Druid wild shape..... elemental weird OP? please help/comment

[Bellberith]

Okay, would it be considered cheese/OP if a druid were to wild shape into an elemental weird. I feel like being able to change into a monster that grants spells as an 18th level sorcerer might be a bit much.... what do you guys think? (this is in general, if you were DMing the game, would you allow it?)

For anyone who does not know they are from the MM2 pg 91

[Jeff the Green]

No, I wouldn't allow it, because it's against the rules. You can turn into a Small, Medium, Large, or (eventually) Huge elemental. These are specific creatures, not size and type.

[Bellberith]

No, I wouldn't allow it, because it's against the rules. You can turn into a Small, Medium, Large, or (eventually) Huge elemental. These are specific creatures, not size and type.

can you please quote in the rules where it says that? my friend is saying that......

"a druid becomes able to use wild shape to change into a Small, Medium, or Large elemental (air, earth, fire, or water) once per day. These elemental forms are in addition to her normal wild shape usage. In addition to the normal effects of wild shape, the druid gains all the elemental’s extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities. She also gains the elemental’s feats for as long as she maintains the wild shape, but she retains her own creature type."

........because in the bold where it says spell-like abilities and the natural elementals do not have spell-like abilities that they meant other elementals were viable also.

[Sir Chuckles]

can you please quote in the rules where it says that? my friend is saying that......

"a druid becomes able to use wild shape to change into a Small, Medium, or Large elemental (air, earth, fire, or water) once per day. These elemental forms are in addition to her normal wild shape usage. In addition to the normal effects of wild shape, the druid gains all the elemental’s extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like abilities. She also gains the elemental’s feats for as long as she maintains the wild shape, but she retains her own creature type."

........because in the bold where it says spell-like abilities and the natural elementals do not have spell-like abilities that they meant other elementals were viable also.

That is a correct quote right off the SRD. The Druid can do that 16th level.
...but the Elemental Weird's spellcasting is not extraordinary, supernatural, nor a spell-like ability.
And take into consideration that a Weird is locked down it's elemental pool.

[Bellberith]

That is a correct quote right off the SRD. The Druid can do that 16th level.
...but the Elemental Weird's spellcasting is not extraordinary, supernatural, nor a spell-like ability.
And take into consideration that a Weird is locked down it's elemental pool.

That is the answer i was looking for. thank you.

[Phelix-Mu]

That is the answer i was looking for. thank you.

I don't know if we should shut the book on this yet. There are two, maybe three issues of note.

1.) Some DMs will say only the four basic elementals are viable forms for Elemental Wild Shape. Sadly, there is another view that is just about as valid by RAW. The wording used was unforgivably vague, in my mind, such that the basic ability renders the Epic Feat, Improved Elemental Wild Shape, all but useless (under this second interpretation). In my mind, only the first interpretation is vaguely sane, because of the existence of optimization nightmares like the immoth.

2.) Is the ability "Spells" a natural ability? Because I'm pretty sure the basic Wild Shape copies natural abilities, and thus the Elemental Wild Shape will as well (see the above quotes). The nature of "Spells" and its nature has been debated endlessly on polymorph and shapechange threads, and both positions seem to have following and lack what might be described as a smoking gun backing their interpretations. Basically, the argument goes that, between natural, extraordinary, supernatural, and spell-like, all abilities are covered, and thus "Spells" not tagged one of the others, is natural. The other position is that not all abilities are one of those four types. Honestly, the RAW seems inconsistent at best (not all natural abilities are tagged, but sometimes they are). Really, just search up one of those threads, but I never saw any resolution. Apologies if I am off with Wild Shape; I used to have it down pat, then they errata'd it like two different times and hid the errata across different books. Now I just shrug and let the experts handle it.

3.) Finally, and perhaps most pertinently, a DM might just rule that the Elemental Pool aspect of the weird, which by fluff is supposed to render it stationary and so forth, is actually a feature of the terrain that is enhanced by the weird to have specific supernatural effects. Thus, you could only use that form when around an appropriate pool. That's probably not the RAW of it, but it certainly sticks more to the RAI of what weirds represent.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Some monster entries have racial spellcasting listed as an (ex) ability. It's a pretty weak precedent but people have build characters on less than that.
In the end most DMs will rule that Wild Shape doesn't grant spellcasting simply for balance reasons.

You can however get psionic manifesting since it's explicitly a psi-like ability. Using Dragon Wild Shape to take the form of a juvenile Sapphire Dragon gets you manifesting as a 3rd level psion, for example. I'm not sure if there are any elementals with PLAs though.

Edit: There is also the following quote from the MM (p.6)

A special ability is either
extraordinary (Ex), spell-like (Sp), or supernatural (Su).
That would mean that you get spells even if it's not specified since Elemental WS gets all three.

[eggynack]

You can however get psionic manifesting since it's explicitly a psi-like ability. Using Dragon Wild Shape to take the form of a juvenile Sapphire Dragon gets you manifesting as a 3rd level psion, for example. I'm not sure if there are any elementals with PLAs though.
I don't think this holds together. Dragon wild shape states that it explicitly grants Ex and Su, and it explicitly states that it does not grant Sp's or straight spellcasting. What the feat does not do is say that it grants psi-like abilities, which would need to be stated in the affirmative in order for it to be granted.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I don't think this holds together. Dragon wild shape states that it explicitly grants Ex and Su, and it explicitly states that it does not grant Sp's or straight spellcasting. What the feat does not do is say that it grants psi-like abilities, which would need to be stated in the affirmative in order for it to be granted.

Huh. I must have mixed it up with one of the options that grant SLAs then.

[Thoa]

What about the Spells being listed under Special Attacks.
The basic Wild Shape grants all Special Sttacks and the Elemental Wild Shape just adds Ex, Su and Sp, right?

[Karnith]

What about the Spells being listed under Special Attacks.
The basic Wild Shape grants all Special Sttacks and the Elemental Wild Shape just adds Ex, Su and Sp, right?
Normal Wild Shape only grants the Extraordinary special attacks of the new form, because it is based on Alternate Form (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#alternateForm). For spellcasting to be granted by Wild Shape or Elemental Wild Shape, it would need to actually be tagged as a type of ability (e.g. Extraordinary, Supernatural, Spell-Like, etc.) that Wild Shape grants.

Since spellcasting is very seldom actually tagged with an ability type (I think that the Lilitu in FCII and a few monsters in MMV have some form of Spellcasting as a Su or Ex ability?), this naturally gets us into debates in which every side essentially argues "It's X because the rules don't say it isn't X."