Negative LA-Assignment : Resurrection, but no diamond here

[Beni-Kujaku]

Oozes

You know how slimes are always the weakest monsters in RPGs? Well WotC tried its best to counteract this trend and make some strong slimes. And they utterly failed.

Immunity to crits and sneak attacks, blindsight, immunity to mind-affecting, polymorph, paralysis, sleep, stun and probably social events. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, no good save, no full BAB, 2+Int (so, 1 skill point if sentry ooze or half-fiend), and a general lack of anything worthwhile. That makes all monster manual oozes too underwhelming to be interesting to play (except Gelatinous Cube. Everybody loves and respect the Gelatinous Cube, and if somebody disagrees, he can fight me). Their stats are all incredibly similar to each other, to the point that they are almost indistinguishable from just advanced versions of each other (again, except the glorious Gelatinous Cube). No int, -10 Dex, Wis, and Cha, decent Str and at least +10 Con, going to +18 for the elder black pudding. Not quite as restrictive as the shrieker, but you're not going to do anything except being a martial, probably a barbarian, even more so with the grappling focus of their ability. Some levels in Dragonfire Adept, to get an acceptable anatomy and have magic items, could be pretty interesting too.

Some Oozes have the split special ability, which we disregard here. Inevitability explained why.

Black Pudding, 10 RHD: +6 Str, +12 Con. I don't understand how the slam and constrict damages are calculated, don't ask me. A bit more stats than the Gelatinous Cube, but you remove the two abilities that made it interesting, and replace them with Improved Grab and Constrict. Is it worth 4RHD? Maybe even 3. Let's go with 3 RHD. Huge size is good for a grappler, and despite the various drawbacks (handicaps?). Also, DLA-5. I see no reason to not allow a BAB higher than its ECL when you have four unusable stats.

Elder Black Pudding, 20 RHD: +14 Str, +18 Con. Same as the greater stone golem, just an advanced version of the previous one, with even more nonsense in the slam and constrict damage. I'd say 5 RHD. That makes it the lowest-ECL Gargantuan monster, but it doesn't have much to go with it, so making it an almost unbeatable grappler at this level seems to be fair. DLA-11 is the biggest DNLA I have given, but with these mental stats, you can compare with the Dire Shark and see that the black pudding still doesn't make the cut. Are there broken prestige classes that you can enter easily if you have +15 BAB at level 9?

Gray Ooze, 3 RHD: +2 Str, +10 Con. A Medium Grappler, what could possibly go wrong. The ooze immunities make almost the whole worth of this, but they are good enough that I think this needs 1 RHD, LA+1 and DLA-1.

Ochre Jelly, 6 RHD: +4 Str, +12 Con. Large, a bit better, but generally the same. 2 RHD, DLA-3.


This is just sad. They're almost as boring as they are useless. And they are very useless. Next time, we will see the creature that is more well-known because there is a prison in which they are sometimes thrown, the Otyugh! And until then, never forget to praise the Gelatinous Cube 🙌!