Special Conversion Thread: Finishing off the oozes

[Cleon]

Why do its pseudopods have a fifty-foot reach in the 3E conversion? The Dragon #47 stats gave their 'fingers' a 1" reach, which converts to 10-feet (assuming the author was using AD&D 1E's 'dungeon scale' as opposed to 'wilderness scale', which would have made it a 10-yard reach).

 

[freyar]

Good question. 10 feet makes more sense to me; maybe this is just a typo.

 

[Shade]

Nice catch, Cleon. That was a cut n' paste holdover from a different critter (one of the silatics). I'll revise it to 10 feet.

Updated. Are we finished?

 

[freyar]

I'm ready to say yes, chuck it on the pile!

 

[Big Mac]

I've reread the bolded passage several times, and I still read it as "the newly-liberated aruchai reform into what they were prior to being transformed into aruchai".

I re-read this bit too. I originally misunderstood this bit, and you had it spot on.

 

[Shade]

Whew! That one took nearly a month. Hopefully this one will me much easier...

Carnivorous wall (9): AC 3; MV 1; HD 8; hp 64, 60, 48, 44 (x3), 40, 36, 32; THAC0 13; #AT 1 per 10 square feet of surface; Dmg 2d4; SA paralyzation, sharp weapons release flaming liquid; SD immune to fire, paralyzation, polymorph, and mind-affecting spells; SZ G (80+ square feet); ML Elite (14); Int low (6); AL N; XP 5000.

Note: A wall attacks with one pseudopod per 10 square feet of surface; the psuedopod can reach up to 10 feet. Touching the pseudopod or the wall's surface causes paralysis for 5d4 rounds (save negates); paralyzed creatures are pulled into the wall in 2 rounds. Any creature pulled into the carnivorous wall suffocates in 3 rounds, is drained of fluids and spit back out as a burning zombie 10 rounds later. The interior fluids of a carnivorous wall ignite on contact with air; any slicing or piercing weapon that strikes a wall causes an equal amount of fire damage to its wielder.

Originally appeared in Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad (1998).

 

[freyar]

Hmm, aren't there some other wall-monsters?

Well, I could also see aberration, but I'm happy enough with ooze here. Huge or Gargantuan (or even Colossal)? Also, I think they've listed sizes incorrectly; a Large creature in 3e has a "10 ft sq" space which is 100 sq ft. I guess they did the same thing here. So when they say 80 sq ft, they probably mean eight 10 ft squares.

 

[Big Mac]

Are we finished?

It looks great.

Would someone tell the next monster in line to slide over to the conversion counter.

 

[Cleon]

Nice catch, Cleon. That was a cut n' paste holdover from a different critter (one of the silatics). I'll revise it to 10 feet.

Updated. Are we finished?

I'd suspected it was a holdover from recycling a Silactic stat-block. The Arucha looks finished to me.

 

[Cleon]

Hmm, aren't there some other wall-monsters?

Well, I could also see aberration, but I'm happy enough with ooze here. Huge or Gargantuan (or even Colossal)? Also, I think they've listed sizes incorrectly; a Large creature in 3e has a "10 ft sq" space which is 100 sq ft. I guess they did the same thing here. So when they say 80 sq ft, they probably mean eight 10 ft squares.

Does anyone have the Crypt of Lyzandred module? That would clear up the original intent. My suspicion is they meant eighty square feet of one side of a wall, despite this being smaller than the 100' front surface of a standard Gelatinous Cube. It may be an adjustment for shape. Consider AD&D's 25' tall Titan and 3x6x8' mimic, both would probably displace the same volume but one is size G and the other size L. Plus, one side of a mimic pretending to be a chest is only about 20-25 square feet according to the Monstrous Manual description saying a a standard mimic usually masquerades as a 3'x6'x8' chest.

EDIT:Although them mixing up 10' squares with 10 square feet makes as much sense.

I'd go for just reducing the size category to Large and giving Carnivorous Walls lots of pseudopod attacks since they only have 9 HD, which is a bit low for a Gargantuan 3rd Edition monster. Having a small area of wall spout a mass of tentacles like a vertical Evard's Black Tentacles is a cool visual worth promoting.
END EDIT

The stats Shade lists gave HPs for nine Carnivorous Walls, if each is 80' long that's a big encounter area, such as a square chamber 90' across.

As for other wall monsters, the Stunjelly immediately sprung to mind. There are also monsters that live in walls, like the cave moray or tunnel worm.