Can you use polymorph any object on a small elemental to make it into a huge elemental?

[Rogar Stonebow]

It seems to me that it would indeed be possible. As its the same kingdom, the same class, and they are related. Combined duration factor for the above would yield +9 which would result in a permanent duration.

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Rogar Stonebow wrote:

It seems to me that it would indeed be possible. As its the same kingdom, the same class, and they are related. Combined duration factor for the above would yield +9 which would result in a permanent duration.

Agreed.

[Pizza Lord]

I think with polymorph any object you could transform a small fire elemental into a larger fire elemental. However, there might be some things to note:
PAO functions like greater polymorph except you can change one object or creature into another and you aren't limited to changing a living creature into another living creature. Greater polymorph functions as elemental body III when used to polymorph a creature into an elemental. Elemental Body III allows transformation into an elemental of up to large size. That would be the biggest obstacle.

For the sake of argument (or possibly there's an exception for PAO) let's assume that it somehow functions as an elemental body IV effect, which does allow huge elementals.
First, the small creature would get a +8 Strength (going from 10 to 18), -4 Dexterity (going from 13 to 9) and +4 Constitution (going from 10 to 14). He has 2 hit dice (normally 11 hit points) and if you allow the Con increase to affect his hp (which I think it does in Pathfinder) he would have 4 more hit points, bringing him to 15 hp.

He would gain darkvision 60, cold vulnerability, and burn (which changes nothing, though Burn will function at his new size's rating). He also gets resist fire 20, which would be a notable change, but I believe he still keeps his original creature type and subtype's fire immunity.

Then, because of the spell effect of elemental body IV (I still think POA is limited to elemental body III in scope, but going with the ebIV premise for huge size), he would gain +8 Dex (going to 17), +4 Con (going to 18 and gaining four more hp per HD, or a total of 19 hit points), and a DR 5/- (same as a huge elemental). Also, he would receive a +4 natural armor bonus. I believe per the spell, he would lose his normal small size elemental natural armor bonus of +3 and would just have the +4. A normal huge fire elemental has a +5 natural armor bonus. Not a huge difference, just noting it.

The differences between your Small Fire Elemental that look like a Huge Fire Elemental and an actual Huge Fire Elemental would be:
18 hp instead of 85 hp.
STR 18 (equal)
DEX 17 instead of 25
CON 18 instead of 16 (higher)
2 melee slams that do the damage of a huge elemental, but with a +3 to hit instead of a +15 like a real huge fire elemental (BAB 2 + 3 Dex (Weapon Finesse) - 2 huge size). Worse to hit than a normal small fire elemental, since he's losing the +1 to hit for small size.
Burn will do 2d6 fire damage (just like a huge elemental) but the Reflex save will be 15 (10 + 1 half racial HD + 4 Con mod) instead of 18.
He also wouldn't have all the huge elemental feats.
So while he'll look impressive (with a +10 Disguise bonus to seem like a Huge Fire Elemental) he'll probably be much, much weaker.

I only did fire elementals, this may or may not work out better or worse for other small elemental creatures getting huge (may be better for an earth elemental). Take it for what it's worth and if my math is off a little try not to invalidate the helpfulness of the reply as a whole.

[Pizza Lord]

Just for fun, I thought I'd see if there was a different angle:
Let's just say you wanted to turn a stone into a Large Earth Elemental (we will go with the assumption polymorph any object is otherwise as greater polymorph when turning something into a creature, in this case since it's turning it into an elemental, greater polymorph functions as elemental body III which allows up to a large size elemental.

Stone is not the same kingdom (they may both be made of mineral, but I think that they are more like the difference between a creature and an object).
I would probably allow the same class (stone or earth) +2.
Not the same size.
Are they related? I don't think stones come from earth elementals nor do I think elementals necessarily come from stones. I am going to err on the negative and just say no.
Not the same or less intelligence (stone has none, earth elemental has 4)
You don't need to agree with me completely for this, I am just going with a 2, which is about an hour of having an earth elemental.

Since the stone has no stats, it will get 5 in its Int, Wis, and Cha. A normal large earth elemental is 4, 11, 11. So it's smarter slightly, but much less observant and aware.
It's physical stats will be 10s. Then we will adjust these for becoming large size. Str becomes 14. Dex 8, and Con 12. Now a stone or rock doesn't usually have HD, so unlike a creature polymorphed into another creature (which keeps its hit points and HD as far as I know) there may be a loophole here that the stone gets the target creature type's HD (I am not 100% on that, but the other choice would either be 0 or 1), so I will go with a large earth elemental's normal HD of 8d10. This gives the newly made elemental 52 hitpoints (44 hitpoints base + 1 Con mod per HD).

Then, elemental body III specifies that changing into an earth elemental grants a +6 Str (raising it to 20), -2 Dex (lowering it 6), +2 Con (raising it to 14 and granting 8 more hit points for a total of 60 (pretty close to a real elemental). Then it would also receive a +6 natural armor bonus, lower than a real earth elemental's +10 natural armor.
So you'd have a pretty close approximation of an earth elemental, for about an hour or so (possibly much longer if you differ from me on kingdom or some such interactions on the duration chart), which might be all you need. How you control or get it to do what you want is another story, but it would be much tougher HD wise and BAB wise than turning a weaker creature into a bigger version of itself. At least, assuming that HD and such remain the same. If I am wrong on that that's embarrassing, but this was a fun experiment regardless.

[Rogar Stonebow]

Pizza Lord

Well done on the extrapolation of the possible outcomes. I forgot that you would only get elemental body 3. I thought it was 4.

The idea is to give the small elemental an opportunity of being a bigger elemental in exchange for later service of a year and a day as part of a magical item. And that service is complete, they will then get the opportunity to go back to live as a larger elemental.