Black Pudding... not splitting?

[The Souljourner]

So I played against a gargantuan black pudding last night (CR 9 according to the 3.0 module we were using, but 12 in 3.5), and it pretty much killed one of our group (should have killed, but the DM went easy on him), and destroyed his magical armor.

Now here's the thing - the DM decided that only slashing weapons could cause the ooze to split in half. Besides the fact that I'm really annoyed when DMs blatantly change perfectly well defined rules like that for no real reason besides "it makes sense to me".... this makes the ooze immensely more difficult to fight.

What do you do against oozes? Shoot them with arrows so they split and then fireball the bits.

Well, we were shooting crossbow bolts at it, but to little effect (I think probably to no effect), and the party wizard was fireballing it and magic missiling it, but the thing has 290 hitpoints, which is a lot for a single 9th level wizard to burn through (we had a druid that used a flamestrike on it... but he's not exactly swimming in those spells at 10th level).

Meanwhile, with its +35 grapple check, the party cleric was quickly being fried alive, seeing as it was patently impossible for him to win a grapple check versus this thing.

So here's my question - what do I do? Should I suggest it have a higher CR because not making the thing split makes it a heck of a lot more difficult to fight? If so, how much higher?

Suggestions welcome.

-The Souljourner (frustrated)

 

[Xavim]

If piercing weapons don't cause it to split, then they must damage the creature normally, since they would be treated in the same sense as bludgeoning damage right? So what was the problem? Your arrows, and spells should have been sufficient to kill it.

I'm sitting with your DM on this one:
I don't agree with the arrows splitting a Gargantuan slime, that to me makes no sense as arrows aren't large enough to warrent such a split. Would the creature split if it oozed over a pointy rock? Now if you shot it with a balista bolt, or introduced it to the interesting end of a blade barrier...

 

[AuraSeer]

Did the DM specifically say that the pudding could be split by slashing weapons only? Or did you infer that from the combat? If the latter, your interpretation might not be quite correct.

You say the crossbow bolts were having "no effect" on the monster. (Perhaps it was a Fiendish black pudding with DR 10/magic.) If that's true, then your DM is right that it shouldn't have split. When DR prevents damage from an attack, it also prevents any other special effects the attack would have had.

The frying of your cleric may have been his own faul, because he should never have been within melee range of the thing. Since it has a speed of 20' and a perception range of only 60', almost any character can outrun it, and stay too far away to be spotted. (In close quarters where it's impossible to get out of melee range, the EL should be increased because of difficult circumstances.)

 

[The Souljourner]

It surprised us in a reasonably small room... the cleric was trapped between it and an antimagic field that we were pretty sure would fry all his equipment (as in permanently) and who knows what else... plus we didn't realize it had so much reach until it grabbed the cleric from 15' away.

And the DM said that the pudding couldn't be split by piercing weapons, it wasn't due to an ability, it was just a DM judgement call.

Xavim - the rules say it should split. They are there for a reason. Changing that changes the encounter, and in this case, made it a lot more difficult. Having to use slashing weapons means having to attack it in hand to hand, which means you are opening yourself up to being grappled like the cleric. I don't know if the arrows were doing damage or not, it's kinda hard to tell with an ooze.

As for how arrows split it.... I'm not assuming that the arrow actually cleaves it in twain.. maybe the pain of the arrow piercing its skin causes it to pull away from the wound, making a split in the thing. I don't know the specifics of how and why an ooze splits, except what it says in the book.

And you realize, the standard black pudding is huge to begin with, so what's the difference between a 15' cube and a 20' cube? If the 15' cube can be split with an arrow, why not the 20' cube?

Also, the only member of the party who has a bludgeoning weapon was the cleric.

It was a disgustingly hard fight... normally 3 above our APL, and there were several factors that made it more difficult than that.

-The Souljourner

 

[Tewligan]

Yeah, I'm with the DM on this one as well. It really doesn't make sense for a Gargantuan creature to split because of an arrow - sometimes, ya gotta break with the letter of the rules if they don't make any sense. Also, it sounds like he told you that arrows wouldn't split it, so at least you got that heads-up.

Are you sure that you didn't get more XP because the fight was tougher? Maybe he took that into account when he gave out XP. Although, even if he didn't, them's the breaks. I would guess that sometime, through planning or just dumb luck, you'll wipe the floor with a monster without breaking a sweat and still get the standard XP. It all evens out.

 

[Crothian]

Did the characters (not the players) have information that would make them believe the ooze would be split by bolts? Or was this just the players having read the MM and knowing that fact?

Personally, as a DM I change monsters in the MM becasue players know the monsters and are no longer suprised by it. A DM doesn't need a reason to change things, so when one actually has a reason its all that much better.

 

[The Souljourner]

We only knew because of the book (we had met another ooze before, and it acted the same way).

So my problem is not with the change.. the DM can change anything he wants, but it made a fight that started out 3 CR above our APL even more difficult, and we got no extra XP. And yes, I know we just got the standard CR 12 XP because I was the one that looked it up and did the math.

I think I'll talk to my DM and see if we can up the CR by 1 or 2 given the circumstances under which we had to fight and the change to the pudding's abilities.

-The Souljourner

 

[hazmat]

I think that more XP is warranted.

It seems to me that the encounter was much tougher that it should have been. The antimagic field, the size of the room and the changes in the behavior of the creature should have been taken into account in calculating the encounters challenge rating.

 

[geezerjoe]

...Personally, as a DM I change monsters in the MM becasue players know the monsters and are no longer suprised by it. A DM doesn't need a reason to change things, so when one actually has a reason its all that much better.

I've done this as well. I think it's a good practice.

I do think however that the ECL should be modified when the creature is modified, though a "mean" DM might penalize an equal amount for out of character knowledge, (But then again I am mean ... I mean sometimes my villians actualy run away from fights they can't win only to return with the knowledge they've gained about the party and using it against them).

I'd also suggest that weaknesses not be removed from monsters, but changed so that a character with the appropriate skills (knowledge: monstrous creatures or whatever) or research would be able to use the new weakness to the party's advantage.

Joe2Old

 

[Jeremy]

The DM was wrong because apparently it frustrated his players so much they felt compelled to post on a message board.

The DM can change the rules to be anything he chooses, but this is best used consistantly in the interest of fostering fun (for the players and himself). Maybe he found this fun, but I doubt it, when players around the table start getting that hopeless, bleak, or frustrated and agitated look, no one really has fun.

But on the other hand, more XP for it afterwards isn't really going to help. Just means your characters will likely be retired sooner. Sounds lame, but I miss some of my high level characters. And we really don't do epic games well.