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Lol i never said i would hit one with a sword Zurai. In all seriousness i havent got a monster manual in front of me at this moment so i can't say if they have damage or magic resistance etc. If they do then they might require magical weapons to be fully effective with damage but i'm not gonna argue my point from guesswork. Obviously on incorporeal creatures a normal sword is not much good but a sword with ghost touch on it is another thing alltogether. I'm not saying elementals are incorporeal by the way i'm just using that subtype as an example. I'll take a look at the stat block when i get home and get back to you.
By the way Asgetrion i think those are very wise words. Every G.M. should be able to make a reasonable ruling for his group and be consistant while at the same time his players should respect his decision. This is what happens in my group thankfully.
The standard four elementals don't get DR until Large size, and when they do it's DR/-. They have no other special defenses against melee attacks aside from the crit/sneak attack immunity for having no vitals.
Which indicates that they're no harder to damage with melee attacks than an orc or goblin is, at least to start with. Which indicates that they do, indeed, have a solid form you can interact with.
The standard four elementals don't get DR until Large size, and when they do it's DR/-. They have no other special defenses against melee attacks aside from the crit/sneak attack immunity for having no vitals.
Which indicates that they're no harder to damage with melee attacks than an orc or goblin is, at least to start with. Which indicates that they do, indeed, have a solid form you can interact with.
The fact that elementals can hit you back and deal damage (without an ability similar to a ghost's corrupting touch) should indicate that they have a physical body "tangible" enough to be grappled, entangled of whatever.
What isn't mentioned though is how "morphic" their tangible bodies are. The conceptualization that most of us have of an elemental suggest that their morphology is very fluid, which would imply that they could "squeeze" out of a grapple with ease, but I have to agree with Zurai here that nowhere in the creature's description any of that is even suggested.
Elementals are not listed as being able to change their shape, squeeze trough smaller openings than their size etc. while other creatures, types or subtype explicitly states so. Even the Earth Glide ability describes that the elemental can glide "as easily as a fish swims through water", implying that the earth is fluid but not the elemental's shape.
But I'm sure that even Zurai will admit that the rules as written do not cover all situations. It is part of a good DM's job to adjudicate rulings without halting the game for 3 hours.
So here's another questions for you guys: Should a water elemental be grappled, would the grappler be wet?
'findel
Note also that the Paizo Water Elemental (which can be seen in the second Pathfinder Bestiary preview) lost the "cannot travel more than 180 feet from the body of water from which it was conjured" clause. Now they're simply creatures made of solidified water.
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Ah, don't forget that the fact that an elemental can do physical damage does not mean it's in a solid state continually. I hate to keep using an analogy to Marvel villains like Sandman and Hydroman but their creation are based off the elemental idea. They can make themselves solid to hurt opponents or insubstantial at will to recieve hits. I'm not saying this idea should be written in stone (excuse the pun) but it's something to bear in mind. I'm not arguing with the fact that it doesn't state you cannot grapple an elemental in the stat blocks but i'm having a hard time visualizing how you grapple a living flame or living water etc. The only solid form of water i can think of is ice and it doesn't state that it is ice in the description either does it?
As Asgetrion has already stated i think this may have to be a judgement call of the G.M. if this situation arises. If you and your group are happy with the decision made at your table then fine. Thats all that matters.
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In my opinion if you try to grapple a water elemental you would get very wet. Same as if you try to grapple a fire elemental you would get very burned. This is my problem with this idea. If you take away the properties of the thing they are constructed from then they are no longer true to what they are supposed to be composed of. Maybe when the stat blocks for these creatures were done it never crossed the designers minds that somebody would try to grapple one. I know my players would not attempt it lol. Saying that as a designer it's hard to think of every situation that can occur with a certain creature etc. Thats where i think good judgement comes in. Just my opinion.
Ah, don't forget that the fact that an elemental can do physical damage does not mean it's in a solid state continually. I hate to keep using an analogy to Marvel villains like Sandman and Hydroman but their creation are based off the elemental idea. They can make themselves solid to hurt opponents or insubstantial at will to recieve hits. I'm not saying this idea should be written in stone (excuse the pun) but it's something to bear in mind. I'm not arguing with the fact that it doesn't state you cannot grapple an elemental in the stat blocks but i'm having a hard time visualizing how you grapple a living flame or living water etc. The only solid form of water i can think of is ice and it doesn't state that it is ice in the description either does it?
As Asgetrion has already stated i think this may have to be a judgement call of the G.M. if this situation arises. If you and your group are happy with the decision made at your table then fine. Thats all that matters.
But sandman doesn't become "unsubstantial", he becomes highly morphic and highly fluid. Only, he can affect those states at will, that's where its real power stands. As I recall the movie, that's how sandman got defeated; by preventing him from becoming "un-fluid" again... for ever. No amount of damage could do him anything, that was his main strength and ironically, its main weakness. Same goes for the movie Terminator II and the "quicksilver elemental".
Yet, there are no hint of any of that in the elemental's description, not even in the fluff. While a DM may rule it otherwise, Zurai's point still stand: if you do, you give the creature additional powers that were not intended to be considering the creature's power (which include access to the creature via summoning spells and of course, its CR). While there are nothing "wrong" with that, one has to be conscious of those shifts in power and cautious not to create imbalance.
I wouldn't want to be the player of a game where the DM tells me that the small water elemental enters my lungs with the intention of drowning me and I can't grapple it back because the elemental is too fluid to be grappled...
Ah, don't forget that the fact that an elemental can do physical damage does not mean it's in a solid state continually. I hate to keep using an analogy to Marvel villains like Sandman and Hydroman but their creation are based off the elemental idea. They can make themselves solid to hurt opponents or insubstantial at will to recieve hits. I'm not saying this idea should be written in stone (excuse the pun) but it's something to bear in mind. I'm not arguing with the fact that it doesn't state you cannot grapple an elemental in the stat blocks but i'm having a hard time visualizing how you grapple a living flame or living water etc. The only solid form of water i can think of is ice and it doesn't state that it is ice in the description either does it?
As Asgetrion has already stated i think this may have to be a judgement call of the G.M. if this situation arises. If you and your group are happy with the decision made at your table then fine. Thats all that matters.
They are colloids! Well sort of...
A colloid is a type of chemical mixture in which one substance is dispersed evenly throughout another.[1] The particles of the dispersed substance are only suspended in the mixture, unlike in a solution, in which they are completely dissolved. This occurs because the particles in a colloid are larger than in a solution - small enough to be dispersed evenly and maintain a homogeneous appearance, but large enough to scatter light and not dissolve. Because of this dispersal, some colloids have the appearance of solutions. A colloidal system consists of two separate phases: a dispersed phase (or internal phase) and a continuous phase (or dispersion medium). A colloidal system may be solid, liquid, or gaseous.The breakdown occurs with the air elemental as gases are all miscible. The Sandman/Hydroman anology works for me and that is how I rule it in my game.
Back to the OP, IMO no.
Does it make sense to grapple the air,water, or a fire? Of course not, but nothing in their description says they are immune to it. What makes sense and what makes sense balance wise are two different things. Monkey Grip, and Powerful Build come to mind. Keen(magical ability, and Improved Critical(fighter's ability) should stack, but for game balance reasons they don't. If I throw a fireball at you and you have cloth on it there should be smoke coming from it at the least so that even if you are invisible I know what square you are in. The problem with that is that fireball would then become an AoE with a limited dispel invisibility spell.
After reading it, there is technically no mention of not being able to try to grapple them but they do have good escape artist and CMDs. However some things to consider...
From subtype:
An elemental is composed entirely from one of the four classical elements air, earth, fire or water.
"looks like a living mobile bonfire, tongues of flame reaching out in search of things to burn"
"This translucent creatures shape SHIFTS between spinning columns of water and a crashing wave. The elementals touch is a Ex ability drench.
1) Fire elemental is composed of fire, you can attempt to grapple it fine, but your going to burn and probably catch fire.
2) You may drown grappling the water elemental and soak all your equipment and scrolls.
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As i promised Zurai i said i would not debate the ins and out of what an elementals description was without a copy of my monster manual in front of me. I now do and this is what i discovered.
Zurai on your post on Wednesday at 10.25 you stated that 'Air Elementals are not clouds'. Let me just quote directly from my Monster Manual. 'An air elemental appears as an amorphous, shifting cloud. Darker bits of swirling vapor give the appearance of two eyes and a mouth.'
On the subject of fire elementals here is another direct quote. 'Fire elementals are fast and agile. The merest touch from their fiery bodies is sufficient to set many materials aflame.'
As for water elementals, 'The (water) elementals touch puts out torches, campfires, exposed lanterns and other flames of non magical origin if these are large size or smaller.'
I'm sure you can see from these quotes where my doubt about grappling such creatures come from. Like i say if you want to rule in your game that it is ok to do this then thats your call but i would not allow it in my game.
Now i don't know if the wording has been changed in reprints or Paizo's Bestiary as i don't have it yet but thats what it says in my copy and is my only reference. Hope this helps explain my point of view.
Can a swarm gain the entangled condition? Specifically, can it be entangled per the entangle spell? It can't be grappled, so it wouldn't seem to make sense that it could be stopped with an entangle spell. (We all know what happens when you start trying to figure these things out with common sense!)
Secondly, with the engtangle spell does the swarm treat the ground as rough terrain? Thousands of creatures, er, swarming, all over the place, do they care about wiggly weeds? (I would still argue yes)
Basically, if the condition is due to an area effect it affects swarms, if it is not then the swarm will not be affected.
For entagle I would let the size of the creatures of the swarm be a factor. Anything smaller than tiny should be unaffected by an entagle spell. The terrain effect is dependant upon the creatures movement type and size.
For questions like these you have to use commen sense. You cannot expect it to be written as the spell description would be two pages long in order to account for all circumstances.