I don't understand Oozes (sorry!)

[Jon_Dahl]

I like oozes, but they seem rather cumbersome in the game. Let me explain:
Most oozes are slow. And they are big or at least medium. And most don't have ranged attacks. So what happens? The players see them or perhaps engage in a short battle (the point man gets grappled blah blah) and then they retreat. They see the hulking thing slither towards them veeeryyy slowly. The batter and batter the moster and walk away from it. The beginning of the fight may be interesting, but it gets really boring from there on.

The only way to give some chance for an ooze is to put the PC in no-retreat mode, but that's pretty annoying for the players too. I don't like doing that. Just to cage them up with the monster... And many mid-level PCs have their ways to escape many situations.

I'd like my PCs to fight against an Ochre Jelly. It's natural inhabitant is temperate marsh and the PCs are crossing just one in the next game session. The jelly might ambush them, but once they manage to disengage, the whole fight is just ridiculous. I once had them fight against a Black Pudding and they simply led it out the cave and out to the wilderness, and ran back to the cave, leaving the monster there.

[TrollCapAmerica]

Well they are a mindless monster so these sorts of fights arent unexpected.If you want to get some real use out of them have intelligent creatures do things like store them as traps or herd them to PCs

Load'em in glass balls in catapults, have trapdoors loaded with Ochre Jelly in a dead end, or have lance wielding acid immune creatures ride them down sloping tunnels the PCs are trying to climb

Heh heh no wonder my PCs hate/fear me :smallsmile:

[Flickerdart]

Oozes are a relic from earlier editions. In a tight dungeon corridor, the party might want to back away from an ooze suddenly appearing around the corner...but maybe they need to get past it, or the cleric in the back has last initiative and everyone is waiting for him to move, or the way they just came through is full of traps and moving through them is slower than the ooze can go. Without all the amenities of 3.5 characters (well, spellcasters, anyway) you're basically stuck with hammering the thing with whatever you've got on you, and now it's dissolved into acid and your DM is laughing uncontrollably.

[karkus]

Well, you never actually stated your question, so I'll just assume it's "Can you help me make this Ooze encounter non-suck-ish?" :smallwink:

The fact is, that's just what Oozes are. They're nonintelligent blobs of jelly that attack you by using repetitive tactics. Try the Sentry Ooze template in Dungeonscape (co-authored by none other than Rich Burlew himself), because that gives the Ooze, among other things, an Intelligence score. That alone spices up any encounter! Now it makes sense for an Ooze to hang around in a dungeon with a bunch of small spaces in the walls where it can pop into and out of for sneak attacks (not Sneak Attacks, mind you), and to generally be smarter about attacking the PCs!

[joca4christ]

Marshes have trees, bluffs, caves, or something that can be climbed, right?

So you have the ochre jelly climb up and drop on your PCs. It's large, right, so if you play it right, it might even be able to engulf two for the price of one. Now you have the party trying to kill this thing and free there allies before they're digested. How is that not fun?

Not to mention if they use slicing weapons, it just divides into multiple jellies. So awesome! Have 'em slide into a new space, and if the PCs are careful, they'll find themselves surrounded.

But yeah, otherwise it's the..."Well, we HAVE to go this way so let's kill it."

Also, some players have a tendency NOT to retreat. Even if it's wise. XP and all that.

[Evolved Shrimp]

Well, oozes make lousy hunting dogs, it's true. So maybe you'll get better results when you play to their strengths, not their weaknesses.

Perhaps your party has to stop for the night in the march they are crossing. You think they'll see the ochre jelly in the middle of the night when it, well, oozes from its lair among the roots of the tree under which they camp?

Or they try to squeeze through a narrow passage in a dungeon... "Dude, I think you just stepped into black pudding!"

Or they abseil down a long shaft - right into a gelatinous cube.

If you use the strengths of oozes - in particular their camouflage and their ability to squeeze through the narrowest of openings - you should be able to keep your players constantly nervous when and where they pop up next.

[Flickerdart]

If you use the strengths of oozes - in particular their camouflage and their ability to squeeze through the narrowest of openings - you should be able to keep your players constantly nervous when and where they pop up next.
What camouflage? Two oozes have a DC15 Spot check necessary to find them, which is trivial. The others don't even get that.

[CRtwenty]

It's better to use Oozes as environmental hazards, rather than as monsters.

[Evolved Shrimp]

What camouflage? Two oozes have a DC15 Spot check necessary to find them, which is trivial. The others don't even get that.

They can hide in places where you do not necessarily see them - in crevices, under water, in corners, in the dark...

So "camouflage" may not be the best term, but you get the idea - they can be close without the players necessarily spotting them.

[Cheiromancer]

It seems probable that oozes would be attracted by noise (including inaudible vibrations) and light. A combat with another monster might attract an ooze to a party's unprotected flank. Or when the party triggers a trap or is book-ended by a pair of falling portcullises. Oozes can slide through bars, after all, or come up out of drains.

Besides being good at sneaking up on a party during a rest period (again, they can flow under doors and stuff), they can also be effective distractions when the party is in a precarious situation. Climbing a sheer cliff, or wading in water, or up a tree. Or hiding from patrols: sure it is easy to kill an ooze, but can you do it silently?

[Autolykos]

They can also work quite well if you let it come from behind the party, cutting off their way out and driving them deeper into the dungeon*. They may easily be able to outrun the ooze, but if they don't advance fast enough, they'll have to fight on two fronts at once. Otherwise, I'd second some of the other comments: Oozes are more of a living trap than a monster.

*You could do that either with nonlinear dungeon layout, or with a "trap" that drips the ooze from the ceiling. It may even happen by accident, like the PCs lighting a fireplace, which drives the ooze out of the chimney it was living in and down another one.

[Tathum]

Oozes make fantastic traps.

I've had a number of dungeons where pits opened up with, not spikes at the bottom, but a huge patch of grey ooze. When you have no where you can run, that suddenly makes oozes much more threatening.

Also, keep in mind that's its not the oozes themselves you have to kill, it's also worrying about anything they have touched during the attack. Maybe a small patch of that green slime is still on the fighter's shield that didn't get all the way scraped off and, when they wake up the next morning, they find his gear is completely infested with the stuff.

Hang them over doors and wait for adventurers without a proper ten foot pole to walk beneath.

Place them in delicate glass balls and have the wizard they are fighting fling them as part of elaborate and deadly missiles.

Have a diseased larger monster die suddenly halfway through a fight with your PC's and have him explode when he hits the ground, spitting forth the black pudding that was eating him alive from the inside out.

Put a gelatinous cube in the back of a dungeon room that seems to have a number of shining pieces of new gear suspended inside of it (possibly adorning a fresh corpse that the cube is slowly digesting).

Make them the center of a campaign session when a kingdom seems to be under siege by a mysterious fungal rot that is appearing randomly and eating all that to touches.

Oozes don't have to be intelligent themselves for you to use them intelligently. Or, at the very least, have a villain that knows how to use them intelligently.

[Zaq]

Oozes aren't monsters. They're puzzles. And generally not especially interesting puzzles, either . . . usually just figuring out how to get enough distance to kite the damn thing while you plink away with your crossbows and longbows. (Or, alternatively, how to slow it down enough to fly over its head and move on. It's not smart enough to remember you once you're out of range of its senses.)

What makes them interesting is when you mix them with intelligent monsters. Of course, you run into the problem of the fact that oozes are mindless blobs and can't easily be told what to do, but there are a few ways around it, mostly magical. You can also kludge together some kind of "the goblins douse themselves in a special alchemical oozeblind formula that renders them undetectable by oozes, so the black pudding views you as food and ignores them altogether" explanation, but most players will at least raise an eyebrow at such blatant handwaving. Still, you do what you have to do to make the encounter fun, right?

Alternatively, just don't use oozes. They're not that interesting.

I once made a dungeon populated entirely by oozes. I think the premise kind of made sense to me at the time, but I really should have known better. No one had too much fun that session.

[Pesimismrocks]

As said before oozes are traps. But wotc had a great idea. They made an encounter from a fiendish gel cube that had levels in monk. Not particularly powerful, but a cool idea and image.

[Flickerdart]

You can also kludge together some kind of "the goblins douse themselves in a special alchemical oozeblind formula that renders them undetectable by oozes, so the black pudding views you as food and ignores them altogether" explanation
Darkstalker makes that a fairly easy thing to pull off.

[zlefin]

Oozes probably shouldn't chase. Just because they're mindless doesn't mean their instincts for hunting are terrible.
Oozes don't chase prey. They're ambush hunters (and/or filter feeders). If something starts running it won't chase, it'll just go withdraw back to its resting place or look for other prey.

[Amidus Drexel]

Half-Dragon Gelatinous Cube. Now it can fly. :smallcool:

[Steward]

Half dragon half ooze? What self-respecting dragon hooks up with an ooze? How would they even meet in the first place? I can't imagine that there are any bars and clubs in any campaign setting -- even Eberron -- where an ooze would have the opportunity to rub elbows (for a given value of 'elbows') with a dragon!

[SiuiS]

Oozes are janitorial services. In a sealed dungeon environment where over the years hundreds of creatures expire, Oozes are why there is floor space not covered in corpse or poop. Oozes aren't and never were like, assault monsters.

[Kornaki]

Probably a copper dragon who felt bad for the oozes because they're so underpowered

[Amidus Drexel]

Half dragon half ooze? What self-respecting dragon hooks up with an ooze? How would they even meet in the first place? I can't imagine that there are any bars and clubs in any campaign setting -- even Eberron -- where an ooze would have the opportunity to rub elbows (for a given value of 'elbows') with a dragon!

Anything can happen when one or both parties are suitably drunk. :smallamused:

Nevermind how it happened, though; the mental image is just hilarious. Also, the ooze has a breath weapon. :smallbiggrin:

[georgie_leech]

I once made a dungeon populated entirely by oozes. I think the premise kind of made sense to me at the time, but I really should have known better. No one had too much fun that session.

I've done something like that before, but I used an incredible amount of homebrew to turn it into an ant-colony-type hive, with different kinds of oozes serving different functions. I ended up with pretty much none of the original oozes, instead using fast "hunter" oozes that would engulf and drag prey off to actual digestive oozes, "kamikaze" oozes that blew themselves up on intruders, that sort of thing. My players especially loved/hated the giant oozes that engulfed a bunch of rock and tried to crush them, like the Indiana Jones boulder if it could steer.

[Deophaun]

Half dragon half ooze? What self-respecting dragon hooks up with an ooze?
What kind of self-respecting dragon constrains itself to humanoid standards of beauty and decency? Besides, sometimes it gets lonely in those caves...

[Rubik]

Half dragon half ooze? What self-respecting dragon hooks up with an ooze? How would they even meet in the first place? I can't imagine that there are any bars and clubs in any campaign setting -- even Eberron -- where an ooze would have the opportunity to rub elbows (for a given value of 'elbows') with a dragon!Think more, "half dragon/half tissue paper."

[123456789blaaa]

Think more, "half dragon/half tissue paper."

Oozes as a dragon masturbation aid? I suppose that's one way to make oozes more interesting :smalleek:.

[Rubik]

[snip]Not specifically what I was thinking, but feel free to have fun with that anyway.

[DementedFellow]

For the low, low price of 28,000 gold, oozes are a very impractical but very stylish means of transportation. Who cares if you are only going 15 feet a round, you are inside an ooze. Wanna attack me? Fight my ooze.

[Toliudar]

Any situation in which the PCs' obvious advantages - intelligence, tactics, etc - are comprimised can help make a brief encounter with an ooze more memorable. After a couple of hours walking/wading through a swamp, no one was particularly surprised when the jelly grabbed a PC's foot. But their ability to find it and attack it when it was under two feet of opaque water was limited. Fogs, smoke or murder holes can serve the same purpose.

[the_archduke]

Half dragon half ooze? What self-respecting dragon hooks up with an ooze? How would they even meet in the first place? I can't imagine that there are any bars and clubs in any campaign setting -- even Eberron -- where an ooze would have the opportunity to rub elbows (for a given value of 'elbows') with a dragon!

A wizard did it

[Fyermind]

Oozes work very well with encounter traps. If you want to use them outside you need something that can make running away a bad idea. Keeping treasure inside the body of an ooze is pretty good.

[Rubik]

Oozes work very well with encounter traps. If you want to use them outside you need something that can make running away a bad idea. Keeping treasure inside the body of an ooze is pretty good.Hooray for ranged weapons and ponderous monsters?

[Spuddles]

I had a DM throw a gelatinous cube at us when we were like level 2 or 3. We kited it, but realized that our retreat path ended in a barred hallway. The oozes that patrolled that floor could move through the bars, but we wouldn't fit.

You could try something similar, but instead have deep parts of the marsh, or impassable muck. I would expect movement in a marsh would tend to be difficult terrain.

You could also have the ooze as part of a larger encounter where it is used to flush or scatter prey of a small, flying, climbing, or swimming, opportunist race. Like jungle goblins. They get a climb speed. They could hang out in the trees and pepper your party with arrows, slow poison, etc. while the ooze tries to run them down. After the ooze feeds, they could then loot their jewelry.

[Jon_Dahl]

Now that I've read all the posts so far, my understanding of oozes has certainly increased.

I have to stop thinking them as standard monsters that can be faced in an open area. Like CRtwenty said, they are environmental hazards, not monsters. And traps or puzzles, as Tathum, Fyermind and Zaq pointed out.

They must be used in tight spaces with no chance to escape in order to have a meaningful fight. Using their ability to crawl through tight spaces and climb must be utilized. Also it's a good point that even though they have no intelligence, they have one point of wisdom. That means that they have some instinctual abilities. So if my players protest "How could that mindless creature set up this ambush!", I can always say that they have hunting instincts. It's fair after all.

The Sentry Ooze template seems very interesting, thank you Karkus!

[Sith_Happens]

IMO, the main use for oozes is if you're a sadist DM whose players have gotten too high level to fight rust monsters.

[Erik Vale]

Think more, "half dragon/half tissue paper."


Oozes as a dragon masturbation aid? I suppose that's one way to make oozes more interesting :smalleek:.

I would link to the post about half dragon rats who got accidentally flooded, however this kinda covers all the Ooze/Half X hybrids. Given that there is the Ooze Creature template [posibly named differently] it must happen allot. The example is a bear.

[Amidus Drexel]

IMO, the main use for oozes is if you're a sadist DM whose players have gotten too high level to fight rust monsters.

There are non-sadist DMs? :smallamused:

[Kaerou]

Make them highly immune to physical damage types, maybe downright immune. Stabbing a puddle does nothing to it.

[Spuddles]

Make them highly immune to physical damage types, maybe downright immune. Stabbing a puddle does nothing to it.

Normally stabbing fire does nothing to it, or the wind, yet you can bludgeon elementals to death.

[Flickerdart]

The Sentry Ooze template seems very interesting, thank you Karkus!
If you like templating oozes, try the Living Spell. Depending on which spell you use, it can be a really unique encounter...and if you combine that with the Sentry Ooze template, you get a creature with truly prodigious Wisdom and Charisma.

[Venger]

I would link to the post about half dragon rats who got accidentally flooded, however this kinda covers all the Ooze/Half X hybrids. Given that there is the Ooze Creature template [posibly named differently] it must happen allot. The example is a bear.

gelatinous creature. it's from savage species

[Rubik]

Normally stabbing dire does nothing to it, or the wind, yet you can bludgeon elementals to death.You may want to start spell-checking your posts. That, or everyone on this board needs to stop using their phones to do so.

Am I the only one who's noticed how horrible spelling has gotten these days?

[Spuddles]

You may want to start spell-checking your posts. That, or everyone on this board needs to stop using their phones to do so.

Am I the only one who's noticed how horrible spelling has gotten these days?

U WOT M8


swear on me mum

[ericgrau]

You always use them in closed quarters not near open wilderness. For an ochre jelly in a marsh (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/wilderness.htm#marshTerrain) it may be open wilderness but you can reduce the players to 1/4 speed. Grappling might also prevent the whole party from retreating and force the remaining party members to save their ally.

[Xuldarinar]

I see oozes as potential for amusing or cruel situations. For instance, someone has a fruit stand at the entrance of a dungeon. A lot of people go in and out of the dungeon so it can be good business. You hear a scream at one point and on the way out you see a gelatinous cube headed towards you filled with fruit.

As for traps, the adventurers find themselves having to cross a body of water to reach something. Unfortunately for them (especially if their instinct is to dive right in) the water is in fact is a massive ooze (or a lot of oozes in a large colony). If they try swimming, they get dissolved. If they get too close, the ooze(s) may try to attack them. The ooze basically becomes an environmental hazard.

[Dungeon_Master]

I see a lot of DMs who misuse the Ooze, especially in 3.5e d20 straight from the monster manual glossary
Ooze Type: An ooze is an amorphous or mutable creature, usually
mindless.
Features: An ooze has the following features.
—10-sided Hit Dice.
—Base attack bonus equal to 3/4 total Hit Dice (as cleric).
—No good saving throws.
—Skill points equal to (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit
Die, with quadruple skill points for the first Hit Die, if the ooze
has an Intelligence score. However, most oozes are mindless and
gain no skill points or feats.
Traits: An ooze possesses the following traits (unless otherwise
noted in a creature’s entry).
—Mindless: No Intelligence score, and immunity to all mindaffecting
effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and
morale effects).
—Blind (but have the blindsight special quality), with immunity
to gaze attacks, visual effects, illusions, and other attack forms
that rely on sight.
—Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and
stunning.
—Some oozes have the ability to deal acid damage to objects. In
such a case, the amount of damage is equal to 10 + 1/2 ooze’s HD +
ooze’s Con modifier per full round of contact.
—Not subject to critical hits or flanking.
—Proficient with its natural weapons only.
—Proficient with no armor.

—Oozes eat and breathe, but do not sleep.

an Ooze would not go underwater, it would suffocate, being unable to hold its breath.

[Erik Vale]

I see oozes as potential for amusing or cruel situations. For instance, someone has a fruit stand at the entrance of a dungeon. A lot of people go in and out of the dungeon so it can be good business. You hear a scream at one point and on the way out you see a gelatinous cube headed towards you filled with fruit.

As for traps, the adventurers find themselves having to cross a body of water to reach something. Unfortunately for them (especially if their instinct is to dive right in) the water is in fact is a massive ooze (or a lot of oozes in a large colony). If they try swimming, they get dissolved. If they get too close, the ooze(s) may try to attack them. The ooze basically becomes an environmental hazard.

However, given the spot check to notice and a lack of movement the above still holds true. A large colonry would get around the lack of movement.

[ericgrau]

—Oozes eat and breathe, but do not sleep.

an Ooze would not go underwater, it would suffocate, being unable to hold its breath.
Plus a gelatinous cube is only a DC 15 spot to notice one. Other oozes are colored.

It annoys me to no end when a DM says "Hahaha you stumble into the trap right in front of you, aren't I clever? No roll, you were totally surprised. You'll spend the whole fight trying to get out of it while your allies get to play D&D. Now roll initiative."

[Evolved Shrimp]

—Oozes eat and breathe, but do not sleep.

an Ooze would not go underwater, it would suffocate, being unable to hold its breath.

Fish breathe, too - breathing does not imply "out of water". From the description of the Water Breathing spell from PHB: "The transmuted creature can breathe water freely."

[Rubik]

Fish breathe, too - breathing does not imply "out of water". From the description of the Water Breathing spell from PHB: "The transmuted creature can breathe water freely."But only creatures with the aquatic subtype or with the natural (or special) ability to do so can do so.

[Jon_Dahl]

Plus a gelatinous cube is only a DC 15 spot to notice one. Other oozes are colored.

It annoys me to no end when a DM says "Hahaha you stumble into the trap right in front of you, aren't I clever? No roll, you were totally surprised. You'll spend the whole fight trying to get out of it while your allies get to play D&D. Now roll initiative."

Yes, I've been thinking the same thing here... Except I'm the DM. Usually I don't like putting my players into that position. I like to give them option to run away from the battle, but I kid you not: That "fight" with a Black Pudding was boring to the extreme (PCs running around with a pudding after them). It's a tough for choice me: Practically lock them up with an ooze or tolerate some long and boring fight.

[CRtwenty]

One of my favorite moments in D&D was when my PCs had to get across a room with a circular pit filed with "black oil" which was actually a Gargantuan Black Pudding.

Once they realized what it was the Cleric decided to cast a Blade Barrier on the thing. A few rounds later and they came screaming out of the room with several dozen smaller Black Puddings hanging off them and almost all of their non magical items dissolved. The Wizard spent the entire rest of the session completely naked. :smallamused:

[ericgrau]

Yes, I've been thinking the same thing here... Except I'm the DM. Usually I don't like putting my players into that position. I like to give them option to run away from the battle, but I kid you not: That "fight" with a Black Pudding was boring to the extreme (PCs running around with a pudding after them). It's a tough for choice me: Practically lock them up with an ooze or tolerate some long and boring fight.

It's fine if they can see it. It has a climb speed so pits can slow the party down, as well as doors. You might also put in something else they need to do so there's time pressure, or other foes.

Wherever it is there must be other food for it, so that may mean other humanoids or other monsters living in those tunnels. Or a keeper.

[Deophaun]

I see a lot of DMs who misuse the Ooze,
Similarly, while oozes are amorphous, it does not make them immune to the squeezing rules. Their traits do not allow them to move through abnormally small spaces (unlike the swarm type).

[Drachasor]

Generally, if an encounter is boring, add more variables. These can be environmental, creatures, tactical/strategic goals, etc. There's no reason you can't use an ooze with other creatures for instance, or have it in the way of something the players need. With oozes you'll probably need to add more elements than with other enemies, but the basic premise is the same.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Similarly, while oozes are amorphous, it does not make them immune to the squeezing rules. Their traits do not allow them to move through abnormally small spaces (unlike the swarm type).

With a few exceptions such as the jello cube, I would imagine most ooze should be able to squeeze into abnormally tight spaces.

[sonofzeal]

Note that there's nothing inherently wrong with rewarding players for good tactics and preparation. If the party has enough ranged firepower to deal with the Ooze effectively (no guarantee), then hey, nothing wrong with that. Maybe the next fight will be against swarms of orc barbarians with their 40 land speed and charge actions. As long as you've got variety, you're good to go.

Still - if they separate from the Ooze too much, you can always have it good its way out of line of fire. Straight into the ground usually works. Then they've got to get creative or risk it coming right back up at them.

[Ashtagon]

an Ooze would not go underwater, it would suffocate, being unable to hold its breath.

Some creatures breathe water. Fish, for example. Some breathe air and swim for extended periods, such as dolphins (up to 20 minutes at a time).

As long as an ooze surfaces at least once every half hour, I see no problem with them being aquatic.

[Deophaun]

With a few exceptions such as the jello cube, I would imagine most ooze should be able to squeeze into abnormally tight spaces.
I would imagine most oozes wouldn't drown in water. However, imagination and RAW don't always go well together.

[Jon_Dahl]

Some creatures breathe water. Fish, for example. Some breathe air and swim for extended periods, such as dolphins (up to 20 minutes at a time).

As long as an ooze surfaces at least once every half hour, I see no problem with them being aquatic.

Personally I really like the idea of underwater ooze, but they lack both hold breath ability and aquatic capabilities. Unless otherwise noted, they can only hold their breath for a short while.

There is a way to circumvent this: Oozes have no mouths, so how do they breathe? I guess the ooze only has to expose a minuscule part of its body above water level in order to breathe. It will be hard to spot.


a crocodile can lie in the water with only its eyes and nostrils showing, gaining a +10 cover bonus on Hide checks.

I guess the ooze would gain the same advantage. Also, once it spots an approaching prey, it would submerge and wait. Thus the exposure to its preys will be brief and the initial distance will help too.

[Drachasor]

I guess the ooze would gain the same advantage. Also, once it spots an approaching prey, it would submerge and wait. Thus the exposure to its preys will be brief and the initial distance will help too.

Well, if you wanted to be realistic, they'd suffocate since they probably breathe throughout their body, so covering it up would give them lots of problems. Though if you are really realistic they shouldn't exist at all.

[Evolved Shrimp]

But only creatures with the aquatic subtype or with the natural (or special) ability to do so can do so.

There's aquatic elves, aquatic humans, aquatic hags, aquatic trolls and whatnot, so I see no real reason why there couldn't be aquatic or amphibious variants of all your favorite oozes.

And given that often little modification beyond allowing them to breathe water and perhaps giving them a swim speed seems necessary, I see no reason for a DM not to introduce them if she is so inclined.

[Jon_Dahl]

Well, if you wanted to be realistic, they'd suffocate since they probably breathe throughout their body, so covering it up would give them lots of problems. Though if you are really realistic they shouldn't exist at all.

No, I'm just saying that unless noted othewise, oozes follow the normal rules for holding breath. And that doesn't make them successful underwater hunter. However, it's not noted how they breathe. You could say that they use their entire body, but any DM can say almost anything, and it's 100% correct because it's outside RAW. If I say that they breathe with a small portion of their body, it's all right.

[Ernir]

Though if you are really realistic they shouldn't exist at all.

Shouldn't sponges be close enough to real-life oozes? :smalltongue:

Jellyfish are not amorphous, but they are gooey enough...

[Garwain]

I had an interesting encouter with Oozes, it's from the Silver Skeleton free module for lvl 6 characters.

In short: The corridor is trapped with paralysing traps, and the Oozes creep closer and closer... from the fron and from behind as they dropped in from above!

[D20ragon]

Ooze traps.oozes fall from ceiling,a pit trap with an ooze filling all the space at the bottom
A room,doors lock behind you room,instead of filling with water,fills with ooze.

[Mithril Leaf]

There's aquatic elves, aquatic humans, aquatic hags, aquatic trolls and whatnot, so I see no real reason why there couldn't be aquatic or amphibious variants of all your favorite oozes.

And given that often little modification beyond allowing them to breathe water and perhaps giving them a swim speed seems necessary, I see no reason for a DM not to introduce them if she is so inclined.

There's a template which gives -2 Dex that does just that.

[Dungeon_Master]

Some creatures breathe water. Fish, for example. Some breathe air and swim for extended periods, such as dolphins (up to 20 minutes at a time).

As long as an ooze surfaces at least once every half hour, I see no problem with them being aquatic.

dolphins are intelligent, able to make that decision. oozes lack the ability altogether
but yes an ooze with the aquatic template could breathe water, one without that template would drown.

[turbo164]

We had a DM recently who had a magical experiment go awry in a distillary, turning thousands of gallons of booze into ooze. We didn't have the luxury of retreating to snipe, since we had to go deeper into the building to rescue the workers before they were engulfed.

Any way you can introduce a time limit (generic "stop bad guy ritual, oh look he put a 28hd ooze blocking the only tunnel entrance" works fine) that can force people to stay close to use their greatswords rather than their crossbows.

[Lord Vukodlak]

There's aquatic elves, aquatic humans, aquatic hags, aquatic trolls and whatnot, so I see no real reason why there couldn't be aquatic or amphibious variants of all your favorite oozes.

As oozes lack lungs or organs of any kind so they must absorb oxygen through its skin or membrane which ever you want to call it. So it wouldn't be unreasonable that most oozes could breathe underwater. But that wouldn't make them aquatic, there are many non-aquatic creatures that can survive for days underwater because they can still breathe.(an earthworm for example).

I'd think an Ooze could breathe underwater but would be unable to swim and would move even more slowly.

[Flickerdart]

Swim isn't a trained-only skill; oozes have decent Strength scores and would be okay swimmers in still water.

[ericgrau]

As oozes lack lungs or organs of any kind so they must absorb oxygen through its skin or membrane which ever you want to call it. So it wouldn't be unreasonable that most oozes could breathe underwater. But that wouldn't make them aquatic, there are many non-aquatic creatures that can survive for days underwater because they can still breathe.(an earthworm for example).

I'd think an Ooze could breathe underwater but would be unable to swim and would move even more slowly.

It's always a stretch to get sciency with anything in D&D. Not only because you're working around the rules, not only because of the dead catgirls, but most of all because players aren't scientists and nothing is easy. The amount of oxygen dissolved into water and available to breathe is low, so there are all kinds of steps required to conserve and compensate. And stagnant dungeon water without any water flow might even suffocate a fish. That's why aquariums have bubblers.

[ArcanistSupreme]

I once made a dungeon populated entirely by oozes. I think the premise kind of made sense to me at the time, but I really should have known better. No one had too much fun that session.

But what if the dungeon is the product of some mad alchemist that set up shop right below a major city? The PCs kick in the door and generally trash the place (as adventurers are wont to do) on their way to confront him, only to discover that he has been engulfed by one of his own creations, and the PCs have unwittingly released all of the alchemist's experiments. The relentless blobs are now making their way to the heavily populated surface, and the PCs must rush back through narrow corridors now populated with murderous slimes of every color in addition to the traps they faced on the way in. Collapsed tunnels, flooded passages, and alchemical hazards abound in mad dash to the exit. Will the PCs make it out in time to contain the gelatinous threats and save the city from certain and gooey doom, or will they meet painful and messy deaths by dissolution?

This will be my next dungeon. Any suggestions?

[ericgrau]

This will be my next dungeon. Any suggestions?
Jello for the minis.

[hamishspence]

There's aquatic elves, aquatic humans, aquatic hags, aquatic trolls and whatnot, so I see no real reason why there couldn't be aquatic or amphibious variants of all your favorite oozes.

I believe Fiend Folio has a few aquatic oozes, as well.

[Sith_Happens]

Something hilarious(ly sad) I just noticed: Oozes are not immune to fatigue/exhaustion, and typically have 1 Dex.

Elder Black Pudding, meet Kelgore's Grave Mist.

[Rubik]

Something hilarious(ly sad) I just noticed: Oozes are not immune to fatigue/exhaustion, and typically have 1 Dex.

Elder Black Pudding, meet Kelgore's Grave Mist.They're also not immune to acid, so they frequently digest themselves rather quickly.

[Toy Killer]

I always liked the idea (Though never got to use it) of a 'Lich', for lack of a better term, being a parasitic entity on the body of a deceased wizard.

Something like a strange spell combination caused the [Mana] within the spell to solidify around a spell casters body. Slowly the [mana] feed of the body of the poor deceased spell caster and from his residual emotions, it distilled it's own personality but considers himself the caster.

I spawned the idea as I was looking for a reason to make Living spells a thing in a campaign world. Really cool little things, especially since you can apply meta-magic and multiple spells to one Ooze. I like the idea of a living 'Extract Water Elemental' myself: an Ooze that hits you so hard, your blood keeps fighting.

Living mind rapes, Living Kelpstrand, living glitterdust, Living cure Moderate wounds. Lots of potential in that template.

[Kuulvheysoon]

IMO, the main use for oozes is if you're a sadist DM whose players have gotten too high level to fight rust monsters.

Nah, use an Annihilator. It's a Rust Monster on Steroids that uses disintegrate instead of rusting (from Underdark).


—Oozes eat and breathe, but do not sleep.

an Ooze would not go underwater, it would suffocate, being unable to hold its breath.


There's a template which gives -2 Dex that does just that.

Amphibious, from Stormwrack. Beat me to it, Mithral Leaf. Nicely done.

[Drachasor]

No, I'm just saying that unless noted othewise, oozes follow the normal rules for holding breath. And that doesn't make them successful underwater hunter. However, it's not noted how they breathe. You could say that they use their entire body, but any DM can say almost anything, and it's 100% correct because it's outside RAW. If I say that they breathe with a small portion of their body, it's all right.

Well, oozes have no particular organs, so they'd use some sort of cellular respiration throughout their whole body. Otherwise you could get crits on them.


Shouldn't sponges be close enough to real-life oozes? :smalltongue:

Jellyfish are not amorphous, but they are gooey enough...

These creatures require water to support their bodies. Though you are right that Jellyfish are definitely not like oozes at all.

[sonofzeal]

It's always a stretch to get sciency with anything in D&D. Not only because you're working around the rules, not only because of the dead catgirls, but most of all because players aren't scientists and nothing is easy. The amount of oxygen dissolved into water and available to breathe is low, so there are all kinds of steps required to conserve and compensate. And stagnant dungeon water without any water flow might even suffocate a fish. That's why aquariums have bubblers.
On the other hand, it is way easier to acquire oxygen from a liquid. Water may have a fraction of the oxygen levels, but it's far more bioavailable. You do need water flow at some point, but that's a separate issue related to water not flowing as quickly or easily as air.

Anyway, I think it's ridiculous that oozes need to breath. But that's RAW for you.

[ericgrau]

Well aquatic elves mystically don't get any extra restrictions on fatigue in spite of low oxygen levels. Probably because the system doesn't care about such details. I could likewise tolerate aquatic oozes, but not regular oozes breathing water. That's a weird blend of anti-science rules and anti-rules science.

[Spuddles]

On the other hand, it is way easier to acquire oxygen from a liquid. Water may have a fraction of the oxygen levels, but it's far more bioavailable. You do need water flow at some point, but that's a separate issue related to water not flowing as quickly or easily as air.

I don't think oxygen is more available in water in any meaningful sense of the word, given the much higher energetics required to set up a counter-current fluid-fluid system compared to fluid-gas, coupled with much lower gas concentrations in your fluid-fluid system. I feel like osmosis is really working against you in the case of a fluid-fluid system.

And if you look at the energetics of aquatic vs. terrestrial animals, you'll see that thanks to being air breathers, mammals and birds can be endotherms, and we kick the **** out of anything cold blooded. Orcas will destroy a great white; sperm whales absolutely demolish giant squid.

[georgie_leech]

So on a whim, I did some math. According to the weights listed in the SRD, Oozes are actually less dense than water, assuming a circular blobby shape for everything but the Gelatinous Cubes. An Ooze wouldn't actually be able to swim, it would mostly just float, given the lack of any sort of appendages. Oozes can't actually get under water without something to push on.

Would an Ooze be "smart" enough to actually figure out how to contort itself to "swim," even just to move forward?

[Squirrel_Dude]

One use I had was having a bunch of oozes wait in the ocean and jump on the ship. Oozes are bigs bags of hit points, so I had them be threats to the ships safety because they would just eat through the wood instead of having them necessarily attack the players.


But yeah, other than having them be a threat to something other than the players, I'm not really sure what to do with them. Their attack modifiers are pretty low. They're slow and easy to kite. They're basically built around grapple, which is also annoying. They're big bags of hit points so they're a boring fight that's slow...

[Spuddles]

Would an Ooze be "smart" enough to actually figure out how to contort itself to "swim," even just to move forward?

As smart as a jellyfish? Probably....


so typical for us nerds to overvalue int stat....

It's not like your juicy nerd intellect is telling you to hold your breath (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex).

[Venger]

I don't think oxygen is more available in water in any meaningful sense of the word, given the much higher energetics required to set up a counter-current fluid-fluid system compared to fluid-gas, coupled with much lower gas concentrations in your fluid-fluid system. I feel like osmosis is really working against you in the case of a fluid-fluid system.

And if you look at the energetics of aquatic vs. terrestrial animals, you'll see that thanks to being air breathers, mammals and birds can be endotherms, and we kick the **** out of anything cold blooded. Orcas will destroy a great white; sperm whales absolutely demolish giant squid.

oxygen is more available in water since water is H20 (so oxygen's roughly 1/3 of it, maybe a little less since chemically pure water isn't what's filling up swamps and stuff) whereas air is about 20% (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Atmosphere_gas_proportions.svg)

the thing is, you need specialize equipment (gills) to unbond the oxygen from the water and then spit it back out. that's why if an aquarium is stagnant, the fish will breathe up all the oxygen and die, same as if a human is locked in a bank vault or something. there's still air, but no oxygen.

all that other stuff you said was right though.


So on a whim, I did some math. According to the weights listed in the SRD, Oozes are actually less dense than water, assuming a circular blobby shape for everything but the Gelatinous Cubes. An Ooze wouldn't actually be able to swim, it would mostly just float, given the lack of any sort of appendages. Oozes can't actually get under water without something to push on.

Would an Ooze be "smart" enough to actually figure out how to contort itself to "swim," even just to move forward?

since oozes are "amorphous" does that mean that they can change their density by compressing to become more dense or spreading out to become less dense? as mentioned earlier, unlike a vine horror or oozemaster, they can't all explicitly go through small cracks (having to use the squeezing rules normally) but that's still a pretty big difference. it means a flesh jelly could "squeeze" through a hole that's only big enough for a large monster even though it's gargantuan. if a creature with an endoskeleton squeezes, he's sorta balling himself up. if an ooze squeezes... it's gotta be sort of crushing itself together to make itself more dense. if it can do that to get in doors and stuff, it would probably be able to do the same to swim. jellyfish can swim and they don't have brains either.

oozes seem to function in a fashion to single celled organisms or some slime molds.

since paramecia can swim by whipping a flagella around and they're only 1 cell, I think something the size of an ooze probably has an operating system that's at least as complex if not moreso.

[georgie_leech]

As smart as a jellyfish? Probably....


so typical for us nerds to overvalue int stat....

It's not like your juicy nerd intellect is telling you to hold your breath (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex).

A jellyfish doesn't "know" how to swim like that, you can run an electrical current (or some other means of stimulating it) through it and you get the same motion. I don't think that motion is how an Ooze naturally moves though, unless they're actually hopping about from place to place...

Hang on a sec, I need to go update my Ooze dungeon.

EDIT:

since oozes are "amorphous" does that mean that they can change their density by compressing to become more dense or spreading out to become less dense? as mentioned earlier, unlike a vine horror or oozemaster, they can't all explicitly go through small cracks (having to use the squeezing rules normally) but that's still a pretty big difference. it means a flesh jelly could "squeeze" through a hole that's only big enough for a large monster even though it's gargantuan. if a creature with an endoskeleton squeezes, he's sorta balling himself up. if an ooze squeezes... it's gotta be sort of crushing itself together to make itself more dense. if it can do that to get in doors and stuff, it would probably be able to do the same to swim. jellyfish can swim and they don't have brains either.

oozes seem to function in a fashion to single celled organisms or some slime molds.

since paramecia can swim by whipping a flagella around and they're only 1 cell, I think something the size of an ooze probably has an operating system that's at least as complex if not moreso.

I always figured that Oozes were more extending small portions of themselves through whatever gap they needed to pass. Like how a liquid fills a container and will go around objects, an Ooze could kind of "wash" through grates or drain into holes or the like, looking very much like Jones does in this scene. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfMUt0Kb-1I) Actually compressing a liquid is hard to do, and would have the consequence of heating themselves up to an extremely high temperature.

And like above, a paramecium is "designed" to swim. the same motion would be more or less useless without a liquid to swim through, and it would be terrible at moving without swimming. I wonder whether an Ooze, which primarily rolls around on land (or at least not completely submerged), would be able to adjust to suddenly not having anything solid to push against and having to rely on jet propulsion.

[mikelibrarian]

Speaking of half-dragon, half-oozes, the Basic Edition Dungeonmasters Guide from 1982 had a page encouraging Dungeon masters to make up their own monsters. It gave a few unstated ideas, including a "goop dragon" a dragon whose breath weapon was an ooze.

[Venger]

I always figured that Oozes were more extending small portions of themselves through whatever gap they needed to pass. Like how a liquid fills a container and will go around objects, an Ooze could kind of "wash" through grates or drain into holes or the like, looking very much like Jones does in this scene. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfMUt0Kb-1I) Actually compressing a liquid is hard to do, and would have the consequence of heating themselves up to an extremely high temperature.
An interesting theory, and well within the parameters of dm fiat. were I in a game and the dm said an ooze followed us through a chain link fence or the like t-1000 style like davy jones, I wouldn't really have much of a reason to complain. it doesn't really help the ooze overcome its more significant handicaps (lack of range, etc) and doesn't seem like it'd make an encounter with them any less fun

that said though, oozes can't (by default) do this. from the monster manual, for example, only the ochre jelly can squeeze through 1 inch cracks. the rest (black pudding, gelatinous cube and gray ooze) cannot, so will default to the squeezing rules.

my apologies if I was being unclear. in one part of my post I was speculating with the rest of the thread about how oozes' physiology/psychology might work in-universe and then went to talking about OOG rules stuff (squeezing) I should have delineated that more clearly.


And like above, a paramecium is "designed" to swim. the same motion would be more or less useless without a liquid to swim through, and it would be terrible at moving without swimming. I wonder whether an Ooze, which primarily rolls around on land (or at least not completely submerged), would be able to adjust to suddenly not having anything solid to push against and having to rely on jet propulsion.

sure. the paramecium wasn't brought up because its flagellum is a great means of land propulsion (it's not) but since I was responding to whether oozes were "smart" enough to swim. if single celled organisms without any brains or neurons at all can do it, then something bigger (and thus as complex or more complex) would also be able to do so.

see, we don't really know how oozes move. as far as my thoughts go, I often visualize oozes moving (breathing, eating, thinking, etc) like slime molds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmp1uopZKz8) since they seem to work in much the same way (especially ones that split, like black puddings and ochre jellies)

slime molds don't function like a pillowcase full of mud, as you seem to be describing (correct me if I'm wrong, that's the vibe I'm getting from your post of them "rolling along") so that to me says there's some finite sum of gunk inside the ooze's membrane and it can't get any "smaller" than it is, so changing densities is out using this model of oozes. that makes sense, but I think it may work differently.

I don't think oozes "push off," I think they creep along their fellows since they are made of many small individual parts working in synchronicity, like nanobots or a swarm of bees in a cartoon.

I'm trying to think of an organism that moves in the way you describe and appear to be drawing a blank. by "pushing off" and "jet propulsion" do you mean like an octopus or something? I might find it easier to visualize if you could liken it to something (darn oozes being all confusing)

OP, I don't think anyone can blame you for not understanding oozes. from what it looks like so far, none of us really does.

[Spuddles]

I don't think oxygen is more available in water in any meaningful sense of the word, given the much higher energetics required to set up a counter-current fluid-fluid system compared to fluid-gas, coupled with much lower gas concentrations in your fluid-fluid system. I feel like osmosis is really working against you in the case of a fluid-fluid system.

And if you look at the energetics of aquatic vs. terrestrial animals, you'll see that thanks to being air breathers, mammals and birds can be endotherms, and we kick the **** out of anything cold blooded. Orcas will destroy a great white; sperm whales absolutely demolish giant squid.

Oxygen diffuses 10,000 times more rapidly in air than in water. That doesn't make oxygen in water sound particularly "bioavailable."


oxygen is more available in water since water is H20 (so oxygen's roughly 1/3 of it, maybe a little less since chemically pure water isn't what's filling up swamps and stuff) whereas air is about 20% (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Atmosphere_gas_proportions.svg)

the thing is, you need specialize equipment (gills) to unbond the oxygen from the water and then spit it back out. that's why if an aquarium is stagnant, the fish will breathe up all the oxygen and die, same as if a human is locked in a bank vault or something. there's still air, but no oxygen.

all that other stuff you said was right though.

Uh, gills don't split water molecules. They filter dissolved oxygen, O2, out of the water, and diffuse dissolved carbon dioxide back into water. Of course, since it's a water-water interchange, this occurs roughly 10,000 times slower than in organisms with lungs. The water is totally left alone. It's not a chemical reaction, just mediated osmosis.

More info on gills:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gill



A jellyfish doesn't "know" how to swim like that, you can run an electrical current (or some other means of stimulating it) through it and you get the same motion. I don't think that motion is how an Ooze naturally moves though, unless they're actually hopping about from place to place...

Hang on a sec, I need to go update my Ooze dungeon.

EDIT:

I always figured that Oozes were more extending small portions of themselves through whatever gap they needed to pass. Like how a liquid fills a container and will go around objects, an Ooze could kind of "wash" through grates or drain into holes or the like, looking very much like Jones does in this scene. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfMUt0Kb-1I) Actually compressing a liquid is hard to do, and would have the consequence of heating themselves up to an extremely high temperature.

And like above, a paramecium is "designed" to swim. the same motion would be more or less useless without a liquid to swim through, and it would be terrible at moving without swimming. I wonder whether an Ooze, which primarily rolls around on land (or at least not completely submerged), would be able to adjust to suddenly not having anything solid to push against and having to rely on jet propulsion.

Somehow certain beetles are capable of flight, swimming, and flying. Why wouldn't an ooze be capable of modifying its movement mode depending on the environment? It could be as simple as once X number of nerve cells (lol why are we having this conversation) are triggered by being pushed on by enough water, the locomotory nerve impulse frequency changes from peristaltic motion to a pulsing, jellyfish like one.

[georgie_leech]

sure. the paramecium wasn't brought up because its flagellum is a great means of land propulsion (it's not) but since I was responding to whether oozes were "smart" enough to swim. if single celled organisms without any brains or neurons at all can do it, then something bigger (and thus as complex or more complex) would also be able to do so.

Perhaps instead then I should phrase it as "Would an Ooze be smart enough to figure out what to do when its primary means of locomotion is rendered ineffective?" Not that swimming is inherently complicated, but that it's presumably different from whatever they normally do. A Monstrous Scorpion would probably also have a hard time swimming since regular scorpions do as well.


see, we don't really know how oozes move. as far as my thoughts go, I often visualize oozes moving (breathing, eating, thinking, etc) like slime molds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmp1uopZKz8) since they seem to work in much the same way (especially ones that split, like black puddings and ochre jellies)

slime molds don't function like a pillowcase full of mud, as you seem to be describing (correct me if I'm wrong, that's the vibe I'm getting from your post of them "rolling along") so that to me says there's some finite sum of gunk inside the ooze's membrane and it can't get any "smaller" than it is, so changing densities is out using this model of oozes. that makes sense, but I think it may work differently.

I don't think oozes "push off," I think they creep along their fellows since they are made of many small individual parts working in synchronicity, like nanobots or a swarm of bees in a cartoon.

Fair enough. I blame my lack of sense-making to it being 2 in the morning here.

I've always imagined Oozes moved in a way somewhere between an Amoeba's pseudopods, where it stretches forward and then pulls itself to where it stretched, and like this, (http://youtu.be/NXZ7ErMDQKg?t=2m41s) where they sort of surge forward like a wave or mass. Though now that I've seen a video of it, remarkably like slime molds, yes. Essentially, I viewed it as an Ooze dragging/pushing itself along, which needs something to hold on to.


I'm trying to think of an organism that moves in the way you describe and appear to be drawing a blank. by "pushing off" and "jet propulsion" do you mean like an octopus or something? I might find it easier to visualize if you could liken it to something (darn oozes being all confusing)

I figured the most effective way for an ooze to move in water would be to shape itself so that it traps water like a balloon which it could then force out, hence jet propulsion. Though I suppose it could also flail and get something vaguely jellyfish-like going as well.


Somehow certain beetles are capable of flight, swimming, and flying. Why wouldn't an ooze be capable of modifying its movement mode depending on the environment? It could be as simple as once X number of nerve cells (lol why are we having this conversation) are triggered by being pushed on by enough water, the locomotory nerve impulse frequency changes from peristaltic motion to a pulsing, jellyfish like one.

To be honest, I question whether Oozes have cells in the first place. They don't have any vulnerable organs, nor nuclei, else they could be Sneak Attacked. So if they had cells, they would each be perfectly functional on their own. But if they were comprised of quadrillions of self-functioning Ooze cells, they should be completely impossible to kill with physical force, as they could always just reform after being temporarily separated (a trusty Fireball would probably still work though). Despite that, even the splitting Oozes reach a point where they can't split any further. That could mean that Ooze cells are just really big, but then that doesn't explain how they could have specialised sensory cells.

Conclusion: Oozes are weird, and A Wizard Did It at some point.

[TuggyNE]

So on a whim, I did some math. According to the weights listed in the SRD, Oozes are actually less dense than water, assuming a circular blobby shape for everything but the Gelatinous Cubes. An Ooze wouldn't actually be able to swim, it would mostly just float, given the lack of any sort of appendages. Oozes can't actually get under water without something to push on.

How did you calculate the volumes? Cause it seems like a lot of the oozes are more flattened out, with a much larger diameter than height/thickness, kind of like a red blood cell. (Actually, a lot like a red blood cell, except a whole lot larger, a whole lot longer-lived, a different color, with a completely different purpose, and … OK, not much like a red blood cell.)


oxygen is more available in water since water is H20 (so oxygen's roughly 1/3 of it, maybe a little less since chemically pure water isn't what's filling up swamps and stuff) whereas air is about 20% (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Atmosphere_gas_proportions.svg)

the thing is, you need specialize equipment (gills) to unbond the oxygen from the water and then spit it back out. that's why if an aquarium is stagnant, the fish will breathe up all the oxygen and die, same as if a human is locked in a bank vault or something. there's still air, but no oxygen.

I have been ninja'd on this already, but that is Not How Gills Work. Chemically splitting water is a job for fuel cells; gills do nothing but extract dissolved oxygen (i.e., O2 molecules in with the H2O), and the amount of oxygen dissolved in water is a great deal less per liter than in air.

If your view was correct, a fish could only die in a stagnant aquarium once all the water had been converted to oxygen and hydrogen, and since hydrogen is gaseous, that would mean the tank would be empty.

I would be remiss if I didn't note that it's actually possible for humans to breath certain specialized liquids (generally, perfluorocarbons) with high concentrations of dissolved oxygen; this is mostly used for treatment of lung problems.

[Mithril Leaf]

I frequently assume that Oozes move by extending a pseudo-pod and then filling the rest of their mass into it. This probably came from a description of a sentient ooze race from Piers Anthony's Tarot series. It lets them move through cracks as well if you like.

[Spuddles]

To be honest, I question whether Oozes have cells in the first place. They don't have any vulnerable organs, nor nuclei, else they could be Sneak Attacked. So if they had cells, they would each be perfectly functional on their own. But if they were comprised of quadrillions of self-functioning Ooze cells, they should be completely impossible to kill with physical force, as they could always just reform after being temporarily separated (a trusty Fireball would probably still work though). Despite that, even the splitting Oozes reach a point where they can't split any further. That could mean that Ooze cells are just really big, but then that doesn't explain how they could have specialised sensory cells.

Conclusion: Oozes are weird, and A Wizard Did It at some point.

There are so many assumptions here. There's nothing necessitating that the entire ooze's body is made up of cells. 99% of it could be nothing more than mucopolysaccharides and acid. You know, extracellular matrices and large interstitial spaces. It'd explain where all those HPs are coming from.

Furthermore, there's nothing necessitating that every single one of its cells has to be pluripotent. If I run a tree through a wood chipper, is it going to form into a million tiny trees? Magically crawl back together? Nope. You'll see, at most, some sprouting from meristems, and those will only last if there's enough fluid around. Grind up a plant that lacks well protected meristem tissue- just about anything out of your garden- and it dies.

Lastly, even single celled organisms, like the aforementioned paramecium, are capable of responding to environmental cues- phototaxis, chemotaxis, thermotaxis, and thigmotaxis, in the case of paramecium. That's one cell, using localized vesicles containing ions to respond to the proper stimulus.

[georgie_leech]

How did you calculate the volumes? Cause it seems like a lot of the oozes are more flattened out, with a much larger diameter than height/thickness, kind of like a red blood cell. (Actually, a lot like a red blood cell, except a whole lot larger, a whole lot longer-lived, a different color, with a completely different purpose, and … OK, not much like a red blood cell.)


The SRD gives diameter and thickness,, so I'm assuming a shape roughly circular (http://www.jessemohn.com/sitebuilder/images/black_pudding_huge-301x234.jpg) viewed from the top down and that the thickness it mentions is an average of the blobby shape; presumably an actual ooze doesn't wander around in a perfect cylinder, but I assumed the various dips and bulges roughly cancel, and that the shape is close to that of a cylinder. So I find the volume (in metres), divide the mass by that volume, convert to kilograms, and divide by a thousand to go from cubic meters to litres. The dimensions and weight given for a black pudding, for instance, work out to about 0.81 kg/L, which is less dense than water's 1kg/L.

EDIT: Missed this somehow

There are so many assumptions here. There's nothing necessitating that the entire ooze's body is made up of cells. 99% of it could be nothing more than mucopolysaccharides and acid. You know, extracellular matrices and large interstitial spaces. It'd explain where all those HPs are coming from.

I'll grant you that one, I hadn't thought of that. I wonder what the consequences would be if we treated an Ooze as a thin layer of cells containing a large quantity of acid?


Furthermore, there's nothing necessitating that every single one of its cells has to be pluripotent. If I run a tree through a wood chipper, is it going to form into a million tiny trees? Magically crawl back together? Nope. You'll see, at most, some sprouting from meristems, and those will only last if there's enough fluid around. Grind up a plant that lacks well protected meristem tissue- just about anything out of your garden- and it dies.

If you chop off a section of the trunk of a tree, you won't get a fully viable second tree, while that is explicitly what happens with multiple Oozes. The difference is that on their own, the cells that make up the wood and bark don't function as their own mini trees while Oozes do. That was kind of my point.

And what does a cells ability to specialise and differentiate have to do with that?


Lastly, even single celled organisms, like the aforementioned paramecium, are capable of responding to environmental cues- phototaxis, chemotaxis, thermotaxis, and thigmotaxis, in the case of paramecium. That's one cell, using localized vesicles containing ions to respond to the proper stimulus.

Those processes, however only function on a microscopic scale. It's one of the reasons why single-cell organisms tend to be small. Complex multicellular organisms work around that by transmitting the results to the brain via nerves, which then reacts. An Ooze however explicitly lacks any such vital organ to interpret, else we could Sneak Attack it.

[Venger]

failed pretty hard when talking about gills. thanks for the info, spuddles and tuggyne.


Those processes, however only function on a microscopic scale. It's one of the reasons why single-cell organisms tend to be small.

while the tendency is to be small, there are certain exceptions. an egg yolk, for example, is only one cell and is pretty big as far as cells go.


Complex multicellular organisms work around that by transmitting the results to the brain via nerves, which then reacts. An Ooze however explicitly lacks any such vital organ to interpret, else we could Sneak Attack it.
this is part of the reason why I think of them as slime molds. that way, they're a large aggregation of simple organisms with no brain that communicate to other members of the hive with smell and touch. since it's uniform throughout and can survive without all of its parts, this would explain its immunity to crits/sa and its blindsense

[cerin616]

Also, some players have a tendency NOT to retreat. Even if it's wise. XP and all that.

You dont need to kill a monster to get xp off it.

[Deophaun]

Chemically splitting water is a job for fuel cells
Nope. Fuel cells bond hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity. The actual cracking has to be done elsewhere.

[Sith_Happens]

They're big bags of hit points so they're a boring fight that's slow...

Or hilariously fast if you have a way to exploit their nonexistent Reflex and Will saves.

Or even more hilariously fast using Grave Mist/Ray of Exhaustion -> coup de gras with hammer.

[Venger]

Or hilariously fast if you have a way to exploit their nonexistent Reflex and Will saves.

Or even more hilariously fast using Grave Mist/Ray of Exhaustion -> coup de gras with hammer.

ref: yes
will: harder. many will things are mind-affecting, which oozes are immune to. one of my favorite things to do against oozes is to divert them with major images and the like (since they have thermal things and are not mind-affecting) the ooze will fail its save and attack your dummy while you whomp him with rocks or whatever

oozes cannot be coup de grâced because they are immune to critical hits.

[Sith_Happens]

oozes cannot be coup de grâced because they are immune to critical hits.

Derp. The important part is that it's helpless, you can bludgeon it to death the normal way at that point.

[Silus]

If you're not opposed to dipping into PF 3rd Party stuff, there are a few templates you could toss on oozes to make them more...interesting. Id Ooze springs to mind. Make the oozes intelligent, maybe even going so far as to give them caster levels.

[Venger]

Derp. The important part is that it's helpless, you can bludgeon it to death the normal way at that point.
sure. your point still stands, and is a valid tactic, but you'll need to actually roll damage a bunch, you can't just CDG


If you're not opposed to dipping into PF 3rd Party stuff, there are a few templates you could toss on oozes to make them more...interesting. Id Ooze springs to mind. Make the oozes intelligent, maybe even going so far as to give them caster levels.

dungeonscape's sentry ooze and mm3's living spell have been mentioned upthread, as has half-dragon to give oozes int scores.

[Spuddles]

Nope. Fuel cells bond hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity. The actual cracking has to be done elsewhere.

Both the citric acid cycle and the Calvin cycle split water for hydration synthesis- for instance, turning NAD into NADH.

[georgie_leech]

while the tendency is to be small, there are certain exceptions. an egg yolk, for example, is only one cell and is pretty big as far as cells go.

At the same time though, an egg doesn't really respond to the outside environment in any way, at least not until divides and specialises enough that a distinct multicellular organism is forming.


this is part of the reason why I think of them as slime molds. that way, they're a large aggregation of simple organisms with no brain that communicate to other members of the hive with smell and touch. since it's uniform throughout and can survive without all of its parts, this would explain its immunity to crits/sa and its blindsense

I agree that modeling them as slime molds does fit the behavior pretty well, but it doesn't explain how they have a limit for splits or be damaged by weapons at all. The Ooze that can split the most is the Elder Black Pudding, which at average HP can only be split into thirty two chunks before it can't split any further, whereas a slime mold can be divided pretty much forever until you get to relatively countable cell numbers in each and they're back to microscopic size. Cut a slime mold as you will, I don't think you'll ever reach a point where it "dies." So it can't be just that Oozes function as colonies.

EDIT:

Failed again...

Actually, by some definitions an unfertilised egg can be considered a single cell. There's only one set of DNA, for instance, and it contains multiple structures not composed of other cells that all serve the primary function of protecting and feeding the embryo.

[SterlingAvenger]

Ever played Call of Cthulhu? This one scenario The Crack'd and Crook'd Manse has a giant ooze in the walls of a house. I'm sure there are templates somewhere that would allow this.
Just imagine, the party splits up, maybe with some concerned villagers thrown into the mix, slowly people start going missing, with only a funny smell and an lost item clothing in front of various architectural features like fireplaces, closets with false backs or floors, etc.

[Deophaun]

Both the citric acid cycle and the Calvin cycle split water for hydration synthesis- for instance, turning NAD into NADH.
Both of which have nothing to do with fuel cells (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell). :smalltongue:

[Spuddles]

I'll grant you that one, I hadn't thought of that. I wonder what the consequences would be if we treated an Ooze as a thin layer of cells containing a large quantity of acid?

Perhaps striations of cells and extracellular gunk. You wouldn't want the living stuff exposed- you'd want it protected by acid & slime. At the same time, burying your cells too deep would interfere with gas exchange.


If you chop off a section of the trunk of a tree, you won't get a fully viable second tree, while that is explicitly what happens with multiple Oozes. The difference is that on their own, the cells that make up the wood and bark don't function as their own mini trees while Oozes do. That was kind of my point.

And what does a cells ability to specialise and differentiate have to do with that?

I guess I'm not really sure what oozes splitting has to do with them being cut up? I mean there are plenty of real life examples, from sponges to trees to starfish, where destruction of the original organism doesn't mean death, and to varying degrees of regeneration.

Like what does an ooze's ability to split have anything to do with whether or not an ooze has multiple sets of specialized motory neurons? I mean, it already has sensory organs and the ability to move towards prey and away from things that hurt it.


Those processes, however only function on a microscopic scale. It's one of the reasons why single-cell organisms tend to be small. Complex multicellular organisms work around that by transmitting the results to the brain via nerves, which then reacts. An Ooze however explicitly lacks any such vital organ to interpret, else we could Sneak Attack it.

I think about half of all multicellular animal phyla on earth lack brains, yet react to stimuli. Cnidarians, several groups of molluscs, echinoderms, and a bunch of the "lower" vermiform phyla use neural nets.

Furthermore, many of the limitations that we think are biological limitations don't appear to affect D&D creatures (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/devastationVermin.htm).

I've have amply demonstrated the feasibility of how an organism like an ooze could function. Simply because something does not exist in our current environment does not mean such a thing is impossible. There are many things which are possible biologically, but are not necessarily possible evolutionarily. Mammalian eyes, for instance, are put together backwards. This does not mean that all eyes have to be put together backwards to function, merely that mammalian eyes evolved less than optimally.

I suspect that energetics & carbon acquisition in D&D are far less of a problem than they are IRL, which means you can have huge blobs of hungry jelly or crabs the size of super heavy tanks, and underground races like drow & dwarves.


Both of which have nothing to do with fuel cells (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell). :smalltongue:

Oh god I was thinking of mitochondria and chloroplasts, which are pseudo-cellular organelles. :smallredface:

[XmonkTad]

Ok, 2 things:
1) the Gelatinous Template from SS turns the creature type to aberration, not ooze. I think this is wrong, but whatever.

2) I don't know why they gave the Teratomorph (MM2 p194) a swim speed if it can't breathe underwater (somehow lives there????), but it can move 90 ft/round so that should be able to chase down your party. Also, it's a CR 16.

Reading the Teratomorph is just a headache. It can detect law, but has no int score. So... what does it do once it has detected law? Anything it wasn't going to do already? Since it has blindsight 240ft and a 30 foot reach, I have no idea how 20ft detect law is useful at all.

On a completely different note: I had an idea for a CG warlock who made living spell oozes to help out the people/villages. Granary spoiled? Ooze of purify food and drink! Mule kicked you in the head? Ooze of cure minor wounds! Evil outsiders invading? Ooze of Holy Word!

You could set this guy up as the head of a village using an Ooze of Ooze Puppet (SC and FC1) to control all the oozes of the village. Otherwise they would attack people.

[joca4christ]

You dont need to kill a monster to get xp off it.

While admittedly true, some players play in a manner where the only way to get XP is to kill. Hack and slash and all that. I love that you don't have to kill to overcome/get XP.

[Rogue Shadows]

Personally, I always thought we should make an (ooze) subtype and just make them Aberrations as a type, but that's me.

[Deophaun]

Personally, I always thought we should make an (ooze) subtype and just make them Aberrations as a type, but that's me.
That ooze is acting intelligently because it's actually a MoMF!

[Venger]

While admittedly true, some players play in a manner where the only way to get XP is to kill. Hack and slash and all that. I love that you don't have to kill to overcome/get XP.
the root cause of this, of course, being that some DMs rule that the only way to get xp is to kill. thus, their players will try to accumulate xp.


That ooze is acting intelligently because it's actually a MoMF!

or the sample master transmogrifist. he picked ochre jelly as one of his favored shapes. I mean... why?

[Mithril Leaf]

or the sample master transmogrifist. he picked ochre jelly as one of his favored shapes. I mean... why?

Perhaps style, perhaps flair, perhaps both?

[Deophaun]

or the sample master transmogrifist. he picked ochre jelly as one of his favored shapes. I mean... why?
Obviously, whatever quest the character was on at the time required him to gain the service of a black dragon with certain proclivities.

[TuggyNE]

Nope. Fuel cells bond hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity. The actual cracking has to be done elsewhere.

Fuel cells are awesome, because they're completely reversible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_fuel_cell); you can feed electricity and water in to get hydrogen and oxygen, or feed hydrogen and oxygen in to get electricity and water. I have actually connected a fuel cell up for a school project and watched its output bubble into the tanks, so this is not merely a hypothetical.

[Venger]

Perhaps style, perhaps flair, perhaps both?

okay so, here's what doesn't make sense to me:

the sample dood, mekkhier, is a lvl 11 guy (a level 8 sorcerer, because he hates himself, and then 3 lvls in MT) and he thus has 4 favored shapes. he selected umber hulk (presumably for mobility), a medusa (???), and a very young gold dragon alongside his ochre jelly form.

so, his spell selection, like most sample characters, is pretty inept. I won't dwell on it though.

medusa doesn't give you anything worthwhile since polymorph doesn't give su abilities.

gold dragon similarly gives no particularly useful abilities (you don't get alternate form, your flight's kinda whatever over normal flying stuff like overland flight, and gold dragon's pretty darn frail for level 11 combat proper)

what's the deal with ochre jelly? does splitting work for a PC? if you have your barbarian friend slice you into pieces, can you make a bunch of clones of yourself? because that would be pretty baller.


Obviously, whatever quest the character was on at the time required him to gain the service of a black dragon with certain proclivities.
mfw (http://denver.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw693_Jesus_Christ_how_horrifying-(n1308183251036).png)