1 Is Verduous Ooze's sleep aura a "magical sleep effect" for the purpose of elven sleep immunity?
2 If a Verduous Ooze is split by a melee attack, does it force a new sleep aura save, or are both oozes considered to still be the one the party has already saved against?
1 Is Verduous Ooze's sleep aura a "magical sleep effect" for the purpose of elven sleep immunity?
Verdous Ooze wrote:
Sleep Aura (Su)
The chemicals emitted by a verdurous ooze have a stronger and opposite effect on living, non-plant creatures that come within a 30-foot radius. All living creatures within the area must make a DC 20 Will save or fall asleep for a number of rounds equal to the ooze’s HD. Creatures immune to poison are also immune to this effect. Whether or not the save is successful, that creature cannot be affected again by the same verdurous ooze’s sleep aura for 24 hours. This is a non-magical sleep effect.
Despite being listed as Supernatural (Su), which means that it shouldn't work in an antimagic field or similar area, I honestly don't see anything about it that should be considered magical from the reading other than that it's an 'Aura', but then it's listed as a cloud of chemicals being released, so I don't know the intent. I would be inclined to label this as an error and assume it would be Extraordinary (Ex), but in regards to your question, it's considered a non-magical sleep effect.
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2 If a Verduous Ooze is split by a melee attack, does it force a new sleep aura save, or are both oozes considered to still be the one the party has already saved against?
This is a little tougher. One method of thought is that the one of the ooze's is the original (and need not be saved against assuming it was already checked) and one of the split oozes is a new creature. The second method of thought is that it is still the original creature, just split in two.
While there's not a lot of detail into what happens to split halves (or more) of such oozes and such after combat (do they remerge off-screen or does one 'half' die off like the half of a troll that isn't the part that regrows?)
I am inclined to assume that they are still the original ooze, just two pieces of it. Can that cause problems? Maybe For instance, if a creature makes a save against it (pass or fail) and then splits the ooze, they don't have to save for the new ooze (or twice for both 'new' oozes). But some creature showing up later might run into one of the split oozes and make their save and later run into the other half. But ultimately that's unlikely to be a real issue or come up often.
I would say that they're the same as the original ooze since it looks like this isn't the method verduous oozes use to procreate or create more of their kind.
Verduous Ooze wrote:
Ecology
Every 2 or 3 years, verdurous oozes collect deep in forests and swamps, clustering in secluded locales tainted by reeking natural compost or the escape of natural gases from the land. As many as 10 oozes might gather during one of these grotesque moots. To reproduce, four verdurous oozes merge to become a greater verdurous ooze. Greater oozes are far more active and hungry than their lesser kin, constantly wandering, feeding, and growing. After several months, the greater verdurous ooze splits into 10 to 15 new verdurous oozes. These new verdurous oozes grow to full size within 6 months.
It looks like they procreate in a different manner, so I would likely lean towards split oozes being the original ooze, just split in two parts. You wouldn't have to save against either half (or more if one of those is split again) if you've saved against one... but the ooze could (if it was strategic or intelligent) be able to cover a much larger area with its sleep aura by spreading out its separate components to form little outpost AoE coverage.
Another question that occurred to me: Verduous ooze dissolves flesh and metal, but not stone.
There is nothing in the verduous ooze description that says that its acid doesn't affect stone, just for what it's worth.
Space Saver:
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Verduous Ooze wrote:
Acid (Ex)
A verdurous ooze secretes a digestive acid that dissolves flesh and metal quickly. Each time a creature takes damage from a verdurous ooze’s acid, the creature’s metal equipment and armor take the same amount of damage from the acid. A DC 20 Reflex save prevents damage to such items. A metal or natural weapon that strikes a verdurous ooze takes 1d6 points of acid damage unless the weapon’s wielder succeeds on a DC 20 Reflex save. If a verdurous ooze remains in contact with a metal object for 1 full round, it inflicts 20 points of acid damage (no save) on the object.
All the listing states is that its acid dissolves flesh and metal quickly, which some people will equate to just flavor text, but should be taken into context for any GMs making rulings. The description doesn't say that it doesn't do anything to stone or glass, only what it does to metal (and flesh, possibly). It would be up to a GM to decide what it does to stone or glass or clay or anything else at their discretion, like if a PC tried to store some of the acid in a glass vial. All it says is that if a creature, of any type or kind, takes acid damage from the ooze, typically from being slammed or constricted, then its metal armor and gear also takes the damage (after getting DC 20 Reflex save).
It also says that any 'metal or natural weapons' striking it do so as well (after getting a DC 20 Reflex save). Note that it doesn't say anything specifically about flesh here either (a GM can rule that from context), so technically a stone or glass or fire or water slam from a golem or elemental against the ooze will also inflict acid damage on the attacker.
That means that if the verduous ooze hits a creature made of stone or fire or water or even air, then it deals its slam damage as normal (minus any damage reduction) and then also deals its acid damage (minus an acid resistance). If the creature takes even 1 point of that acid damage, then any metal gear or armor it has (like an earth elemental wearing a breastplate) also takes that amount of damage.* Note that even with the description that the acid dissolves flesh and metal quickly, the ability only mentions metal gear and armor, not leather, so your leather armor technically isn't damaged, even though it should count as flesh. Note that any of this is subject to GM interpretation.
*Technically objects take half damage from energy attacks (which acid counts as) and then still get hardness. I think this is an error or oversight on most ooze acid listings. Otherwise such instances would be practically moot or worthless in almost all cases (other than sitting in the ooze and taking 20 damage, and even then it might be ruled as halved to 10). Since most metal will be hardness 10, that means any ooze that deals anything less than 21 acid damage would would be basically nothing after hardness.
I read such entries as indicating that ooze damage typically bypasses such objects hardness (unless specifically bolstered against acid). Otherwise it would have been a waste of time to point out any such objects ever taking damage if they can only take 1d6 at a time in almost all cases, because then a GM has to stop and ask, "Is that a metal weapon or gear?";
"Now we stop and roll a Reflex save. Did it fail?";
"Now we roll damage dice, 1d6. Now we subtract half, now we apply hardness of 10 (almost any metal, but even wood is 5)... aaaaand... 0 hit points...";
"What was the point of that and why did they bother writing all that out?"
But that's a personal opinion and ruling.
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Would an elemental be immune to its acid damage?
Elementals are not immune to acid damage unless they have acid immunity. None of the four classic elementals (Earth, Air, Water, fire) have resistance or immunity to acid. Barring some specific elemental, like an acid elemental, if any of them are hit, they take slam and acid damage.
Having said that, if it was a case of there being the body or remains of an elemental or creature, like a stone golem or glass golem or earth elemental, and the ooze was just sitting on top of them, trying to dissolve them like it would a normal creature, it either won't work or it would take a longer time than is something normally listed in a creature's combat stats, similar to how long would it take a water elemental to rust a sword it was sitting on. We know water rusts things faster in a lot of cases, but that's not really something that we get from a monster stat listing.
Verdurous Ooze The greater one has a dysgraphia in AoN, but the correct term seems to be Verdurous.
Pizza Lord wrote:
Despite being listed as Supernatural (Su), which means that it shouldn't work in an antimagic field or similar area, I honestly don't see anything about it that should be considered magical from the reading other than that it's an 'Aura', but then it's listed as a cloud of chemicals being released, so I don't know the intent. I would be inclined to label this as an error and assume it would be Extraordinary (Ex), but in regards to your question, it's considered a non-magical sleep effect.
I would suppose the production of the chemicals is magical (it is reasonable, producing enough gas to affect a 70' diameter volume would tax most organisms), but the gas, per se, is not magical. Anti Magic Field would stop the production, but not the gas effect.
All the listing states is that its acid dissolves flesh and metal quickly, which some people will equate to just flavor text, but should be taken into context for any GMs making rulings.
Sadly, it is not well described. I suppose it means that flesh and metal don't apply their hardness against the acid.
AFAIK, no flesh creature has hardness, but with Pathfinder you can't assume that as always true.
