Q: Anyway to become an elemental

[8wGremlin]

Is there anyway for a pc to be an elemental, through race, template, spell, prc or what ever, not including high level Polymorph, Shapechange, or Wildshape

anyone?

[ZamielVanWeber]

Bonded summone (be prepared to take a CL dive) and elemental savant come to mind. Also Savage Species gave the 4 small elementals LA 2.

[Krobar]

Elemental Savant prestige class.

[Pickford]

Elemental Savant prestige class.

It's in Complete Arcane;

[Waker]

There is also the Winterhaunt of Iborighu from Frostburn.

[Talionis]

There is some weird elemental warrior class that can jump into an elemental. I'm away from books. I think its Scion of Zilargo. Its strange because it's got a strange casterish requirement for enter, but advances only summon elemental spells. I've wondered for a while if it would be fun to play.

[hamishspence]

I think there's also a divine "become elemental as capstone" class in Faiths & Pantheons - may have been called Elemental Archon.

[NM020110]

Savage Species gives a number of options for messing with your character race. Becoming an elemental of whichever element, or just becoming an elemental with none of the baggage, should be possible using that.

[8wGremlin]

thanks everyone, great help...

so loose 2 RHD and +2 LA for small elemental, or at least level 15 or so...

[Drackstin]

also if the eberron books, i think the players guide, you have alot of elemental grafts that turn you into an elemental.

[8wGremlin]

Savage Species gives a number of options for messing with your character race. Becoming an elemental of whichever element, or just becoming an elemental with none of the baggage, should be possible using that.

Couldn't see a way to change the type of a base race.
Nevermind got it:

Base race: Human

Type and Subtype: The construct, elemental, or plant type is automatically worth a +1 level adjustment.

A Small creature gets a –1 level adjustment. It is somewhat harder to hit than a Medium-size one, but it moves more slowly and must use smaller weapons. A Small creature also typically has a lower Strength score than a Medium-size creature.


So a small elemental humanoid... sweet, just what I was looking for.
Thanks all!

[Darrin]

The templates in the Manual of the Planes change your type to elemental. These include: Air, Cold, Earth, Fire, Water, and Wood. LA is either +4 or +5.

Dragon #347 has templates for: Ice, Magma, Ooze, and Smoke.

[Phelix-Mu]

[S]

Base race: Human

Type and Subtype: The construct, elemental, or plant type is automatically worth a +1 level adjustment.

A Small creature gets a –1 level adjustment. It is somewhat harder to hit than a Medium-size one, but it moves more slowly and must use smaller weapons. A Small creature also typically has a lower Strength score than a Medium-size creature.



What a terrifically erroneous conclusion regarding size. While elemental, construct, and plant immunities and such are excellent in melee combat, they are hardly ineffective for other roles. In pretty much every role besides melee, Small stature is not a handicap at all. Quite the opposite.

Still, nice to be able to offset LA in such a manner.

[Ellrin]

So by that logic, a small elemental "human" with a bonus feat at first level and the extra skill points, with darkvision 60, immunity to poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, and critical hits, not to mention +1 to AC, +1 to hit, and a +4 to hide, and say... -2 Str (unless the element is earth) and +2 to dex/con, or +2 str/con (if element is earth) and -2 dex.

Oh, and I guess carrying capacity is 3/4 that of a medium creature with its Str, but everything made for it weighs half what it would for a medium creature.

That's a 0 LA race, right? Right?

*gibbers*

[Phelix-Mu]

So by that logic, a small elemental "human" with a bonus feat at first level and the extra skill points, with darkvision 60, immunity to poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, and critical hits, not to mention +1 to AC, +1 to hit, and a +4 to hide, and say... -2 Str (unless the element is earth) and +2 to dex/con, or +2 str/con (if element is earth) and -2 dex.

Oh, and I guess carrying capacity is 3/4 that of a medium creature with its Str, but everything made for it weighs half what it would for a medium creature.

That's a 0 LA race, right? Right?

*gibbers*

Indeed, compare the above with Mephlings from Planar Handbook. They didn't have half the cool of the above, are all Small, and ended up with a +1 LA due to having a couple cute tricks for each type. Clearly they ditched the -1LA if you are small later on (except for whisper gnomes...hooray for inconsistency!).

[8wGremlin]

Yeah you're right way over powered...

But where did you get those stat adjustments.. Cus in my example it's just a small elemental human

EDIT: A bit like a warforged, but elemental and not construct, don't get a natural attack though. And have to be small, so neither a bonus or a penalty

so could I actually replace construct type with elemental, and use the warforged as a base race?

[Ellrin]

From the race description in the SRD:


A Small character gets a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks. A Small character’s carrying capacity is three-quarters of that of a Medium character.

A Small character generally moves about two-thirds as fast as a Medium character.

A Small character must use smaller weapons than a Medium character.

And for weight, that's just from the various equipment sections: small characters eat half as much, their armor and weapons weigh half as much, etc., etc.

Unless your build depends on every single potential point of melee damage that it can output (and what build does, really?) or on getting as large as possible as fast as possible, small characters really just have huge advantages over medium characters, period, and almost no significant disadvantages to speak of.

EDIT:
Oh, and the rest of it's from the elemental type description:


An elemental possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).


Darkvision out to 60 feet.
Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, and stunning.
Not subject to critical hits or flanking.
Unlike most other living creatures, an elemental does not have a dual nature—its soul and body form one unit. When an elemental is slain, no soul is set loose. Spells that restore souls to their bodies, such as raise dead, reincarnate, and resurrection, don’t work on an elemental. It takes a different magical effect, such as limited wish, wish, miracle, or true resurrection, to restore it to life.
Proficient with natural weapons only, unless generally humanoid in form, in which case proficient with all simple weapons and any weapons mentioned in its entry.
Proficient with whatever type of armor (light, medium, or heavy) that it is described as wearing, as well as all lighter types. Elementals not indicated as wearing armor are not proficient with armor. Elementals are proficient with shields if they are proficient with any form of armor.
Elementals do not eat, sleep, or breathe.

Those proficiency ones are generally ignored when the creature is advanced by class level.

EDIT2:
Quite honestly, the thing should probably have some kind of energy resistance, as well, corresponding to its element. Usually elementals are actually immune to whatever energy type corresponds to their element, though are often also weak against another type.

[Phelix-Mu]

Yeah you're right way over powered...

But where did you get those stat adjustments.. Cus in my example it's just a small elemental human

EDIT: A bit like a warforged, but elemental and not construct, don't get a natural attack though. And have to be small, so neither a bonus or a penalty

so could I actually replace construct type with elemental, and use the warforged as a base race?

There is actually a Small warforged in MM3, if I recall correctly. Your concept of using warforged to approximate elemental seems sound. There are discrepancies, of course, but none that should radically alter the LA.

EDIT: Do most elementals have some form of energy immunity, or even resistance? This doesn't ring any bells, especially since correlation between elemental subtype and energy type is weak at best. Obviously, fire elementals are immune to fire. All the others seem pretty vague, too vague to imply some resistance for someone turning into an elemental (especially if the new elemental creature doesn't have a subtype).

[Ellrin]

That was my impression, but it's been a long time since I've looked into it. It does look like the vanilla elementals in the SRD don't have any special immunities except for fire elementals, as you say. Could be I just had elemental savant on the brain from earlier in the thread, I guess.

:smalltongue:

[Phelix-Mu]

Did they ever issue clarification on Elemental Savant and their energy substitution class feature? Every time I read that, it seems to me that the feat is automatically applied to all spells that the Elemental Savant casts, without the option to cast the spell normally, which is just moronic. I don't really want to know who edited this stuff, but I can't imagine that it was supposed to work the way that it reads to me.

Elemental Archon from Faiths and Pantheons was a cool PrC, fluff-wise. What isn't to like about mephits, after all?

[Ellrin]

That interpretation seems to not only be RAW, but, from the language, as intended, too. I agree that it's kinda stupid, but it worked more or less well enough on a sha'ir I had enter the class that was already specializing in dealing cold energy damage. Basically every spell she was casting had the cold descriptor, and I had piercing cold to keep her effective against creatures immune to cold.

[Urpriest]

Couldn't see a way to change the type of a base race.
Nevermind got it:

Base race: Human

Type and Subtype: The construct, elemental, or plant type is automatically worth a +1 level adjustment.

A Small creature gets a –1 level adjustment. It is somewhat harder to hit than a Medium-size one, but it moves more slowly and must use smaller weapons. A Small creature also typically has a lower Strength score than a Medium-size creature.


So a small elemental humanoid... sweet, just what I was looking for.
Thanks all!

That's...not what that section means. At all. It's a section about estimating LA for monsters, which ends with instructions that tell you to compare to existing races and classes. It's not some sort of set of templates by any stretch of the imagination.

[8wGremlin]

That's...not what that section means. At all. It's a section about estimating LA for monsters, which ends with instructions that tell you to compare to existing races and classes. It's not some sort of set of templates by any stretch of the imagination.

Wasn't an estimation of a template at all.
It's an estimation of a elemental human race, given the rules as I read them, for about 20 minutes. I'm searching for a way of getting an elemental playable race with minimal LA and no racial hd

As I said, I could take warforged and change the type to elemental, would that be better, I don't know?

[zlefin]

not raw but you could use the pathfinder race builders guide. Here's the link on the srd
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/arg-creating-new-races


pf and 3.5 rules are pretty similar; just changes the stat bonuses a bit (generally zero-sum in 3.5); and note that 3.5 tends to have la give fewer bonuses than pf.

there's no listed cost for the elemental subtype; but it's probably worth around 10-13 points;

i'd say la +1 by 3.5 standards would use around 15 points.

i could easily homebrew up something appropriate if you need.

[Urpriest]

There are lots of LA +0 races that have strong elemental fluff, like Mephlings and Genasi. What sorts of properties do you want out of your new race that the preexisting choices don't satisfy? Are there particular immunities you're going for?

[Ellrin]

I think he just wants to see what ways there are to play the elemental type without too much LA.

[8wGremlin]

I think he just wants to see what ways there are to play the elemental type without too much LA.

Exactly, I think you can play nearly any type except the elemental type.
I was wondering how I can achieve that, with out RHD and low LA

[zlefin]

just ask the dm, the easiest way of all! :)
unless you mean specific RAW ways :P

[8wGremlin]

just ask the dm, the easiest way of all! :)
unless you mean specific RAW ways :P

RAW would be best....

[zlefin]

one interesting thing I learned looking through designs for this:
elemental is a type in 3.5, but was changed to a subtype in PF.
makes quite a lot of sense; as the definition of outsider applies just as well to elementals as it does to angels and demons.

Too bad you want raw, homebrewing something balanced would be much easier than splat book diving.