Slime creature

Version 0.11: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

slime creature JJ File:Slime.png
HP	40 - 80*
HD	11
XP	424* "*" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 424.
Speed	10
AC	1
EV	4
Will	44
Attack1	22* (hit: plain)
Resistances	rPois+, Asphyx, rConstr
Vulnerabilities	None
Habitat	amphibious land
Intelligence	Plant
Uses	Uses nothing
Holiness	Natural
Size	Small
Type	jelly, slime creature
Flags	none

An icky glob of slime, which slithers along the ground, occasionally merging with other nearby globs... "A lustreless protrusive eye Stares from the protozoic slime." -T.S. Eliot, "Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar". 1920.

Useful Info

Slime creatures, a common sight in multiple mid-game branches, 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	40 - 80	22
large slime creature	J File:Large slime creature.png	2	80 - 160	44
very large slime creature	J File:Very large slime creature.png	3	120 - 240	66
enormous slime creature	J File:Enormous slime creature.png	4	160 - 320	88
titanic slime creature	J File:Titanic slime creature.png	5	200 - 400	110

A high AC can render you nearly immune to five single slime creatures, but five combined will do enough damage to overwhelm nearly anything. Thankfully, as they merge and grow, the experience they grant also rises. Their HD and MR does not actually increase, which is relevant for many enchantments.

Tips & Tricks

• If you’re fighting them in a corridor, you can expect them to merge immediately. If you’re otherwise surrounded, or the closest position is already filled by a slime creature, they’ll merge. Occasionally, if you are positioned diagonally away from a group, they’ll merge.
• There are also a few circumstances under which they’ll separate. If you leave their LOS, they'll soon split up. If the closest move to you is an empty space, there’s a chance that they’ll separate. In practice, if you’re fighting a merged slime creature and there is an adjacent space that is free, they will likely separate.
• They're an annoying resource drain; they hit hard enough that light-armour users have to worry about them, have enough HP that Bolt of Cold at 8 hashes won't one-shot them, they never leave corpses, they come in packs, regenerate, and flee at the slightest provocation. Try draining them to make them less likely to survive a fight long enough to flee.
• Don’t fight them in corridors and try not to fight them once they’ve merged, as they’ll likely be doing much more damage than multiple single slime creatures would. Thankfully, merged slime creatures are easy to spot: they’re coloured a light green, as opposed to the dark green of the separated one.
• If the slime creatures are already grouped together, kill the ones in the middle first if you can; slime creatures cannot merge if they are separated by a tile or more.
• The usual tactics of luring individuals away from groups and picking off injured as they flee are vital here.
• Be aware that merged slime creatures have the same HD, and hence the same MR, as unmerged ones. Confuse, Slow, Ensorcelled Hibernation and the like may be very effective, although trying to stab an enormous or titanic slime to death while it is merely confused is still risky. Also, their MR of 44 is high enough that they may resist spells now and then.
• Agony is also very effective, since as noted merged slimes have no more MR than normal ones. Using Agony is effective both when luring slimes off one at a time, or to make a titanic slime creature flee, should you accidentally allow one to be created. Be very careful around merged slimes; 110 damage is enough to one-shot many necromancers when they first meet slime creatures.
• Conjure Flame also does a number on them in corridors, especially if you've got some way to stall them in the flames.
• You probably don't want to polymorph a larger slime creature, unless you like the idea of fighting two storm dragons, a giant orange brain, a ghost moth, and a great orb of eyes. A merged slime creature has an 80% chance of splitting and having each resulting slime polymorphed separately. 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 based on a "slime creature", 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.