Interesting Ooze Idea

[shamgar001]

I had an idea for a monster, and I'm wondering about how it could be balanced for a certain level.

It's an ooze that has "damage soak" value in the form of Resist all x. When a character deals damage to it over the soak value, it still doesn't take damage, but instead splits into several smaller ooze spawns, each with an equal fraction of its hit points, that spend a turn attacking creatures in the area before reforming back into the large ooze. The large ooze never takes damage directly, but its hit points are determined by how many of the spawns are killed.

One way to go about this is to simply give it the normal number of hip points for a monster of its level, but I'm worried that will be too much, since the soak will be high enough that, while not being invincible, it will absorb a lot of damage.

[Surrealistik]

It's interesting, but to be honest, I'd consider keeping it KISS, give it the swarm keyword, and have it split irrevocably when bloodied.

Further, I'd assume if sub-oozes couldn't rejoin (if only due to immobilization or an inability to move adjacent to other oozes) that the master ooze would reform with a fraction of its hit points lost equal to the fraction of sub-oozes that couldn't participate in the reformation?

I'd assume the mechanic would be worded something like this if kept as is:

Ooze Dispersion * At-Will
Trigger: The ooze takes more than X damage during a turn
Effect (No Action): The ooze is removed from play and for each healing surge value in hit points it has remaining (rounded up) an oozling appears in an unoccupied square within a close burst 1 of the ooze’s space. Each oozling acts on the ooze’s initiative. At the end of the ooze’s next turn, each oozling shifts its speed to a square adjacent to another oozling as a free action. An oozling that ends this shift adjacent to another oozling is removed from play. If at least two oozlings are removed from play in this way, the ooze returns to play in an unoccupied space within a close burst 1 of the removed oozlings, then loses hit points equal to its healing surge value for each ooze that was not removed from play in this way.


Oozlings would have a separate stat block with max HP = to the ooze's bloodied value.

[Ashdate]

I suspect that would be a very frustrating fight for PCs. unless you could communicate it well. I've tried several times in my games to build boss encounters that require players "figuring out" the boss, but inevitably, they treat it like any other.

A few suggestions on making your idea smoother, if you're set on it:

1) allow the players to "find out" about the ooze and its weakness before they fight it. Perhaps the diary of the mad mage that created it.

2) Give the monster a weakness (fire? cold? a special formula the PCs find?) that ignores the damage reduction.

2) Get rid of the damage reduction entirely. Take a solo's hit points as appropriate, and divide (no pun intended) the fight into stages. As an example, pretend you have a 400hp ooze:

Stage 1 (hp 400-301): one huge solo ooze brute.
Stage 2 (hp 300-201): two large elite ooze soldiers.
Stage 3 (hp 200-101): one huge solo ooze brute (bloodied).
Stage 4 (hp 100 to dead): four medium normal ooze skirmishers (bloodied).

In stage 1, the ooze is in its most non-threatening. It attacks with heavy blows and has standard MV solo resistances. Perhaps at its initiative + 10 it can make a free slam (or swallow) attack. At the end of this stage, it explodes for some minor acid (or whatever) damage.

In stage 2, the ooze "splits" into two elite oozes, who now deal less damage, but begin working in pairs, marking their opponents (with slime!) and capitalizing on shifts and what now. Once 100 pts of damage is dealt to either/both oozes, they "remerge" back into the solo ooze.

In stage 3, the ooze is at its most dangerous. It now ratchets up the multi-hit attacks (perhaps with a new ability?). At the end of the stage, it explodes for a healthy chunk of acid (or whatever) damage.

In stage 4, its now cleanup. The ooze has now split into 4, and is completely unstabilized. Each ooze has 25 hit points (100/4), and is now quick enough to duck and weave around. When each ooze is killed, it explodes, albeit not as badly as in stage 3.

[Yakk]

Resist: for every 10 points of damage dealt to this monster, a slime fragment is created and shifts 3 squares directly away from the slime to an (see below).

Slime fragments are minions with Resist all 10.

The Slime can Absorb fragments, regaining 10 hit points per fragment.

Slime Fragments with no Slime nearby can Merge, regrowing a primary Slime with 10 hit points per Fragment and maybe a scaling amount of damage.

[Tegu8788]

Ok, I'll try my hand out at this, because I think I know enough of the rules to write this out in a semi-proper fashion. There is no level or role, because I don't know that much. But the basics should be solid enough to be applied, based on what I think could be cool.

Ooze
HP: 100
Speed: 4
Size: Large
Resist" 20 all
Aura 2: All enemies within aura take 2d4 poison damage
At-Will: Slam Attack of some kind, ongoing poison damage, and the target is marked.
If Ooze would take 25 points of damage, it is removed from play as an immediate reaction, for 1d4 + number of times the ooze has been removed from play rounds. For every 10 HP, rounded up, a Ooze Squirt is placed in a Burst 10 outside of Burst 7. When the Ooze returns to play, it has HP equal to the number of Ooze Squirts adjacent to one another x 10.
If the Ooze is removed from play while Ooze Squirts are adjacent, those Ooze Squirts count towards HP regained when it returns to play. Those Ooze Squirts are pushed 1d6 + number of times the ooze has been removed from play squares away.
If the Ooze has less than 50 HP, it is considered Bloodied, as are any Ooze Squirts it produces. If the Ooze returns to play with more than 50 HP, it is no longer considered Bloodied nor are the Ooze Squirts it produces.

Ooze Squirt
Swarm
HP: 10
Speed: 8
Size: Small
Resist: 10 all
Aura 1: All enemies within aura take 1d4 poison damage.
At-Will: Slam Attack of some kind.
All Ooze Squirt must move end it's turn closer to the origin of the burst that spawned it, or an existing Ooze.
When adjacent to another Ooze or Ooze Squirt, add it's resistance to this Ooze Squirt.
If one Ooze Squirt has a higher resistance than one it is adjacent to, both use the higher resistance.
The Ooze Squirt can take a move action after a Charge attack, but is slowed until the start of it's next turn.


How does this look to people? Only second monster I've made, and the last one was very minor changes. I'm sure there are some loop-holes in there. I picked the numbers because they were easy, but I'm sure it could be scaled up without much of an issue.


This would be a long fight, to be clear. If multiple Oozes are used, they can be exploded to heal each other. When a large amount of damage is dealt it explodes, with the squirts then moving to reform the main ooze, to continue the fight. Strikers can kill it just by dealing massive damage to the main ooze, Controllers by taking out the Squirts, or just preventing them from reaching origin point, making them easy to kill by anyone.

[Fecar]

Starting with an ooze that can only be killed by destroying what it splits into, combined with a weakness to an element (cold) and shamelessly ripping off a boss from a video game, I came up with the following.

Note: If the party does not regulary do some type of cold damage, before the fight you need to give them a way to do so. For example, a poison that adds 2 cold damage to weapon attacks, effect lasts until end of the encounter.

Ooze (choose stats based on desired level)
Ooze
HP: -- (see traits)
Speed: 4
Size: Large
Defenses: Equal to same level brute
Blindsight

Slam - Standard Action (Basic Attack)
Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +X vs AC
Hit: X damage
(X equal to same level minor +hit and damage)

Pound - Standard Action
Make two Slam attacks

Traits:
In its normal form, the ooze is industructable and can only be effected by Cold attacks; it is immune to all effects. Once the ooze has been hit by a cold attack, it visibly starts to thicken. After being hit 3 times by cold attacks, it has become very viscous, has it's speed reduced to 2 and can no longer make Pound attacks. After 5 cold attack have hit, the ooze cannot move and cannot attack. Once the ooze has been hit 7 times it becomes frozen and is now vulnerable to physical damage. Once frozen, if the ooze is hit 10 times (weapon attacks and/or Force damage) within 2 rounds it will Shatter, otherwise it returns to its normal form.

Shatter:
The first time the ooze shatters, remove the ooze from play and place 10 ooze-lings within Burst 6 but outside of Burst 4. Any ooze-lings that are destroyed prior to reforming remain destoryed during next Shatter. All ooze-lings have the same initative as the ooze and move their speed to the center of the Burst. After two rounds, once all the remaining oozelings have returned to the center of the burst, remove them from play and replace with the Ooze in its normal form. During the next shatter, all remaining ooze-lings start at full health.

Ooze-ling
Ooze-ling
HP: (Equal to same level lurker)
Speed: 3
Size: Small
Defenses: Equal to same level lurker
Blindsight

Acid Aura:
Aura 1 - any creature entering the aura takes X Acid damage.

Traits:
Ooze-ling is immune to slides, pushes, pulls, being knocked prone, dominates, stuns, dazes and acid. The ooze-ling can move through other creatures spaces. On its turn, the ooze-ling moves its speed, provoking opportunity attacks, applying its aura onto any creatures in its path.


The idea is that the ooze itself is not that threatening, it only does the damage of two minons and is slow. Once the PC's realize that cold damage is the key, the fight can become very deadly depending on PC positioning after the Shatter phase. The ooze-lings function like mobile hazardous terrain that need to be destroyed. During the Frozen phase, it would be a good idea to let the players know that their physical attacks are causing the ooze to crack. Perhaps have critical hits count as extra hits or simply cause the ooze to shatter.

What the DM will need to track is:

How many times has the ooze been hit with cold attack this normal phase
The frozen round lasts 2 rounds
How many times has the ooze been hit this frozen phase
How many ooze-lings are left after the shatter phase