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View Full Version : Blind Earth Elemental?



olelia
2008-02-11, 10:02 PM
I just realized after looking at the Earth elemental...It can gilde through rock like a fish...yet it has no tremorsense...how does it know where it's gliding? O.o

Admiral Squish
2008-02-11, 10:11 PM
I have a similar question about riding burrowing animals. How do you know where you're going? How do you even know when you get there?

olelia
2008-02-12, 01:21 PM
105 views and 1 response? Not a very food ratio :smalleek:

Reptilius
2008-02-12, 01:26 PM
105 views and 1 response? Not a very food ratio :smalleek:

Mmmm...food ratio.

But honestly, I don't think it would be much of a stretch to give the earth elemental tremorsense. Don't know what that would do to the CR though.

Newtkeeper
2008-02-12, 01:27 PM
It uses the force?
A wizard did it?


I have two actual guesses:

1) It *is* blind while burrowing. Considering that, on its home plane, it will nearly always be doing so, it's a miracle they haven't died out. Apparently, Natural Selection doesn't apply in fantasy.

2) The Spooky Wizard (Who lives by the coast) goofed gain.


I favor 2).

Tokiko Mima
2008-02-12, 02:41 PM
At deeper levels of the sea, there are plenty of blind creatures that survive just fine swimming or moving pretty much at random. Considering that Elementals do not need to eat, sleep, breathe, reproduce on their own, or do anything that normal biological creatures must there's very little for an elemental to die to, except combat.

I could see it just judging distances and angles for short underground hops, but my guess is they don't know or care where they are going. The smarter ones probably work from memory or knowledge of sediments or rocks found at diferent levels underground.

Newtkeeper
2008-02-12, 02:45 PM
At deeper levels of the sea, there are plenty of blind creatures that survive just fine swimming or moving pretty much at random.


Such as? I can't remember any- bumping into food seems chancy, at best, anyway.


However, your point about elementals not needing to eat is well taken. Perhaps they do not mind being blind, much. Or perhaps they do. Perhaps elementals long to be summoned, so, just once, they can actually see stuff and not bump into rocks. Makes golem binding seem a lot less cruel, when you look at it that way- although it still seems rather cruel.

Uthug
2008-02-13, 07:19 AM
Isn't there something about them being able to move through rock like a fish moves through water? Well a fish knows where its going when it moves through the water so I guess I wouldn't be such a large stretch to take it that the elementals just instinctively know where they're going when earth gliding.

Freelance Henchman
2008-02-13, 07:52 AM
What do they see *With* anyway?

AtomicKitKat
2008-02-13, 08:36 AM
Fish use a lateral line. It's a dense series of nerves running along both sides of the body(if you ever cut the fish open, or just strip off the skin, it's the indentation in the flesh on either side.). It's quite visible in some fishes, not so much in others. They use it as sort of a "pressure gauge", which is how they avoid banging into the glass of a tank. So in a way, all fish do in fact have tremorsense, underwater.

bignate
2008-02-13, 09:29 AM
i submited this question to wizards of the coast customer service and they replied with something very similar to:

"that is not covered in the rules but elementals are magical creatures and can see while earth gliding"

i thought it was really lame. i kinda took that like earth is air for them and they can see through it as such.