Buy me a coffeeOoze Bomb | Alchemical Ooze Weapon
An alchemical siege shell that bursts open and scatters a living ooze across the battlefield.
An Ooze Bomb is one of the rarest and most dangerous alchemical weapons ever carried into war. It is not rare because it fails to work. It is rare because making one requires the maker to trap, transport, and weaponise a living ooze without being dissolved, poisoned, engulfed, or killed before the bomb is ever armed.
Unlike a normal explosive, an Ooze Bomb does not rely on fire alone. Its true payload is the creature sealed inside it. When the bomb detonates, the internal reservoir shatters and hurls the ooze outward in a violent splash of corrosive matter, living slime, or supernatural hunger. What happens next depends on the ooze used as ammunition.
The listed 200 gp price and 30 lb. weight apply to the unloaded bomb only. A fully armed Ooze Bomb is far more expensive, harder to obtain, and much more dangerous to store.
Overview
An Ooze Bomb is a specialised alchemical vessel built around a large internal ceramic reservoir. The outer shell resembles an oversized acid bomb or siege grenade, but instead of holding several separate flasks of acid or fire, it contains one reinforced bowl or chamber designed to hold a single ooze, slime, pudding, jelly, or similar amorphous creature.
At the centre of the bomb sits an explosive alchemical core, usually made from alchemist’s fire, thunderstone fragments, blasting powder, volatile salts, or other setting-appropriate reagents. When triggered, the core bursts the reservoir and splatters the ooze over everything nearby.
This makes the Ooze Bomb a hybrid of weapon, cage, and monster-delivery system. It belongs in the arsenals of siege alchemists, desperate sappers, outlaw artificers, monster-hunting guilds, and villains who are willing to turn living things into ammunition.
Physical Description
An unloaded Ooze Bomb is heavy, awkward, and built with unusual care. The outer casing is usually iron-banded wood, thick fired clay, riveted bronze, or layered ceramic reinforced with alchemical sealant. It must be strong enough to survive transport but fragile enough to rupture when the explosive core detonates.
Inside is the reservoir: a broad ceramic bowl, bladder-vessel, or sealed chamber with a central opening for the explosive charge. The reservoir is lined with acid-resistant glaze, wax, resin, glass, lead, or magically treated clay depending on the payload.
A loaded Ooze Bomb is easy to recognise by those who know what to fear. It may sweat through its seams, tremble when handled, make wet shifting sounds, or give off the sour mineral smell of acid and old cellars. Some versions are marked with warning sigils. Others are disguised as ordinary cargo until it is too late.
Why This Item Matters
The Ooze Bomb turns a monster into battlefield ordnance.
That idea is powerful, memorable, and morally ugly. It gives the item a different identity from ordinary alchemical fire, acid flasks, or grenades. A fire bomb burns and ends. An Ooze Bomb may burst, splash, and then leave something alive in the ruins.
For players, it creates a dangerous tactical opportunity. For DMs, it creates tension before the item is even used. Who loaded it? What is inside? Is the payload still alive? Can it survive the blast? What happens if the bomb cracks during transport? What happens if the ooze survives and decides the nearest creature is food?
This is not routine shop gear. It is rare military alchemy, black-market siegecraft, or adventure-only equipment.
Edition Tabs
Ooze Bomb 5.5e / 2024
Ooze Bomb Pathfinder 1e / 3.5e
Ooze Bomb 3.0e
Ooze Bomb 3.0e
Ultimate Equipment Guide II
Author Greg Lynch, J. C. Alvarez
Publisher Mongoose Publishing
Publish date 2005
The ooze bomb is the rarest of the bombs, not because of any lack of efficacy, but rather because of the danger and difficulty of preparing it for release. It is constructed much like the acid bomb, except that instead of four separate flasks, it contains one enormous ceramic bowl inside, with a hole in the middle for the usual core of alchemist’s fire and thunderstone.
This ceramic reservoir is intended to contain an ooze. When the bomb explodes, the ooze inside is splattered over everything within a 15-foot radius of the point of detonation. The great danger in preparing this bomb, obviously, is getting the ooze inside the bomb in the first place. The difficulty lies in finding a species that is immune to fire, or finding a way to give the thing resistance against fire damage. Otherwise, the explosion of the bomb will quite possibly destroy the creature inside, making the ooze bomb an expensive and extremely weak version of a fire bomb.
The exact damage done to creatures struck by the ooze after the bomb explodes is entirely dependent upon which creature the bomb is carrying as its payload. There is no saving throw to avoid the effects of a fully-armed ooze bomb.
Ooze Bomb: 200 gp; 30 lb. (price and weight given for an unloaded bomb)
Ooze Bomb Pathfinder 1e / 3.5e
Price: 200 gp unloaded
Weight: 30 lb. unloaded
Type: Alchemical weapon / siege weapon
Craft DC: 25 Craft (alchemy), unloaded casing only
Area: 15-ft.-radius burst
Damage: See payload
Saving Throw: See below
Range: Special; usually placed, dropped, or launched
An Ooze Bomb is a specialised alchemical shell designed to hold a living ooze as its payload. When the bomb detonates, it bursts open and splatters the ooze over all creatures and objects within a 15-foot-radius burst.
The listed price and weight are for the unloaded bomb. The ooze must be obtained separately.
Crafting the Empty Bomb
Crafting an unloaded Ooze Bomb requires alchemical materials worth one-third of the item’s price and a successful DC 25 Craft (alchemy) check.
This creates only the empty shell, reservoir, seals, and explosive housing. It does not create, summon, capture, control, or preserve the ooze payload.
Loading the Bomb
Loading an Ooze Bomb requires:
Time: 1 hour
Skill Check: DC 25 Craft (alchemy)
Requirement: A living ooze that has been restrained, contained, divided, subdued, or otherwise made safe enough to load
On a successful check, the bomb is loaded and ready for use.
On a failed check, the bomb is not safely loaded. On a failure by 5 or more, the ooze leaks, attacks, escapes, damages the bomb, or causes another mishap chosen by the GM.
Payload Survival
The ooze must be able to survive the detonation. A suitable payload usually has fire resistance, fire immunity, acid immunity, magical protection, or some other reason it is not destroyed by the bomb’s explosive core.
If the ooze is killed or neutralised by the detonation, the bomb fails to deliver its intended effect and becomes only a weak explosive or failed alchemical device at the GM’s discretion.
Detonation Effect
When the bomb detonates, all creatures and objects within 15 feet are struck by the ooze payload.
Use the ooze’s acid, slime, corrosive, contact, engulf residue, or other relevant touch-based ability as the bomb’s effect.
If the ooze does not have a suitable contact effect, use the following damage guideline.
| Ooze Payload | Suggested Damage |
|---|---|
| 1–2 HD ooze | 2d6 acid damage |
| 3–5 HD ooze | 4d6 acid damage |
| 6–8 HD ooze | 6d6 acid damage |
| 9+ HD ooze | 8d6 acid damage or more, GM’s discretion |
The damage type is acid unless the ooze’s nature suggests another type.
Saving Throw
The original version gives no saving throw against a fully armed Ooze Bomb.
For a strict legacy-style ruling, every creature in the burst is affected automatically.
For a more balanced Pathfinder or 3.5e table, allow a Reflex save DC 15 for half damage. Secondary effects follow the save rules of the original ooze ability if one exists.
Range and Delivery
An Ooze Bomb is too heavy and unstable to function as a normal thrown splash weapon. It is usually placed, dropped from above, rolled into a tunnel, carried by a sapper, or launched from a suitable siege engine.
If a creature attempts to throw it by hand, the GM may require a Strength check and should limit the range severely.
Ooze Bomb
Adventuring Gear, Rare Alchemical Siege Weapon
Cost: 200 gp unloaded
Weight: 30 lb. unloaded
Use: Placed charge, dropped weapon, siege payload, or improvised thrown weapon at the DM’s discretion
Area: 15-foot-radius burst
Damage: See payload
Saving Throw: DC 15 Dexterity
An Ooze Bomb is sold unloaded. The listed cost and weight cover only the empty shell, reservoir, seals, and explosive housing. A loaded Ooze Bomb must contain a living ooze, alchemical slime, pudding, jelly, or similar creature before it can function as intended.
When an armed Ooze Bomb detonates, it bursts open and scatters its ooze payload across a 15-foot-radius area centred on the point of detonation. The exact effect depends on the creature sealed inside.
Loading an Ooze Bomb
Loading an Ooze Bomb is dangerous work and cannot normally be done as a simple action.
To load the bomb, a character must have:
Required Tools: Alchemist’s Supplies
Required Payload: A restrained, dormant, magically contained, divided, or otherwise controlled ooze
Time Required: 1 hour
Check: DC 18 Intelligence check using Alchemist’s Supplies
On a success, the bomb is loaded and armed safely.
On a failure, the bomb is not safely loaded. The DM may rule that the payload leaks, the reservoir cracks, the ooze becomes agitated, or the explosive housing is compromised.
On a failure by 5 or more, a mishap occurs. The ooze may escape, damage the handlers, ruin the bomb, or force an immediate encounter.
Payload Survival
The ooze must survive the detonation for the bomb to work properly.
A suitable payload should have at least one of the following:
Fire resistance or fire immunity: The ooze can withstand the alchemical core’s heat.
Resistance or immunity to the bomb’s explosive damage type: The payload is protected against the force that breaks the shell.
Magical protection: A spell, ward, or alchemical treatment allows the ooze to survive detonation.
Exceptional ooze nature: The creature is unusually resilient, divisible, or able to survive being dispersed.
If the payload cannot survive the blast, the Ooze Bomb still detonates, but the ooze is destroyed or neutralised. In that case, the item functions only as a weak explosive at the DM’s discretion.
Detonation Effect
When the bomb detonates, each creature and exposed object in the area is struck by scattered ooze.
Use one of the following methods.
Simple Payload Method
This is the easiest method for normal play.
| Payload Type | Suggested Effect |
|---|---|
| Minor slime or weak ooze | 2d6 acid damage |
| Standard ooze payload | 4d6 acid damage |
| Dangerous monster ooze | 6d6 acid damage |
| Rare, magical, or exceptional ooze | 8d6 acid damage plus one special effect |
The damage type is usually acid, though a strange ooze may deal poison, necrotic, cold, fire, or another appropriate damage type.
A dangerous or magical payload may also impose one suitable secondary effect on a failed save, such as one of the following:
Clinging slime: The creature’s speed is reduced by 10 feet until the end of its next turn.
Lingering acid: The creature takes 1d6 acid damage at the start of its next turn.
Corrosive coating: Nonmagical armour, shields, weapons, or unattended objects exposed to the ooze are visibly damaged or weakened at the DM’s discretion.
Dragging residue: The creature has disadvantage on the next Strength or Dexterity check it makes before the end of its next turn.
Coated in slime: The creature remains coated until it or another creature uses an action to scrape, burn, or wash the slime away.
Creature-Based Payload Method
This method is more exact but more dangerous.
Instead of assigning simple damage, use the actual ooze’s relevant traits. A creature in the burst is treated as though it had been struck by the ooze’s contact damage, corrosive body, slime residue, engulf residue, pseudopod effect, or other touch-based feature.
Do not apply the ooze’s entire turn, full attack routine, movement, reactions, or multiattack unless the DM specifically wants the bomb to function as a major set-piece hazard.
This method is best for boss fights, villain arsenals, siege scenes, dungeon traps, or high-level play.
Saving Throw
When an armed Ooze Bomb detonates, each creature in the burst must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw.
On a failed save, the creature takes the full payload damage and suffers any secondary effect caused by the ooze. On a successful save, the creature takes half damage and avoids the secondary effect unless the specific ooze’s description says otherwise.
A DM who wants a deadlier legacy-style Ooze Bomb may rule that a fully armed bomb allows no saving throw, but this should be reserved for clearly telegraphed siege weapons, traps, or villain set pieces.
Mishap Rule
An armed Ooze Bomb is unstable. If it is dropped, crushed, struck by a heavy blow, exposed to intense heat, or takes 10 or more bludgeoning, fire, force, or thunder damage, the DM may call for a DC 15 Dexterity or Intelligence check using appropriate tools.
On a failure, the bomb cracks, leaks, becomes unstable, or detonates.
How It Is Used
An Ooze Bomb is a weapon of preparation, not improvisation. It is most often used in places where the wielder can plan the detonation point.
Common uses include:
- Tunnel Denial: The bomb is rolled into a mine, sewer, dungeon corridor, or burrow to fill a confined area with corrosive slime.
- Gatehouse Assault: A besieging force launches an Ooze Bomb into a courtyard or breach to scatter defenders.
- Monster-Hunting Expeditions: Hunters use a controlled ooze payload against creatures resistant to ordinary weapons.
- Dungeon Traps: A sealed alchemical shell lies among other supplies until careless intruders disturb it.
- Tyrant Warfare: Cruel rulers deploy Ooze Bombs in cities, prisons, and rebellious districts where terror matters as much as damage.
- Underworld Smuggling: Black-market alchemists ship unloaded shells as “ceramic vessels” and move the payload separately.
Failure, Risk, and Misuse
The Ooze Bomb is dangerous because the weapon does not end when the shell breaks.
Possible failures include:
- Premature Leak: The reservoir cracks and the ooze begins seeping out before detonation.
- Dead Payload: The explosive core destroys the ooze, wasting the weapon.
- Uncontrolled Survival: The ooze survives the blast and continues attacking everything nearby.
- Transport Accident: A fall, wagon crash, tunnel collapse, or careless guard ruptures the bomb.
- False Payload: The buyer is sold an empty shell, dead slime, weak acid, or an ooze that cannot survive the blast.
- Moral Consequence: Druids, nature cults, city laws, alchemical guilds, and monster-rights traditions may treat the item as a forbidden living weapon.
Value in the World
The 200 gp base price is reasonable for the empty casing, but not for a complete weapon. The loaded bomb’s true value depends on the payload.
| Version | Suggested Price |
|---|---|
| Empty Ooze Bomb | 200 gp |
| Loaded with minor slime | 300–500 gp |
| Loaded with standard ooze | 750–1,500 gp |
| Loaded with dangerous monster ooze | 2,000–5,000 gp |
| Loaded with rare magical ooze | Priceless, illegal, or adventure-only |
Most settlements do not allow loaded Ooze Bombs to be sold openly. Even unloaded shells may be regulated as siege equipment.
An armed Ooze Bomb is more likely to appear as a special commission, military asset, black-market weapon, dungeon hazard, or villainous invention than as ordinary shop stock.
Trade, Craft, and Common Variants
Empty Ooze Bomb
The standard unloaded shell. It contains the casing, ceramic reservoir, seals, and explosive housing, but no ooze.
Fire-Hardened Ooze Bomb
A reinforced version designed to protect the payload from the initial detonation. Add 100–250 gp to the unloaded price.
Siege Ooze Bomb
A larger model intended for catapults, trebuchets, fortress drops, or fixed launchers. Increase the cost, weight, area, and danger substantially.
Glass-Reservoir Ooze Bomb
A cheaper but fragile version with an internal glass chamber. It allows handlers to inspect the payload, but it breaks more easily.
Arcane Suspension Ooze Bomb
A magically treated bomb that keeps the ooze dormant or partially suspended until detonation. This version should usually count as a magic item.
Cultic Living Bomb
A forbidden version grown around the ooze rather than loaded afterward. These are better used as adventure objects than purchasable equipment.
Using the Ooze Bomb in Your Game
The Ooze Bomb works best as a rare, dangerous set-piece item. It should not become a routine grenade.
Before introducing one, decide three things:
- What ooze is inside?
- Can it survive the detonation?
- What happens after the bomb bursts?
Those answers make the item memorable. A bomb containing weak slime is a hazardous alchemical trick. A bomb containing a fire-resistant black pudding or magical dungeon ooze is a battlefield event.
For player use, make the cost, preparation, and risk clear. For enemy use, telegraph the danger. Let the characters hear the wet knocking inside the casing, see the sweating seams, notice terrified handlers, or watch the alchemist shout not to drop it.
The best Ooze Bomb scene is not just “the bomb explodes.” It is the moment everyone realises the explosion was only the beginning.
Adventure and Worldbuilding Hooks
The Leaking Siege Shell
A city under siege has one Ooze Bomb left in its arsenal. The reservoir is cracked, and something inside is beginning to seep through the seals.
The Alchemist’s Failed Commission
A guild alchemist was hired to build an Ooze Bomb for a noble patron. The ooze escaped during loading, and the workshop cellar has been sealed from the outside.
The Living Evidence
A captured Ooze Bomb proves that a rival city, guild, or warlord has begun experimenting with forbidden living siege weapons.
The Wrong Payload
The bomb was supposed to contain a minor acid slime. Instead, someone loaded it with a far older and more intelligent ooze.
The Tunnel War
Dwarven sappers discover that their enemies have begun rolling Ooze Bombs through old mine shafts before each assault.
The Bomb That Did Not Burst
An unexploded Ooze Bomb lies half-buried in a battlefield ruin. The casing is intact. Something inside still moves.
The Vanished Handlers
A caravan carrying unloaded shells arrives safely, but the sealed payload wagon is missing. Its trail leads into limestone caves.