Black Pudding 5e: Stats and Guide for Players and DMs

Last Updated on November 13, 2023

Black Pudding

Large Ooze, Unaligned

  • Size:  Large
  • Creature Type: Ooze
  • Alignment: Unaligned
  • Armor Class: 7
  • Hit Points: 85 (10d10 + 30)
  • Speed: 20 ft., climb 20 ft.
  • STR 16 (+3), DEX 5 (-3), CON 16 (+3), INT 1 (-5), WIS 6 (-2), CHA 1 (-5)
  • Damage Immunities: Acid, Cold, Lightning, Slashing
  • Condition Immunities: Blinded, Charmed, Deafened, Exhaustion, Frightened, Prone
  • Senses: Blindsight 60 ft. (blind beyond this radius), Passive Perception 8
  • Languages —
  • Challenge: 4 (1,100 XP)
  • Proficiency Bonus: +2

Amorphous: The pudding can squeeze through spaces as narrow as 1 inch wide.

Corrosive Form: A creature that touches the pudding or hits it with a melee attack while within 5 feet of it takes 4 (1d8) acid damage. Any nonmagical weapon made of metal or wood that hits the pudding corrodes.

After dealing damage, the weapon takes a permanent and cumulative −1 penalty to damage rolls. If its penalty drops to −5, the weapon is destroyed.

Nonmagical ammunition made of metal or wood that hits the pudding is destroyed after dealing damage.

The pudding can eat through 2-inch-thick, nonmagical wood or metal in 1 round.

Spider Climb: The pudding can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.

Actions

Pseudopod: Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage plus 18 (4d8) acid damage.

In addition, nonmagical armor worn by the target is partly dissolved and takes a permanent and cumulative −1 penalty to the AC it offers. The armor is destroyed if the penalty reduces its AC to 10.

Reactions

Split: When a pudding that is Medium or larger is subjected to lightning or slashing damage, it splits into two new puddings if it has at least 10 hit points.

Each new pudding has hit points equal to half the original pudding’s, rounded down. New puddings are one size smaller than the original pudding.

Source: Basic Rules 

What Is a Black Pudding? 

A Black Pudding is a CR 4 ooze that resembles a writhing mound of sticky black sludge and is virtually invisible in dim light, resembling little more than a patch of deep shadow — until it strikes, that is. 

Oozes are a deceptively lethal category of monsters in Dungeons & Dragons 5e.

The black pudding is the kind of monster that players remember fighting. They remember the overconfidence, the mounting horror and, if they survive, the long-lasting consequences. 

First of all, it’s damn lethal. A mixture of 1d6 + 3 bludgeoning and 4d8 acid damage is bad enough, but anyone who hits a black pudding within melee range is going to be subject to some more guaranteed damage. But that’s not the nastiest part. 

Black puddings definitely eat away at your hit points, but they also hit parties in a place where it hurts even more: their stuff

These monsters will destroy your PCs’ gear. Players don’t know how to deal with that, especially at lower levels when they may not have magic weapons and armor.

Now your fighter’s weapon that they need to use to kill the monster is not only made permanently worse every time they hit the monster, but dealing slashing damage to that monster makes more monsters.

Oh, and standing near that monster and hitting it also hurts you

How To Fight a Black Pudding

Did you ever see a video of a lion trying to bring down a gazelle? If the chase goes on for more than a few seconds, all that initial speed and leaping ability in the lion disappears and they have to abandon the hunt.

Fighting a black pudding is basically that but much, much slower. 

These are — to get a little into dungeon ecology here for a second — ambush predators.

They rely on basic stimulus to identify a target (blindsight for just 60 feet and then nothing beyond that), the element of surprise, and overwhelming strength. 

A measly 20-foot speed means that even a slow character is going to be able to outrun one of these things.

The most likely way that a black pudding is going to attack is using the element of surprise, either dropping from the ceiling or lying in wait in the dark. 

DM’s Guide To Running a Black Pudding 

Once the heroes have started throwing torches ahead of them, attacking from range, and generally exploiting the black pudding’s weaknesses, these monsters do risk going from completely lethal to a total cakewalk.

The way to prevent this is to make use of the black pudding’s natural environment: the dungeon. 

Chase your players’ characters down dead-end corridors, or make them wade through waist-deep murky water and wind their way through labyrinthine cellars.

Shorten their sight lines. Take away their light sources. Make the world feel small and dangerous.

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