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I was working on an adventure with an encounter with a globster and came to the understanding that they can just reproduce forever. 1 can only reproduce once per day but the one they create can do it immediately after ingesting enough food and so on and so forth.
Any good reason why they don't just propagate forever?
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The same reason any other monster doesn't take over the world:
They sit around in a 10' x 10' room waiting until adventurers come in to either defeat them or be dinner.
They need to eat the equivalent of a family every day to do it? Most living creatures don't stand by and watch you do that, they run, fight, or whatever.
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The globsters are all killed by the shadows, specters, wights, and wraiths that took over the world.
Also, someone threw brown mold into the Elemental Plane of Fire, turning it into the Elemental Plane of Brown Mold.
Congratulations. You have unseated the former winner and become the current winner of the thread.
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Adventurers kill globsters at the rate of 0.99987 per day, greatly reducing their spread rate.
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They need to eat the equivalent of a family every day to do it? Most living creatures don't stand by and watch you do that, they run, fight, or whatever.
It doesn't have to be intelligent creatures. It can be any 4 medium creatures or equivalent. So 8 smalls, 16 tinies, 32 diminutive, or 64 fines. They have a swim speed of 40 and they are mind;ess, this is their only way of reproduction so they don't care if they take 1d6 damage. 1 globster becomes 2, then the next one consumes and creates and so on. They can just swim around eating and vomiting, eating and vomiting, eating and vomiting until it isn't an ocean, it's a globsterpocalypse
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Any good reason why they don't just propagate forever?
Globsters don't have an intelligence score, and have no capacity for learning or reason. And they're oozes. So they mostly just float around eating whatever happens to get close to them. They aren't even animals with instinctive drives, they're literally mindless.
Also, the description says they can reproduce after consuming four medium sized creatures but it doesn't say those creatures carry over from day to day.
So I imagine areas where globsters exists quickly become devoid of food and develop a reputation among intelligent underwater critters as a place not to go.
Any good reason why they don't just propagate forever?Globsters don't have an intelligence score, and have no capacity for learning or reason. And they're oozes. So they mostly just float around eating whatever happens to get close to them. They aren't even animals with instinctive drives, they're literally mindless.
Also, the description says they can reproduce after consuming four medium sized creatures but it doesn't say those creatures carry over from day to day.
So I imagine areas where globsters exists quickly become devoid of food and develop a reputation among intelligent underwater critters as a place not to go.
Oh, areas with globsters are full of food. Just that it is roadkill flavored jello for the bigger, nastier beasties that lie beneath the waves. So essentially, it is a mix of both dwindling food sources and increasing number of predators, made all the worse that they are just mindless jellyfish basically, and as such they can't solve the problem.
Plus, due to the heavy connection with the sea in the bestiary entry, you can also assume that they are rather reliant on a saltwater environment. Not that they'd just up and die in fresh water or land, but they likely cannot really THRIVE. It might be an interesting adventure seed though, having an encroachment of a new, more adaptable breed that are devastating a swamp (and with both ecological and possibly economic interests in the area, you could find lots of shadowy forces that might have had a hand in this shift in habitat)
Considering all the monsters from Bestiaries 1-4 and the amount of players that become ravenous murder-hobos, Adventure worlds seem like a very dangerous place no matter what you are (excluding tarrasques or something) They probably at too high of a rate to be a real threat.
Honestly they need to eat it's mass in order to produce another one of itself once per day, that's nothing compared to how some things on regular ole earth reproduce. One good natural predator and globsters are no real problem.
A better question is how wraiths do not conquer the world.
They are intelligent. I do not see what one does not sneak from town to town at night draining a family to create an army of spawn. They can live under the ground and know whenever life is above them.
Heck I would go kill an army or orcs. They they live in the darkness and thus make easy targets.
Globsters don't have an intelligence score, and have no capacity for learning or reason. And they're oozes. So they mostly just float around eating whatever happens to get close to them. They aren't even animals with instinctive drives, they're literally mindless.
Mindless doesn't mean "immobile and unresponsive," it actually means "(governed absolutely by) instinctive drives." I.e. mindless vermin, aka insects. Bees don't just sit there and wait for flowers to happen by.
Globsters don't have an intelligence score, and have no capacity for learning or reason. And they're oozes. So they mostly just float around eating whatever happens to get close to them. They aren't even animals with instinctive drives, they're literally mindless.Mindless doesn't mean "immobile and unresponsive," it actually means "(governed absolutely by) instinctive drives." I.e. mindless vermin, aka insects. Bees don't just sit there and wait for flowers to happen by.
But jellyfish do. I know I keep on going with that term, but really, it is the first thing I think of when you say "sea ooze".
Really, we are now just getting down to the ecological niches and hunting strategies of fictional predators. While we could cite real world examples all day, it is next to impossible for us to come to a conclusion ourselves. Admittedly, trying to get developer commentary is fairly close to the official reason for why this part of the board is here, but meh.
I will say that I thought that "mindless and only eats whatever it happens to come across" is fairly much the defining nature of most oozes. But I have little experience with them.
A better question is how wraiths do not conquer the world.
They are intelligent. I do not see what one does not sneak from town to town at night draining a family to create an army of spawn. They can live under the ground and know whenever life is above them.
Heck I would go kill an army or orcs. They they live in the darkness and thus make easy targets.
Truly questions to ponder.
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I can't wait for the revised Inner Sea Guide to come out that shows Golarian in a post-globster and wraiths setting.
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A better question is how wraiths do not conquer the world.
They are intelligent. I do not see what one does not sneak from town to town at night draining a family to create an army of spawn. They can live under the ground and know whenever life is above them.
Heck I would go kill an army or orcs. They they live in the darkness and thus make easy targets.
The real problem here, and really, with most of these "why doesn't monster X convert the whole population of the world into monster Xes?" is the complete and utter lack of incentive.
Wraiths don't want to make more wraiths, nor do they actively seek to end all human life. They don't really actively seek to do anything. Like most undead really, the main thing they want is to be left alone and go sulk in the corner. They just really really can't stand living people invading their personal space, and will do their best to kill them when they do.
Similarly, globsters don't have much incentive to do more than eat what wanders by where ever they happen to hang around.
And all these population explosion threads have the issue that someone or something way tougher is eventually going to have their lifestyle impacted and intervene.
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Globsters don't have an intelligence score, and have no capacity for learning or reason. And they're oozes. So they mostly just float around eating whatever happens to get close to them. They aren't even animals with instinctive drives, they're literally mindless.Mindless doesn't mean "immobile and unresponsive," it actually means "(governed absolutely by) instinctive drives." I.e. mindless vermin, aka insects. Bees don't just sit there and wait for flowers to happen by.But jellyfish do. I know I keep on going with that term, but really, it is the first thing I think of when you say "sea ooze".
Really, we are now just getting down to the ecological niches and hunting strategies of fictional predators. While we could cite real world examples all day, it is next to impossible for us to come to a conclusion ourselves. Admittedly, trying to get developer commentary is fairly close to the official reason for why this part of the board is here, but meh.
I will say that I thought that "mindless and only eats whatever it happens to come across" is fairly much the defining nature of most oozes. But I have little experience with them.
Lemeres described it better than I did. But yes, globsters strike me more like jellyfish than vermin. They're non-intelligent oozes that live in the sea.
Anyway, the term "mindless" in pathfinder doesn't necessarily mean "governed by instinctive drives". It can, but as a game term it covers vermin, oozes, and also some constructs and undead. Monsters with the Animal type, with instinctive drives to eat and reproduce, aren't mindless. Vermin are odd, since it covers some creatures that would have those same instinctive drives, but also creatures that are part of a hive with no individual dive to do anything except be a tiny cog in a larger hive machine.
So you can't really go by the dictionary definitions for the words "mindless" and "vermin" when discussing their game usage. It's a good starting point, but the game terms are somewhat ... broader. Ultimately "mindless" just means "this creature does not possess an intelligence score".
Personally, I like the idea that globsters need to eat 4 medium sized creatures within a single 24 hour period in order to reproduce. Otherwise they finish digesting whatever they ate and have to start again. And since they have no specific drive to reproduce, they aren't really going to be going out of their way to eat more creatures once they're digesting something. Which means the only time they reproduce is when they accidentally end up in an area with plentiful food (an entire school of fish got a little too close), or when plentiful food seeks them out (a group of sea elves explore the wrong tunnel).
As for spectral undead taking over the world, even intelligent undead are tormented souls trapped forever in the shadowy nether between life and death. They probably don't perceive the passage of time the way living people do (it's hard to make plans when you can't keep track of what day it is), and they are probably haunted by confusing memories of their past life and strange inhuman urges that non-undead cannot fully comprehend. Most undead don't try and take over the world because their undead state and altered perceptions give them blue and orange morality where things that are seemingly rational to us (create a bunch of spawn and conquer the world!) do not compute.
Really neat post and responses, but I think this is the wrong sub-forum. This might be better served in Pathfinder General Discussion.
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Any good reason why they don't just propagate forever?Globsters don't have an intelligence score, and have no capacity for learning or reason. And they're oozes. So they mostly just float around eating whatever happens to get close to them. They aren't even animals with instinctive drives, they're literally mindless.
Also, the description says they can reproduce after consuming four medium sized creatures but it doesn't say those creatures carry over from day to day.
So I imagine areas where globsters exists quickly become devoid of food and develop a reputation among intelligent underwater critters as a place not to go.
Oh, areas with globsters are full of food. Just that it is roadkill flavored jello for the bigger, nastier beasties that lie beneath the waves. So essentially, it is a mix of both dwindling food sources and increasing number of predators, made all the worse that they are just mindless jellyfish basically, and as such they can't solve the problem.
Plus, due to the heavy connection with the sea in the bestiary entry, you can also assume that they are rather reliant on a saltwater environment. Not that they'd just up and die in fresh water or land, but they likely cannot really THRIVE. It might be an interesting adventure seed though, having an encroachment of a new, more adaptable breed that are devastating a swamp (and with both ecological and possibly economic interests in the area, you could find lots of shadowy forces that might have had a hand in this shift in habitat)
This is the answer I'm going to use.
Because the gods wont allow it. Or because it dosent fit into the aboleth's (sp?) plans.
Really neat post and responses, but I think this is the wrong sub-forum. This might be better served in Pathfinder General Discussion.It was in general discussion. It got moved here.
That... is a really strange decision. Huh. Very well, carry on, then.
I can't help but think these creatures were inspired by this: Link
Forewarning - link is to a horror movie, scary scene.
Why don't wizards break the world? From reading these forums it's been made abundantly clear to me that mid-level wizards can casually break the universe as they please, you would think that all these mind reading, future seeing, teleporting, invisible, monster spawning, infinite water producing, explosion spewing pointy-hatted scholars would at least disrupt local social structure and politics.
I suspect that adventurers are the apex predators that allow fantasy ecosystems to function.
Water Dependency is one reason.
It's the Globster fisherman's doing. You didn't think those fishsticks were made from real fish, did you?
Water Dependency is one reason.1. Find globster(s).
2. Transport to the elemental plane of water.
3. ???
4. Profit!
Firstly, I think Abraham Spalding just got the most on the nose answer for why they don't eat the "world". Not answering why they didn't eat everything in the sea and everything 20 miles inland (math=miles per hoursx time spent going out on round trip)...but eh.
And Aegrisomnia: that is a better plan than most BBEGs come up with.
So we just Discovered how to kill the elemental plane of water...
If we get brown puddings or whatever we can kill the elemental plane of fire.
Just need to make oozes that eat earth and something to kill Elemenatal air we we will have killed all the elements!!!
Why don't wizards break the world? From reading these forums it's been made abundantly clear to me that mid-level wizards can casually break the universe as they please, you would think that all these mind reading, future seeing, teleporting, invisible, monster spawning, infinite water producing, explosion spewing pointy-hatted scholars would at least disrupt local social structure and politics.
becuase breaking the world is so expensive,
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They have water dependency and thus cant really do anything on land. Everything in the sea tends to have super high CR (kraken, aboleth, etc) compared to them. Even great whites can win a fight with a globster about 1/4 of the time.
I assume in any setting that actively has them though keeping globsters out of sewers, reservoirs, canals, and local lakes would be a huge priority. You could construct whole organizations based around keeping globsters and other oozy menaces from infesting inland water supplies. Think like the guys who hunt down skaven in warhammer fantasy.
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Ooze type traits render it blind. It does not have blindsight as most oozes do. Its perception modifier is -5. It cannot survive long on land.
It relies on critters being curious enough to poke at it before it attacks. That is less than being a filter feeder like jelly fish.
Hope that helps.
Well, while water dependency is definitely a limiting factor, and there are likely instincts to stay near the water since these things are no where near smart enough to find their way home (unless scent traits?), but it is not entirely crippling. I mean, as an ooze, it has a fair constitution score, and as such it can stay out of water for 20 hours.
Anyway Archomedes, that is an interesting point. I'd question whether that is a misprint forgetting the blindsight...but it vaguely does seem like it could be an interesting part of their ecology.
This discussion made me think of this. Just a random interjection.
