"The armor is destroyed if the penalty reduces its AC to 10." okay so the armor will never be destroyed? it doesn't say the armor's AC decreases, just the AC it offers. presumably the 12-14 AC that leather armor would have based on the DMG remains the same since we're not told otherwise

What does "slow death" mean? Any in-game effects? Asking for a friend (who just got killed by a black pudding in 2 rounds, the first one a surprise attack.)

unless the campaign is homebrew if so then sure

Why Named Black Pudding???

The monster was created by D&D co-creator Dave Arneson during his pre-D&D Blackmoor campaign based on the 1958 Steve McQueen film The Blob. He described it to his players as being like a grey pudding (like the soft pudding deserts sold in plastic pots). For some reason Gary Gygax changed the color to black when he published the original D&D rules, probably because he had the texture of the British blood sausage in mind. 

It is strange though, why it is not immune to piercing damage, it looks like it would be very logical.

My friend totally absorbed and then a dragon crispied him right after that.

Why encounter it just in a dungeon? Have one lurking in the muck of a swamp, or even in the mud of a pigsty. The farmer is wondering why his pigs are going missing one by one so hires some adventurers to track down the brigands stealing his pigs, and so the adventurers hide in the pigsty at night only to get ambushed by a black pudding entirely unprepared for such an encounter ...

Does the corrosive form trait affect magic items if they are within an antimagic field? It says in the spell that magic items in the field function as if they are nonmagical

The pudding should be immune to psychic damage, even though it is not listed, It does not have a mind.

Quote from drag0n_77 >>

Quote from MikeJayBird >>

In my current game, my character accidentally made a tiny Black Pudding. It is contained in a jar and gets fed regularly. Is there any way/lore about them that they be made into an ally, pet, or at least friendly being? 

 Unless the character is Juiblex, then the answer would be no.  A Black Pudding, as described here, is basically a mindless eating machine.  It may not always be hungry, but when it is it will feast on anything.  Even the person feeding it.

Casting awaken on it might make it an eating machine with a mind.

So does this leave a trail of slightly dissolved ground wherever it goes? Or does it only dissolve things if it tries to?

Quote from PankakeBatter >>

So does this leave a trail of slightly dissolved ground wherever it goes? Or does it only dissolve things if it tries to?

 In the Description: "Flesh, wood, metal, and bone dissolve when the pudding ebbs over them. Stone remains behind, wiped clean."

Don't invite it into your treehouse.

Imagine if you had +3 plate and it got destroyed by this

always use thunder damage, i suggest chromatic orb

DOES HALF SIZED PUDDING DEAL HALF THE DAMAGE?

A large black pudding has 85 hp and when it attacks with its pseudopod, it deals 6 (1d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage, plus 18 (4d8) acid damage.

This pudding is hit by lightening and is split into two sized medium black puddings with 22 hp each.

Do the medium puddings deal the same damage (6 + 18 on average) or do they deal less damage?  RAW (Rules as written) don't mention the smaller puddings having stats that are different from the parent in any way except for hit points ... so it would seem that a sized medium pudding does the same amount of damage.  But it would make sense that a smaller pudding might deal less damage.  I could see a medium pudding dealing 5 (1d4 + 3) bludgeoning plus 9 (2d8) acid damage.  That would make sense logically ... but I can't find anything written anywhere on the internet that backs that up.

How would you rule this?

It corrodes non magical armor, so +3 plate would be uneffected.

Quote from SolomonBenjamin >>

Question: when exactly is armor destroyed, when the base AC equals 10 or when the PC's AC equals 10? As in, do you take any potential DEX modifiers into account?

 It’s when the armor’s AC bonus is reduced to 10. So for Studded Leather(AC 12) it would take 2 hits and for Plate(AC 18) it would take 8.

smash

Quote from NejaHalcyon33734 >>

DOES HALF SIZED PUDDING DEAL HALF THE DAMAGE?

A large black pudding has 85 hp and when it attacks with its pseudopod, it deals 6 (1d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage, plus 18 (4d8) acid damage.

This pudding is hit by lightening and is split into two sized medium black puddings with 22 hp each.

Do the medium puddings deal the same damage (6 + 18 on average) or do they deal less damage?  RAW (Rules as written) don't mention the smaller puddings having stats that are different from the parent in any way except for hit points ... so it would seem that a sized medium pudding does the same amount of damage.  But it would make sense that a smaller pudding might deal less damage.  I could see a medium pudding dealing 5 (1d4 + 3) bludgeoning plus 9 (2d8) acid damage.  That would make sense logically ... but I can't find anything written anywhere on the internet that backs that up.

How would you rule this?

 I'd rule it as it still deals the same amount of damage. Hydrochloric acid, as others have pointed out (with the baking soda references) is highly corrosive (the most corrosive, in fact). A small amount is just as dangerous as a large amount. The only difference is that large amount affects a bigger area, but it deals the same amount of damage.

Ruling it as dealing the same damage would tell the party that maybe they should stop using lightning or slashing damage as it'll only kill them faster. Think Hercules and the Hydra - the more heads he cut off, the more heads it grew. If he'd stopped cutting off heads and only used bludgeoning (aka his fist or rocks), he'd have won sooner and with FAR less danger.

If you decide to rule that it deals less damage, then you're not really making this thing any more dangerous in its smaller forms than in its full form, other than to say that it's basically "gaining multiattack". 

Given this idea - you could also have it be able to split of its own accord when it wants to threaten more people (like if someone is hitting it from afar but it also wants to focus on its current target). To be fair though, this creature says it splits in 2 - but large creatures are actually 4x the size of a medium creature, so technically this would become 4 creatures before its size stops being large. Medium -> would be 2, small -> tiny would be 4 again (25 / 6.25). So technically a medium ooze would split into 8 (4 * 2) tiny ones. And a large ooze could split into 32 tiny ones (4 * 2 * 4). That makes the encounter far more dynamic and would really hint to the players that they need to focus it down without allowing it to split. I'd probably double the CR just because the amount of damage that you could do would be double or more. Or at least make it a CR 6. However, I would say that it can only consume creatures up to 1 size smaller. So even if it does split into 4 mediums, it can't engulf your players, however it can still grapple them, causing constant acid damage.

To further balance it, you could make the players, while grappled, make a con save against the acid damage, taking half on success. Or you could make that the case even while not grappled (aka for attacks), but then keep in mind that the acid damage wouldn't also crit on a nat 20.