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Seharvepernfan
2013-04-15, 02:12 PM
I think that elementals are poorly done. They're basically just moving chunks of HP/attack bonus/damage with no personality. They each have a few redeeming qualities that I'm going to keep or expand upon in my own games (earth glide, whirlwind/pool), but the basic chasis is what sucks. I don't feel like I'm fighting living fire/water/air/earth.

I'm not here to ask for help with stats, I just want some help deciding what abilities and qualities they should have, and also to spread the idea. I know that I want each one to have some kind of aura effect, and I'm still torn on whether or not to give them SLAs.

So, here's what I've got so far.

Earth: The best of the four. An earth elemental really should just be a chunk of rock/dirt that smashes faces. Earth glide and DR/- are good as well. The only thing I'll change is to drop the listen and spot and add tremorsense.

Things I'm considering:
-an earthquake SLA (maybe only for older ones)
-poison gas similar to an iron golem?
-a magnetic aura (either attracting or repulsing)
-stone to mud/mud to stone SLAs?
-petrification upon slam, fort negates? Dex damage if successful?

Fire: I'm thinking a swarm that deals fire damage (duh) and sets things aflame (similar to an alchemists fire). It can't fly, but it is fast. It burns anything in any square it moves through, leaving fires as it moves (not stone, but any wood or plant material or anything else that is flammable). No slam attack, can't be hurt with weapons, no physical substance to speak of.

Considering:
-a cone of fire SLA?
-an aura of heat (the bigger the elemental and the closer you are, the more damage it deals, even if you're not actually inside the elementals space)?
-can only move over flammable materials?
-can move into fires that its heat aura creates?
-what kind of senses?

Water: I'm thinking an ooze, similar to a living spell. It has a slam attack, it can be hurt with weapons (maybe only certain types), it can engulf. It is fast, moving like a crashing wave, and is faster in water. It will have aquatic tremorsense (and maybe a reduced normal tremorsense on land), but no spot or listen. Engulfs will eventually lead to drowning.

Considering:
-keep the whirlpool effect when in water?
-allow swim checks vs. the elementals grapple check to escape an engulf?
-how easy is it to hold breath inside the elemental?
-pressure damage when engulfed?
-control water SLA?
-rust aura/slam attack?
-any sort of cold abilities/attacks?

Wind: I'm thinking a swarm here as well, except that the swarm itself doesn't deal damage. However, any material whipped up by its winds can cause damage (like sand) when inside the elemental (or maybe even within its aura?). Can fly, and is very fast. Cannot enter water. Is also similar to a living spell, perhaps gust of wind? It can check, knock down, blow away, or pick up (and eventually expel at height, or drop). They're always in "whirlwind" form. No slam attack, can't be hurt with weapons, no physical substance to speak of.

Considering:
-an aura similar to itself, but weaker?
-what senses?
-combination of gust of wind and wind wall?
-control winds SLA?
-any sort of electricity abilities/attacks?

Heart: No. awww maaann (http://entertainment.ie/images_content/200X200/captain-planet-sad.jpg)

I'm also thinking of allowing elementals to combine; not just two water elementals combining into one larger water elemental, but combinations. For instance, a fire and wind elemental combining into a "smoke" elemental - whirlwind of smoke and intensely hot air. Others would be magma (fire/earth), steam (fire/water), sandstorm (wind/earth), storm (wind/water), and mud/lahar (earth/water). I don't think I would allow a combination of three or four types.

Thoughts?
Ideas?
Criticisms? (just kidding, I don't want any criticisms)

Rabidmuskrat
2013-04-15, 02:29 PM
You can take the senses one step further.

Earth elementals ONLY have tremorsense (in the sense that anyone holding still are effectively invisible to it)

Fire elementals have a type of 'thermal vision' that sees hotter things and moves towards them. It would function sort of like blindsense except it is more easily beatable (cover yourself in cold mud, etc). Range would be pretty far, I'm thinking 120ft or more.

Water elementals would have two sense. The first would be the ability to sense warm things close to them (30ft for human body, 120ft for a fire elemental or bushfire). The second would be a 'water sense' that can see all water and anything touching water in a large radius. Unfortunately, the human body is 70% water...

Air elementals would have solid blindsense, the same way bats do, except with much further range. I'm thinking 240ft or more.

Another thing to consider would be the intellectual capacity of these things. Do they think? Do they just react by instinct? If so, what instincts do they have? Are they aggressive?

Seharvepernfan
2013-04-15, 02:45 PM
You can take the senses one step further.

Earth elementals ONLY have tremorsense (in the sense that anyone holding still are effectively invisible to it)

Fire elementals have a type of 'thermal vision' that sees hotter things and moves towards them. It would function sort of like blindsense except it is more easily beatable (cover yourself in cold mud, etc). Range would be pretty far, I'm thinking 120ft or more.

Water elementals would have two sense. The first would be the ability to sense warm things close to them (30ft for human body, 120ft for a fire elemental or bushfire). The second would be a 'water sense' that can see all water and anything touching water in a large radius. Unfortunately, the human body is 70% water...

Air elementals would have solid blindsense, the same way bats do, except with much further range. I'm thinking 240ft or more.

Another thing to consider would be the intellectual capacity of these things. Do they think? Do they just react by instinct? If so, what instincts do they have? Are they aggressive?

I meant that they *only* have tremorsense.

I considered heat vision, I'm glad to see someone else suggest it.

Good call on the blindsense, which is pretty much an "air sense". It doesn't even need to be blindsight, since these things don't have actual attacks.

Vadskye
2013-04-15, 02:47 PM
Earth: Having used more than my fair share of earth elementals, I generally like them the way they are. I wouldn't add many extra abilities, and I don't like the petrification or the poison breath. However, they really should have tremorsight. Fighting something that is standing partly inside a wall and partly inside the ceiling (earth glide + tremorsight), while being able to attack from any direction, is pretty unique and definitely earthy. I could see some earth -related SLAs (Earthquake, Move Earth) on advanced earth elementals, but don't make their combat stats more complex.

Fire: Swarms are... always tricky, rules-wise. I'm not a big fan of things that are actually immune to weapon damage - it just shuts down just about everyone except casters, and 3.5 doesn't need more of that. Instead of making it a swarm, why not make it a single "creature" of fire that can Engulf and/or Trample to represent the idea of fire sweeping through a party - while still giving it a physical form (fire needs fuel, after all) to strike at? Aura of heat is a good idea. Maybe significant bonuses to Hide when inside natural fires (it can look like an ordinary campfire... until it attacks!). I wouldn't restrict its movement to flammable terrain; that makes it too easy to trivialize. More advanced fire elementals could have a couple fire-based SLAs, and perhaps a fire shield ability?

Water: Engulf into drowning is definitely the way to go here, I think. Or perhaps a Swallow Whole setup, where it grapples, swallows, and drowns opponents. Water pressure inside the elemental should force water into the lungs/air out of the lungs; otherwise drowning takes way too long to be relevant in combat. Control Water sounds appropriate, at least for advanced water elementals. I wish there was a high-level spell that could summon water from nowhere; that is an iconic ability in some settings, and perfectly appropriate for the water elemental.

Wind: Sounds like you want the whirlwind ability, except that it doesn't have the elemental's "normal" form as well. I still don't like the "can't be hurt with weapons" idea, though. If you make elementals immune to weapons, you dramatically increase their utility and power - keep in mind that the players can summon these at a level that isn't all that high. Wind-based SLAs are appropriate, and perhaps a constant aura that acts as Entropic Shield due to wind buffeting currents. Electricity should stay separate, though. That's what storm elementals and other "combination" elementals are for.

Heart: This could have charm abilities at will. And out of all of the elementals, this might be the one that should be immune to elemental damage. Furthermore...
oh. I see what you did there.

Seharvepernfan
2013-04-15, 03:10 PM
@Vadskye: Is tremorsight an actual thing? I was under the impression that tremorsense let you pinpoint someone's location, therefor not having a miss chance.

I understand your anti-swarm argument - it doesn't affect my houseruled games, but in general I agree. I still don't think they should have any physical attacks themselves, but letting them be hit (while still being a swarm) is a fair concession. I imagine them as looking like actual fire, so yes, they can totally hide in other fires. If by fire shield, you mean taking damage for attacking it, then yes, I think that would fit, but as it stands, they're already taking heat aura damage and engulf damage (I don't know about both at the same time).

I like the "forcing air out of their lungs" idea. By summoning water, do you mean like a firehose effect? or like filling a room with water?

I like the entropic shield idea, but that's where I was going with wind wall.

I appreciate the input.

Eurus
2013-04-15, 03:25 PM
@Vadskye: Is tremorsight an actual thing? I was under the impression that tremorsense let you pinpoint someone's location, therefor not having a miss chance.

Pinpointing something's location, under D&D terminology, only tells you what square it's in. They still have full concealment. Tremorsense, therefore, is useful but not perfect. Giving it Greater Tremorsense or something as a unique ability would work.

Seharvepernfan
2013-04-15, 03:32 PM
Pinpointing something's location, under D&D terminology, only tells you what square it's in. They still have full concealment. Tremorsense, therefore, is useful but not perfect. Giving it Greater Tremorsense or something as a unique ability would work.

Okay. That's what I originally intended.

Vadskye
2013-04-15, 03:40 PM
As long as your "swarms" can be damaged by noncasters, I don't have an objection to the thematic concept of having it be a swarm. Also, I imagine heat aura damage would affect people outside of the elemental only. Damage taken from being engulfed should be greater than the heat aura damage, but should not be applied at the same time as the heat aura damage.

It would be nice if the water elemental could temporarily make an environment more aquatic than it has any right to be. It happens sometimes in anime when you have aquatically themed foes fighting on land. However, this requires violating several laws of causality and common sense, so I'm not sure how to implement it in D&D.

The only problem I have with wind wall is that it requires a standard action to create, and it is then in a fixed position. Thus, it doesn't really capture the idea that the air elemental is itself a whirlwind which deflects arrows. Just a minor thing, though.

Glad to help! And it is not entirely an academic exercise - before long, I need to rewrite the Monster Manual in my own system, so I will probably take inspiration from whatever you end up deciding on, if that is all right.

Eurus
2013-04-15, 11:29 PM
What if the water elemental could let aquatic creatures within a certain distance treat air as water? :smallbiggrin:

You have to admit, a water elemental is much scarier when it's surrounded by flying sharks.

Vadskye
2013-04-16, 09:50 AM
You feel the air around you become thicker with every step you take. The smell of the ocean stings in your nose as you breathe, and from over your head you hear a strange, smooth sound. When you look up, you are greeted with an endless maw of teeth as a large shark, its mouth gaping, dives toward you from out of the rippling air. Roll initiative.

Deepbluediver
2013-04-16, 10:16 AM
I definitely like the ideas for various kinds of elemental-vision; everything else seems pretty standard.

Eldan had a thread a while back where he did much the same thing: rework the 4 classic elementals with some extra fluff and mechanics.
Here's a link if you're interested: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=264184

One of the things I liked best that he suggested was that in their home plane, elementals are rationale, reasonable, communicative beings (albiet with an entirely alien mindset) and being summoned to another plane drives them mad, which is why they go around attacking everything.
It lets you keep the "monster-enemy" aspect while at the same time giving them some hidden depths to explore.

Seharvepernfan
2013-04-16, 01:01 PM
Okay, wow, Eldan is way ahead of me. I think I'm just going to take his, and apply the few things I came up with for mine onto his. Vadskye, I definitely suggest checking out that link.

Yitzi
2013-04-16, 01:09 PM
As long as your "swarms" can be damaged by noncasters, I don't have an objection to the thematic concept of having it be a swarm.

Say that water acts as a splash weapon against fire elementals...not sure how you'd damage an air elemental, though.

Vadskye
2013-04-16, 01:19 PM
Having taken a look at it... I actually like some of your ideas better. If nothing else, I would advice caution with them Eldan's monsters as given, though I like some of the thematic concepts. The CR of those monsters is definitely tenuous; 13 HP for a melee combat based CR 4 (small Air elemental) is malpractice. Some of the abiliites are great (heavy gravity for earth elementals is particularly clever), but I definitely wouldn't use those straight out of the box, as it were. It strikes me as good inspiration, though.

Selenir
2013-04-16, 02:12 PM
In my campaign setting Elementals come in two types. One is the kind animated by spellcasters. They're absolutely mindless and aren't "summoned" - they're animated. So an elemental is formed from whatever materials are on hand. If you have a stone wall, you get an earth elemental made out of solid rock. If you're in a desert, you get one more like an ooze, made of sand.

The second type are nature spirits, just like the river gods, dryads, and water nymphs that populate the natural world. They are wise, intelligent, and generally leave mortals alone unless they are busy corrupting/damaging their environment. A water elemental might be the "spirit" of a small spring or stream, or a large earth elemental could be the "god" of a hill.

Seharvepernfan
2013-04-16, 02:55 PM
@yitzi: I might just make my fire and air elementals swarmlike, leaving them vulnerable to weapon attacks, albeit with something like DR 10/magic (at least) or maybe something like ironguard. That said, I'm okay with air elementals being the hardest to actually damage, since they deal the least damage themselves.

@Vadskye: I think the air elementals he made are difficult to damage, though. They have a fast fly speed, high AC, probably never provoke AoOs, are immune to electricity, likely have fast healing 1, and take half damage from piercing weapons. You just about need magic missile to actually hurt them.

Also, I'm going to use his, applying some tweaks from my thread (swarmlike/ooze, the non-sight/hearing senses, the engulf+drowning water elemental thing, and a few others). I most likely won't post any actual stat-blocks or anything. I always end up tweaking stuff to whatever party I'm DMing for anyway.

@Selenir: That's actually how I do my elementals too; the inner planes in my cosmology are just two-dimensional sheaths, which are drawn from to animate an elemental (which are barely intelligent - Eldan's elementals are somewhat mindless/insane on the material plane, which fits with my campaign perfectly).

Your second type sound more like fey, which is what I'd use for nature spirits.

Someone in Eldan's thread mentioned how they think of elementals as the chaotic outsiders, which actually makes a lot of sense to me. Slaad have always seemed sort of just thrown-together and ill-fitting to me. On top of that, the most chaotic plane is limbo, and what is limbo composed of? Elements. I might just do that and get rid of the inner planes altogether. (or stitch the two ideas together like I usually do)

Eldan
2013-04-16, 02:57 PM
One of the things I liked best that he suggested was that in their home plane, elementals are rationale, reasonable, communicative beings (albiet with an entirely alien mindset) and being summoned to another plane drives them mad, which is why they go around attacking everything.
It lets you keep the "monster-enemy" aspect while at the same time giving them some hidden depths to explore.

Thanks for hte praise, but that's not actually originally my idea. I don't exactly know where I got it from, but I read that somewhere on the net. Must be years ago. I just put rules on it.

Edit: I'm a Planescape fan at heart, so I don't like the concept of elementals as outsiders. They fill very different niches in the setting. Making them be composed of belief instead of matter changes a lot about them. Also, Limbo is not composed of elements, that's a common misconception. It's natural state is a formless chaos, from which absolutely anything can be manifested, no matter how complex. Some things arise randomly, but most are generated by an intelligent creature exerting willpower on it. As the ultimate chaos, it's also the ultimate freedom. What you can think of, you can create.

Slaad can be made interesting too, as long as you dig into their fluff abit and incorporate True Slaad. They used to be entirely formless beings that swam through the protoplasm of Limbo, taking on the form of whatever they happened to phase through, until the two strongest slaad became afraid of one of their brothers eventually outgrowing them and locked them into defined shapes.
Of course, that's a bit problematic, since it essentially means that Chaos is hamstrung on a multiversal scale and that the balance is off.

Selenir
2013-04-16, 03:29 PM
@Selenir: That's actually how I do my elementals too; the inner planes in my cosmology are just two-dimensional sheaths, which are drawn from to animate an elemental (which are barely intelligent - Eldan's elementals are somewhat mindless/insane on the material plane, which fits with my campaign perfectly).

Your second type sound more like fey, which is what I'd use for nature spirits.While they are technically not fey, fey are also nature spirits (just a different type). They get along very well with fey (and elves, who are descended from fey).


Someone in Eldan's thread mentioned how they think of elementals as the chaotic outsiders, which actually makes a lot of sense to me. Slaad have always seemed sort of just thrown-together and ill-fitting to me. On top of that, the most chaotic plane is limbo, and what is limbo composed of? Elements. I might just do that and get rid of the inner planes altogether. (or stitch the two ideas together like I usually do)

I simplified my cosmology a lot as well, eliminating the elemental planes and most of the other miscellaneous planes.

What's left is in three tiers. Not counting the multiple "layers" within planes, there are six planes in total:

The Upper Tier:
The Heavens - the multi-faceted divine realm the gods, good and evil, live in (until they were kicked out - long story)

The Middle Tier:
The Material - the mortal plane we all know and love, coterminous and layered over and under the other three Middle planes...

The Feyreach (the realm of fey and home to the Kingdom of Faerie - the major difference between fey and elementals is fey are from here, and elementals are from Earth)
The Ethereal Plane (a realm of positive energy and re-imagined reflections, and where "life energy" is said to come from)
The Shadow Plane (a realm of negative energy and dark twisted reflections, and where dreams take place)


The Lower Tier:
The Underworld, a series of wastelands and hells connected by the River Styx, populated only by demons, fiends, and the dead.

Yitzi
2013-04-16, 03:59 PM
Of course, that's a bit problematic, since it essentially means that Chaos is hamstrung on a multiversal scale and that the balance is off.

Sounds to me like a great plot hook for a high-level party...

Eldan
2013-04-16, 04:18 PM
True, true. I usually make up for it with the Eladrin. They feature more simply because I find hte Archons relatively boring. Same for gods. I'd rather have the Olympians or Norse than the Chinese Bureaucracy. Though the Egyptians and Babylonians aren't bad for law.

Deepbluediver
2013-04-16, 04:28 PM
Okay, wow, Eldan is way ahead of me. I think I'm just going to take his, and apply the few things I came up with for mine onto his. Vadskye, I definitely suggest checking out that link.

I didn't mean to discourage you from coming up with your own rules or ideas, not at all. But I bookmark a lot of the more interesting things I read, and when two or more people are going in similar directions I figure it's a good idea to point them towards each other, if I can.


In my campaign setting Elementals come in two types. One is the kind animated by spellcasters. They're absolutely mindless and aren't "summoned" - they're animated. So an elemental is formed from whatever materials are on hand. If you have a stone wall, you get an earth elemental made out of solid rock. If you're in a desert, you get one more like an ooze, made of sand.

Hmm, that's interesting, but it makes the "animated" elementals sound more like constructs, actually.

Seharvepernfan
2013-04-16, 04:44 PM
I didn't mean to discourage you from coming up with your own rules or ideas, not at all.

You haven't. I'm going to combine some of the stuff from this thread with Eldan's stuff, I just don't intend on actually coming up with statblocks. I will eventually, if I ever see elementals used in my game, but until then I just like having these ideas ready.