Gray ooze
P gray ooze 
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|---|---|
| Difficulty | 4 |
| Attacks |
Bite 2d8 rusting |
| Base level | 3 |
| Base experience | 28 |
| Speed | 1 |
| Base AC | 8 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 2 (Quite rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 500 |
| Nutritional value | 250 |
| Size | Medium |
| Resistances | fire resistance, cold resistance, poison resistance, acid resistance, stoning resistance |
| Resistances conveyed | fire resistance (7%), cold resistance (7%), poison resistance (7%) |
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A gray ooze:
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| Reference | monst.c#line1687 |
A gray ooze, P, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The gray ooze is an omnivorous pudding-like creature. with an acidic body that can burn through webs.
A gray ooze has a single bite attack that can rust metallic items the target is wearing. Gray oozes possess fire resistance, cold resistance, poison resistance, acid resistance, and stoning resistance.
Gray oozes are acidic and vegetarian to eat, and eating a glob of gray ooze cures stoning on the first bite and has a roughly 1⁄15 chance each (6%) of granting fire resistance, cold resistance or poison resistance.
Contents
Generation
Randomly generated gray oozes are always created hostile.
A gray ooze does not leave a corpse upon death, but may leave behind a glob of its body.
Strategy
Gray oozes are very slow and move at the minimum speed possible for a non-sessile monster—most early heroes should be able to handle a gray ooze, though their bite can be fairly strong and the rusting it causes can prove inconvenient and annoying. Their incredibly low speed leaves them vulnerable to ranged attacks, and melee combat can be sufficient if you are willing to temporarily take off all iron armor and your surroundings are safe enough.
History
The gray ooze first appears in NetHack 3.0.0. From this version to NetHack 3.4.3, including some variants based on those versions, gray oozes can leave a corpse behind when killed. Gray ooze corpses are replaced with globs in NetHack 3.6.0—however, globs in this version cannot give resistances when eaten, due to a bug that is fixed in NetHack 3.6.1.
Origin
The gray ooze is derived from Dungeons & Dragons, where it makes its debut in the "Monsters & Treasure" of the original 1974 boxed set. A gray ooze is a thick puddle of gray sludge that resembles wet stone or an amorphous rock formation, and is roughly 8 inches (20 centimeters) thick, 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) wide, and up to 12 feet (3.7 meters) across. Gray oozes can corrode metal at a rate comparable to a black pudding, though its acids cannot eat through stone or wood; blacksmiths sometimes use jarred gray oozes to meld ore into the right shape. They possess an innate immunity to magic, severe heat and extreme cold, but are vulnerable to any form of lightning.
Gray oozes are known to inhabit subterranean areas such as caverns, sewers and dungeons, and are mindless scavengers that absorb and digest whatever they come across—unlike other oozes, they cannot climb onto ceilings or walls. Gray oozes navigate their surroundings with an ability known as 'blindsight', and can appear as transparent, making them difficult to detect while they remain still or are moving slowly. Gray oozes attack in groups, striking until their prey is either dead or unconscious and then moving on top of the prey to digest them from within, dissolving the prey and absorbing their bones as slime to grow. Gray oozes reproduce by budding, breaking small droplets off of their mass after a meal which later grew into gray oozes themselves.
A gray ooze that reaches an exceptionally large size can mildly develop greater intellect and latent psionics: this allows the ooze to unleash a psychic crush, though this leaves it vulnerable to retaliation after. Such oozes are only known to unleash this ability whenever a creature within 6 feet (1.8 meters) of them uses psionic powers; it is suggested that gray oozes developed these abilities from evolving to live near mind flayers.
Variants
Variants based on NetHack 3.4.3 and earlier versions may retain the ability for gray oozes and other pudding-class monsters to leave behind corpses, while variants based on later versions may replace them with globs.
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, gray oozes can leave corpses upon death, and do not generate in Gehennom.
Gray oozes and their corpses can be found in fungus farms.[1]
GruntHack
In GruntHack, gray oozes can leave corpses upon death.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, gray oozes can leave corpses upon death.
A gray ooze is generated in the first map of the Grue's Cavern at level creation.
SpliceHack
In SpliceHack, gray oozes can leave globs behind upon death.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, gray oozes can leave globs behind upon death.
Encyclopedia entry
- See the encyclopedia entry for amoeboid.
