|
A Huge Air Elemental guarding a bridge (with a long drop!), in Whirlwind form, has a move of 100'.
If the elemental passes through a square containing a character it can try to pick them up.
How many times can an air elemental do this to a particular creatures.
It doesn't appear that making contact with a creature is any sort of action, so with 200' double move and a lot of dancing around the party it could essentially make 40 attacks (!!!!!)
A Huge elemental could keep part of itself 10' away from the edge of the bridge, where it can happily drop them as a free action, so it basically gets 40 goes at sweeping people up, shaking them about a bit and chucking them over the edge.
That's one TPK coming up unless I'm getting this wrong.
Richard
Page 306 of the bestiary is pretty clear about this.
Air Elemental makes contact with character, character must roll reflex save or take damage. Then make second reflex save or be picked up.
It can carry a minimum of 2 small/medium sized characters (at 10feet high) up to 86 small/medium sized characters at 50feet high) so should be able to pick up an entire party.
This will teach your players that feather fall is a good thing.
As I see it the combat will run like this:
Standard action to transform.
Move action to pick up as many characters as possible (don't forget to burn 5feet of movement every time the whirlwind does a major direction change).
One key note: it can only pick up ONE creature at a time because it's base is only 5feet wide. Thus, in a round it has to move a 5foot section across each character to try to pick them up.
Move off of the bridge, dump.
I would increase the CR of this encounter by 1 or 2 to represent the terrain.
- Gauss
P.S. The DC of the huge elemental's whirlwind is the 21 listed in the stat block, not the 22 listed in the table.
|
|
Second round, double move.
Chances of you not being picked up as the thing dances around you are pretty much zero.
Let's just consider a medium air elemental.
If the party are close together, it will probably need to make one move and one turn to get from one to the other.
Let's assume that this is a normal encounter without a bridge so it's going to drop them straight away and just hit.
With 100' move, it gets 10 goes at hitting the party. That's 10 DC 14 reflex saves or take 1d6 + 3 damage.
Next round, it gets 20 "attacks".
The round later, it has to use a standard action to turn back into a whirlwind, so 10 "attacks" again.
Ok, so the party needs to spread out - fast, or kill it - fast, but this is still extremely powerful for a CR3 encounter.
Richard
Minor point: A medium air elemental cannot use whirlwind on medium creatures.
- Gauss
|
|
I can't see the rule for that.
First, coming into contact and causing damage doesn't appear to have any limitation on size. The limitation is on how many creatures it can carry.
A medium whirlwind is 5' wide at base, 30' high and 15' wide at its top. Assuming the whirlwind is a perfect cone with the tip cut off, my maths gives me a volume of 2553 cu' ft.
If you consider a medium creature to fit a 5' cube, then this allows the whirlwind to carry 20 of them.
Richard
Creatures one or more size categories smaller than the whirlwind might take damage when caught in the whirlwind (generally damage equal to the monster’s slam attack for a creature of its size) and may be lifted into the air.
- Gauss
NP, its easy to miss.
- Gauss
d20pfsrd is not always accurate and it is not official.
Extremely rarely the PRD isnt accurate either (the light spell was the most recent example of this).
- Gauss
Edit: I compared the language between the d20pfsrd and the PRD and they are not even close. The d20pfsrd is great as a search engine but I always go to the latest PDF books or the PRD as the definitive answer.
|
|
Fair enough.
The bit that's a bit hazy in my mind is "come into contact".
This phrase is outside the rules system, so I'm not sure how often in one round you come into contact with the whirlwind.
It seems to me to go against logic to say that you are safer standing in the thing than moving in and out of it.
What do you think?
Richard
P.S. I'm going to ask a more general question on the forum to see if I can get to the bottom of this
P.P.S. A similar problem happens with trample - a dinosaur can move backwards and forwards over you up to double its movement rate and end up trampling you 6 times!
Contact is it runs over you. However, a case could be made that you making a melee attack also counts as contact. Personally, I would count it just as it running over you else that is another step up in power for it.
Trample had the same issue as whirlwind does but they fixed it by adding the following language:
A trampling creature can only deal trampling damage to each target once per round, no matter how many times its movement takes it over a target creature.
- Gauss
Hopefully it isn't [Evil] for me to cast "Animate Thread", but we had a similar question come up in last night's game. The Druid had wildshaped into a large air elemental, turned into whirlwind form and later attempted to keep moving on and off a monster until it failed its Reflex save. Considering that the Druid had Haste on for a fly speed of 130 it seems that would allow him up to 52 attempts per round (with a double move) to damage a particular foe, less however many squares were moved to reach the foe in the first place.
Here are some questions which came up:
#1 - If the whirlwind moves over the same creature multiple times in a move action does it force multiple Reflex saves? If not would moving over the creature again with a separate move action force a second save?
#2 - Can a Druid with Natural Spell cast while in whirlwind form? If so does he draw an AoO for casting? The Whirlwind rules say "The whirlwind form does not provoke attacks of opportunity, even if the creature enters the space another creature occupies". I suspect that just applies to AoOs for movement, but I'm not sure if that's a "RAW" based argument or just my opinion.
#3 - Can creatures trapped in the whirlwind attack the elemental? (Presumably the answer should be "yes" since the rules say that the creature can act normally)
#4 - Can creatures trapped in the whirlwind make AoOs? Do they threaten an area? If so is their threatened area based off of their size or the whirlwind's size? (would a monster with 5 foot reach threaten everything within 5 feet of the whirlwind or just everything within 5 feet of the monster?)
#5 - Would attacks against creatures trapped in the whirlwind potentially hurt the elemental since the creatures are "inside" it? Consider spells like Magic Missile and Scorching Ray, for instance.
#6 - If a creature deposited in the whirlwind's space as a free action it will be touching/inside the whirlwind. Would this force the creature to make another Reflex save? Can this be repeated infinitely until the creature makes the save? (and then move away 5 feet and come back to force a new save)
#7 - Would Freedom of Movement prevent you from being picked up by a whirlwind? If not would it at least let you leave the whirlwind on your next turn? Would you only be able to leave if you can fly?
I think that allowing air elementals to force dozens of saving throws per round against a particular target would make them overpowered as monsters, so I'm inclined to rule against it for games I run regardless of what the RAW is. I'm not the DM of the game in question though, and the group seemed about evenly split in opinion.
The whirlwind is always 5 feet wide at its base, but its height and width at the top vary from creature to creature (minimum 10 feet high). A whirlwind's width at its peak is always equal to half of its height. The creature controls the exact height, but it must be at least 10 feet high.
The whirlwind form does not provoke attacks of opportunity, even if the creature enters the space another creature occupies. Another creature might be caught in the whirlwind if it touches or enters the whirlwind, or if the whirlwind moves into or through a creature's space. A creature in whirlwind form cannot make its normal attacks and does not threaten the area around it.
Creatures one or more size categories smaller than the whirlwind might take damage when caught in the whirlwind (generally damage equal to the monster's slam attack for a creature of its size) and may be lifted into the air. An affected creature must succeed on a Reflex save (DC 10 + half monster's HD + the monster's Strength modifier) when it comes into contact with the whirlwind or take damage as if it were hit by the whirlwind creature's slam attack. It must also succeed on a second Reflex save or be picked up bodily and held suspended in the powerful winds, automatically taking the indicated damage each round. A creature that can fly is allowed a Reflex save each round to escape the whirlwind. The creature still takes damage but can leave if the save is successful.
Creatures trapped in the whirlwind cannot move except to go where the whirlwind carries them or to escape the whirlwind. Trapped creatures can otherwise act normally, but must succeed on a concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) to cast a spell. Creatures caught in the whirlwind take a –4 penalty to Dexterity and a –2 penalty on attack rolls. The whirlwind can have only as many creatures trapped inside at one time as will fit inside the whirlwind's volume. The whirlwind can eject any carried creatures whenever it wishes as a free action, depositing them in its space.
If the whirlwind's base touches the ground, it creates a swirling cloud of debris. This cloud is centered on the creature and has a diameter equal to half the whirlwind's height. The cloud obscures all vision, including darkvision, beyond 5 feet. Creatures 5 feet away have concealment, while those farther away have total concealment. Those caught in the cloud of debris must succeed on a concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) to cast a spell.
Format: whirlwind (3/day, 10–30 ft. high, 1d6+6 damage, DC 15); Location: Special Attacks.
|
The policy of d20pfsrd.com has always been that newer supersedes older, i.e. if an ability is present in Bestiary 1, and then rewritten in Bestiary 2, we use only the wording present in Bestiary 2. The logic being that the newer wording represents clarifications and potential errata. That is why the text of d20pfsrd.com's Whirlwind universal monster ability omits the text "Creatures one or more size categories smaller than the whirlwind..." because it was present in paragraph 4 of the whirlwind ability description in Bestiary 1, but then not there in B2, or B3. Our text matches Bestiary 3 exactly.
The errata released for Bestiary 1 does not mention whirlwind (nor should it, since B1 already includes the text in question.)
The errata released for Bestiary 2 does not indicate any updates to the whirlwind ability.
There is no errata released for Bestiary 3.
Previously the PRD included each Universal Monster Rules section from each Bestiary product as separate pages. This is kind of what lead (I think) to there being discrepancies like this. There were many different examples of an ability being listed in B1 one way but then worded differently in the entry for B2, and then yet again in B3. This probably lead some (like us) to say "which do I use?" and in our case we always went with "newest wins."
As Paizo has now "merged" the various UMR entries down to one master list (YAY!) they clearly had to make similar decisions because there were many differences. However, I can see that at least in this case, they did not go with "newest" wins. They seem to have carefully examined the wording and chosen the B1 wording to keep. I'm actually just assuming that they compared and chose B1 and didn't just go with B1 by default though. It might be a worthwhile endeavor to compare other UMR abilities to see if in all cases they kept the B1 info, or in some cases rewrote some entirely to include bits and pieces of several variations.
So at this point I am unable to find an "evidence trail" showing when the PRD was changed but I can only assume it was during the merging of the multiple entries.
We'll start an exhaustive comparison between our UMR entries and what is NOW in the PRD (post-merging of the separate pages) and make sure we match the PRD (since there doesn't seem any sense in matching the newest print resource any longer...)
Once again though, I BEG people to try to alert us to inconsistencies like this. We're not the BORG... we aren't a hive mind and inherently know when you guys notice things like this... If you don't know how to contact us you can do so via our Facebook group (Fans of d20pfsrd.com) or the Facebook PAGE "d20pfsrd.com" or you can PM me here (I'm on here all the time...) or you can email ME personally (jreyst@gmail.com) or you can post a note in the "Compatible Products from Other Publishers" calling us out in the subject line. One of us is bound to notice it.
|
|
@Marc: The problem though comes when the source material (the PRD) doesn't match the errata released and no official announcement is released indicating that wording has been changed. How are we to know about that?
If an announcement or update document or post was released indicating that the wording of abilities was changed I certainly missed it and would greatly appreciate someone pointing me in its direction.
So, for those using the books, how are they to know that what they're using is not correct now? That is, if I am using Bestiary 2 or 3, the rules specifically omit information only available in Bestiary 1. Am I now required to access the PRD for the ACTUAL correct rules?
|
|
Oh, on a related note, I've compared the text we have for Universal Monster rules to the PRD and confirmed that what we have now matches the PRD (minus the misspellings[1] and omissions[2] in the PRD that is.)
[1]Vulnerabilities is misspelled in the PRD.
[2]Burrow and Climb are missing from the PRD.
Most of the games I play in are limited to "PRD Only" or "Core+APG only", but d20pfsrd.com is definitely a great site for looking up prestige classes and archetypes from extended sources. I also really like the expanded lists of monsters by CR and terrain. I even find myself using it to look up information from books I own physical or PDF copies of such as Animal Archive since the html format is just easier to use. That said, the question about the relative size of creatures which can be picked up by the whirlwind was the least of my worries.
Malag - If attempting to damage creatures with the whirlwind requires a standard action it certainly isn't mentioned anywhere in the rules. I'd expect that the whirlwind can move around and attempt to damage multiple creatures during a move action, kind of like a creature which is trampling. The "problem" comes when the elemental decides to keep moving over the same creature repeatedly since the whirlwind ability doesn't have text prohibiting this like the trample ability does.