^I could have sworn to having seen a bit of detail on a Sorcerer Ooze somewhere, but now all I can find is a bare mention in the PathfinderWiki entry on Gelatinous Cubes.
A gelatinous cube, even with a slightly improved stealth and substantially more HD shouldn't ever be CR 12. It's too easy to avoid and too vulnerable, and unless you're emulating Rusty & Co it stalls out at a much lower CR.
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Why not just set it to whatever DC you'd like it to be? You are already making a custom creature here, and even considering a custom formula for its DC. So why bother trying to stick to a formula and just make it what you want it to be?
When I'm GMing and making custom content, I don't really get too bogged down by all the Advancement rules and such. I consider those guidelines at best. What is the most important factor to me is the party. What are their capabilities? Say you wanted them to have about a 40% chance of seeing it, then set its DC to 40% of 10 + the highest perception score in the party or something along those lines. Don't worry so much about what it's "supposed" to be.
CR is also completely meaningless in this game beyond determining XP. It isn't actually a measurement of how difficult a creature will be for the party, because every party is different. One party might stomp a creature 7 CR above their level but then almpst wipe on one 2 CR under their level. Its a meaningless metric. So just set your new custom creatures CR to whatever the amount of XP you want to give them would be.
The only real factor that matters is your parties capabilities. Figure out what they can do and make encounters, custom creatures, skill check DC's, etc, accordingly.
Look at the monster creation tables and create a monster. Lol.
A CR 12 monster has ~160hp, ~27 armor class, high attack of about +21... its ability scores are completely arbitrary, literally whatever they need to be in order to provide whatever you want or need... even its number of hit dice is largely irrelevant. Make it whatever size you want it to be, with whatever movement speed(s) you may want it to have.
Sure, base it on the Gelatinous Cube, even call it a version of one... but do not beat yourself up trying to advance an actual Gelatinous Cube into the CR12 monster you actually want.
If you want to do it strictly within the rules (which isn't necessary in my opinion) you could give it the half-fiend template, use that to increase its mental stats, then give it some class levels.
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Is it too late to suggest adding sides to the monster till it gets to 20? And having the '1' facing the party when they meet it? ;)
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^It's an Ooze -- why stop at 20 sides? Gelatinous Zocchihedron!
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^It's an Ooze -- why stop at 20 sides? Gelatinous Zocchihedron!
Effect on morale of course. Maybe it has an ability to negate rerolls? lol
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When I'm GMing and making custom content, I don't really get too bogged down by all the Advancement rules and such. I consider those guidelines at best. . . .
This is good advice. ... and have you considered starting with Living Spells first? They're effectively oozes, and depending on the base/modified spell involved, it could be delightfully strange.
Edit: Would a Formless Spawn with levels in Ninja or Ranger be funny? You could easily bump it up to a CR 12.
^ . . . and the linked entry for Formless Spawn explicitly mentions some of them gaining class levels, whereas Living Spells are in many ways traditional mindless Oozes.
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^ . . . and the linked entry for Formless Spawn explicitly mentions some of them gaining class levels, whereas Living Spells are in many ways traditional mindless Oozes.
You're not wrong... but if you're doing something weird, making thematically appropriate alterations can work.
A caster casts Awaken Construct with a metamagic rod of maximize in a wild magic zone (because that's kind of what I think of the Mournlands as... Just Too Much Ambient Uncontrolled Magic floating around...) and later it solidifies as a living spell ooze. It would be reasonable to think that it has a chance to develop intelligence considering it is magic that creates intelligence. Then it'd lose the Mindless trait, but everything else stays. Then it eventually starts hunting down constructs to awaken... believing that maybe it's the instrument of something greater and this is it's Purpose.
And now that the ooze has an intelligence score via dramatic appropriateness, class levels in things that would fit the concept would work, like sorcerer or mesmerist if the intelligence score is still pretty bad or maybe cleric or oracle because the bigger living spell oozes start getting better charisma scores... for some reason.
Who knows? Maybe it would develop an ability like Slight Build to hide better when moving around... not that it'd help a huge slime that much. Perhaps rename the ability as something to indicate that it's compressing itself, like internal compression or octopi's trick, and go from there...
Slight Build: The physical stature of kobolds lets them function in many ways as if they were one size category smaller. Whenever a kobold is subject to a size modifier or special size modifier for an opposed check (such as Hide), the kobold is treated as one size smaller if doing so is advantageous to the character. A kobold is also considered to be one size smaller when "squeezing" through a restrictive space. A kobold can use weapons designed for a creature one size smaller without penalty. However, the space and reach of a kobold remain those of a creature of their actual size. The benefits of this racial trait stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject's size category.
(...Man, have I always thought Powerful Build and Slight Build were really nifty abilities...)
Or better yet, maybe living spells are a byproduct of a high magic society, like industrial runoff... or maybe some mind chemists were trying to mass produce intelligence enhancing potions and accidentally created an Awakened living spell... optimally, story and mechanics can work together to make something Fun.
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I'm the creator of this monstrosity. Back then I based it on the rules for Perception and Stealth, which means it actually had a huge bonus on Stealth when not moving, considering its size and dexterity. It also means that it could use Stealth when in plain sight, and it would always be able to take 10.
Given that a Gelatinous Cube has a -4 penalty on Stealth for being large, and a -5 penalty for Dexterity... That would mean that it has a +14 bonus to Stealth when not moving.
Add the Alchemically Invisible template to it.
https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterTemplates.aspx?ItemName=Alchemically%20Invisi ble