The other night I attacked the party with a large earth elemental. the wizard dropped a Flaming Sphere on its head. On the next round I said it reached up and put out the fire with its hands, thus sparking an argument between myself and the player. I reasoned that it was basically smothering the fire between dirt (its head) and more dirt (its large hands), which he disagreed with. In order to keep the game moving I said that instead of that it's slipped into the ground and did an earth glide instead, extinguishing the sphere. But I'm still curious what you all think about the smothering attempt.
It is a magic ball of fire; it does not use air and fuel to burn and thus cannot be put out by dirt. The sphere cannot be grabbed or taken into the earth with the elemental; it would simply be left in the square as the thing slid away.
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Flaming Sphere
School evocation [fire]; Level druid 2, sorcerer/wizard 2
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M/DF (tallow, brimstone, and powdered iron)
Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Effect 5-ft.-diameter sphere
Duration 1 round/level
Saving Throw Reflex negates; Spell Resistance yes
A burning globe of fire rolls in whichever direction you point and burns those it strikes. It moves 30 feet per round. As part of this movement, it can ascend or jump up to 30 feet to strike a target. If it enters a space with a creature, it stops moving for the round and deals 3d6 points of fire damage to that creature, though a successful Reflex save negates that damage. A flaming sphere rolls over barriers less than 4 feet tall. It ignites flammable substances it touches and illuminates the same area as a torch would.
The sphere moves as long as you actively direct it (a move action for you); otherwise, it merely stays at rest and burns. It can be extinguished by any means that would put out a normal fire of its size. The surface of the sphere has a spongy, yielding consistency and so does not cause damage except by its flame. It cannot push aside unwilling creatures or batter down large obstacles. A flaming sphere winks out if it exceeds the spell's range.
1) I fail to see how the wizard was capable to drop the flaming sphere on the elemental head. Called shots don't exist in Pathfinder (at least under the standard rules),
2) "It can be extinguished by any means that would put out a normal fire of its size."
It is a 5' sphere of fire. To smother it the elemental should have been at least large and drop its whole body on it.
I would say that a large mass of earth would barely be capable to smother a fire of that size (large in the meaning of large creature, so something that need a 10'x10' area to maneuver normally while fighting but is capable to squeeze in a area that is half that).
As I see it to extinguish the sphere with its hands it would need to be 3 sizes larger than the sphere, so at least gargantuan.
In every instance it would have taken fire damage from the sphere while smothering it out.
It is a magic ball of fire; it does not use air and fuel to burn and thus cannot be put out by dirt. The sphere cannot be grabbed or taken into the earth with the elemental; it would simply be left in the square as the thing slid away.
I thought the same, but then I checked the spell, it say:
"It can be extinguished by any means that would put out a normal fire of its size."|
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I think you misjudged. While it is true that the fire can be extinguished by normal methods, it is a pretty sizable fire at 5'x5'x5'.
I think I would allow a huge earth elemental extinguish a fire that size using a full round action (which would provoke an AOO and would inflict fire damage during the round), but I think that a large elemental would take 3 or 4 full round actions.
Another thing to consider is that a large earth elemental's intelligence is only 6. Since he is also vulnerable to fire, he would be more inclined to move away from it than take damage by trying to put it out.
Thanks for the feedback. I had misremembered that when I did the earthglide the sphere just sat on the ground until the wizard moved it again. He also jumped on his floating disc so the elemental couldn't tremorsense him, the clever SOB
The spell is also not able to be done away like that within the rules so ruleswise that would not work even if the fire was smaller.