape, I think? Seem to remember that gave Int >2.Sentry Ooze is +2 int, among other modifiers, indeed.

[mootoall]

There's a homebrew Gelatinous Cube monster class somewhere on the Homebrew boards, iirc. Thrall of Jubilex is another PrC you might wanna look into.

[tyckspoon]

Is there a playable race with animal type somewhere?


Shouldn't be; when they get Int 3 or greater, they should get converted to Magical Beast. Awakened Animals would be the closest. They're officially Magical Beasts, but the (Augmented Animal) subtype means they're still considered Animals for most things that matter. Unfortunately there aren't any rules for determining the LA/total ECL on them, so it's kind of stretching it to call them 'playable' by the rules.

[MycdRuba]

I was talking about awakened animals, though that is still considered iffy.

[Tetrasodium]

Go with GQ's family http://rustyandco.com/comic/level-4-19/ :)

[Darrin]

This post lists the intelligent oozes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10529104&postcount=4), and this one has some other ooze-related musings (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10628776&postcount=11).

(I still love the idea of a Summoning Ooze as the basis for a BBEG.)

There's some overlap between ooze/aberration, but I can't say there's really anything that jumps out as a "race". Chaos Beast, maybe?

[CTrees]

Ah, summoning ooze was what I was trying to remember when I hit on sentry ooze. Good stuff.

Kinda tempted to homebrew a metal slime monster, except if I had any players familiar with the dragon quest/warrior series... they'd kill me, lol.

[Gabe the Bard]

The Ulb (http://dragonstarsrd.freehostia.com/races/ulb.htm) are an intelligent race descended from oozes in the Dragonstar universe. They can grow multiple limbs and hold extra weapons with their "extra secondary limb" racial feat.

The picture in the book is pretty great: an ooze wearing a backpack and holding a blaster pistol in its pseudopod.

[erikun]

The Cursed Cold One from Sandstorm may be an Aberration, but it looks like Jello with pineapple chunks inside. And by pineapple chunks, I mean a person (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sand_gallery/87612.jpg). Sounds oozish to me. +3 LA I believe.
Actually, I think that's an undead. And the monster isn't the "jello", it's the creature inside. That's actually a block of ice containing the creature temporarily.

At least, that is the last monster I saw for that image. WotC has been a fan or recycling pictures quite a bit, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised if someone thought it looked like Jello and made a slime-monster out of it. :smallannoyed:

[Greenish]

Actually, I think that's an undead.Nope, Gelun's an aberration.

You're right though, no gel there, just a block of ice encasing the poor bastard.

[Milo v3]

The Cursed Cold One from Sandstorm may be an Aberration, but it looks like Jello with pineapple chunks inside. And by pineapple chunks, I mean a person (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/sand_gallery/87612.jpg). Sounds oozish to me. +3 LA I believe.

Its a skeletal humanoid with freezes when it gets too cold it has nothing to do with an ooze at all.

[Tvtyrant]

Thrall of Jubilex class?

[Zaq]

Actually, I think that's an undead. And the monster isn't the "jello", it's the creature inside. That's actually a block of ice containing the creature temporarily.

At least, that is the last monster I saw for that image. WotC has been a fan or recycling pictures quite a bit, so perhaps I shouldn't be surprised if someone thought it looked like Jello and made a slime-monster out of it. :smallannoyed:

You may be thinking of the Entombed, from Frostburn.

Pic:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/fb_gallery/83552.jpg

[Vizzerdrix]

I've seen an ooze like race in one of the Faerun books.

[Dexam]

I've seen an ooze like race in one of the Faerun books.

You're probably thinking of the Slyth from the FR Underdark book. They are Humanoids with the Shapechanger subtype who have an ooze-like alternate form they can assume for 10 minutes/level as a standard action. They can't attack, cast spells, or use supernatural abilities while they are in the alternate form.

[Tetsubo 57]

The Ulb (http://dragonstarsrd.freehostia.com/races/ulb.htm) are an intelligent race descended from oozes in the Dragonstar universe. They can grow multiple limbs and hold extra weapons with their "extra secondary limb" racial feat.

The picture in the book is pretty great: an ooze wearing a backpack and holding a blaster pistol in its pseudopod.

A Dralasite by any other name. :)

How would you do a Pathfinder version of an Ulb? I absolutely love the idea of an ooze race.

[Morph Bark]

Apply Fiendish Template to an ooze, it boosts it to int 3 (Now has mental image of a succubus going up a gelatinous cube... "Hey stranger" brrr)

Es muy sexy.

[CTrees]

I've seenheard about a hentai pretty much exactly like that...

[tyckspoon]

How would you do a Pathfinder version of an Ulb? I absolutely love the idea of an ooze race.

Chop off the LA, the Radiation Susceptibility (just because it makes no sense in your typical fantasy world), call it good. The ooze immunities are probably still a bit too strong, but I think it'd be close enough to the Pathfinder standard to be getting on with... oh, and fix this:


All piecing weapons have their critical multiplier increased by 1 when used on an ulb.


Further, they are not subject to critical hits

If you felt they needed another weakness (currently, when compared to Pathfinder standard: They're slow, their sense range is hard-limited to 60 feet, and they have net zero-sum stat adjustments- most Pathfinder races get net +2), make them explicitly susceptible to crits from piercing weapons so that trait actually *does* something instead of being nulled by general ooze-ness.

[faceroll]

Shouldn't be; when they get Int 3 or greater, they should get converted to Magical Beast. Awakened Animals would be the closest. They're officially Magical Beasts, but the (Augmented Animal) subtype means they're still considered Animals for most things that matter. Unfortunately there aren't any rules for determining the LA/total ECL on them, so it's kind of stretching it to call them 'playable' by the rules.

I've always wondered what happens when you put a headband of intellect on a house cat.

[Urpriest]

I've always wondered what happens when you put a headband of intellect on a house cat.

IMO, your character simply never chooses to. The rules state that no creature with Int 3+ can be an animal, and nothing says it turns into anything else. Since all creatures have types, it can't just cease to be an animal, so the situation must never occur. Thus PCs (and NPCs) never decide to put a headband of intellect on the cat. It's a RAW restriction on player actions.

[faceroll]

IMO, your character simply never chooses to. The rules state that no creature with Int 3+ can be an animal, and nothing says it turns into anything else. Since all creatures have types, it can't just cease to be an animal, so the situation must never occur. Thus PCs (and NPCs) never decide to put a headband of intellect on the cat. It's a RAW restriction on player actions.

............................:smallconfused:

[Tvtyrant]

............................:smallconfused:

This. It is like arguing that the lack of scientific knowledge suggests no one can think in terms of science.

[sreservoir]

IMO, your character simply never chooses to. The rules state that no creature with Int 3+ can be an animal, and nothing says it turns into anything else. Since all creatures have types, it can't just cease to be an animal, so the situation must never occur. Thus PCs (and NPCs) never decide to put a headband of intellect on the cat. It's a RAW restriction on player actions.

when you put the headband on a housecat, it ceases to be a creature, because can't be an animal and it doesn't have a different type, and all creatures have a type. now, if it is not a creature, the headband does not affect it; nothing invalidates it as a creature, so it is a creature. so it is affected by the headband.

is this housecat a creature?

[Urpriest]

This. It is like arguing that the lack of scientific knowledge suggests no one can think in terms of science.

No, more that you can't have magnetic monopoles because you can't consistently describe them with a vector potential. Except that if we discovered monopoles we'd just come up with a new, more comprehensive physical description.

I guess the equivalent here is the necessity of homebrew.

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

the necessity of homebrew.For intelligent animals that keep the animal type? Because I found thi

[Tetsubo 57]

I've always wondered what happens when you put a headband of intellect on a house cat.

I would give it the sub-type: Magical Beast (augmented animal). It would obviously be a temporary sub-type. And sort of cruel really. Essentially a temporary version of the Awaken spell.

[Tvtyrant]

The real question is how good its memory would be swapping back and forth; it could be a really good way to spy on people. Put the headband on a cat and have it tell you what the king said to its councilor.

[AMFV]

My wife was trying to figure out this same thing a while back, I can't remember what for. I think she settled on fiendish creature which gives an Ooze Int 3, but let's it stay an ooze. Somehow this let's you have a creature with int 3 (as stated in the fiendish creature template), but retaining the mindless trait, which is pretty cool.

[NNescio]

when you put the headband on a housecat, it ceases to be a creature, because can't be an animal and it doesn't have a different type, and all creatures have a type. now, if it is not a creature, the headband does not affect it; nothing invalidates it as a creature, so it is a creature. so it is affected by the headband.

is this housecat a creature?

...

Schrödinger's cat?

[AMFV]

...

Schrödinger's cat?

We always thought the question was if the cat was dead or not. The real question is are we studying the cat or is it studying us...

[Captain Six]

Perhaps being an Animal type merely caps it's possible intelligence at 2 no matter how many enhancement bonuses you give it.

[nyarlathotep]

You're probably thinking of the Slyth from the FR Underdark book. They are Humanoids with the Shapechanger subtype who have an ooze-like alternate form they can assume for 10 minutes/level as a standard action. They can't attack, cast spells, or use supernatural abilities while they are in the alternate form.

He could also be thinking of ghaunadan which were from Monsters of Faerun a 3.0 book. They were shapeshifters back when that was a separate creature type, not sure what they were updated to in 3.5.

[RedWarrior0]

Perhaps being an Animal type merely caps it's possible intelligence at 2 no matter how many enhancement bonuses you give it.

This is the most likely scenario, so that can't be it. A (pseudo-)philosophical question is ruined when somebody gives a complete answer that works; ergo, this cannot be and never will be the answer.

[Arcane_Secrets]

A Dralasite by any other name. :)

How would you do a Pathfinder version of an Ulb? I absolutely love the idea of an ooze race.

[I didn't see the ghaunadaun was already mentioned.]

In MMII, you also have the rukarazyll. They're ooze...ish, but they might also be elementals.

[sreservoir]

...

Schrödinger's cat?

that took a while.

[Captain Six]

If merely ooze-ish is something you'd settle for then I suggest Water Elemental. Or some other Elemental like an Earth Elemental made from mud or a Fire Elemental made from magma. It doesn't matter because both Oozes and Elementals are homogenous and shapeless with only their material consistent and defined.

Elemental are not too far from being an Ooze mechanically, seen in a more neutral light by most of the world, are in the MMI so less "exotic" than other races might be, and each of the main four have monstrous progressions in Savage Species.