So, I was reminded of a race that I had been trying to build based on the concept of slimes. Obviously, slimes and oozes are awesome, but they provide a lot of challenges for a player and a DM with the anatomy and how they work. To remedy this, I made a more humanoid version of Oozes. The gel ooze seems like it might be overpowered, but they were very hard to come up with traits for, considering gels are the most generic of the oozes, and are mostly based on not being seen. having high health, and smothering things
HALF-OOZE
Half-Oozes hold their origins as the results of wild experimentation of mad wizards who wished to use them as guard and janitor, the byproduct of rituals gone wrong, and spells that backfired on the caster. Somehow, a series of unique occurrences and eventual breeding of these creatures caused the Half-Ooze population to grow and grow until becoming known as a distinct race of its own..
Half oozes are mostly-solid, fluid-apparent creatures with humanoid features including a defined head, arms, legs, and facial features. They have a skeletal system surrounded by a series of translucent sacks containing primitive organs, though some varieties, such as Gel Oozes, have their skeletons almost entirely exposed beneath their oozy skin. Half-oozed need to eat, sleep, and breathe just like other humanoids, though their tastes are sometimes much different.
Most people are surprised to see half-oozes at first, but are quick to accept them (especially Gray Half-Oozes) once they realize they aren't out to eat them alive. Most oozes, in fact, are rather gentle despite their somewhat monstrous appearance, unless forced to act otherwise by their creator, or if they have a good reason not to be (such as hunger).
Half-Ooze Traits
Ability Score Increase: +2 Constitution
Age: Half-oozes unfortunately can live short lives, as little as thirty years, but some who are well fed may be lucky enough to live well into their second century.
Alignment: Their ooze counterpart incapable of any coherent thought, it is the humanoid side that best controls an ooze's alignment. While some may have the same alignment as their creator, half-oozes come in all varieties and alignments.
Size: In their natural upright state, half-oozes can stand anywhere from 4'5" to 6' tall and average about 140 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 25 feet.
Blindsight: Their mostly-gelatinous bodies are able to sense minute changes in lighting in their immediate area. You have blindsight out to 10 feet in additional to normal senses.
Ooze Resistance: You resist acid damage.
Slippery and Squishable: Half-Oozes have advantage on ability checks made to escape from the Grappled and Restrained conditions.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write in Common and one other language. This other language is usually what their creator spoke.
Subrace: There are 4 varieties of oozes to choose from: Black, Gel, Gray, and Ochre Jelly.
Black Ooze
Black half-oozes have deep gray or pitch black bodies Their bodies sometimes almost seem to drip, their slightly more fluid figure allow them to more easily dodge away from danger. The black coloration also keeps them relatively warm, and prevents cold from harming them too much.
Ability Score Increase: +1 Dexterity
Improved Ooze Resistance: You resist Cold damage.
Gel Ooze
Gel half-oozes are practically see-through, save for the suspended organs sacks and skeletons within their bodies. They tend to wear lots of clothing for this reason, unless it is in their profession to disappear. Their bodies are sturdier and more rigid than most other half-oozes, tending not to droop much.
Naturally Stealthy: You have proficiency in the Stealth skill.
Translucent Skin: Due to your skin's mostly clear nature and your natural tendency to stealth, you have Advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to Hide.
(Or instead, +1 Strength and Ooze Toughness: Your Hit Point Maximum increases by 1, and increases by an additional 1 each time you level)
Gray Ooze
Their skin is almost stonelike in texture and appearance, with the least see-through bodies of their kin. Because of this, they seem the most humanoid to outsiders, and are more widely accepted because of this. Their stonelike skin also prevents heat from dealing major damage to them.
Ability Score Increase: +1 Charisma
Improved Ooze Resistance: You resist Fire damage.
Ochre Jelly
Their bodies almost seem to be composed of marmalade. Electricity flows through them easily, especially so in their brains, which enables their synapses to fire more rapidly, and therefore they think quicker than most.
Ability Score Increase: +1 Intelligence
Improved Ooze Resistance: You resist Lightning damage.
This is my fetish.
I think it would've been interesting to play around with the squeezing rules.
Angry_Steak wrote:
Like a similar post, while this is interesting no one would interact with this race other than other monsters. The local farmer, lord, etc would be happy to talk with the ooze race, the inn keeper would have no issues letting oozes take a room, no one would be freaked out, scared, or immediately attack on sight the ooze creature. Just don't see it.
Archon007 wrote:
I think this is an interesting take on an ooze race.
- The origin seems plausible for a magical world, and it opens up an interesting possibility of a character potentially becoming a half-ooze due to a magical mishap.
- I think the ever-present skeletal structure is interesting because it makes the half-ooze appear reminiscent of a monstrous ooze devouring a skeleton (like the classic gelatinous cube image).
- Constitution seems like a decent racial stat boost as oozes are highly durable. Most oozes are also rather strong, so I could see +1 Str and +1 Con being just as viable as a +2 Con.
- The age entry is interesting but unclear. A player of a half-ooze PC is probably going to want to know how much they have to eat to avoid an early death, and the age entry lacks that clarity.
- A slower walking speed makes sense since monstrous oozes are quite slow, but most PC races that are slower have some sort of compensation, for example, Dwarf walking speed is unhindered by heavy armor, and halflings have the nimbleness feature to help them make the most of their shorter movement.
- The acid resistance also makes sense because most monstrous oozes are acidic, but I see nothing in your half-ooze race that says they are acidic. While they don't have to be acidic to be resistant to acid, it just seems a little odd because all three of the monstrous oozes in the 5e MM are acidic (either inside or out, or both).
- I like the slippery and squishable ability.
Thanks for looking it over and giving some criticism. I'll address each of your bullet points.
1. That was one of the things I was thinking when writing the "backstory" of the race. It might be cool to let someone come in and say "Hey, I used to be a human, but I messed up my spell, and now I'm a half-ooze". Adds a lot of interesting elements.
2. I'm glad you caught onto that. I added the skeleton not only to limit the race as a humanoid race that can't just turn into a puddle, but also because of the thematic element of a skeleton floating in a gelatinous cube.
3. That was something I had originally considered. Oozes are typically pretty strong. I didn't want to have their stats so spread out, though.
4. I left it up in the air on purpose, but it may just be better to say on average they live 100 years, though their lifespans can vary wildly due to the nature of their origins.
5. As I noted before, they originally had a walking speed of 20, but they also used to have the dwarven trait of not being slowed by heavy armor as you mentioned. Though that seems like something of a dwarf racial feature, and gnomes for instance don't have anything that compensates directly for their speed. I could add something in, but am wary about making an imbalanced race by adding more features to it.
6. They aren't necessarily acidic, just that their bodies are constructed of materials that resist acid. Making they themselves acidic still would cause a lot of complications in-game, namely how do they wear clothes for extended periods of time?
supreme_slayer wrote:
While knowing that their insides are acidic is interesting, that doesn't seem like something that would need to be mechanically represented in a stat block. For this particular race, they don't plan on shoving things inside themselves except to eat.
It makes sence for the acidic nature of their insides to not need to be reprisented beyond flavor. For example our stomaches are filled with acid do we use that to our advantage? *rare cases of animals doing it exist yes.* If it comes up you can always say that their internal organs you described are the main reason they are not able to consume anything withut worry as oozes do, they can eat what they consume yes but it is something they must be cautious with. You dont want to accidently choke on a bone after all, or rather *insert random danger to half ooze*.
I didn't mean that you had to say in the statblock that the half-ooze is acidic on the inside. Acid and ooze is a natural correlation to anyone who is familiar with D&D's ooze monsters . . . or with the blob, but the only place that acid is even moentioned in any part of your write-up about the half-ooze race is the feature that says they are resistant to it.
The half-ooze race also makes mention of needing to be well-fed, but it doesn't mention what they eat or how they eat. They have skulls, and thus probably teeth, do they chew? Do they follow Mr Beefy's advice and shove the meat down their throat holes? Are they vegetarians? A reference to acidic insides that help them digest whatever their preferred diet is, or to them using digestive processes more traditionally belonging to the solid races, would help grant a better understanding of the race.
Additionally, as long as things can be shoved into a half-ooze without harming the character, some PC is going to try it. Saying whether the material inside the membrane is acidic or not is only going to help DMs who need to adjudicate the outcome when it happens.
Furthermore, because I'm not just about having a spirited discussion, I actually found some humanoid ooze pictures that I plan to put in my thread. I figured it wouldn't hurt to put them here as well, as inspiration.
Neat idea. I would have thought that such characters, might lean towards chaotic alignments due to their own unstable and ever-changing nature. It is hard to appreciate stability and rigidity in any form when your own nature and perspective are constantly shifting.
Another fun design option might be to allow them to make a save to nullify the extra damage from sneak attacks and critical hits.