Rules questions in regards to oozes, dying and fast healing

[Nimor Starseeker]

Can an Ooze become unconsious? I do not think so, because they are mindless creatures, but for game mechanics maybe they can be.

Context:
In the campain im running, my group encountered an Ooze. It has fast healing and a consitution score of 22. The group brought it down to -1 hitpoint. They thought it was dead and the following round the ooze healed itself with fast healing 2, bringing it to 1 hitpoint. It then proceeded to attack the group again. The group brought the ooze down to a negative 13 hitpoints. The Oozew healed itself up to a negative 11 hitpoints. It the proceeded to attack. My group argued that the ooze should be unconcious and unable to attack, but oozes are mindless creatures. They are not concious at all, so by their very nature cannot be unconcious. So, maybe I am applying real world logic into a game mechanic that was not intended to be interpretated like that. Help me out please.

Here are the ooze traits:
Ooze
An ooze is an amorphous or mutable creature, usually mindless.

An ooze has the following features.

d8 Hit Die.
Base attack bonus equal to 3/4 total Hit Dice (medium progression).
No good saving throws.
Skill points equal to 2 + Int modifier (minimum 1) per Hit Die. However, most oozes are mindless and gain no skill points or feats. Oozes do not have any class skills.
Traits: An ooze possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).

Mindless: No Intelligence score, and immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects). An ooze with an Intelligence score loses this trait.
Blind (but have the blindsight special quality), with immunity to gaze attacks, visual effects, illusions, and other attack forms that rely on sight.
Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and stunning.
Some oozes have the ability to deal acid damage to objects.
Not subject to critical hits or flanking. Does not take additional damage from precision-based attacks, such as sneak attack.
Proficient with its natural weapons only.
Proficient with no armor.
Oozes eat and breathe, but do not sleep.

[Melkiador]

Mindless doesn’t protect against unconscious. Or else giant spiders would also be immune. Yet your real world knowledge would tell you that spiders are unconscious sometimes.

[AwesomenessDog]

Actually spiders don't really go unconscious except for death. They can lower their activity to basically the closest thing to our sleep but they never actually become unaware of their surroundings or close their eyes.

That said, unconscious doesn't literally have to mean "night-night time". If you damage a creature to the point that it has negative hp and is "unconscious", if that creature doesn't have a consciousness (which some oozes do), then they are still damaged to the point of being unable to act. The ooze has been splattered to just a couple of beads amidst a splatter generally in the shape of the original ooze's size. If it has fast healing, it can regather its splattered self until it has been so splattered and scattered it essentially can't gather itself back up through surface tension.

Debatably you could argue that most every ooze is basically a magical construct, and then like constructs they would die at 0 hp, but they don't have that rule line, so they don't die.

Also, just because a creature is "mindless" doesn't mean it can't do a little bit of strategization, at least within line of simple and intuitive tactics, as oozes have wisdom scores as well. Now, often that wisdom is 1, but even still even as soon as that ooze had 1 hp from fast healing, it probably wouldn't immediately lunge at the closest thing it can detect if only so that it can heal more instead of just cycling into "wake up, almost die, wake up, almost die..." until the almost becomes just "die".

[DeathlessOne]

If it helps, don't think of the 'unconscious' condition as being lacking awareness. Simplify it as with more common real world terms like 'disabled', unable to act, and 'helpless'. Unless a creature specifically states that it can act while its HP is below zero (such as with the diehard feat or the orc ferocity ability), it cannot take actions or react.

[Mysterious Stranger]

Game terms have specific meaning and do not always match their meaning in English. Mindless in the game simply means it is not affected by mind affecting effects, nothing more nothing less. Unconscious in the game means you are helpless. The Ooze attacking when it had 1 HP was perfectly legal, but it should not have been able to attack at -11 HP. Mindless creatures are still subject to the disabled, dying, and staggered condition. Dying explicitly states you cannot take any action.

Also, the party should have been able to notice the fact that it was healing. It’s wounds closing up should have been a clue that it was not dead.

[Diego Rossi]

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

Also, the party should have been able to notice the fact that it was healing. It’s wounds closing up should have been a clue that it was not dead.

Not all healing is automatically recognizable, especially in a creature so different from a human as an ooze.

With humans:
"That guy has stopped bleeding, it is because his heart has stopped beating, or because he is healing?" "Check his pulse."
Ozee:
"It has stopped leaking fluids, it is dead?" "Eeeee.., no idea."

The typical adventurer solution is to apply unnecessary roughness to the enemy's body after he fell.

[Nimor Starseeker]

Thanks everyone for your comments as this helped clear up some things. I understand it now as oozes get the unconscious condition and can’t act when at negative BP.

As for the group, they did get a couple of hints that the ooze regenerated. One of them flung a paperweight with the Pharasma faith symbol on it at the ooze, making a pharasma shaped indenture into the ooze that slowly pushed back into place. After that experience my group will probably start over killing monsters just to be sure they are dead!

[Melkiador]

It’s not unusual for you to need a successful perception check or heal check to notice a creature is fast healing. I think even APs sometimes throw in rulings like that. Even though I don’t think the rule is codified

[Azothath]

the trick is obviousness on the perception check.
Normally you can't distinguish exact HP totals of a creature without some skill check(s) or magic.
It is pretty obvious when the monster description makes it so but Fast Healing 1 RAW wise does not have that (obviousness) implicitly.
PC's normally can gain that knowledge on aberrations through a Knw(Dungeon) skill check.

[Azothath]

clarifications

Azothath wrote:

the trick is obviousness on the perception check.

Normally PC/NPC/Monsters can't distinguish exact HP totals of a creature without some skill check(s) or magic.
It is pretty obvious when the monster description makes it so but Fast Healing 1 RAW wise does not have that (obviousness) implicitly.
PC's normally can gain that knowledge(aka creature has Fast Healing) on aberrations through a Knw(Dungeon) skill check.