Special Conversion Thread: Finishing off the oozes

[Big Mac]

Continued from last post...

Here are the two bits I think are in conflict:

An Arucha’s one purpose in life is to get OUT of Limbo.

This supports the original aruchai leaving limbo.

When a group of Aruchai has killed all of its enemies, and when the number of the enemies was equal to half or more of the number of Aruchai fighting, the corpses of the enemies immediately begin corrupting into new Aruchai. Meanwhile, the Aruchai are instantly transported to the enemies’ native plane, where they terrorize the inhabitants for one day.

This both supports and opposes the original aruchai leaving limbo.

They may not be slain in the shape of Aruchai on this new plane, but after the one-day period is up the Aruchai reform into the creatures they were before they were defeated by a group of Aruchai.

This opposes the original aruchai leaving limbo and supports the original creatures being sent home as immortal aruchai that turn back into CN versions of themselves.

I can see us having a debate (not an argument) over exactly what the word "meanwhile" should mean. The orcs are turning into aruchai...meanwhile the aruchai (original or new is not specified) are transported to the plane of their enemies.

Now the sentence says: "Meanwhile, the Aruchai are instantly transported to the enemies’ native plane..." and not "Meanwhile, the new Aruchai are instantly transported to the native plane of their former bodies...". The word "enemies" is the one that does it for me. It makes me think that this sentence is saying that the original aruchai are hopping over to the home plane of the defeated creature.

Moving onto the end of the paragraph we have: "...the Aruchai reform into the creatures they were before they were defeated by a group of Aruchai." That sentence is clearly backing up orcs turning back into orcs.

I believe we have two parts of the blurb supporting planehopping aruchai and one bit of blurb supporting dead creatures being temporarily turned into aruchai and then sent home.

I'm not going to say two beats one, because I think we need to do what is best for the creature. And if freyar's interpretation works better for the GM than mine it would be a hollow victory to use "two beats one" to knock his option out and then make an unplayable monster or a less interesting monster.

 

[Big Mac]

Continued from last post...

Perhaps the mathematics could help us. The "more than half" thing implies that four aruchai can kill three orcs and (something) would hop to the Material Plane. If four (immortal) aruchai arrive on the Material Plane and turn into orcs they would be the original creatures. If three immortal aruchai arrive on the material plane they would be the dead orcs. However, after the original mention of mathematics I don't see it mentioned again.

Maybe we could keep an open mind about the "immortal planehopping aruchai" for now. We can probably work through the stats and come back to which creature it should be (original or dead foe) at the end.

The same goes for the "form stealing aruchai" or alternatively "restored but changed in alignment dead creature". This would either be the aruchai stealing the form (and perhaps the physical stats) of its foe or the the original creature being reanimated with a new personality.

I'm leaning towards the aruchai being form stealers, not because it is what my first guess is (I'm often wrong and willing to admit it). I'm still leaning towards this interpretation because of the implications for restoring creatures that are killed by an aruchai.

If an aruchai steals the form of its victim and turns its victim into a new aruchai it could actually force players to defeat two creatures if they want to bring a friend back from the dead:

1) There could be someone walking around who looks exactly like their friend and has all of their friend's abilities. Maybe they could even have their friend's memories. Maybe they could actually think they are the person they seem to be.
2) The "soul" of their friend could be trapped within a new aruchai on the Plane of Limbo. In order to get it out they could be required to kill, capture, or transform this creature back into its original form.

Getting the two creatures together and using some sort of magical process to revert both back to their original form would seem to be an epic quest to me. It could be fairly interesting for players to do. (Especially, if you let the player of the dead PC take over control of the transformed form-stealing aruchai.)

The other way, could still have interesting implications. People may still need to kill or "mentally destroy" what appears to be a CN member of a dead PC's race in order to get their friend back.

 

[Big Mac]

Continued from last post...

Clearly, we need to make some sense of this. There are some monsters with "take over the bodies of the dead" abilities (yellow musk creeper maybe?), and I'll see about looking some up.

The Sivak Draconian (Dragonlance Campaign Setting p221-222 and Dragons of Krynn p87-89) can assume the form of its victims as a special ability.

Here is the ability text from DLCS:

Shapeshift (Su): A male sivak can assume the form of Large of smaller humanoid that has just killed. The shapshift is a standard action that must be performed within one round of killing the victim. The sivak does not gain the memories, skills, or spell use of its victim, but his appearance and voice is an exact match of it's victim. The sivak can remain in its alternative form until it chooses to assume a new one or return to its natural form.

BTW: The mistake in the first sentence is from DLCS and not a typo by me.

Here is the improved text from DoK:

Shapeshift (Su): A male sivak can assume the form of a Large of smaller humanoid that it has just killed. The shapeshift is a standard action that must be performed within one round of killing its victim. The sivak's apperance and voice are an exact match of it's victim's but the sivak does not gain the memories, skills or spell use of its victim. The sivak can remain in its alternate form until it chooses to assume the form of a new victim or it returns to its natural form.

 

[Big Mac]

I actually think that the parasites might be part of the aruchai that are just disconnected.

I agree with treating the parasites as part of the creature (even if they are actually separate creatures in a symbiotic relationship) as they don't seem to do anything except swim on the surface of the creature.

How likely is it that a GM is going to want players to scrape these parasites off of a dead aruchai?

Seriously, these are practically aberrations, like a gibbering mouther.

...and...

Actually, let's deal with type first: anyone else think this might be an aberration, or are we going with ooze?

...and...

I'm still thinking ooze, mainly because they remind me of the teratomorph and flesh jelly.

I'd go for ooze too, as they are blob-like. The (possible) shapestealing ability makes them unusual, but that would be something that would only happen once. I'm not sure the weirdness stops them qualifying as oozes.

Yeah, this is weird, too. I'm not sure how much sense this ability really makes in 3e speak.

I can see us debating every single ability (and even different parts of the same ability) to work out how to do this. Maybe you had the right idea in looking at type. Maybe we should get the general stats done and then put each special ability "on trial".

I think the entire creature needs a re-write, but I'm not hung up on "winning the debate", so I think it will be very interesting to see what parts of this creature work in a 3e form and what parts we need to adapt or drop.

 

[Big Mac]

Ok, ooze it is! Abilities? Int is semi-low, but I don't think we have other clues.

There are not really any clues. Even the special abilities don't seem to imply any special requirements for the stats.

I can't even see anything like a THAC0, to tell us how good it is at hitting things with its "fingers". I started D&D during 2nd edition. Is this from a pre-THAC0 period? If so, are there generic attack rules that we can "add on" to create a full picture of the threat this creature poses? That might help us decide on a dex or str for this creature, but with the fingers having such a short "reach", I'd guess this creature attacks by bumping into you and..."giving you the finger".

EDIT: Actually, re-reading the original, the creature does not appear to damage creatures at all. It seems to rely on engulfing and suffocating them. So I would guess that str is not important. It all comes down to the paralisation attempt.

EDIT: I just re-read this bit: "The Aruchai also excrete a viscous glue which causes them to stick to the ground (thus their slow movement rate). Aruchai are always moving, albeit very slowly. They never stop for rest, and only slow down a little to absorb foods." This seems to imply that the creature's glue causes a penalty to initiative. Maybe they need to have a fairly high dex that the glue knocks down.

The gods "created the aruchai...for amusement", but unless they created them to do some sort of ooze-like tap-dancing routine , I can't see their origin giving us a clue.

Would it be a problem to give these creatures "average" ooze stats and then think about bumping or dropping them if any of the abilities requires a change from the baseline ooze?

Hopefully, we won't need to go back to the begining and restart the conversion, but I suspect it might be the only way to tackle this.

Once we illiminate the impossible aruchai, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the third edition version.

EDIT: The creature seems to either paralise and absorb things or have them stick to the surface and explode.

Maybe we could decide on what sort of creatures can be engulfed, and have everything else (even if it is a living thing like a construct) stick on the surface and take acid damage.

If we give the creatures a "Sticky (Ex)" ability, that could be written in a way that would both grab weapons and help them paralise and engulf creatures. I'd be happy for the Sticky ability to be their only attack form. Then they could just slide around and make touch attacks that let them grapple and finger creatures.

The engulfing process could possibly work a bit like a mind-flayers Extract ability. If enough fingers can get contact with a creature, maybe they can help pull it in.

If we give the creature "Explosive Acid" that could explain how any object (not just weapons) that remains stuck to the surface, could cause an explosion. I'm not sure if we want to stick with the dropping to -5 thing or just say that if anything is stuck to the surface and isn't removed within 5 rounds, there is a violent explosion that hurls out the remains of the semi-digested object. (This could be the aruachi version of thowing up food it can't eat.)

We could then treat aruchai as if they were a grenade like weapon and work out the damage to nearby creatures, based on those rules.

I'll admit this stuff is a bit of a logical-leap, but I think it brings some of the blurb into a 3e context.

 

[freyar]

Wow, that's a lot to read!

Thinking about this a bit more, I think I agree. Let's have the arucha take the form of whoever it kills (but with CN alignment) and transfer to that creature's home plane. Meanwhile, the killed creature becomes an arucha in 24 hours.

As far as sticky goes, I'd say maybe you have to make a Ref save or lose your weapon. I think there are already critters that do things like this. Maybe a weapon that's stuck loses X hp per round to acid and explodes as an acid flask when it reaches 0 hp? Probably ought to make the aruchai immune to acid in this case.

For the attacks, I think I'd say pseudopods that do paralysis only and then a normal Engulf attack.

Also, we know they are immune to cold.

At 4 ft across, these are somewhere between Small and Medium. I think I'd suggest starting with Small and advancing to Medium, with the "colony" ones Huge (or Gargantuan) and advancing maybe to Colossal.

I'll try to look up oozes with around 4HD and/or Small size this weekend.

 

[Big Mac]

Wow, that's a lot to read!

I can talk for England too!

Thinking about this a bit more, I think I agree. Let's have the arucha take the form of whoever it kills (but with CN alignment) and transfer to that creature's home plane. Meanwhile, the killed creature becomes an arucha in 24 hours.

Are we still going to keep the "the aruchai can't be killed" thing when it gets to the creatures home plane? That feels a bit wrong for 3rd edition.

I'd rather we gave it a bonus for the 24 hours (before it changed into the form of the creature it killed) or maybe found some other way to make it harder to hit.

Hmm. How about it doesn't actually fully appear on the plane of its victim. If it stayed in the border ethereal (or another transitive plane of your choice) it could be imposible to hit without magic weapons. And the "bump" in abilities would then not seem like an illogical power-up. (After the 24 hours it could complete its transformation and make the final part of its journey.)

As far as sticky goes, I'd say maybe you have to make a Ref save or lose your weapon. I think there are already critters that do things like this.

That sounds good. Could it also try to initiate a tug-of-war (rather than disarm you) as that might allow it to pull the hand of an attacker within reach of its fingers (pseudopods).

Would that reflex save also work for people who punch or kick an aruchai (i.e. reflex save to avoid being stuck)?

I'm sure there must be another creature that does this sort of thing, but I can't think of one. I hope you can find one.

Maybe a weapon that's stuck loses X hp per round to acid and explodes as an acid flask when it reaches 0 hp? Probably ought to make the aruchai immune to acid in this case.

That looks good to me. And the good thing is that it could apply equally well to other objects that were thrown onto the creature. Immunity to acid clashes with the original text, but I agree that it is more logical.

For the attacks, I think I'd say pseudopods that do paralysis only and then a normal Engulf attack.

The pseudopods are pretty small, so a non-damaging attack seems realistic.

How many pseudopods are you thinking of giving it? From the description, I was guessing that it was literally covered in fingers. So I'd be thinking more along the lines of how many fingers it could bring to bear at one time.

Also, we know they are immune to cold.

I'm not sure why they threw that in, but would that change to damage reduction against cold?

At 4 ft across, these are somewhere between Small and Medium. I think I'd suggest starting with Small and advancing to Medium, with the "colony" ones Huge (or Gargantuan) and advancing maybe to Colossal.

Those sizes seem logical. As for the "colony" sizes, I think that if you let different amounts of creatures join the colony there could actually be no upper limit to the advancement. A GM could join 100, 1000 or even 10,000 creatures together.

I'll try to look up oozes with around 4HD and/or Small size this weekend.

OK. No rush.

 

[freyar]

I had a nice post last night with a bunch of ooze stats, and the stupid computer ate it! Oh well.

I'd probably recommend ditching the "immortal aruchai" bit of the shape-changing. This is already complex enough as is.

I think rather than doing a tug-of-war, maybe we could give it Improved Disarm as a bonus feat, just to keep it simple. I'm not sure if natural weapons would get stuck; maybe Shade remembers critters with a similar ability.

We could decrease the immunity to resistance to cold, but we might as well leave it as immunity.

You know, if we're going with normal Engulf rules, we should make these Medium, so they can cover normal sized PCs. The colony could still be Huge.

 

[Big Mac]

I had a nice post last night with a bunch of ooze stats, and the stupid computer ate it! Oh well.

I hate it when that sort of thing happens. You can rebuild a post or email, but it never seems to be as good the second time.

I'd probably recommend ditching the "immortal aruchai" bit of the shape-changing. This is already complex enough as is.

So do we go with a standard aruchai that converts into the creature it killed after 24 hours? Should we drop the reference to it terrorising creatures on that plane? Should we make the creature less agressive (i.e. it spends 24 hours searching for a lair where it can transform into a copy of the creature it killed).

I think rather than doing a tug-of-war, maybe we could give it Improved Disarm as a bonus feat, just to keep it simple. I'm not sure if natural weapons would get stuck; maybe Shade remembers critters with a similar ability.

There is so much going on with this beastie, that anything we can cut down (but retain) is going to help. Maybe it just snatches up anything that could be a creature it can eat. (I do think it should stick to random objects that are not nailed down as well as weapons. After all, how can it know what is and isn't a weapon.)

We could decrease the immunity to resistance to cold, but we might as well leave it as immunity.

The immunity could always be altered down to resistance later on (if the creature looks too powerful). I think the tripple damage from fire helps a bit. We have to leave that in.

You know, if we're going with normal Engulf rules, we should make these Medium, so they can cover normal sized PCs. The colony could still be Huge.

Gnomes and halflings need opponents too!

Joking aside, there are a couple of ways to deal with this:

1. Have the creature expand to medium (and maybe large) as it advances or
2. Make the creature "stretchy" so that it can spread itself out and engulf creatures up to one size larger than you would expect.

I quite like the idea of these creatures opening up like the jaw of a snake and spending extra time to get their "fingers" around a bigger foe. You could even let them grow two size categories and make them take an extra round per size category to absorb a paralised victim.

(Something like this would give the PCs a small bit of extra time to save a friend. The GM could tell the players that their half-ogre friend starts the round with his legs totally encased and the aruchai slowly engulfing the rest of his lower torso.)

 

[Shade]

Wow! I've fallen waaaay behind on this thread.

In order to try to catch up, let me break it apart and give you my initial thoughts:

Aruchai are creatures native to the plane of Limbo — absolute Chaos.

OK, that's simple.

The gods there first created the Aruchai (sing. Arucha) for amusement, but accidentally endowed them with slight intelligence. An Arucha’s one purpose in life is to get OUT of Limbo. When a group of Aruchai has killed all of its enemies, and when the number of the enemies was equal to half or more of the number of Aruchai fighting, the corpses of the enemies immediately begin corrupting into new Aruchai. Meanwhile, the Aruchai are instantly transported to the enemies’ native plane, where they terrorize the inhabitants for one day. They may not be slain in the shape of Aruchai on this new plane, but after the one-day period is up the Aruchai reform into the creatures they were before they were defeated by a group of Aruchai. However, the reformed creatures will now all have Chaotic Neutral alignment.

So essentially, the aruchai are trapped within the blobbed form until they slay something else to replace them. Mechanically, this is a bit like a template that completely changes the creature. But in all honesty, this will only come into play as a plot device, so might just work as flavor text. Let's revisit that later.

Aruchai appear as formless blobs of rotting, yellow flesh. Their bodies may be seen to be crawling with little red parasites, who greedily slurp up the many fluids the Aruchai excrete at odd times. The Aruchai also excrete a viscous glue which causes them to stick to the ground (thus their slow movement rate). Aruchai are always moving, albeit very slowly. They never stop for rest, and only slow down a little to absorb foods.

Mainly flavor text here.

Weapons of +3 or less will stick to the Aruchai’s glue-coated bodies if the modified “to hit” roll is below 18. The weapons can be pulled out of an Arucha as per a Web spell. Each round a weapon is stuck the Arucha’s body acids will eat away at it, so it loses a “plus” each round (normal weapons will go into the negatives). If a weapon reaches -5 it will explode, not harming the Aruchai but doing 2-16 pts. damage to all others within a 6” radius.

This is similar to an adherer's adhesive ability, or the farastu demodand's adhesive slime, albeit with the extra bonus of dealing acid damage (and possibly, a weapon's "death throes").

Adhesive (Ex): An adherer exudes a sour smelling glue-like substance that acts as a powerful adhesive, holding fast any creatures or items touching it, except for items made of stone. The adherer automatically grapples any creature it hits with its slam attack. Opponents so grappled cannot break free while the adherer is alive without removing the adhesive first.

A weapon that strikes an adherer is stuck fast unless the wielder succeeds on a DC 17 Reflex save. A successful DC 17 Strength check is needed to pry it off. The save and check DC are both Constitution-based and include a +4 racial bonus.

An application of boiling water thrown on the adherer deals 1d4 points of damage to it (and to any creature stuck to it). It also reduces both the Reflex save DC and the Strength check DC to 13 for one round. An application of fire deals damage to both the adherer and any creature stuck to it and weakens the adhesive (as above) for 1d3 rounds. An application of the universal solvent automatically dissolves the adhesive. An adherer can dissolve its adhesive at will, and the substance breaks down 1 hour after the creature dies.

Adhesive Slime (Ex): The thick, tarlike slime that farstus secrete acts as a powerful adhesive, holding fast creatures or items that touch it. Farastus have a +8 racial bonus on grapple checks and disarm checks due to their adhesive slime. A farastu frequently chooses to grapple its foes and then maul its enemies with natural attacks.

A weapon that strikes a farastu is stuck fast unless the wielder succeeds on a Reflex save (DC 17). Prying off a stuck weapon requires a Strength check (DC 17). The save DC is Constitution-based.

Lantern oil or some other flammable oil (such as alchemist's fire) dissolves the farstu's adhesive slime; the creature requires 10 minutes to renew its adhesive coating if doused with oil. A farastu can dissolve its adhesive slime at will, and the substance breaks down 1 minute after the creature dies.

An Arucha will reach out with shapeless “fingers” at its victim, paralyzing them as per a Gelatinous Cube. It will then proceed to devour its captive by engulfing it and eventually (1 round) suffocating it. The Arucha then digests the enemy and excretes it as pre-Aruchai mess — which will become Aruchai under the conditions detailed above. Aruchai fingers can reach a maximum of 1” from the body.

Essentially, just the g-cube's engulf and paralysis abilities with slightly different flavor text.

When there are 100 or more live Aruchai present, they can meld and flow together into Aruchai-Kamoit — a sea of writhing flesh. Their fingers may then reach 2”, they gain +3 “to hit”, and 3 is subtracted from the enemy’s saving throws vs. paralyzation.

Basically, just an ability to merge numerous Small aruchai to form a really, really big one.

Aruchai are invulnerable to cold-based attacks

Immunity to cold

and weapons of +1 or less do only one point of damage to them per hit. Weapons of +2 or better do as many pts. of damage as their “plus” (i.e., a +3 sword does three points of damage). Normal damage adjustments (due to high strength) do not apply to Aruchai. Damage penalties incurred because of low strength do apply, however.

Damage reduction x/magic?

Fire does triple damage vs. the Fleische Kleckse, and so does acid.

Simplify to vulnerability to acid and fire?

Aruchai are treated as size “L” in “Kamoit” state.

I'm thinking more like Gargantuan.

Gods and other creatures of Chaos often utilize seas of Aruchai as treasure guards in caverns with low roofs.

Flavor.



Let me know how all that meshes with what you've previously discussed.