This week we conclude our exploration of the creature types in the Menagerie, highlighting a few of the more interesting examples from each as we go. So far we've looked at Aberrations & Chimeras, Angels, Demons & Devils, Animals, Beasts & Insects, Axiomites & Constructs, Fey & Proteans, Dragons & Elementals, Plants & Fungi, and Giants & Swarms. This week we take a look at those creatures that most fundamentally defy the natural order, Oozes & Undead.
Neither of these creature types could exist without the magic that so thoroughly suffuses the world, and their very essences are abominable. Even beyond this similarity, these two creature types are also the types with the most broadly-applying abilities and rules applied to all members of their type. Oozes, lacking any discernable anatomy, are always immune to critical hits, poison and other finesse tactics. They almost always have vast quantities of Hit Points but are often easy to attack, have poor defenses, and are slow and lack good perception. Undead always reverse the typical interactions with positive and negative energy, and have a laundry list of immunities that reflect their status as not alive. This creature type is also the most likely to be incorporeal, making a great many undead difficult to handle without specialized tools.
As we look at these creature types, and some examples from the Menagerie, it's important to be refreshed on some of the conventions that the book uses in order to maintain its level-agnostic format. Important statistics like attacks, skill, saves, or the DCs for special abilities do not list a number. Rather, they simply call out a difficulty level from the challenge table. For a DC, this is always whatever the number is directly. For an active roll, such as an attack or saving throw, this is the number on the table minus ten. Hit Points are given as a multiple of the monster's level, and damage is typically listed without a number of dice included. When listed this way, damage dice are assumed to be one die base, plus another die for every five levels the monster has. For example, one of the monster's we'll highlight later, the Alchemical Blight, would deal 1d6+4 bludgeoning damage with its pseudopod if level 1-4, 2d6+4 if level 5-9, 3d6+4 if level 10-14, and so on.
OOZES
Amorphous blobs of protoplasm or other animated substances, oozes lack a physical structure entirely, yet are not incorporeal. How this category of beings came to exist is not well known, and is the subject of philosophical and scientific debate. One theory suggests oozes are the result of poorly contained experiments in creating alchemical life. Alchemists, in turn tend to point to the many creatures that only exist because of the arcane meddling of wizards. Other popular theories include divine curses or giant bacteria. Regardless of how much truth any of these theories possess, oozes remain dangerous to all other life.
Most oozes are mindless and amorphous and, as blobs of material, completely lack weak points to exploit. All oozes are immune to precision damage, such as Sneak Attacks, and the best result attacks against them can have is success. They tend to be slow, and thus typically act as ambush predators. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of oozes is their ability to split into multiple different copies of the same ooze when subjected to certain types of damage. The types of damage that cause splitting varies from species to species, which can make fighting these creatures dangerous if it is not certain which kind you have encountered.
Ooze "bodies" tend to be highly acidic in order to break down prey, which only adds to the difficulty of dealing with them. Unarmed attacks against an ooze will frequently deal acid damage back to the attacker, and weapons used against them break with alarming rapidity. The safest way to deal with an ooze is to out-run it, use magic from a distance, or make use of stainless steel equipment that is impervious to their acidic residue. Even using stainless steel can be tricky since, while the gear is protected, being so close to an ooze is likely to leave the wielder completely engulfed and dissolved even while the gear survives on.
This creature type is strange, and possibly even man-made through obscure experiments. As such, those at least trained in Occultism can use that skill as a Knowledge Specialty when attempting to identify oozes.
ALCHEMICAL BLIGHT OOZE
Role: Void
[Acid, Alchemical, Huge, Mindless, Ooze]
Senses: Tremorsense; Perception: [med]
DEFENSE
Armor Class: [easy]
Hit Points: 45x[level]
Fort: [hard], Ref: [easy], Will: [easy]
Immune: acid, critical hits, emotion, fear, mental, piercing, poison, precision
Weak: magic
Defensive Abilities: (0 Reactions)
{F} Acid Body
Trigger: A creature touches the ooze, or melee attacks it
Effect: The triggering creature takes d8 acid damage, and a weapon takes 2 dents. A creature does not take damage if the weapon has the reach trait.
{F} Catastrophic Instability
Trigger: The ooze starts its turn
Effect: The ooze attempts a DC 8 flat check. If the result is a failure, it must Detonate this turn.
{F} Split
Trigger: The ooze is dealt slashing damage or is directly struck by a bomb
Effect: The ooze splits into two identical oozes, each with its current remaining Hit Points. If this ability was triggered by a bomb, it splits into 1d4+1 oozes instead. An Alchemical Blight that splits from a bomb does not also recover Hit Points using its Absorb Alchemy ability.
Absorb Alchemy: If an Alchemical Blight would be affected by an alchemical item, it absorbs the effect. If the effect is a bomb, the ooze recovers Hit Points equal to the damage dealt. If the effect is anything else, it recovers 5 Hit Points per item level.
Alchemy Thief: If the Alchemical Blight deals damage with a pseudopod attack or Engulfs a target with one or more ongoing alchemical effects, the ooze steals one such effect, at random. This triggers the ooze’s Absorb Alchemy ability.
OFFENSE
Speed: hex 3
Melee Attacks:
{A} pseudopod [med] (d6+4 B plus d6 acid)
Special Attacks:
{AAA} Detonate: The ooze explodes, then reforms itself. Creatures in a hex 4 aura must attempt a [med] Reflex save.
Success: As failure, but half damage.
Success (+10): As success, but 10 less damage.
Failure: The target takes 1d8 damage per level of the Alchemical Blight. The damage type is chosen randomly, using its Unstable Alchemy ability. The ooze loses Hit Points equal to the result of the dice when it Detonates.
Failure (-10): As failure, plus 10 more damage and 1d8 more persistent damage of the same type.
{AAA} Engulf: The ooze Strides up to three times, moving through spaces occupied by creatures. If the ooze moves through a creature’s space, that creature must attempt a [med] Reflex save. This movement triggers Opportunity Attacks, but a foe which takes one treats its save as one step worse. If the ooze stops in a space that was occupied by a creature which is not engulfed, that creature is automatically moved to a space of its choosing adjacent to the ooze.
Success: The target takes d6 acid damage, but is not engulfed.
Success (+10): No effect.
Failure: The target takes d6 acid damage and is engulfed. An engulfed target and its equipment take d10 persistent acid damage, which cannot be stopped while it remains engulfed. Engulfed targets cannot breathe, but can Swim out of the ooze, treating the ooze’s space as greater difficult terrain. A creature’s buoyancy in an ooze is always toward the center.
Failure (-10): As failure, plus 10 more acid damage and it cannot hold its breath.
STATISTICS
Str: +0, Agi: -4, End: +7, Int: -, Wis: -, Cha: -
Languages: none
Hard Skills: Athletics
Special Abilities:
Sense Alchemy: An Alchemical Blight can sense creatures that are affected by an alchemical item as an imprecise sense within hex 10. An Alchemical Blight instinctively prioritizes creatures which have ongoing alchemical effects.
Tremorsense: An Alchemical Blight can sense vibrations in or on a surface it touches as a precise sense within hex 5.
Unstable Alchemy: When an Alchemical Blight Explodes, it rolls 1d8 and chooses its damage type using the following chart:
1: Piercing (persistent damage is bleed)
2: Acid
3: Cold
4: Electric
5: Fire
6: Sonic (persistent damage is bleed)
7: Plasma (half damage is fire, half is electric, all persistent damage is fire)
8: Catastrophe (increase damage by 10, then roll again)
ECOLOGY
These oozes form from alchemical runoff and waste from poorly cleaned laboratories. If enough varied types of alchemical detritus are gathered together in the same place for too long, the amalgamation has a chance of spontaneously animating. From there, it feeds on whatever it can break down with its caustic slime, though it always has a taste for the alchemy which spawned it. Alchemical Blights are inherently unstable, and prone to explode without warning, but their protoplasmic nature quickly reforms the ooze after this happens.
These oozes are obviously dangerous because of their unpredictable tendency to explode. Yet their most dangerous quality is likely their ability to take an extremely common player tactic and, more than simply ignore it, turn it into an actual liability. This ooze has a few cousins that function somewhat similarly but, rather than alchemy, do the same to an entire magical tradition. Alchemical Blights truly highlight how it can be super important for players to identify the foes they go up against. In one playtest session, a party member ended up splitting an Alchemical Blight by using a sword and then, realizing that was bad, threw a bomb instead that ended up splitting it even farther. Then they all started exploding!
THE BLOB OOZE
Role: Void (Boss)
[Acid, Colossal, Epic, Mindless, Ooze]
Senses: Tremorsense; Perception: [easy]
DEFENSE
Armor Class: [easy]
Hit Points: 50x[level]; Regeneration
Fort: [hard], Ref: [easy], Will: [easy]
Immune: acid, critical hits, emotion, fear, mental, piercing, poison, precision
Defensive Abilities: (0 Reactions)
{F} Acid Body
Trigger: A creature touches The Blob, or melee attacks it
Effect: The triggering creature takes d8 acid damage, and a weapon takes 2 dents. A creature does not take damage if the weapon has the reach trait.
Relentless: The Blob’s Regeneration cannot be suppressed by damage. The Blob is only slain if its slowed value is ever equal to its level.
{F} Split
Trigger: The Blob is dealt slashing damage
Effect: 1d4+1 portions of The Blob split off and each one forms a Grey Goo. Each Grey Goo formed this way is two levels lower than The Blob, and begins with full Hit Points.
OFFENSE
Speed: hex 5
Melee Attacks:
{A} pseudopod [hard] (d8+17 B plus d8 acid; grab)
Special Attacks:
{F} Quick Grab
Trigger: The Blob deals damage with its pseudopod
Effect: The Blob Grapples the triggering target. If the target would be grabbed or restrained, it is Engulfed instead.
{AA} Engulf: The Blob Strides up to three times, moving through spaces occupied by creatures. If The Blob moves through a creature’s space, that creature must attempt a [med] Reflex save. This movement triggers Opportunity Attacks, but a foe which takes one treats its save as one step worse. If The Blob stops in a space that was occupied by a creature which is not engulfed, that creature is automatically moved to a space of its choosing adjacent to the ooze.
Success: The target takes d8 acid damage, but is not engulfed.
Success (+10): No effect.
Failure: The target takes d8 acid damage and is engulfed. An engulfed target and its equipment take d10 persistent acid damage, which cannot be stopped while it remains engulfed. Engulfed targets cannot breathe, but can Swim out of the ooze, treating the ooze’s space as greater difficult terrain. A creature’s buoyancy in an ooze is always toward its center.
Failure (-10): As failure, plus 10 more acid damage and it cannot hold its breath.
{AAA} Pseudopod Frenzy: The Blob makes pseudopod Strikes against every target it can reach. Then, if any targets were hit but not Engulfed, it attacks those targets again. The ooze continues this way until all targets have been missed or Engulfed. Each round of attacks uses the same multiple attack penalty, and counts as one attack for its multiple attack penalty.
STATISTICS
Str: +1, Agi: -4, End: +8, Int: -, Wis: -, Cha: -
Languages: none
Incredible Skills: Athletics
Special Abilities:
Cryptid: There is only one Blob at a time. Another Grey Goo cannot become The Blob if The Blob survives.
Epic Hit Points: After calculating this monster's Hit Points from level, multiply this total by the number of party members.
Epic Initiative: When this monster rolls initiative it is only used to determine the first time it acts. After it has taken its first turn in combat, its next turn is always inserted into the initiative order after two party members have acted consecutively. Party members that choose to delay their turns do not count toward triggering this monster's next turn.
Epic Restoration: This monster recovers quickly from harmful conditions. At the end of its turn, it can choose one condition it has. The value of that condition is reduced by 1. A condition without a value is cured instead. The monster can choose another condition to reduce this way for every 4 party members. It cannot choose to reduce the same condition more than once this way. This ability cannot cure consistently applied conditions, such as flat-footed or flanked.
Tremorsense: The Blob can sense vibrations in or on a surface it touches as a precise sense within hex 10.
ECOLOGY
This titanic ooze is the end result of grey goo which has been able to feed as much as it wants, and which has not had its growth interfered with. A colossal, quivering mountain of protoplasm, this ooze does nothing but move and consume. Unable to physically get any bigger, it instead has a nearly immediate digestive process and the capacity to use this process to make its regeneration nigh unstoppable.
The Blob takes all of the things that make fighting an ooze difficult and dangerous, then makes other oozes seem easy. It's also one of a very rare minority of monsters that has regeneration that cannot simply be turned off, making actually killing one seem almost futile. While its status as a cryptid prevents there from being more than one of this monster in existence at a time, the ooze can still split. Fortunately, however, the split-off portions are much more simple oozes, and not nearly as dangerous and devastating as the original from which they spawn.
UNDEAD
Undead are twisted essences of souls that have died, cursed to remain in the mortal world and powered by the essence of negative energy. Undead are most typically classified by how they died, or how they were brought back. From mindless zombies, to alluring vampires and cunning liches, undead are as diverse as the life that their very being mocks.
Most undead are evil, and bear only a hunger for, or antipathy toward, the living. In rare cases, spirits might stay behind out of powerful love for those that remain, which can cause good undead. Even these, however, tend to become corrupted and malevolent if they persist for too long or those they stayed behind for abandon them or pass on themselves.
While undead do not have any common resistances or weaknesses, they are all alike in their lack of a living body. They are uniformly harmed by positive damage, healed by negative damage, and immune to disease and poison. Even though many retain echoes of the mind they once possessed, undead are nonetheless also commonly immune to mental interference like emotions and fear, making them difficult to fool or distract.
This creature type is commonly associated with religious traditions, and many undead have complicated relationships with consecrated or desecrated spaces. As such, those at least trained in Religion can use that skill as a Knowledge Specialty when attempting to identify undead.
SHADOW UNDEAD
Role: Glass Cannon
[Evil, Incorporeal, Medium, Undead]
Senses: darkvision, Life Sense; Perception: [hard]
DEFENSE
Armor Class: [med]
Hit Points: 10x[level]
Fort: [med], Ref: [hard], Will: [med]
Immune: critical hits, disease, emotion, fear, poison
Weak: positive, sunlight
Defensive Abilities: (1 Reaction)
{R} Attack of Opportunity
Necromantic Reaction: A shadow is harmed by positive energy and healed by negative energy.
OFFENSE
Speed: hex 6
Melee Attacks:
{A} draining touch [hard] (d8 negative; Life Drain)
Special Attacks:
Emotional Havoc: If a shadow is attached to a creature unnoticed for 10 minutes, that target must attempt a [hard] Will save. If a target has more than one shadow attached this way, it has a cumulative -1 circumstance penalty for each additional Shadow.
Success: No effect.
Success (+10): The target realizes something is not right, but is not alerted to what specifically.
Failure: The target increases its scared value by 1, and cannot reduce its scared value while the shadow remains unnoticed.
Failure (-10): As failure, and increase the scared value by 1 more.
Life Drain: A creature damaged by a shadow’s draining touch must attempt a [hard] Fortitude save.
Success: No effect.
Failure: The target increases its drained value by 1.
Failure (-10): As failure, and increase its faded value by 1.
STATISTICS
Str: -, Agi: +4, End: -, Int: +1, Wis: +2, Cha: +2
Languages: Necril
Hard Skills: Acrobatics, Stealth
Special Abilities:
Life Sense: A shadow can sense the presence of living beings as a precise sense within hex 5.
Perfect Camouflage: An undead shadow is indistinguishable from a normal shadow, except that it is always one too many for the available light sources. The presence of shadows can be recognized by counting the number of shadows creatures have.
ECOLOGY
These unusual undead are literally the disembodied shadows of the dead. It is not clear how or why this sort of undead can be created, but they are potent threats nonetheless. Able to hide among other, non-animated shadows for extended periods, these spectral shades will often toy with the emotions of their victims before ultimately attacking and draining the life force from them.
While many undead are obvious, Shadows are far more subtle. These undead and their Emotional Havoc ability make them a great way to slowly build up an atmosphere of dread, as players struggle to figure out why they are getting more and more scared for seemingly no reason. Shadows that go undetected also have the great potential to complicate other encounters as well, either through the penalties they impart or by being discovered and joining a combat already in progress upon being discovered. As incorporeal monsters, Shadows can be tricky without specialized equipment.
BLOATED ZOMBIE UNDEAD
Role: Void (Boss)
[Epic, Large, Mindless, Undead]
Senses: darkvision; Perception: [easy]
DEFENSE
Armor Class: [med]
Hit Points: 60x[level]
Fort: [hard], Ref: [easy], Will: [easy]
Resist: cold, fire
Immune: disease, emotion, fear, mental, poison
Weak: slashing
Defensive Abilities: (0 Reactions)
{F} Explode
Trigger: The bloated zombie is reduced to 0 Hit Points
Effect: The bloated zombie explodes, dealing d6 bludgeoning damage and d6 piercing damage to all creatures in a hex 2 aura, and such creatures must attempt a new save against is Carrion Stench.
{F} Putrescence
Trigger: The bloated zombie takes slashing or piercing damage
Effect: Creatures within hex 2 must make a new save against the zombie’s Carrion Stench.
Carrion Stench: A creature which starts its turn within hex 4 of a bloated zombie, or enters the aura, must attempt a [hard] Fortitude save. This ability has the scent trait.
Success: No effect.
Success (+10): The target is bolstered.
Failure: The target increases its sick value by 1.
Failure (-10): As failure, and increase the sick value by 1 more.
Necromantic Reaction: A bloated zombie is harmed by positive energy and healed by negative energy.
OFFENSE
Speed: hex 4
Melee Attacks:
{A} slam [med] (d8+5 B; Disease, forceful)
Special Attacks:
{AA} Smother: The bloated zombie attempts an Athletics check against the Acrobatics DC of a target adjacent to it of up to one size category smaller. A bloated zombie is prone after it uses this ability.
Success: The target takes slam damage and is restrained and suffocating.
Success (+10): As success, plus 10 more damage and the target cannot hold its breath.
Failure: No effect.
Failure (-10): The target can Riposte against the bloated zombie, even if it does not use a weapon that can typically be used to Riposte.
STATISTICS
Str: +3, Agi: -2, End: -, Int: -, Wis: -, Cha: -
Languages: none
Hard Skills: Athletics
Special Abilities:
Disease: A target damaged by a bloated zombie’s slam is exposed to Brain Rot.
Epic Hit Points: After calculating this monster's Hit Points from level, multiply this total by the number of party members.
Slowed: A bloated zombie is slowed 1 and cannot reduce its slowed value below 1.
Variable Size: A bloated zombie can be any size, and is always one size category bigger than the base creature it was in life.
ECOLOGY
These disgusting zombies have swelled in size from large amounts of trapped decomposition gasses. Their thick fat makes them more durable than typical zombies, but all the pent up gas makes them prone to explode when they are slain. Bloated zombies are often accompanied by hordes of regular zombies that have not yet putrefied.
While most zombies are basically cannon fodder unless encountered in a Zombie Swarm, Bloated Zombies are a much more potent variation on the concept. While still a big bag of Hit Points that isn't necessarily a potent offensive force on its own turn, Bloated Zombies are able to use their disgusting essence to deal damage and inflict conditions on those that fight them in close quarters. Even defeating a Bloated Zombie is dangerous, since they explode. One or more of these more potent Zombies, when surrounded by a cadre of the more typical kind, is a great way to dial up the danger of an otherwise run of the mill type of encounter.
Oozes and Undead use their inherent eldritch unnaturalness to provide types of encounters that are not always obvious, and which can really force a group of players to think hard about their tactics. Since many of these monsters react differently to typical strategies, being prepared for them can be difficult. While these are the last of the creature types in the Menagerie, we're not done exploring it just yet. Next week we'll take a look at the Templates included, and the ways that they can stretch the monsters included even farther!
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