When to use non-standard elementals

[OverLordOcelot]

I use conjure elemental regularly, it's provides a solid minion that lasts an hour. Recently a pointed out to me that I had missed that the conjure elementals spell doesn't actually only conjure the standard 4 elementals, and can be used for two other CR5s and, if upcast, two CR6s and later 4 CR7s. The standard 4 are all pretty useful for various situations, but I was trying to think of when I'd want the others. My thoughts (primarily from a druid perspective) are below, anyone have any other thoughts:

CR < 5: None of these are worth 'downcasting' IMO. If you want a flock of mephits, conjure minor elementals will give you a pack of them.

CR 5:
Xorn: Basically an earth elemental that's slower, takes less punishment, and does marginally more damage with a worse to-hit. Would really only use this for treasure sense or for the chance to use an 'X' word.
Salamader: Pretty much a fire elemental that's slower, does a little more damage but doesn't set things on fire, lacks the 'no solid body' immunities and squeezing. If you really want a fire immune minion that can move through water without dying then this is good, otherwise fire elemental is better.

CR6:
Galeb Duhr: Slower, less durable earth elemental that can animate two boulders into a pack that's basically 3 of itself for one minute. Not bad if there are boulders for it to animate and you are willing to risk losing two of it to concentration.
Invisible Stalker: Slower air elemental that is always invisible and does slightly less damage. Also has Faultless tracker for locating a particular target. Not a bad upgrade over a regular air elemental on its own, really good if you can abuse faultless tracker.

CR7:
Mymidon Elementals: Up AC, reduce speed, add HP, more attacks with less average damage but magical and a 1/6 recharge special. I don't think I'd use this one on it's own, however since the druid 7th level spells are fairly situational, I could see using these guys if it turned out that whatever 7th level spell I had prepped wasn't going to work.

[Man_Over_Game]

The Salamander would have a lot more use when surrounded by wood compared to a Fire Elemental. Just read a story of an idiot who casted Flame Sphere on an airship, and you can imagine how well that went.

[MaxWilson]

Note that you don't get to pick which elemental you get when you cast Conjure Elemental--instead, you "[c]hoose an area of air, earth, fire, or water that fills a 10-foot cube within range [and] an elemental of challenge rating 5 or lower appropriate to the area you chose appears in an unoccupied space within 10 feet of it." So the DM picks for you. That said, nothing stops you from asking the DM how to increase the chances of geting certain kinds of elementals, or from Planar Binding only the elementals of your favored type, so it still makes sense to discuss which types are best.


Salamader: Pretty much a fire elemental that's slower, does a little more damage but doesn't set things on fire, lacks the 'no solid body' immunities and squeezing. If you really want a fire immune minion that can move through water without dying then this is good, otherwise fire elemental is better.

Salamander also has a ranged attack, but the big selling point is that it can grapple and restrain enemies, technically with no size limit although a DM could reasonably rule that it doesn't work on Huge or Gargantuan enemies.

Also note that a monster that touches or strikes a Fire Elemental takes only 1d10 (5.5) damage, but striking a Salamander causes 2d6 (7) damage. That partly makes up for the not-catching-on-fire thing.

Fire Elemental is faster, and the bottom line is that Fire Elemental is better against crowds (in the extreme case, a Fire Elemental can Disengage through 10 orcs in a single round, inflicting ~11 points of damage on each for a total of ~110 damage) but the Salamander is better against single strong enemies, especially if the rest of your party can exploit the advantage it grants you via Sharpshooter or similar.


Invisible Stalker: Slower air elemental that is always invisible and does slightly less damage. Also has Faultless tracker for locating a particular target. Not a bad upgrade over a regular air elemental on its own, really good if you can abuse faultless tracker.

Invisible Stalker goes really well with Mage Armor BTW, and once you factor in advantage for invisibility it does very similar damage to an Air Elemental against high-AC enemies.

It is also very stealthy (+10), and is Medium instead of Large so can fit anywhere a PC can, so in theory it would be great to use for recon ("scout out this dungeon complex and come back and tell me where all the monsters are"), if the DM rules that it can be used for that and if you have a way to understand its language (Auran).


CR7:
Mymidon Elementals: Up AC, reduce speed, add HP, more attacks with less average damage but magical and a 1/6 recharge special. I don't think I'd use this one on it's own, however since the druid 7th level spells are fairly situational, I could see using these guys if it turned out that whatever 7th level spell I had prepped wasn't going to work.

The best thing about the Myrmidon elementals is that they do magic damage with their attacks so I would use them over Air Elementals against things like Rakshasas, especially via Planar Binding. The Air Elemental Myrmidon stunning attack isn't terrible either, but it is much slower than an Air Elemental. Also they are Medium instead of Large.

It is weird though that the CR 7 Earth Elemental Myrmidon is almost strictly weaker than the CR 5 Earth Elemental. Better AC but similar HP and less to-hit/damage/mobility.

[OverLordOcelot]

Note that you don't get to pick which elemental you get when you cast Conjure Elemental--instead, you "[c]hoose an area of air, earth, fire, or water that fills a 10-foot cube within range [and] an elemental of challenge rating 5 or lower appropriate to the area you chose appears in an unoccupied space within 10 feet of it." So the DM picks for you. That said, nothing stops you from asking the DM how to increase the chances of geting certain kinds of elementals, or from Planar Binding only the elementals of your favored type, so it still makes sense to discuss which types are best.

You pick the element of the elemental by selecting the 10 foot cube you're affecting, and no one I know does 'you get less CR' shenanigans, so you can mostly pick what you want RAW, and in practice I have not encountered a DM who has wanted to mess with that. At Tier 3, DMs are usually too overworked trying to track their own monsters to mess with alternate stuff on the list of elementals, and the elementals don't have anything like the pixie shenanigans, so in practice it's always just 'caster picks'.


Salamander also has a ranged attack, but the big selling point is that it can grapple and restrain enemies, technically with no size limit although a DM could reasonably rule that it doesn't work on Huge or Gargantuan enemies.

I had completely overlooked the restrain ability, that is a really good reason to take one. Unfortunately they are hard to conjure as you need to make a 10x10 bonfire) so the opportunity is rare, but it's definitely worth keeping in mind.

[MaxWilson]

You pick the element of the elemental by selecting the 10 foot cube you're affecting, and no one I know does 'you get less CR' shenanigans, so you can mostly pick what you want RAW, and in practice I have not encountered a DM who has wanted to mess with that. At Tier 3, DMs are usually too overworked trying to track their own monsters to mess with alternate stuff on the list of elementals, and the elementals don't have anything like the pixie shenanigans, so in practice it's always just 'caster picks'.

But that's my point: you can build a bonfire if you want fire-based elementals, but what do you do differently to get Salamanders instead of Fire Elementals? It's fine if your DM handwaves it, or asks for an Arcana check (because your PC could know the answer even if neither player nor DM does), or just always gives you Fire Elementals and never Salamanders. It depends on the table.

But it's still fun to talk about which ones are best.

Thanks for starting the thread BTW. I never noticed before how good Salamanders are. 75% more damage than Fire Elementals, better to-hit, better AC, almost as many HP, and a restraining attack, wow!

[OverLordOcelot]

Thanks for starting the thread BTW. I never noticed before how good Salamanders are. 75% more damage than Fire Elementals, better to-hit, better AC, almost as many HP, and a restraining attack, wow!

It's the restraining attack that really pushes it over the edge IMO - the AC and HP differences basically wash, and the higher attack damage vs set on fire is situational - the fire elemental doesn't need to make a to-hit roll to set anyone on fire and can move through a lot of people, so that can be useful. But automatic grapple/restrain is a really great minion ability that messes with the enemy's ability to fight and makes it really easy for the party to lay on the damage, plus it encourages focus fire. It's too bad Salamander is one of the difficult ones to summon, since you need the 10x10 bonfire. (I have a brazier for conjuring fire elementals so I can use them easily). It's definitely the higher level version of my go-to giant constrictor snake.

[MaxWilson]

It's the restraining attack that really pushes it over the edge IMO - the AC and HP differences basically wash, and the higher attack damage vs set on fire is situational - the fire elemental doesn't need to make a to-hit roll to set anyone on fire and can move through a lot of people, so that can be useful. But automatic grapple/restrain is a really great minion ability that messes with the enemy's ability to fight and makes it really easy for the party to lay on the damage, plus it encourages focus fire. It's too bad Salamander is one of the difficult ones to summon, since you need the 10x10 bonfire. (I have a brazier for conjuring fire elementals so I can use them easily). It's definitely the higher level version of my go-to giant constrictor snake.

Can't you just burn down a building when you need a bonfire? Thomas Raith tells me that's what wizards do.

J/k

BTW as a druid interested in restraining enemies, you should look into Conjure Animals (constrictor snake). Each one is individually as big as a Salamander (Large) and has a restraining attack.

[Chronos]

Heh. One of the Dresden Files books starts with the line "The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."

[OverLordOcelot]

Can't you just burn down a building when you need a bonfire? Thomas Raith tells me that's what wizards do.

If there's a wooden building nearby that's great, but unfortunately there is a lot of stone construction in dungeons.


BTW as a druid interested in restraining enemies, you should look into Conjure Animals (constrictor snake). Each one is individually as big as a Salamander (Large) and has a restraining attack.

Oh, I've used them in the past. Constrictor snakes are neat, but with only 13 HP they usually don't last long in high T2 or T3 where I'm playing now. I usually use giant constrictor snakes or giant octopi for grabbing things, they have enough health that they don't die to casual AOE (they're not super-rugged, but generally require some real attacks to kill off, and making the enemy use real attacks on a spell instead of a PC is a good trade). Conjuring a pack of constrictor snakes, then turning into a giant constrictor snake and having my flying snake familiar help me land my attacks was certainly fun, but it only worked out to do once or twice.

[MaxWilson]

Heh. One of the Dresden Files books starts with the line "The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."

That's the joke. It's why I attributed the factoid to Thomas instead of Harry, who would presumably deny it.

[Merudo]

It's too bad Salamander is one of the difficult ones to summon, since you need the 10x10 bonfire. (I have a brazier for conjuring fire elementals so I can use them easily). It's definitely the higher level version of my go-to giant constrictor snake.

Why does the Salamander take a 10x10 bonfire but not the Fire Elemental?

From the spell description, Conjure Elemental requires the caster to "choose an area of air, earth, fire, or water that fills a 10-foot cube within range".

I see nothing suggesting the Fire Elemental would require less fire than the Salamander.


BTW as a druid interested in restraining enemies, you should look into Conjure Animals (constrictor snake). Each one is individually as big as a Salamander (Large) and has a restraining attack.

For more durable options, summoning 2 Giant Constrictor Snakes (60 HP each) or 4 Giant Octopuses (52 HP each) are also great choices.