Ooooooooozes

[MrStabby]

What would a high level ooze/gelatinous cube look like?

I am talking a real challenge for a smart, optimised party of levels 11 to 13. Possibly in multiples but should represent a threat to a party that can cast wall of force as well as much higher level spells.

Normally oozes are not such a big deal - slow, not much by way of ranged attacks, not so smart... For an ooze to be a threat it needs a lot of love at this level.

What might some great abilities be?

I am thinking something like an antimagic field for a start. So many cheap answers come from spells: walls, flying, misty step, summoned enemies, animated objects.

I am also toying with the idea that they are a compact surface of a bigger cube in an extraplanar space. If you get eaten by the cube you are moved to a demiplane inside it where things are really wierd. I thought an interesting aspect of the fight might be to ensure that everyone was outside of the cube before it got destroyed. Whilst this might be fun for an encounter it seems like it might be less fun as a recurring feature (although repeated uses is probably not fun for casters with an antimagic field so they should be able to recur only when there are other magic vulnerable enemies they are able to fight.

I just feel that these guys need a certain something to make them both surprisingly dangerous as well as fun.


Speaking of cubes I am thinking of a temple of chaos with Die golems - each turn they roll and their abilities/auras depend on what side sits on top. Maybe the antimagic field is better here where it will only be on one sixth of the time?

[Falcon X]

In my game, we let it have levels of monk. The ooze jumps around using flurry of blows with its pseudopods. The team loves it.

I am working on a homebrew ooze Race/class combo set, but it is t ready yet.

[Kane0]

I remember making a higher CR ooze once, called it a Rotslime.

Basically an undead ooze, it had added Necrotic damage and Wight-like energy drain to its attacks and had the standard undead immunities on top of ooze traits. If it dropped something to 0 it could dissolve the corpse down to bones and heal up a fair amount from doing so.

Finally just make them a little smarter, so they will ambush or surprise prey. Oozes that copy piercers and wait on prey to fall onto and engulf is a fun trick.

[Knaight]

The big thing is to remove some weaknesses - oozes are usually slow, take that away and you have a fast creature that can fit through spaces far smaller than it. Oozes are dumb, take that away and now this fast creature is smart enough for ambush tactics, hit and run tactics, etc. Oozes don't tend to have a ranged attack, take that away and this smart, fast ooze can strike from range from all sorts of inconvenient positions.

Taking away all of these from every ooze has the potential to get boring, but loosening up at least some of them in different ways can produce a wide variety of interesting and dangerous oozes.

[Corpsecandle717]

There are arcane oozes that a quick search gave a few homebrew conversions for, might be a good place to start.

[Chaosmancer]

Instead of an anti-magic field, why not have it eat magic. Wall of force is still a useful delay... For a turn or two.

Maybe it heals some when in contact with magical forces, but can still be damaged by spells. So, it becomes a gamble of whether or not a spell will deal more damage than it heals, and if a player has magical effects on them then hitting that player heals the slime and ends the spell.

On the issue of ranged attacks, well it is a giant mass of ooze and magic. Things like spitting random magical energies work perfectly

[bc56]

There's a CR 10 gargantuan ooze called White Maw in TFTYP. It literally forms an entire room in Dead in Thay, acting as a trap to anyone who enters.
There's also have a creature called the Ooze Master, which is also CR 10 and is a combination of an ochre jelly and an enchanter.

Both subvert expectations of oozes. Ooze Master slings spells and generally is an annoying wizard that is also an ooze, and White Maw is like a room made of rust monsters, and is sentient.

[randomodo]

Concur. Ooze master can be fun. All the pseudopod attacks of a regular ooze, plus tossing cloudkill, slow, instinctive charm reactions, etc. Not going to be a challenge against your party of it's solo; but in a pack (one or two dropping slow while one or two drop cloudkill) it could be pretty interesting

[Kane0]

And don't forget Jubilex!

[Afrodactyl]

There's a CR9 ooze that mimics oases in Kobold press' tome of beasts. It's called an Oozasis and quite frankly it's worth it for the name alone.

[Ninja_Prawn]

I wrote (or converted to 5e) a whole stack of mid-CR oozes over here (http://mfov.magehandpress.com/2017/03/the-oozemasters-apprentice.html). Perhaps there's something in there that night be useful. :smallsmile:

Also I published a gelatinous sphere stat block (partly inspired by the spherimorph from FFX) on my tumblr, so you might want to look that up as well.

[Nettlekid]

I had a sewer dungeon populated by Oozes who had been mutated by the pollution left by a disreputable alchemist who dumped his concoctions into the sewers. The upshot was that each Ooze was permanently infused with the effect of one of the potions from the DMG, and had the visual effect of the potion too. So the Gelatinous Cube had cloudy white impurities because of the Potion of Flying, so when it Engulfed someone it bounced back and started to fly away. The Gray Ooze had a Red Giant toenail sticking out of it and the effect of the Potion of Giant Strength made it punch really hard. The Ochre Jelly had black streaks throughout and was zooming around the walls under a Haste effect. The Black Pudding had an undulating red orb in its center and whenever it was split in half each half would Enlarge, so while it didn't regain any HP it was able to be split indefinitely.

[Fayd]

Here’s a little thing I brewed up, feel free to give it whatever numbers you need, as well as basic attacks and traits, like split if you want to be annoying. This should be a memorable little beauty.

Magebane Slime
Few know how these glittering oozes came to be; diabolic influence, the lasting fallout of he destruction of an ancient magical empire, a cabal of druids seeking to punish civilization for its hubris, and the influence of a great old one have been intermittently blamed by scholars. Regardless of their origin, these slimes are formidable foes, especially to adventurers with magical abilities.

Abilities
Choking Gas: in response to a creature within 60 feet making any sort of spoken noise, the magebane slime instinctively and unerringly shoots a cloud of choking gas at it. This does not use the slime’s reaction. The creature must succeed on a DC ## Constitution Saving Throw or take (light to moderate) poison damage and if the creature was casting a spell with a verbal component or otherwise concentrating, it must also make a concentration save or lose the spell or effect.

Glittering Mass: as the reflective carapace ability of the tarrasque.

Magebane: the slime starts an encounter with a number of charges; it can use these charges to fuel its dispel magic and counterspell abilities. The number of charges is based upon the power of the party you are intending to have it fight. The slime can gain additional charges through the use of its disjunction slam ability (two charges per attuned item) or its arcanophage ability (one charges per drained spell slot level)

Actions
Disjunction Slam: as a pseudopod attack, and any character struck must succeed on a DC ## charisma saving throw or have one piece of attuned magical gear suppressed until the creature’s next short rest.

Arcanophage: as an engulf attack, dealing moderate acid damage. If the slime engulfs a creature that has spell slots remaining, it deals extra acid damage and the creature must succeed on a DC ## intelligence saving throw or lose 1d6+1 levels with of spell slots, starting with the highest available slot. The slime will always remove at least one spell slot; move up to the next spell level if no low level spell slots remain. The slime heals 1d6 hit points per spell slot removed in this way.

Dispel Magic: At Will as the spell of the same name; consumes a number of charges per spell level dispelled.

Reactions
Counterspell: As the spell of the same name; consumes one charge per spell level counterspelled.

[Kuulvheysoon]

IF you're willing to put the work in, you could convert the Living Spell template from 3.5e Eberron into 5e.

Living Meteor Showers, fireballs and cone of colds oh my!

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Also your ooze should be in a situation where it gets surprise, probably. There's one very early in SKT that hides inside a stalactite, and I've always liked that. It attacks only if the players get close to the stalactite; otherwise, it waits for them to head down a dead-end passage and be distracted.

[Dualswinger]

Also, make the environment work to the oozes advantage. I remember a terrifying encounter where we set off a trap in the middle of a tunnel (seriously who just lays a trap in a random tunnel).

At first it just dumped rotting meat, but then we saw the ooze ahead, and the ooze behind. We were pincered and they were approaching fairly inevitably.

[Tvtyrant]

Go to the source material. The blob/ooze grows by eating, it is massive, doesn't use more then a portion of itself at a time and attacks through sewers, latrines, aquaducts, rivers, etc. If injured it withdraws its limbs from the area, and tries to lure the party into the water filled tunnels where it will simply fill every crevice around them and squeeze.

[Asmotherion]

I'd think of changing the size (to include more creatures), type (to a generally less resisted one) and effectiveness.

Make a thematic change;

For Example: A huge Pool of clear looking water is actually of a jelly-like substance. Anyone who touches it must success on a DC X Charisma save or become charmed by the Pool, following simple mood and feeling effects, and directing them, such as anger towards a particular person, the feeling of heat, or the desire to plunge into the pool. The target also takes xdy psychic Damage on contact with the pool if it fails a Wis save, or half as much on a successful one. The pool is also formed of poisonous material, that deals xdy poison damage on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one.

The pool itself can move very slowly, only 5 feet.

[Dr. Cliché]

Have you considered taking some inspiration from the old blob films?

Here's what I'm thinking:

1) Pick an Ooze. I'm thinking Black Pudding, but whatever takes your fancy.

2) Pick a weakness or two for it. Preferably something exotic (Lightning, Thunder, Cold or such).

3) Make it immune to everything else - including all physical damage. Slashing, Bludgeoning, Piercing, magical or nonmagical, nothing hurts it. Same goes for every element that isn't its weakness.

4) Keep it relatively slow (maybe around 15ft), but make it inevitable. The players can run faster than it, sure, but they'll get tired. The ooze never gets tired. The ooze never sleeps. The ooze never has to stop. The players can put things in its path. The ooze doesn't care. It swims over rivers without issue. It oozes down the sheer face of a gorge, and then back up the other size. It oozes over physical barriers, or simply burns right through them with its acidic touch. If they enter a building it oozes through the cracks in the door, or even climbs up the walls to drop down from the ceiling or chimney.

5) Put them somewhere where they can't keep running. Have them trapped in a dungeon, with the ooze blocking the only way to the surface, or have the ooze approaching a town or city.

Obviously they'll have to be able to kill it eventually, but it shouldn't be a normal fight (depending on the weaknesses and party composition, you might have to give them something or add something so that they're actually capable of taking it down). For example, if the ooze is vulnerable only to fire, there may not be enough fire spells in the party to actually take it down (especially if it regenerates). Hence, they'll have to look for a way to create a trap for it - such as a building filled with flammable material.

Hopefully you get the idea.

[Droodicus]

Put them in a labyrinth. Have oozes everywhere. Once they start making progress oozes start dropping from the ceiling and walls. It'll be easy to start but the oozes just keep coming, there's no where to rest everyone's getting tired but the oozes keep coming. Where's the exit. They are coming. Doom doom. They are coming and we cannot get out. They are coming....

[Asmotherion]

An other cool inspiration for an adventure:

Each player has to make an Ooze to follow them into a Labirinth, infested with undead. Since they are followed, they have no option but to fight the Undead, and if they are too slow, they may get consumed by the Ooze. The point is to trap at least (number of PCs) Oozes into a circle, in the middle of the Dungeon, that will sacrifice them to appease the spirit that animates the Undead in the Dungeon;

Backstory; The spirit was an adventurer mage who was exploring the dungeon for treasure, and got consumed by an Ooze. He animates the bones of nearby dead villagers to destroy the Oozes out of spite, but in vain. The circle is a Permanent Glyph of Warding, that works specifically against Oozes as an Explosive Rune. The Spirit is a Ghost, and an 11th level Wizard Necromancer. He does not engage in combat, unless the party works deliberatelly against him, and in that case he is considered to have used his spell slots for the day to Animate Dead (to populate the dungeon), other than his 2nd and 1st level ones. He can't move on to his afterlife untill all the Oozes in the Dungeon have been defeated.