Stonelord's Earth Elemental


Rules Questions


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

Does the earth elemental that the stonelord gets instead of a normal mount count as an animal companion and use that progression or does it just uses the stats of the base elemental? I ask because while it replaces divine bond, it doesn't specifically say that the elemental is a companion.

Stone Servant (Su):

At 5th level, a stonelord may call a Small earth elemental to her side, as a paladin calls her mount. This earth elemental is Lawful Good in alignment and possesses the celestial template, and it increases in size as the stonelord gains levels, becoming Medium at 8th level, Large at 11th level, Huge at 14th level, Greater at 17th level, and Elder at 20th level.

This ability replaces divine bond.

Scarab Sages

You use the base stats for the different sizes of elemental. Otherwise, and Elemental Companion entry would be listed, likely formatted similarly to other Animal/Plant companion entries.


Another indication to use the base stats are that while Small, Medium, Large and Huge are both creature sizes and elemental types, Greater and Elder are creature types only. So, you just open up your handy Bestiary and pull the stats as written (plus the alignment and template changes).


As there already have been some threads on this topic I rather necro one than make another one.

In my opinion the elemental with no added HD for being a companion is much too weak.
Just to compare them I tried to stat out a level 5 Horde animal companion to compare it to the stone servant.

Horse companion:
Horse Animal companion
Level 5

Large Animale (Horse)
Ini +2 Senses: Lowlight-vision, scent, perception: +4

defence:
AC:17, touch 11, flat-footed 15 (+2 Dex, –1 size, +6 natural)
hp 42 (5d8+20)
Fort +8, Ref +6, Will +2

OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee bite +7 (1d4+4), 2 hooves +2 (1d6+2)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

STATISTICS
Str 19, Dex 14, Con 18, Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 6
Base Atk +3; CMB +7; CMD 19 (23 vs. trip)
Feats chose 2
Skills Perception +4,chose 4
SQ combat trained, link, share spells, evasion

Stone servant:
Celestial Small Earth Elemental
LE Small outsider (earth, elemental, extraplanar)
Init –1; Senses darkvision 60 ft., tremorsense 60 ft.; Perception +4

DEFENSE
AC 17, touch 10, flat-footed 17 (–1 Dex, +7 natural, +1 size)
hp 13 (2d10+2)
Fort +4, Ref –1, Will +3
Immune elemental traits
Resistances: Acid 5, Electricity 5, Cold 5
Spell resistance 6

OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., burrow 20 ft., earth glide
Melee slam +6 (1d6+4)
Special Attacks earth mastery

STATISTICS
Str 16, Dex 8, Con 13, Int 4, Wis 11, Cha 11
Base Atk +2; CMB +4; CMD 13
Feats Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack
Skills Appraise +1, Climb +7, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +1, Knowledge (planes) +1, Perception +4, Stealth +7
Languages Terran
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Earth Glide (Ex)
Earth Mastery (Ex)
Smite evil 1/day

-Both have the same AC, but the horse can wear barding.
-The horse has more than tripple the hp (Would be a little less if the stat increase hadn't been constitution)
-The horse has a much higher CMB and CMD
-The horse has three attacks, the elemental only 1 (with a little more damage and smite but still only 1)
-The horse can act as a mount
-The horse can still choose 2 Feats and allocate 4 skill points
-The Elemental has burrow, earthglide and tremorsense compared to the horse's scent and evasion
-The Elemental can talk compared to the link ability of the horse

For me that looks like 6 points for the mount and perhaps if you're nice 2 for the stone servant.

All in all I will most likely only use my stone servant like a familiar.
It follows me around, hides during combat and tells me if it sees something with it's tremorsense.


For me the fact that the stone servant becomes larger with his master's level is no real argument against using the AC rules because the normal paladin mount gets other bonuses on top of being an AC, too.

Quote:

At 11th level, the mount gains the celestial creature advanced simple template and becomes a magical beast for the purposes of determining which spells affect it.

At 15th level, a paladin's mount gains spell resistance equal to the paladin's level + 11.


compare a 20th level mount to a celestial elder earth elemental. i think that might answer your question of why it starts out so weak.

also there is nothing stopping an elemental from wearing armor.

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Also, spell resistance is a sucky "benefit" since the mount has to spend a standard action to lower it if it wants to obtain any buffs or healing from the paladin or his allies. And I'm not even sure if it can do that by RAW, since there's not exactly a trick in the Handle Animal skill for "Lower your innate spell resistance".


Ssalarn wrote:
Also, spell resistance is a sucky "benefit" since the mount has to spend a standard action to lower it if it wants to obtain any buffs or healing from the paladin or his allies. And I'm not even sure if it can do that by RAW, since there's not exactly a trick in the Handle Animal skill for "Lower your innate spell resistance".
prd handle animal wrote:
To push an animal means to get it to perform a task or trick that it doesn’t know but is physically capable of performing.

anything that isn't a trick known, is a push

Paizo Employee Design Manager

asthyril wrote:
Ssalarn wrote:
Also, spell resistance is a sucky "benefit" since the mount has to spend a standard action to lower it if it wants to obtain any buffs or healing from the paladin or his allies. And I'm not even sure if it can do that by RAW, since there's not exactly a trick in the Handle Animal skill for "Lower your innate spell resistance".
prd handle animal wrote:
To push an animal means to get it to perform a task or trick that it doesn’t know but is physically capable of performing.
anything that isn't a trick known, is a push

So you can spend your move action and your mount's standard action to allow you or a party member to heal or buff your mount? And then another round of move and standard to put it's spell resistance back up? Yeah, sounds like a sweet benefit to me.

I'll take the elemental who gets the celestial template right off the bat and can think for itself, along with having a slew of immunities and eventually damage reduction.


i didn't say it was good, i was just saying it was possible :)


asthyril wrote:
compare a 20th level mount to a celestial elder earth elemental. i think that might answer your question of why it starts out so weak.

First APs don't got to level 20 and second if you give the elemental the AC hit dice the big ones will get weaker, because they'd exchange their d10 for d8.

So you would get an companion that is not useless at beginning ant not too strong in the end.

asthyril wrote:


also there is nothing stopping an elemental from wearing armor.

Except that it isn't provicient with it and doesn't get feats to learn it.

For the comparison above one has to remember that the level 7 stone servant will have the exact same stats as above while the horse mount gets even better.


Umbranus wrote:

For the comparison above one has to remember that the level 7 stone servant will have the exact same stats as above while the horse mount gets even better.

This is a legitimate issue and the primary reason that the elemental looks cripplingly weak or overwhelmingly strong depending on the level you look at: it advances in fits and spurts rather than the steady progression of other companions. You're better off focusing on that rather than cherrypicking the levels it does badly at.


Umbranus wrote:

First APs don't got to level 20 and second if you give the elemental the AC hit dice the big ones will get weaker, because they'd exchange their d10 for d8.

So you would get an companion that is not useless at beginning ant not too strong in the end.

APs? Adventure paths? i didn't think we were talking about anything specific.

i was just pointing out that a level 20 paladins mount would be a little weaker than a lvl 20 stonelords celestial elder earth elemental.

you are correct i forgot about the feats for heavier armor, but anyone can wear a mithril chain shirt without the light armor feat. also the elemental is basically humanoid and should have all the appropriate magic item slots any humanoid should have.

the mount will have 136 hp if you put 1 of its stat points into con, and at 28 str if you put all the rest of the points into str, along with a 19 dex. 30 ac before armor (i believe there are much better feats than armor proficiency to give mounts, so 34 if you put the mithril chain shirt, but i dont want to get into items.) evasion, SR 31, 3 attacks, scent

the earth elemental will have 168hp, 34 str, 21 con, 8 dex, much worse ac(23, 27 with mithril shirt), but DR 10/- and elemental immunity to crits/sneak attack, you can't spend feats but it comes with 2 more feats than a mount ever gets, SR 17 which is much worse, only 2 attacks but with 15ft reach with MUCH better to hit and damage than the mount would have, although the mount could do much more interesting things with feats (my lion animal companion on my sorcerer has the dragon style series of feats, which could work with the mount too). it has a separate language, is more intelligent, tremorsense which is much better than scent, has earth glide and earth mastery, but also would be much weirder companion to bring into a town than just a horse. you can get a lot of use out of earth glide though, for attacking from cover(halfway in the floor) and just being able to scout.

i agree it is much weaker at level 5 when you get it, but i imo eventually would become equal to, or maybe better, than a mount.

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