Slime creature

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

slime creature J
HP	39-81
HD	11
XP	264
Speed	10
AC	1
EV	4
Will	40
Attack1	22 (hit: plain)
Resistances	rPois+ rDrown
Vulnerabilities	None
Habitat	Amphibious
Intelligence	Brainless
Uses	Uses nothing
Holiness	Natural
Size	Small
Type	jelly, slime creature
Flags	Unbreathing Herd Web immune

An icky glob of slime, which slithers along the ground, occasionally merging with other nearby globs. “The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea.” -Samuel Tayor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. 1798.

Useful Info

Slime creatures, a common sight in the Dungeon and Slime Pits, can combine to form larger and larger slime creatures. Two slime creatures combined form a “large slime creature”, three a “very large slime creature”, and so on (see below). As their size increases, so does their HP and damage:

Name	Image	# of Slimes	HP	Damage
slime creature	J	1	39 - 81	22
large slime creature	J	2	78 - 162	44
very large slime creature	J	3	117 - 243	66
enormous slime creature	J	4	156 - 324	88
titanic slime creature	J	5	195 - 405	110

Slime creature's HD and willpower remains constant. The XP yield is slightly lower when killing a merged slime creature, but this amount is insignificant.

Tips & Tricks

Merge Mechanics

• It's better to fight slime creatures when separated. Damage may seem similar: fighting 5 individual slimes can deal 5*22 = 110 damage, while a titanic slime deals 110 damage. However, when fighting the individual slimes, your AC and EV applies for each of the 5 hits. With the titanic slime, AC and EV are only applied once.
• Slime creatures generally merge when one slime "wants to move" into another slime's tile.
  • In corridors, you can expect them to merge immediately.
  • If you're surrounded by monsters, and the closest position is already filled by a slime, a merge is likely to happen.
  • They'll occasionally merge if a group of slimes are diagonal to you.
• Slime creatures tend to separate in open space. In practice, if you’re fighting a merged slime creature and there is an adjacent space that is free, they will likely separate. Also, if you leave LOS of a merged slime, it'll generally split up.
• Slime creatures cannot merge if they are not adjacent to each other.

General

• The usual tactics of luring individuals away from groups and killing them are vital here. It helps that slime creatures don't make noise.
• Slimes, no matter how many are merged together, are stuck at 40 willpower. With moderate skill investment, Hexes and hex wands can be effective. When a merged slime splits, each slime keeps any statuses it had.
  • A wand of charming turns even the biggest slimes into your side. Plus, if you bring a charmed slime into open space, it'll split.
  • Agony is effective for its raw damage output. However, it can only be used in melee range. Unless you got great defenses, don't try to agony a titanic slime creature; frailer necromancers can get one-shot.
• When you polymorph a merged slime creature, there's an 80% chance of it splitting before the polymorph completes, then each resulting slime is polymorphed. As usual, this is limited to one of the three listed monsters you see before using the wand. The final number of creatures depends on size:

Size Category	Number of Creatures
	1	2	3	4	5
Normal	100%
Large	20%	80%
Very Large	20%		80%
Enormous	20%		16%	64%
Titanic	20%			16%	64%

Note that a slime which fails to split will polymorph into the same sorts of monster as an individual would. That is, you always get the same possibilities, but you have a 20% chance of getting one monster regardless of size, and for four-and five-fold merges, you have another 16% chance of losing one in the transformation.

History

• Prior to 0.30, slime creatures had fast regeneration.