Helpless Gelatinous Cube?

[orion90000]

If a sorcerer casts grease on the 10x10 square that a gelatinous cube occupies and it fails its Reflex save, does it fall?

Is it plausible to say that amorphous monsters are immune to falling prone?

 

[Corwin of Amber]

Perhaps it interferes with its form of locomotion, namely shuffling on the ground. It could also create a lack of traction that will not allow it to genetare enough momentum to attack. The ooze subtype does not specify anything regarding helplessness.

This might be where logic picks up after the rules cut out. This seems to be purely DM discretion.

Something to think about: Acids tend to react with Hydrocarbons like oils.

 

[Nebten]

It would be concidered Prone and everything that goes along with that condition, but not Helpless per your thread title suggests. As silly as it may sound dems the rules, pending DM judgement.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Given that being prone means you are lying on the ground (Player’s Handbook, page 311), who can be prone? Can oozes be prone? What about creatures with no limbs like snakes? What about incorporeal creatures?

Anybody can be “prone.” Creatures that use limbs for locomotion can use a free action to drop prone and must use a move action to stand up again. Something with no motive limbs, such as a snake, can go prone or “stand up” as a free action. Such creatures might want to become prone to gain an Armor Class bonus against ranged attacks. (Although giving something like a gelatinous cube that option defies common sense and should not be allowed.) Officially, there’s an attack of opportunity any time a creature stands up. The Sage, however, heartily recommends no attack of opportunity when a snake or similar creature “stands up.”​

Take that for what it's worth.​

 

[Sorrowdusk]

I dont get it-why can a SNAKE be prone, but an OOZE cant? Either way, they would just be flattening themselves against the ground.

 

[DumbPaladin]

How exactly would you determine whether an ooze was prone, SorrowdusK? By the number of inches in height it maintains compared to the "average" ooze?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Wow, that was a bad FAQ judgement!

I like to use some common sense. Some creatures just simply can't be made prone. Like snakes and oozes. They're never prone, they ignore that entire mechanic. As for slowing the ooze down, grease IS difficult terrain, so it would at least cut the ooze's movement through those squares down.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I dont get it-why can a SNAKE be prone, but an OOZE cant? Either way, they would just be flattening themselves against the ground.

I think when the FAQ says "giving an ooze that option," it's referring to the tactical application of going prone for AC against ranged attacks. While a snake is a low int animal, animals are capable of instinctive "tactics" like that. The ooze is completely mindless, on the other hand.

Mind you, I think the sage's entire argument of them going prone and getting back up as free actions and actually getting any bonus/penalty out of it is on its face absurd and wrong.

 

[El Mahdi]

Helpless Gelatinous Cube?

Watch it quiver...see it shiver...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ias03wthDBE]YouTube - Jello Commercial 1979. "It's Not Dessert...It's Jello"[/ame]

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Helpless Gelatinous Cube?

Watch it quiver...see it shiver...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ias03wthDBE

That's a good point. As an aside, I'll here note that, against other specific species of ooze, a sure fire way to render a pudding prone is to use the somewhat obscure spell, Bilk Osby's scooping hand.