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BRC
2008-06-05, 02:43 PM
The Holy Sword and Arcane Lock threads inspiried me To ask this. Would you allow a cleric to summon up a water elemental with Summon Monster, then cast Bless Water on it so that it would deal extra damage to undead with slam and grapple attacks?

kc0bbq
2008-06-05, 02:45 PM
The Holy Sword and Arcane Lock threads inspiried me To ask this. Would you allow a cleric to summon up a water elemental with Summon Monster, then cast Bless Water on it so that it would deal extra damage to undead with slam and grapple attacks?Depends on the nature of the elemental and casting it enough to bless the whole thing. At 1 minute and 25g per pint of elemental that's pretty limiting.

AKA_Bait
2008-06-05, 02:46 PM
Me? No. Although a water elemental is composed of water, it is actually a monster. To me that's the same as asking if I can bless the water content of a vampire. He just drank some blood right? So continuing damage!

Rutee
2008-06-05, 02:48 PM
Sure. Blessing it is taking a second action, and I don't think the buff there should be too overpowered.. it'd be like +1d6, right?

tyckspoon
2008-06-05, 02:50 PM
Yes, 'cause it's interesting, but it has several practical problems. There's the casting time of Bless Water as compared to Summon spells- one minute (ten rounds) to Bless compared to the round/level duration of Summon Monster/Nature's Ally. And there's the very limited effect of Bless Water; you only get one pint of holy water (that's ignoring that the target line says 'flask of water', so by literal reading you cannot bless water loose or in any other kind of container.) The blessed portion of the water elemental is going to become very, very diluted. At most I'd say it'd be worth 1 extra point of damage.

RTGoodman
2008-06-05, 02:54 PM
Of course, the target line is "Flask of water touched," and there's that Water Devotion (I think) feat in Complete Champion that lets you dump out the contents of your flask to summon a water elemental. That might work, depending on the wording of the feat.

AKA_Bait
2008-06-05, 03:13 PM
Of course, the target line is "Flask of water touched," and there's that Water Devotion (I think) feat in Complete Champion that lets you dump out the contents of your flask to summon a water elemental. That might work, depending on the wording of the feat.

This is true. If the water in the flask actually becomes the elemental, I'd say it would work.

BRC
2008-06-05, 03:14 PM
Me? No. Although a water elemental is composed of water, it is actually a monster. To me that's the same as asking if I can bless the water content of a vampire. He just drank some blood right? So continuing damage!

Well, you can extract a water elemental out of somebody (It's in spell compendium) So I don't see why you couldnt' bless the water in somebodies body.

Hmm, I just had an idea, You get abunch of silver and bless your partie's blood, which has water in it. Then when vampires try to drink your blood...
Heck, if any undead used a claw attack on you and dealt damage...

kc0bbq
2008-06-05, 03:16 PM
Well, you can extract a water elemental out of somebody (It's in spell compendium) So I don't see why you couldnt' bless the water in somebodies body.

Hmm, I just had an idea, You get abunch of silver and bless your partie's blood, which has water in it. Then when vampires try to drink your blood...
Heck, if any undead used a claw attack on you and dealt damage...How are you going to get the silver into the water in the blood? Forge it into a knife and stabbity them?

RTGoodman
2008-06-05, 03:18 PM
This is true. If the water in the flask actually becomes the elemental, I'd say it would work.

Well, the exact wording of the feat is as follows.


Water Devotion [Domain]
Benefit: Once per day as a standard action, you can pour the contents of a full waterskin on the ground and summon forth a water elemental on that spot.

It doesn't say that the water actually forms into the elemental, so it's iffy. I guess you could interpret it that way, though. I'm also not sure about the comparison between a waterskin and a flask, but I think it's a technicality.

TheStagesmith
2008-06-05, 03:52 PM
Hmmm... I would allow this, but nothing else (like the blood munchkin tricks some people have come up with). Lessee... justification for said prohibitions... um..

You could always just Rule 0 it. If you like having reasons for everything, there's always...
by definition a water elemental is pure water. I'd say that water in its (relatively) pure state would have to be the target of the spell, rather than water as a component of another material (such as blood). I mean, for crying out loud, there's gaseous water all around us. Would you let a cleric bless that?


Come to think of it [TANGENT]:
Doing a little science/math, one casting of Bless Water on water vapor (assuming your DM doesn't immediately drop rocks on you for such an act) will net you

THE SCIENCE
1 pint of water (liquid) weights approximately 1 pound. That, in turn, is equal to about 453.5 grams. Water's molecular mass is 18.00 grams per mole. Doing division, we end up with 25.19 moles of water. We'll make it simple and go with 1 bar and 0 degrees C (at which water would be in a transition state anyway, but meh). Let's see... 25.19 moles multiplied by 22.40 liters per mole... 564.3 liters. Dang. That's at 0 degrees C. At a more normal temperature, it's going to be even more. And it's probably dispersed quite a bit, too. So for 25 gp you can basically walk into a banquet hall, cast Bless Water, and any undead/nasty extraplanar baddies start writhing. Of course, any competent DM would never allow this... would they?

Illiterate Scribe
2008-06-05, 04:11 PM
1 pint of water (liquid) weights approximately 1 pound. That, in turn, is equal to about 453.5 grams. Water's molecular mass is 18.00 grams per mole. Doing division, we end up with 25.19 moles of water. We'll make it simple and go with 1 bar and 0 degrees C (at which water would be in a transition state anyway, but meh). Let's see... 25.19 moles multiplied by 22.40 liters per mole... 564.3 liters. Dang. That's at 0 degrees C. At a more normal temperature, it's going to be even more. And it's probably dispersed quite a bit, too. So for 25 gp you can basically walk into a banquet hall, cast Bless Water, and any undead/nasty extraplanar baddies start writhing. Of course, any competent DM would never allow this... would they?

Well, SilverClawShift's DM, who is accredited on these boards as BEST DM EVAR, who run the BEST CAMPAIGN EVAR, allowed the archivist to do pretty much that by casting bless water directly up into a gigantic storm, and then using it as a dispersal system to drive off the zombies. That said, he had drama on his side (having clambered up to the top of a church spire, hanging on, and getting struck by lightning a couple of times), but it's still a nice idea.

Kantolin
2008-06-05, 04:39 PM
Would I allow this? Absolutely. With such creativity, I'd even bend the casting time rules to make this slide, as this is a very creative use of a spell and mechanically isn't terribly overpowered or anything.

Is this RAW? That I'm much more hesitant about. But other people have covered that, heh.

Chronicled
2008-06-05, 05:03 PM
Well, SilverClawShift's DM, who is accredited on these boards as BEST DM EVAR, who run the BEST CAMPAIGN EVAR, allowed the archivist to do pretty much that by casting bless water directly up into a gigantic storm, and then using it as a dispersal system to drive off the zombies. That said, he had drama on his side (having clambered up to the top of a church spire, hanging on, and getting struck by lightning a couple of times), but it's still a nice idea.

You forgot to mention that the archivist gave up all of their remaining spells for the day to pull this off.

And yes, BEST DM EVAR.

BRC
2008-06-05, 05:08 PM
Maybe make it a second spell "Summon Holy Water Elemental" which is cast as one spell level higher than whichever Summon Monster would summon a water elemental of that size..hmm...

TheEmerged
2008-06-05, 05:13 PM
Speaking broadly, I'd allow something like this once, as a trick solution to a problem. After that there would be something to balance it.

Illiterate Scribe
2008-06-05, 05:17 PM
You forgot to mention that the archivist gave up all of their remaining spells for the day to pull this off.

And yes, BEST DM EVAR.

Severely injuring the rogue, too, but we'll brush that under the carpet.

Starshade
2008-06-05, 05:45 PM
Would not this cause precedence for other funny elementals too, if allowed? as, elementals of flameable booze? Flaming water elemental anyone? make a booze based water elemental, and putting one to fire, and let it rave about surrounded by a corona of blue flames. :smallbiggrin:

Lets imagine other funny attempts: if some everlasting fire in a temple to some obscure god exist, lets say its a deeply evil temple, would IT affect that fire elemental? would it get a infernal template on it?

would a Beer elemental taste good? (good way to send pitchers around, if a bit mad, let a poor elemental go around inside the tavern, scoop beer from the barrels, then all the patrons simply scoop the beer from it, etc.
And not to forget: wasnt it some sort of Soda pop elemental in a old, old Ravenloft adventure? :smallbiggrin:

Ionizer
2008-06-05, 07:11 PM
Would the water elemental still be neutral? Or would it alignment change to neutral good?