Special Conversion Thread: Finishing off the oozes

[Cleon]

Silver Slime Megalium Working Draft

Silver Slime Megalium
Huge Ooze
Hit Dice: 10d10+70 (125 hp)
Initiative: -5
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), climb 20 ft.
Armor Class: 13 (-2 size, -5 Dex, +10 natural), touch 3, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +7/+26
Attack: Up to 10 pseudopod tools* +12 melee (1d8+7 plus 2d6 energy) or up to 10 pseudopod beamtorches* +6 ranged touch (4d8 energy)
Full Attack: Up to 10 pseudopod tools* +12 melee (1d8+7 plus 2d6 energy) or up to 10 pseudopod beamtorches* +6 ranged touch (4d8 energy)
* See pseudopod weaponry for full details
Space/Reach: 15 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Acid, improved grab, pseudopod weaponry
Special Qualities: Blind, blindsight 60 ft., half damage from slashing or piercing, ooze traits, vulnerability to fire
Saves: Fort +9, Ref -3, Will -3
Abilities: Str 25, Dex 1, Con 24, Int —, Wis 1, Cha 1
Skills: Climb +15
Feats: —
Environment: Any aquatic, forest, swamp, and underground
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 8
Treasure: None
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 11-15 HD (Huge); 15-30 HD (Gargantuan); 31-49 (Colossal)
Level Adjustment: —

A small lake of steel-grey slime that flows with disturbing purpose. A host of liquid tentacles ooze out of its surface, their tips solidify into a strange assortment of tools and nozzles.

The silver slimes of some military complexes have an additional stage to their life cycle, the megalium, a combat form that allows them to attack invaders must like antibodies fighting an infection. If intruders damage a complex maintained by these militarized silver slimes, the individual silver slime swarms and slugs flow together and form megaliums to repel or dissolve the invaders. If silver slimes are numerous enough, they can form megalium so immense they can envelop the ships the invaders landed in too. The commander of a slime-equipped military complex usually possesses the ability to trigger or cancel a megalium transformation from the facility's control center.

The transformation into a megalium takes only a round once sufficient silver slimes have congregated together. The megalium will break apart into many Tiny silver slimes if it takes sufficient damage to destroy it. These tiny oozes are exhausted from the effort of becoming a megalium, so need to feed and rest for at least a few days before they have the energy to gather into silver slime swarms.

A typical silver slime megalium is an aggregate of around ten or a dozen silver slime swarms or silver slime slugs. It is roughly 15 feet across and 1 feet thick and weighs from 5,000 to 10,000 pounds. The largest megalium can measure 100 feet across, about 10 feet thick, and weigh up to 1000 tons.

COMBAT
Unlike normal silver slimes, megalium aggressively pursue intruders and attack them with its weaponized pseudopods. Its pseudopods can do both normal and energy damage. A megalium randomly selects what type(s) of damage each of its pseudopod weapons does (so different pseudopods can do different damage) and if an opponent proves resistant to that form of damage it instinctively switches to another randomly generated damage type.

Megalium keep on attacking until they are destroyed or all their opponents have left the facility they are guarding.

Acid (Ex): A silver slime's acid does not harm metal or stone.

Pseudopod Weaponry (Ex): As a free action, a silver slime megalium can form its pseudopods into weapons. The megalium can produce any combination of tools and beamtorches it requires, and it can use pseudopod weaponry with different energy types at the same time.

Melee Tool: This pseudopod tool is a melee weapon that inflicts 1d8+7 damage (piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning) plus 2d6 energy damage. The energy damage can be acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic.

Beamtorch: This pseudopod has a rod-like tip that can shoot a stream of energy as long as the megalium's reach (10 ft. for a typical Huge specimen). A beamtorch is a ranged touch attack with a +5 racial bonus to attack that does 4d8 energy damage. The energy damage can be acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic.

​

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a silver slime megalium must hit with a pseudopod tool attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and deals damage automatically every round. Silver slime megaliums have a +4 racial bonus on grapple checks (already figured into the Base Attack/Grapple entry above).

ADVANCED MEGALIUMS
A Gargantuan silver slime megalium can use up to 15 pseudopod weapons simultaneously and its beamtorches have a 15 ft. range and do 6d8 damage. A Colossal megalium can extrude up to 20 pseudopod weapons and its beamtorches have a 20 ft. range and do 9d8 damage.

Originally appeared in SJA1 - Megalium (1991).

 

[Cleon]

The above post is in response to the following, which I'll repeat since it might be on a different page of this thread.

So they should all be ranged? I'd kind of like some difference between the normal and energy attacks.

Well I'd be OK if we followed the Silver Slime slug in giving it melee "normal" attacks and line "energy" attacks.

It'd be a bit trickier to write up, though. I'll rough out a working draft with some ideas...

 

[freyar]

Looks pretty good, but I think I'd change the attack lines. Either to "pseudopod weaponry" or 10 pseudopod tools (melee .... or ranged ...). Right now it looksl ike they always have 10 melee attacks.

 

[Cleon]

Looks pretty good, but I think I'd change the attack lines. Either to "pseudopod weaponry" or 10 pseudopod tools (melee .... or ranged ...). Right now it looksl ike they always have 10 melee attacks.

Since we're using the current Silver Slime slug as a model it doesn't have ranged attacks, since the Slug's "blowtorch" is a area-of-effect line attack.

I'd be OK making it a ranged touch attack, but if we do we'll need to rephrase the Silver Slime Slug too.

After checking the original MC entry, the AD&D Silver Slime's "welding torch" did not have a save for reduced damage, so changing the Slug's blowtorch to a ranged attack would be a better match to its writeup.

So how about:

Silver Slime Slug
Attack/Full Attack: Slam +4 melee (1d6+2 plus 1d6 acid) or blowtorch -1 ranged touch (3d8 fire)

Blowtorch (Ex): A silver slime slug can form a pseudopod into a flaming wand that can shoot a stream of fire up to 10 ft. long. This is a ranged touch attack that inflicts 3d8 fire damage.

Silver Slime Megalium
Attack/Full Attack: 10 pseudopods [tool +10 melee (1d8+7 plus 2d6 energy*) or beamtorch +0 ranged touch (4d8 energy*)]

Pseudopod Weaponry (Ex): As a free action, a silver slime megalium can form its pseudopods into weapons. The megalium can produce any combination of tools and beamtorches it requires, and it can use pseudopod weaponry with different energy types at the same time.

Melee Tool: This pseudopod tool is a melee weapon that inflicts 1d8+7 damage (piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning) plus 2d6 energy damage. The energy damage can be acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic.

Beamtorch: This pseudopod has a rod-like tip that can shoot a stream of energy as long as the megalium's reach (10 ft. for a typical Huge specimen). A beamtorch is a ranged touch attack that does 4d8 energy damage. The energy damage can be acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic.

 

[Cleon]

Silver Slime Slug
blowtorch -1 ranged touch (3d8 fire)

Silver Slime Megalium
beamtorch +0 ranged touch (4d8 energy*)

Making them ranged touch attacks gives the Silver Slime a really pathetic attack values due to its low Dexterity.

I'd be in favor of increasing its Dex - probably to around 10, which would also give the Silver Slime Slug an AC pretty close to the original's AC 9.

Alternatively, we could give it a bonus to hit with its cutting torch.

Speaking of AC, the Megalium form's AD&D stats have a 2-point better AC than an ordinary Silver Slime. Do we want to do anything about that?

 

[freyar]

Well, hmmm. I guess this raises the question of whether we need to make the slub and the megalium have the same attack types. But suppose we make them both ranged touch attacks. Oozes generally have pretty low Dex, so I'd go for a racial bonus to hit with the "blowtorch."

 

[Cleon]

Well, hmmm. I guess this raises the question of whether we need to make the slub and the megalium have the same attack types. But suppose we make them both ranged touch attacks. Oozes generally have pretty low Dex, so I'd go for a racial bonus to hit with the "blowtorch."

Right-ho. How much do you fancy?

+4 to attack, perhaps?

As for the Megalium's higher AC, we can leave that argument until after we have the attacks nailed down.

 

[freyar]

At least +4 to attack, even up to +6. I'd be just as happy converting it to a line.

For the AC, how about a natural armor bonus?

 

[Cleon]

At least +4 to attack, even up to +6. I'd be just as happy converting it to a line.

Overall I prefer the ranged touch attack approach, since the original monster made to hit rolls with all its attacks.

I'd go for a +5 since that'd make the Slug's ranged and melee attack modifiers match, but I don't mind either +4 or +6.

Alternatively, we could key it to a different stat, like Wisdom, and increase that stat. Give it Wisdom 11 and a Wis-based ranged attack would give the Slug +4 ranged touch with its blowtorch and the Megalium +5 ranged touch.

For the AC, how about a natural armor bonus?

That's what I was thinking.

 

[freyar]

+5 bonus to ranged attack rolls works. Wait, doesn't the size penalty also apply to the ranged attack roll? Then I get a total of +5 (-2 size, -5 Dex, +5 racial, +7 BAB) for the ranged attack vs +12 (-2 size, +7 Str, +7 BAB). Am I missing something?

I don't really like making the ranged attacks Wis based without a good flavor reason that I don't see, though.

+2 NA bonus?