Gelatinous Cube Damage, possible error?

[Cor Azer]

For consistency's sake more than anything. Big things tend to be strong; most monsters in the MM that are size L or bigger have 20 Str or thereabouts. There's nothing stopping you from making up a big monster that's weak, but that would be an unusual creature.

I understand that big things tend to be strong. I guess I justed figured that saying something would get a negative strength if shrunk is a poor way of saying big things should be strong.

 

[wolff96]

There's nothing stopping you from making up a big monster that's weak, but that would be an unusual creature.

Which is pretty much the definition of a gelatinous cube.

Seriously, though, I'd guess that this is just an error and you did the right thing by removing the +4 damage. Given how the attack bonus is calculated, I'd guess it's just an editing error.

 

[Dr. Zoom]

I dropped a note to James Wyatt today about this problem and he responded in less than an hour. I was impressed. At any rate, here is my email and Mr. Wyatt's response.

Question:

I am a frequent contributor at the EN Messageboards. An interesting dilemma came up yesterday regarding the Gelatinous Cube. Its slam attack does 1d6+4 damage, but it only has a Str
of 10. Now the other "oozes" all fall in line with bonuses equal to
1.5xStr. We were wondering if the G.C. should have a 17 Str or should it only have a 1d6 slam?

Response:

Looks like the damage bonus is in fact an error. That's not an official answer until we release MM errata (soon?). Raising its Strength would make its attack bonus wrong.

James

Although he says that his answer is not official, it seems that the Str score is correct and the damage bonus is in error. I will go with this until the official errata comes out.