Oozes and Splitting

[MaxAstro]

Had my first experience with this today... Ran an encounter against three carnivorous crystals.

And by "three" I mean by the end of the fight the party had killed nearly 15.

Whoever decided to give an 11th level creature the hit points of a 17th level creature and the AC of a 4th level creature, you are a mad genius and I salute your monster design chops.

I've always been disappointed by the "split" ability in previous editions, it seemed like it rarely came up and when it did it barely mattered. Having a creature that is practically immune to damage except damage that is highly likely to split it is, again, brilliant design.

On the other hand, I'm glad I use a VTT because tracking the hit points of over a dozen oozes was a pain even then.

Anyone else have any fun ooze-related stories?

[Ellias Aubec]

We fought the ooze in Plaguestone. After realising we were struggling to damage it, we closed the door and set up a trap involving large cauldrons in the previous room, putting a dead body within to lure it in and drop one on top of the other with glue to seal it. Then we rolled it into the mudpit found previously.

[thenobledrake]

I haven't had much experience with oozes in PF2 yet (I'm looking forward to it though), so my split story is from a lifetime ago:

Party of characters deep in a dungeon, no idea when they'd be able to find a way out and looking for a safe enough place to hunker down for a rest, and a black pudding dropped from an overhanging balcony onto them.

Almost no weapons on hand that didn't do damage that would trigger split, the fighter and paladin just went for it, splitting the ooze into as many pieces as they could while being absolutely terrified that their gambit could fail and result in a huge wave of corrosive attacks coming at the party. But the plan worked and the majority of split-up oozes were burned away by the fireball the sorcerer blasted them with.

The ooze didn't even get to attack the party, but it made them sweat more than most encounters they'd had up to that point.

[jplukich]

My party knew about the splitting before their fight against the ooze (round 1 recall) they encountered. Once they did enough damage, they split it into 4 and then dropped a burning hand and two bombs on them doing quite a bit of extra damage

[Elfteiroh]

My character only had a Slashing, versatile P weapon. First attack split, the ooze.... That created a bottle neck that made the boss of the fight unable to get to us because the ooze was *not* its ally. I finished the ooze with punches (thanks PF2 not requiring tons of feat to be able to use your fists), and we got to fight the boss without the annoying ooze. (just a bit sad that the rogue/monk had to be on the other side with the boss, but she was a great diversion, and luckily didn't die!

[jdripley]

In PF2 I've only faced one black pudding. Failed the recall knowledge, was playing a Valeros pregen so of course he has slashing as his primary attack, so I do my duty as a player and slash at the pudding with the longsword.

Wasn't a huge deal in the end, the rest of the party took the hint and started bashing/spelling it to death. Only split the one time.

As GM, I haven't actually ran any splitting ooze. Including the playtest I've ran 3 Ooze encounters though, and they went as follows:

1. Run in and smash it to bits, it got a sweet AOE attack off and a few slams before it died.
2. Holy crap this one is dangerous, focus fire! It was very dangerous due to some aoe abilities and how it applied conditions, but the party managed to take it down without anybody going KO - only just, though. It was a great fight.
3. A pair of Gelatinous Cubes. The party opened the door, figured out what they were dealing with, said NOPE, closed the door and walked away. They are faster than oozes, and there is plenty of running room, so when they eventually go back they will be A) higher level and B) working in an otherwise cleared dungeon, so they'll not have any trouble kiting it while pelting it with ranged attacks/dancing in and out of melee. As much as victory is a foregone conclusion, I think I'll have them fight it out anyways just so they can tell the stories later on.