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A monk grappled and pinned an air elemental in my game the other day. Nothing occurs to me in the rules that prevents him from doing this. ( he didn't, but i dont see anything that would stop him from tying it up with a rope).
It sounds wildly incongruous to me to be able to grapple or pin a creature made of air. But hey you can attack the air with fists or steel and it 'hurts' the air. I know its a game, i'm just seeing how far the rules are out of whack on this point are.
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Elementals aren't the same as the natural forces they represent. They are solid to an extent, otherwise they wouldn't be able to slam into other creatures. An air elemental is not merely "air" and fire elemental is not merely "fire". At least that's the way I see it.
I think you might be reading too much into things a tiny bit.
I don't see anything that would stop it.
When explaining a similar scenario to a friend about a water elemental, I pointed out that while made of water, that water still had to stay together. This is different from water in a glass, which you can pour half into another glass, and then back into the original glass with no problem. If you were able to cut a water elemental in half it would not instantly come back together.
Air would be the same thing. Air as we imagine it is no big deal because it separates when we apply pressure to it, such as when walking. If that same air required a knife or some other more direct form of pressure to separate, we would be in a lot of trouble.
A monk grappled and pinned an air elemental in my game the other day. Nothing occurs to me in the rules that prevents him from doing this. ( he didn't, but i dont see anything that would stop him from tying it up with a rope).
It sounds wildly incongruous to me to be able to grapple or pin a creature made of air. But hey you can attack the air with fists or steel and it 'hurts' the air. I know its a game, i'm just seeing how far the rules are out of whack on this point are.
Well, air elementals really aren't made of air. You would expect something made of real air to be incorporeal (or something similar). Swords should pass right through it. But that isn't true of air elementals. Air elementals have a solid physical body, the same as most other creatures.
Even in whirlwind mode, there isn't anything stopping someone from attacking the elemental normally. You might be able to grapple it even then.
At the very least, air elementals should have a Gaseous Form ability. That solves this problem, and lets them flow through cracks, just like real air can.
Had something very similar this last weekend when the party encountered a dracolisk and used an elemental gem to summon an air elemental. As silly as it seemed to me I couldn't find any indication that the elemental would be immune to the petrifying gaze. Which made me wonder if earth elementals could be petrified too...
Just seemed odd and ran it to the best of my ability but had me seriously wondering for awhile there.
Elementals are immune to...
•Immunity to bleed, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning.
•Not subject to critical hits or flanking. Does not take additional damage from precision-based attacks, such as sneak attack.
Would make a pretty epic lawn ornament. Get the whole set!
If you look at them from the perspective of what they do, vs. what most gamers think they aught to be able to do, Elementals are terribly designed.
This is what house rules are for.
I don't know about dracolisks, but the basilisks petrifying gaze would like the flesh to stone spell, which does say:
Only creatures made of flesh are affected by this spell.
Is an air elemental made of flesh? Is an earth elemental made of flesh? They do have physical bodies, but is it considered flesh?
I don't think you could flesh-to-stone an earth elemental, but could you cast stone-to-flesh on it? Would it become some-sort of zombie?
Two ways:
(1) Rule number one! ;)
(2) Rule of (not) cool! ;)
I don't know about dracolisks, but the basilisks petrifying gaze would like the flesh to stone spell, which does say:
Only creatures made of flesh are affected by this spell.Is an air elemental made of flesh? Is an earth elemental made of flesh? They do have physical bodies, but is it considered flesh?
That is what I was looking for. The statblock for the dracolisk (which is a half-dragon basilisk) didn't have it listed that way (just said petrifying gaze if I remember right). I ruled it didn't work, but didn't have anything to really back it up.
never thought of this before but its an awesome question and good answers
having said that i wish elementals were truely their element and not damaged normally.
i wish they were designed in such a way that you had to use some kind of trick to take them out.
normal damage would work at a very minimal level so that say a sword does little damage to an earth or fire elemental
however aginst say a water elemental using fire or earth attacks would deal extra damage, wind would deal no damage and water would maybe heal it a little.
earth would be harmed by water or wind, but fire would have little effect
etc etc.
would be cool.
would be also good if the GM got to decide so that players would kibitz less
A monk grappled and pinned an air elemental in my game the other day. Nothing occurs to me in the rules that prevents him from doing this. ( he didn't, but i dont see anything that would stop him from tying it up with a rope).
It sounds wildly incongruous to me to be able to grapple or pin a creature made of air. But hey you can attack the air with fists or steel and it 'hurts' the air. I know its a game, i'm just seeing how far the rules are out of whack on this point are.
What you don't think people like Pecos Bill ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecos_Bill ) should be in the game?
There is a rule that covers this. It is called Rule Zero. If you don't think one should be able to grapple, punck, or strike a air elemental. Than Rule Xero it. But on the other side if you do Rule Zero it...because you feel it is 'unrealistic' than you should change Air Elementals to be alot more realistic also.
That...or just make it a fire elemental instead? I'd like to see him try to hug fire and enjoy the consequences.
I'd do it if only to say I did it. Thats like heroes of myth thing going on there. Thats the kind of thing I love to see! Its burn special effect would proc when you try fighting it though. You'd have a good chance of just setting yourself on fire and being wailed on while taking the damage.
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I don't think you could flesh-to-stone an earth elemental, but could you cast stone-to-flesh on it? Would it become some-sort of zombie?
Then it would become some sort of hideous flesh elemental, instead of rocks holding it together it would be large blobs of pure flesh with two indentations for eyes. *shutter* totally using this for a game.
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Sounds like a good 3PP product. True Elementals.
You can indeed grapple one.
If you look at them from the perspective of what they do, vs. what most gamers think they aught to be able to do, Elementals are terribly designed.
This is what house rules are for.
As long as it's a comprehensive change that includes what the effect of being "actual air" has on its own offensive capabilities, and changing its HD and CR (elementals have a ton of HD for their CR because they're effectively just big powerful brutes with cool skin), then sure. Knock yourself out with houserules.
I once had a character who tried to grapple a Gelatinous Cube (don't ask, it is a long story) and I looked to see if there was something that would not allow that. I could not find it so my normal reaction to rule #0 is to go with it until I ponder it or find an answer and make a judgement later. I did give him acid damage and he had to make the saves versus being paralyzed, but the dwarf paladin did succesfully grapple a Gelatinous Cube (FYI this was still back in 3.5 and he really reversed the grapple that the cube had him engulfed and it was considered a grapple).
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Its pathfinder society, i couldn't rile zero it, anymore than i could when the same monk hog tied a mummy. Mummy rot is only transmitted on a slam. The maneuver master monk can grapple and pin a foe in the same round, or grapple and tie up a foe, so unless they have some shift or temeport to escape a grapple, most creatures ate screwed when a PC gets the ability to make multiple grapple checks in a round.
[edit]Ignore what was here before, I should refrain from posting when I'm working on setting up VMWare images.
That said, an air elemental could use its whirlwind attack and since it can then occupy the same square as a hostile (sort of like a swarm - that's how it attacks as a whirlwind) I would argue that it could no longer be grappled; anyone grappling it currently would get the reflex saves in the description of whirlwind, and failure would result in them being caught.
RAW, there's nothing from stopping you from grappling a fire elemental, either. They have no innate fire aura; they do inflict fire damage, but only when they successfully perform a melee attack on a creature. Even an elder fire elemental.
Not true. Successfully striking a fire elemental with a natural weapon or unarmed strike deals the attacking creature damage as well. Its part of the burn special attack all fire elementals have.
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Sure, you could houserule it. Just remember when you do that elementals already have a whole lot of damage reduction, hitpoints, and immunities that make them very obnoxious to deal with for non-typical meleers like monks and rogues.
EDIT: Oh, this is PFS? Yeah, let him grapple it. The rules allow it, and finding ways to remove options from players is one of the least fun ways to spend table time.
Wow, you learn something new everyday. So, a Fire Elemental doesn't have the Heat(special ability) like a Salamander does. We all GM in my group and I haven't used a fire elemental since I've been playing Pathfinder (hard to believe, I know). That cracks me up.
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I stand corrected, and badly embarrassed. My apologies.
The description does not indicate this. It indicates that when a creature with the burn special attack hits another person with a melee strike, they deal fire damage in addition to the damage of their attack; if it was to be implied that they dealt fire damage when someone else hits them, the phrasing would need to clarify that, since as written it is indicating the fire damage is additional damage done on the fire elemental's attacks.
How about you try reading the very last line?
A creature with the burn special attack deals fire damage in addition to damage dealt on a successful hit in melee. Those affected by the burn ability must also succeed on a Reflex save or catch fire, taking the listed damage for an additional 1d4 rounds at the start of its turn (DC 10 + 1/2 burning creature's racial HD + burning creature's Con modifier). A burning creature can attempt a new save as a full-round action. Dropping and rolling on the ground grants a +4 bonus on this save. Creatures that hit a burning creature with natural weapons or unarmed attacks take fire damage as though hit by the burning creature and must make a Reflex save to avoid catching on fire.
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A monk grappled and pinned an air elemental in my game the other day. Nothing occurs to me in the rules that prevents him from doing this. ( he didn't, but i dont see anything that would stop him from tying it up with a rope).
It sounds wildly incongruous to me to be able to grapple or pin a creature made of air. But hey you can attack the air with fists or steel and it 'hurts' the air. I know its a game, i'm just seeing how far the rules are out of whack on this point are.
I would be okay with a tetori monk grappling an air elemental.
Anybody else might have difficulty with holding a whirlwind.
A creature that comes in contact with the whirlwind must succeed at a Reflex save (DC 10 + 1/2 the monster’s HD + the monster’s Strength modifier) 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
Grappling is most definitely contact, and you take dexterity penalties while doing so.