THE GOBWOOD
Goblin, Fantasy, and RPG Blog
This goblin is one of my favorites in theory and building it with homebrew material has been very fulfilling. Every other class, archetype, and option that deals with gross stuff tends to be evil and mostly necromantic so I wanted to make something that was gross and yet, somehow, adorable. I introduce you to Guk, the goblin Filth Shaman.
Character
Guk is a dirty raspy voiced goblin who never bathes- it would be a violation of his oaths to nature to pointlessly wash away the life that grows on the body. Guk reveres a particular segment in the circle of life where decay and rot make preparation for recycling into the circle- while many druids ignore this important process Guk sees the beauty of life in the tiny creatures and fungi that thrive as parasites, diseases, and molds. Guk actively nurtures the invisible things that eat decaying matter; he ferments shredded vegetables, meticulously ages unsalted meats, and builds a compost pile wherever he can. He consumes parts of his “incubated” foods (though most would simply call them rotten), rubs them on his body, and sleeps buried in his compost yet seems to be in perfect health despite his revolting rituals.
As larger (normal sized) creatures go, Guk considers only the scavenging carrion and detritus feeders to be part of his domain of nature and even reveres otherwise aberrant monsters which fulfill the needs of nature’s cycle. Rats, Vultures, Centipedes, and Roaches are common creatures under his protection and who answer his call but so might the vile Otyugh and Oozes who typically reside in dungeons. Such creatures make possible the fully contained ecosystem of a dungeon recycling the waste of dead monsters and adventurers, recomposing it so that dungeon fungi can grow, and allowing the herbivorous dungeon vermin to feed, in turn, feeding the predatory monsters. In such cycles, even sunlight and water are unnecessary- only the occasional adventuring hero’s corpse is needed to replenish precious organic, liquid, and mineral resources to the ecosystem.
Despite being extremely stinky, the other goblins never really mind his hygiene and, in fact, often praise him for taking it so seriously. He gets along well with all of the other goblins and is the only one who seems to “get” Merek. Guk tends to be the most friendly to outsiders which, in turn, tends to repel outsiders. Few will ever appreciate Guk as more than a warm bodied spellcaster in combat but those who do find a true and loving friend.
Build
Wild Shape focused druids are common and powerful but defensive builds are rare and even more rarely powerful. We will be both rare and probably not very powerful but at least we will be hard to kill and we’ll be very well suited to roleplaying the character with fitting shapes, spells, and abilities.
Yucky stuff- by involving Vermin, Swams, Oozes, and thematic Spells.
Debuffs- via diseases, dissolving weapons, and yucky stuff.
Deterring/Punishing attackers- through Ooze wild shapes and retributive spells and abilities
Tankiness- by having lots and lots of HP, resistances, save bonuses, and immunities.
Blight Druid is the archetype used for this build but it wasn’t perfect, it still needed more to make it just what the imagination produced so plenty of homebrew content was created for this character. One such element is the Slime Domain and several others are feats also detail on a page in my RPG blog HERE.
Disciple of Decay (custom trait): Your understanding of nature’s recycling has given you the wisdom to cast magic that can rapidly decay bodies. You add Nature’s Ravages to your spell list as a 3rd level spell and Greater Nature’s Ravages as a 7th level spell.
Semi-Fluid Casting (custom trait): Your study of amorphous Ooze creatures has given you insight into how to perform the somatic components of your spells less rigidly and separate bodily harm from mental clarity. You gain a +1 bonus to concentration checks made to cast defensively. Additionally, if taking the form of an Ooze or Aberration, the DC for you to ignore injury while casting is now 15 + double the spell’s level. Failure still results in loss of the spell.
Filth Bather (custom alt Racial): Your daily hygiene routine has prepared you to tolerate pathogens and toxins well. You gain a +2 bonus to saves against diseases, parasites, and effects which cause the sickened or nauseated conditions. If you succeed at such a save you suffer no further effects until exposure has ceased for at least 24 hours. Additionally, if you ever gain immunity to Diseases you may also ignore the harmful effects of Parasites, regardless of condition type, though infestation may still occur. This replaces Skilled.
As a filth shaman, Guk’s nature sense is more of a nasty sense and the +2 bonus also applies to knowledge: dungeon checks.
As a filth shaman, Guk may use his wildshape ability to take the form of a Dire Rat, Vulture, or Goblin Dog as if using Beast Shape I. He may also take the form of a Giant Cockroah, Giant Hissing Cockroach, Giant Fly, Giant Ant (worker or solder) as if using Vermin Shape I. Guk may also use his wildshape ability to take the form of a small or medium Ooze as if using Ooze Form I. If the form Guk takes possesses a disease extraordinary ability then Guk’s wild shape also grants him that ability while in wild shape form with a DC equal to 10+½Lv+WIS
At 6th level Guk may use wild shape to change into a Rat or Giant Vulture as if using Beast Shape II. He may also take the form of a Giant Scarab or Carrion Beetle as if using Vermin Shape II. He may also use his wild shape to take the form of a Large Ooze as if using Ooze Form II or gain an Ooze aspect when taking the form of a small or medium Ooze as if using both Ooze Form I and Ooze Aspect.
At 8th level Guk may use wild shape to change into a Trollhound, Ratking, Common Cockroach, or Bogwid as if using Beast Shape III. A Common Cockroach is treated as a diminutive animal and a Bogwid is treated as a medium magical beast for purposes of this ability. He may also take the form of a Myceloid as if using Plant Shape I. He may also use his wild shape to take the form of a Huge Ooze as if using Ooze Form III, or a Large Ooze with one aspect as if using both Ooze Form II and Ooze Aspect, or a small or medium Ooze with two aspects as if using Ooze Form I and Greater Ooze Aspect.
At 10th level Guk may use wild shape to change into an Otyugh as if using Beast Shape IV. An otyugh is treated as a Large magical beast for purposes of this ability. He may also take the form of a Huge Ooze with an ooze aspect as if using both Ooze Form III and Ooze Aspect, or a Large Ooze with two aspects as if using both Ooze Form II and Greater Ooze Aspect.
At 12th level Guk may use wild shape to take the form of a Huge Ooze with two aspects as if using both Ooze form III and Greater Ooze Aspect.
As a filth shaman, Guk may not spontaneously cast summon nature’s ally spells. He may, instead, cast the follow spells spontaneously at the appropriate level: 1- Decompose Corpse, 2- Summon Swarm (rats only), 3- Nature’s Ravages, 4- Blight, 5- Whip of Centipedes, 6- Swarm Skin, 7- Nature’s Ravages (Greater), 8- Horrid Wilting, 9- Shambler.
Formless Body (Ex): At 15th level Guk’s body is as easily reconstituted as an Ooze’s. He automatically heals any STR and DEX drain and damage when assuming an Ooze Form using his wild shape ability and is immune to STR and DEX drain and damage while in Ooze Form. Additionally, when you cast Flesh to Ooze on a living creature, you may choose to, instead, permanently affect it as with Ooze Form I instead, though the target does not change its size. The transformation is disorienting causing the target to be Dazed for 1 round and Sickened for 1 hour. Creatures who have remained in this form for some time may be able to achieve varying degrees of control over their shape to assume their previous form and may even be able to control their coloration to assume their previous appearance. This replaces Timeless Body.
Solvent Vitality [homebrew feat]: (req Ooze type or ability to take the form of an Ooze, ability to cast Caustic Blood) When dealing acid damage with spells, natural attacks, or abilities, you add half your CON modifier as bonus acid damage on initial damage from the spell or attack. If in Ooze form, you may add this bonus acid damage whenever the spell or ability deals damage.
Engulfing Spell [homebrew metamagic]: (req Natural Spell) You may prepare a spell with a range of touch so that, when held, the charge engulfs your entire body instead of being held within your limb. When struck by a melee attack while holding a charge, the spell automatically discharges targeting the attacker. Touch spells that allow multiple charges can only be discharged in this way once per round, though you may still discharge the effects with touch attacks made on your turn as normal. Preparing a spell in this way occupies a spell slot of 1 level higher.
Knowledge: Nature will be essential because this represents our knowledge of the creatures we care for and the cycle of life that we revere.
Knowledge: Dungeon will also be essential because of how dependent dungeon ecology is on the recycling of organisms.
Survival is always appropriate for a druid, what kind of druid would you be without it?
Prof: Brewer seems reasonable if you can spare 1 skill point just to represent your efforts to cultivate microbes; you may not be good at producing anything safe to consume, but you know how to ensure “something” will grow.
Other than that our wild-shapes should give us movement modes or ooze aspects that cover a lot of what physical skills would typically be relied upon for; climb speeds, flight speeds, compression, transparency, etc… This makes INT a reasonable dump stat for us.
STR- This won’t be important for us. For a medium sized creature, high STR in Ooze form could be ok for attacking but that’s not in the cards for us. We can’t even finesse in Ooze form because of the DEX penalty that the spell applies so… just forget about attacking.
DEX- Keep this stat average. We will be wild-shaping into Ooze Form often which reduces DEX dramatically so we’ll surely be in the negatives but we don’t want to be 1 DEX damage away from paralysis.
CON- 14 is the minimum acceptable score because we NEED HP. In ooze form, we’ll have such low AC that theres no way we’ll not be hit and that’s ok, we want to get hit because we can dissolve enemy weapons. But this means we want HP, so we can take those hits and not be dead. Ooze form grants a TON of CON but the more the better.
INT- This can be kept average or dumped. Figure out how many skills you want to keep maxed and ensure you have sufficient INT to support that.
WIS-16 minimum. Eventually we want to have 19 WIS, if we start with 17 WIS we can have this by level 8 and be eligible for the Energized Wild Shape feat at level 9; but that’s expensive with lower point buy. 16 would be reasonable if you are ok with waiting several more levels before energized wild shape but starting with 18 is just too costly because we need high CON too.
CHA-DUMP to 7 and we’ll have 5, appropriately. We should be stinky, dirty, and a general mess with bugs and crusty junk on us. While this will gimp our wild empathy, its not something we’ll be doing every day and may be able to cheese it for ease; see the combos section.
Feats, Choices, and Features
1- Disciple of Decay, Semi-Fluid Casting, Filth-Bather, Toughness,
Vermin Empathy, Nasty Sense, Lv1 Spells, Nature Bond: Slime Domain*, Acid Dart,
Spont Casting*
2- Vermin Heart
3- Ooze Whisperer, Lv2 spells
4- Wild Shape*
5- Natural Spell, Miasma, Lv3 spells
6- Acid Resistance 10, wild shapes
7- Wild Vigor, Lv4 spells
8- Wild shapes
9- Energized Wild Shape, BlightBlooded, Lv5 spells
10- Wild shape
11- Solvent Vitality*, Lv6 spells
12- Acid Resist 20, wild shapes
13- Wild Shape, PlagueBearer, Lv7 spells
14-
15- Engulfing Spell*, Formless Body, Lv8 spells
16-
17- Feat, Lv9 spells
18-
19- Feat
20- Acid Immunity
Exposition
Semi-Fluid Casting is our trait that grants a +1 bonus to casting defensively, half the benefit of the usually defensive casting trait, but has another benefit which synergizes with a later feat; I’ll discuss that when we take it.
Filth Bather is racial that only a gross goblin would have. It supports the roleplay that we’re going to be wading into some nasty stuff but we’re not actually immune to it. It also allows us to follow through with the roleplay as, once we make a save, we don’t have to resave until the next day. Eventually we will be immune to most of what this is meant to support us being in contact with and there is a clause in here to make sure parasites are covered by that immunity as well. This is what lets us sleep in compost and eat rotten food.
Vermin Empathy is our blight Druid alternative to Wild Empathy. We can use it on vermin normally but we can also use it on animals and undead animals with a -4 penalty. This won’t be very easy as vermin will be starting with an attitude of unfriendly and our CHA isn’t good but it would be cool if we could make it work; see the combos section.
Nasty Sense is a flavorful homebrewed buff to Nature Sense giving us a +2 to knowledge: dungeon as well. Our race is sub-optimal for a wild-shape focused build so we’ll really appreciate this bonus to offset our mediocre INT.
Nature Bond, in our case, will grant us access to the homebrew Slime Domain. We’ll mention what spells and abilities this grants us at the levels we get them and the first one is on the next line after this.
Acid Dart is our first domain ability and its just the simple pew pew ability from the earth domain. 30ft ranged touch for 1d6 acid damage +1 per 2 lvls. Usable 3+WIS x/day. It’s something useful to do at low levels, but will eventually be overshadowed when we can assume Ooze Form.
Our spell list immediately offers some fun and flavorful options for both debuffing and roleplay. Grease is a well-known favorite which we are granted from our Slime Domain while ray of sickening is a decent -2 that we can apply from range. Touch of Bloodletting is both damage and a severe physical debuff but can only be used if the target is halfway dead already. Call Animal, Charm animal, and other such spells may not be our thing right now but very soon we’ll have special ways to use them. Decompose corpse is the spell we can cast spontaneously and we should try to justify using it after battles to add that sense of character identity to our roleplaying though its understandable that we might just need those spell slots later.
Toughness is our first feat and, though not very interesting, will be representative of the high HP common to oozes. We’re mostly taking it because we don’t have great defensives now but later it will be helpful to tank hits in ooze form.
Vermin Heart is a bonus feat we’re getting in lieu of woodland stride. The Swam Monger archetype does this and it fits for us as well, I think. Basically this allows our spells and abilities that normally effect only animals to affect vermin as well. I can see how it might also be understood to alter how our Vermin Empathy works based on the wording but… that seems awfully silly doesn’t it? I’m going to ignore that part in my games. Call animal now can call vermin, and charm animal now can charm vermin as well. There will be a lists of such things in the combos section.
Ooze whisperer is a gateway feat that is… very poorly worded. We’re going to take it to mean that our spells and abilities that target animals (Call Animal, Charm Animal, Wild Empathy, etc…) can now work on all of Animals, Vermin, AND Oozes! Though oozes get a +4 bonus to their save vs such spells and we take a -4 penalty to our empathy check with them.
2nd level spells bring us a lot of utility and a few more great staple spells for combat as well. Acid Arrow is granted by the Slime Domain and is great for a bit of damage though its not all immediate. Summon Swam is what we can cast spontaneously and is great to deal some damage, distract a caster, and force a foe out of a small area. Control Vermin is worth keeping in mind though too niche to see use in most campaigns unless you’re expecting it. Insect Scouts is limited in what you can learn from the scouting but it doesn’t put a party member at risk. Pox Pustules is pretty gross but thematic as a disease applying both sickened and -4 DEX. Sickening Entanglement is literally entangle plus sickened lol. Mud Buddy is a fun and dirty unseen servant that you absolutely MUST use at least once in a roleplay or down day. Soften Earth and Stone is ok for getting through unworked stone but you still need to dig it; would be a nice representation of your growing power to goopify things.
Guk’s Wild Shape allows him to transform into one of several specific creatures; a Dire Rat, Vulture, Goblin Dog, Giant Cockroach, Giant Hissing Cockroach, Giant Fly, Giant Ant (worker or solder), or a Small or Medium Ooze. These options represent creatures that really gel with his ethos and are all creatures that he deeply cares for. These forms make a lot more sense for a filth shaman rather than just having access to the entire bestiary. The Beast Shape forms are decent for scouting and roleplay and we do get access to their diseases but the vermin shape forms have more natural armor. The Ooze forms… well… Ooze Form is a 5th level spell normally but the bonuses from being in ooze form are pretty lame. It’s a LOT of CON, some big bonuses to saves, blindsense 30, and the classic Oozey acid deal (only 1d4) but a huge DEX penalty, very slow speeds, and very negative synergy with the goblin race. I could see it being broken to have access to Ooze Form at this level if we were a human with 18 STR but we’re not, we’re going to have like 10STR tops so… it’ll work out fairly I think. The Ooze Form will be best used defensively to have lots more HP and potentially burn away foes weapons when they hit us, if useful at all right now.
Disciple of Decay is our trait that grants us access to the Nature’s Ravages spells. More on that below among the other spells.
Natural Spell is our next feat choice and gives us the ability to cast spells in wild shape form. One of the biggest drawbacks to being in any of the wildshape forms was a loss of the ability to cast our spells but now we can. We still cant’ speak in wildshape forms but… at least we can cast. It would be very appropriate to cast an acid arrow or grease spell while in Ooze Form, in my opinion. Furthermore, there is a major synergy with our Semi-Fluid Casting trait here. Normally, when you are injured while casting, you must roll a concentration check of 10+ spell level + damage taken or lose the spell, and that can be a big check. But our trait lets us roll against the same DC as defensive casting while in Ooze Form because our body, in that form, is just slime and we’re good at treating it as such; ignoring the distracting shock of wounds inflicted upon goo that isn’t really our body. This lets us willingly eat an AOO by casting a spell if we wish to get the foe to risk some acid damage without risking the loss of the spell any more than we would by casting defensively. You still eat the damage, and you still might lose the spell, but it’s feasible now and could be worthwhile later on when we’ve stacked a lot of punishing defensives.
Miasma is our blight druid non-discriminatory aura of stank. Anything starting its turn adjacent to us must save or be sickened for 1 round. If they make the save they’re immune for the day but if they don’t, they’re subject to it again next round. Plants, Animals, and Fey are nauseated for 1round and sickened for minutes after. All in all it’s a great reason to get in something’s face and put your Toughness and Ooze Form to use. Beware, however, as it affects allies too but the Delay Disease 2nd level spell can make your frontliner buddies immune to it for the whole day.
3rd level spells bring another set of fun and flavorful options but not much for power. We can cast Nature’s Ravages spontaneously and, while it does less decay than the 1st level Decompose Corpse, it does so naturally and actually accomplishes the flavor element we’re after; generations of vermin, fungi, and bacteria all play out their lifecycles over several minutes before us in a beautiful time-lapsed performance. The spell has little use beyond showing what we’re all about but it does it so poignantly that you absolutely MUST employ a few times with vivid descriptive monologue. Contagion is a decent debuff, especially if you expect that target to flee, but Fungal Infestation is even better causing them to ADD +1d6 bleed (that means it stacks with itself) whenever they’re hit. Nauseating Trail is poo gas and turd vapors behind you, like drawing a stinking cloud with your movement, and seems appropriate in ooze form. Rusting Grasp is our domain spell and would do wonders against a piece of equipment already damaged by our acid; it could also deal with non-magical iron doors to surprise your GM. We’re getting it a level earlier than most but that shouldn’t be too powerful- any iron door that matters to the story should be magical and a barbarian could typically do the same, but louder, over a few minutes just by hitting it. Insect Spies is just insect scouts but better and we now have Dominate Animal which can also affect Vermin and Oozes thanks to Vermin Heart and Ooze Whisperer. Sadly, this isn’t dominate person lasting only 1rnd/lv and only allows you to issue simple commands but it aint bad for either making an ooze/vermin safe while you empathize with it or forcing an empathized vermin/ooze to attack.
The Slime Domain grants us 10 acid resist at this level. Its not likely to matter much unless we’re failing to handle an ooze but at least we’ve got that safety net and are effectively immune to a giant falling shelf of acid flasks, except for the falling shelf part.
We can now Wild Shape into a Rat, Giant Vulture, Giant Scarab, Carrion Beetle, or a Large Ooze. The animal forms are ok offering little new but size and speed while the vermin forms, again, have more natural armor and the giant scarab has filth fever on its bite. The Large ooze gains some STR, +8 CON, BlindSight 30, and immunity to crits and precision damage as well as the saves vs mind-affecting and poison and the acid stuff but at the cost of speed and -8 DEX. With only +2 STR its not really going to make us an effective hitter and druid doesn’t have self-buff spells capable of closing the gap between us and a good hitter so we’ll just treat it as more HP and 1d6 acid damage. However… we can also add an Ooze Aspect, as per the homebrew spell I made for this, and choose one of several Ooze abilities to gain while in small or medium Ooze form. Transparent is great for stealth, Splatter is decent for a ranged attack, Compression for mobility/escape, Disease to add filth fever to your acid damage, and Split to keep you alive in a worst case scenario.
Wild Vigor grants us temporary HP whenever we wild shape. Its an odd figure granting us temp HP equal to our Base Attack but we can do it WIS x/day so that could easily add up. It only lasts while in that wild shape so it is optimal to lose it first before shaping again. Wild-Shape costing a standard action makes this sub-optimal in combat for now but anything that nets enough HP to live is a win. Consider Wild Shaping into a small/med ooze with Split as a last resort- only one of your oozes needs to live though there would be CON damage as a consequence. We’ll take another feat later to improve the action economy.
4th Level spells doesn’t bring us many special spells but it does include one fantastic offensive option which is also our domain spell; Touch of Slime. Stick em with the icky stuff dealing 1d3 CON damage per round until they do something to remove it. I kinda resent the fort save allowed against this but its so perfectly thematic that we MUST use it. Sunlight instantly destroys the slime and fire is an easy out but otherwise its either self-mutilation or a full round of scraping with a tool they’re willing to destroy to remove it; good work. Caustic blood is a great offensive defensive especially in Ooze Form where we have the HP to trade a blow. Explosion of Rot isn’t as good as fireball for damage but the stagger could be very effective and it targets REF. Blight is the spell can cast spontaneously and it isn’t worth much but it is there for roleplay; maybe blight a tree to attract beetle grubs which will attract wasps which feed the grubs to their larva and then proceed to feed on nectar as adults thus pollinating other nearby flora? Feed the cycle!
Guk can now wild shape into a Trollhound, RatKing, Common Cockroach, Bogwid, Myceloid, or a Huge Ooze. The animals have unique BloodFire Fever and Bubonic Plague diseases, the myceloid has a unique Puprle Pox disease, and the Bogwid is just a thematic creature. Cockroach is probably the best scouting form we’ll have as a diminutive flyer but is otherwise just for fun- try taking roach form and sleeping next to a companion because “you trust them and they make you feel safe” lol. Could also use roach form to occupy a companion’s square or even ride on them using your climb speed and treating them like a surface with excellent footholds (cloth certainly qualifies as such for roach legs.) The Huge Ooze is a real wall of goo sporting +4 STR, +10 CON, 60ft BlindSight, +8 to saves vs mind-affecting and poison, and 2d6 acid but -10 DEX. Otherwise the drawbacks are the same. However… We can now gain 2 Ooze Aspects in small or medium Ooze form, or 1 Ooze Aspect in Large form. Engulf becomes a pretty decent option in large form against medium opponents while Splatter with Disease in small/med form becomes a decent way to attack and debuff.
Energized Wild Shape is a feat that, in our case, will increase the acid damage in our Ooze form by one die size; at best that ups us from 2d6 to 3d6. We’ll also get an additional 5 acid resist but that’s whatever. It can also be used to add 1d6 acid damage to a wild shape form that doesn’t have any energy damage but that’s not really our gig. Mostly, this turns what was a sub-optimal means of defensively debuffing foes weapons and armor into a punishing deterrent. 3d6 is an average of 7-8 damage and most mundane weapons have 5-10 HP while mundane armors have 5x their Armor Value as HP. Large equipment has 2x the HP and every +1 of magical enhancement grants +10 HP so this isn’t often going to be enough to instantly break a weapon or armor but over multiple hits it can really add up and, I’ve modified the spell description on Ooze Form to note that natural weapons, in addition to metal and wooden ones, take damage from the Ooze Acid because… why wouldn’t they?
Blightblooded is a thematic ability that just makes us immune to all diseases, sickened, and nauseated. This is pretty great as nauseated is one of the most debilitating conditions out there and what few supernatural diseases there are can be tough to cure. This kinda overrides our filth-bather racial but it also synergizes with a clause I put in there about ignoring the harmful effects of parasites too.
Access to 5th level spells heralds a new era of possibilities to us. The Slime Domain grants us access to the homebrew spell Create Ooze which can create an Ooze Creature for 500g per HD. Expensive for something that might just die on you but you can also use any spell on it that would also affect animals; more on that in the combos section but Animal Growth and Awaken are pretty interesting options. Greater Contagion is harder to cure though hard to justify over regular contagion aside from the higher DC. Transmute Rock to Mud is another good one for turning stone obstacles to goop since rusting grasp and Ooze Form acid don’t affect it. Insect Plague summons several stationary swarms of wasps, which is nice for area denial but inflexible. We can cast Whip of Centipedes spontaneously and make melee touch attacks with it even in Ooze form opting to turn it into an area swarm if we want.
Only some wild-shape stuff at this level but its starting to get really good. Guk can now become an Otyugh (its just beast shape IV large magical beast form with filth fever) but that’s just for fun. Guk can now gain 2 Ooze aspects as a Large Ooze making Engulf plus Paralysis an option against medium targets. Divide plus Splatter is decent for just attacking as as you can throw up to 4x as much acid buffed by energized wild shape. Huge Ooze form can now gain one Ooze Aspect making engulf an option against even Large targets while Corrosion becomes really effective at quickly removing common obstacles. One might even consider compression to allow scouting but, rather than sneaking, you’re just tanky enough to afford getting attacked.
Solvent Vitality is a homebrew feat that simply adds half your CON to acid damage done. Now, in Huge Ooze form we’ll be doing at least 3d6+7 acid damage. That is a respectable amount of damage and can easily destroy any mundane weapon instantly, break +1 weapons instantly, and break stronger magic weapons in just a few applications. While we don’t expect enemies to consistently dissolve their weapons by plunging them into our axe-melting bodily dipping sauce; it WILL be severely punishing to any martial or natural attacking monster incentivizing them to leave us be while we cast and direct summoned swarms, etc. This may even deter foes from making attacks of opportunity while we cast but, if they choose to anyway, we are unlikely to lose the spell and very likely to damage their weapon. Splatter and Acid dart both become offensively feasible now; it won’t be big damage, but worth an action for sure.
6th level spells mostly seem to improve upon what we already have giving us new and better ways to do more of the same. Insect Spies lets you see and hear through them. Swarm Skin can be cast spontaneously and turns YOU into a swarm which is cool but probably redundant with many features of our wild shape and ooze forms with split/divide. Plague Storm is what you would think of if I said Contagion Cloud but the description is cool a.f. with green fog and non-electric lightning. Control Ooze is a more long-term way to exert control over Oozes you create or find and is a homebrew one granted by the Slime Domain. Share Skin is a very neat one, it allows you to posses an animal, and thus an ooze, granting you a reasonably capable melee combatant while you safely “vanish.”
Acid resist increments up to 20 now, which will be 25 while wild-shaped thanks to energized wild-shape.
Guk can finally be a Huge Ooze with 2 aspects now. The same things that worked great for large will work even better for huge. Splatter with Corrosion is pretty good for a ranged ~3d6+7 that damages gear too.
Quick Wild Shape is a feat that lets us wild-shape as a move or swift action. When doing it as a Move you can only do the stuff you could from 2 levels lower, and when doing it as a swift you are limited to forms available 4 levels ago. That’s why we took it now instead of earlier; right now we’re not too gimped if we have to resort to forms we had at level 10 but soon it won’t matter at all. The real joy of this is that we can now shift after doing some other useful action too and benefit from more of that Wild Vigor temporary HP. Right now that’s 9HP as a swift action, you can still cast a spell, and if you eat an AOO you can move action for 9HP more.
Plaguebearer is a defensive that lets us transmit disease to anything that touches us; specifically any touch attack, unarmed strike, or natural weapon. You can pick from any disease, like contagion, and it synergizes well with stuff we already have going on. Don’t touch the Filth Shaman, its bad for you! DC is the typical 10+½ Lv+WIS.
7th level spells continue to improve upon what we already have with 1 major addition from the Slime Domain. Greater Nature’s Ravages is on our list thanks to Disciple of Decay and can be cast spontaneously; it ages corpses by years instead of days but is probably useless as the lower level version feels more thematic. Creeping Doom is 4 super-centipede swarms so just more of more swarms. Legendary Proportions is a mega buff to an animal but we can use it on oozes, oooooo boy that’s one big booger! Lastly, our Slime Domain spell is Flesh to Ooze. The idea is that you can now turn any living flesh into an Ooze rather than spending gold and materials on Create Ooze but its more than that, it’s a baleful poly that produces something you can easily dominate on your next turn effectively transmuting foe to slimey friend! I have some homebrew flavor stuff coming to this as well.
Literally nothing as our wild shape progression is complete.
Engulfing Spell is another homebrew feat which simply allows us to automatically discharge held charges of touch spells when we are struck by an attack. This doesn’t do a whole lot for us as we could just make a touch attack normally to deliver the effect but it helps us to pre-cast offensive spells and treat them as defensives and it may improve action economy mildly. I mostly just like the idea that, now, if a baddie strikes Guk then that baddie is risking exposure to Acid, Plaguebearer, active defensives like Caustic Blood, and any held touch spell like Touch of Slime or Fungal Infestation all at once.
Formless Body is our homebrew alternative to Timeless Body. Timeless prevents aging penalties which are mostly negative physical penalties with positive mental bonuses but Formless is going to allow us to remove STR/DEX drain/damage by wild shaping into an ooze as well as immunity to it while in Ooze Form. Since our STR/DEX isn’t going to be that high anyway, this is really just a barrier of protection against death by DEX drain/damage as it tanks while in Ooze form. The other fun part is that now we can choose for Flesh to Ooze to create slime girls instead of Bestiary Oozes! It’s not going to be advantageous, most likely, to anyone besides a barbarian but it could be used to turn your gf’s frontline character into a true muscle-mommy-milky-slime-waifu or to curse the annoying npc to a life languishing in liquid-loser-loneliness with linguini-arms.
8th level spells is almost completely devoid of interesting options. Our Domain spell is Horrid Wilting and it is also what we can spontaneously cast. It’s on-target for theme but it was already on the druid spell list; oh well. We’re kinda done with the build anyway and who is likely to even play this character to such levels, if we’re being honest?
You’ll get two more feats that can be whatever you want on the way to 20 and Acid Immunity once you get there. Druid’s don’t get a capstone but if they did I would homebrew and alternative one that lets you wild shape into The Blob, as per the movie. I have a spell that summons something like that and would use that as the basis; see the slime domain stuff in the RPG blog if interested.
9th level spells don’t bring any new angles to this build; Shambler and Froghemoth are on-theme summons but that’s about it.
Combos and Strats
Ooze Form + Energized Wild Shape + Solvent Vitality for significant acid damage. Foes who strike us may have their weapons dissolved, our Acid Dart, Arrow, and Blood spells will have increased damage, and the Splatter aspect will be more potent as well.
Ooze Form + Miasma + Plaguebearer + Natural Spell + Engulfing Spell will, together, make it very punishing for many foes to attack us; they risk sickened, disease, acid damage, and the effect of any touch spell we’re holding, in addition to any defensive spells we may have active.
Wild Shape + Wild Vigor + Quick Wild Shape + Split/Divide gives us several angles for keeping HP high. The Temp HP doesn’t stack but you can wild shape every turn as a move, or swift, action to get more after being hit; it’s kinda like delayed DR in a sense. Furthermore, you can get split, or divide, to have multiple copies of yourself and only one of you needs to survive. If any of your gooey copies die you will take CON damage but the 3rd level spell Soothing Mud can help recover quickly from this. The question is; if you divide as a medium ooze can your copies wild shape independently into Huge oozes each gaining their own Temp HP? I’m undecided… talk it over with your DM
Ooze Form + Slime Domain + Filth Bather + Blightblooded + Formless Body will eventually grant us immunity to disease, sickened, nauseated, harmful parasite effects, critical hits, precision damage, STR damage and drain, DEX damage and drain, and acid while giving us a hefty +8 to resist mind-affecting and poison but a lot of that only applies in Ooze Form. Altogether, with high CON/WIS and good Fort/Will this makes us very hard to affect with many dangerous things.
Wild Shape + Wild Vigor + Quick Wild Shape + Split/Divide gives us several angles for keeping HP high. The Temp HP doesn’t stack but you can wild shape every turn as a move, or swift, action to get more after being hit; it’s kinda like delayed DR in a sense. Furthermore, you can get split, or divide, to have multiple copies of yourself and only one of you needs to survive. If any of your gooey copies die you will take CON damage but the 3rd level spell Soothing Mud can help recover quickly from this. The question is; if you divide as a medium ooze can your copies wild shape independently into Huge oozes each gaining their own Temp HP? I’m undecided… talk it over with your DM.
Offensively, we are kinda limited to spells that requires saves and it’s not cool if they save. Furthermore; If we don’t get attacked then the other half of our coolness isn’t happening either. If the DM is a dick and just decides to metagame against your character as if every NPC got a class on how to counter you from the first NPC you met… then you’re not going to have fun. But who would with that DM?
Really the only weakness is that we’re not offensive. Also that, for being defensive, we aren’t healy. Similar to how barbarians lose their current HP when they stop raging we lose our current HP when we stop being an Ooze. In my games I typically houserule this away but the official rules are that we do. Seems silly though doesn’t it? Even paizo fixed the barbarian with unchained. Anyway, the other problem of being defensive is that we’re supposed to get hit. If something tries to hit us, it will. Gobs have good DEX but you can’t compensate for -10 DEX. You will need to have healing available whether it be potions or a much-beloved but misguided healy nub who’s played more MMO’s than tabletop (love them from my heart).
Note- You can’t have two polymorph effects active at once which is another reason why we can’t be offensive with our wild-shapes. Most of the best druid buff spells are polymorphic. Additionally, most of those spells affect animals, which means they can affect Oozes, but even in wild-shape we aren’t actually an ooze because polymorph effects do not change your creature type.
Instead of focusing on wild shaping ourself into an Ooze, we could choose to focus on an Ooze Companion instead. Technically this doesn’t work because Blight Druid gains a familiar like a wizard but… If the Ooze Companion feat isn’t meant this for character and this build… then who the heck is it meant for? Bend those rules, break em, who cares?! This is a sub-optimal goblin build from some doofy guy’s blog! Just let it happen. Anyway, Ooze Companions taken at 7th level lets you pick a Gelatinous Cube and you can swap to an Ochre Jelly at 10th and a Black Pudding at 13th. The evolved familiar feats might as well work and… well this isn’t a familiar/animal guide so I’ll let you work out the possibilities but it could be a lot of fun too.
Rather than focusing on punishing anything which attacks you in melee, especially since higher level foes may have better things to do than bonk you, you could choose to focus on metamagic. There is some excellent synergy in the homebrew feats I made up for the character and it is deliberate. If you take the Burning Spell and Extend Spell metamagics you can increase the subsequent tick damage of Acid Arrow by +4 and have it last for twice as long, and if it is cast via the Natural Spell feat while in Ooze Form you get +½CON to each tick. Heighten the spell later to further increase the Burning damage because Heighten increases the actual spell level. It’s decent for Caustic Blood as well but… delayed damage is kinda meh. Of course the whole build is kinda meh regarding power… but it is cool.
Roleplay
Own the stank; despite being unlikely to serve well as the face of a group you should make yourself prominent in any roleplay, though not necessarily primary. You should closely approach anyone you talk to giving your DM a chance to make NPC’s respond to your miasma. Be friendly, be insightful, be the most approachable in the party; because the funniest thing of all would be an NPC who chooses YOU as the point of contact in the party and willfully suffers your revolting presence because he knows that you’re his guy and an excellent ally.
Your motivations are difficult to tie into your theme; but suffice to say that you have a strong sense of community. Once you’ve had an adventure with a party you’re pretty much “all in this together” just like all living creatures are riding the life and death coaster together. You’ll face the loss of a party member with an excitement that might upset others; “He’s feeding the worms now!” is praise rather than insult coming from you. Very little upsets you but you do take a stance on two things; undeath and immortality. Both are an affront to nature as means of removing an entity from the cycle; undead bodies are dangerous even to carrion feeders while immortal beings, even gods, escape the cycle denying nature its rightful claim to their flesh. Reincarnation, however, is perfectly cool as would be binding one’s soul to an object (if demi-lichdom didn’t first involve the preservation of organs via lichdom). Honestly Guk doesn’t like to fight, he dislikes violence, but he will do anything to protect his community and the creatures he loves. Perhaps the friendship with his party members is secondary to his relationship with the bacterial colonization in their large intestines? Guk will, after all, do anything to protect the creatures he reveres.
Make an easy task of feeding yourself; if you have spare uses of wildshape left in the day then you should assume a form that can eat something bizarrely off-beat (on-theme). If you’ve just won a battle and are camping nearby, become a vulture and fly back to the site to consume the bodies. If you’re in a dungeon become a rat, giant scarab, or otyugh, to eat some straight garbage. Ooze form, of course, is also suitable for this but make sure to diversify. Don’t forget about the Bogwid form we have access to- that’s for our own, unique, re-imagining of the bear scene in BGIII. You can always find something to do with a slimy tentacle.
You love jars. Pots and urns are ok but jars with lids are the best because some things like to grow anaerobically. You don’t know the word anaerobic but you do know that a lid helps certain fermentations go. You don’t have to carry vessels like this along with you, 1 or 2 seems reasonable, but you definitely fill anything you find with some plant or flesh matter and close it up. Even if you leave it behind, do so with the knowledge that something foul will soon be festering inside. To a similar end, protest vehemently if anyone suggests burning non-undead bodies because that would be a waste of perfectly good worm food.