I am having a difficult time wrapping my brain around the idea of an elemental.
Oddly enough, I can completely understand the concept of living fire. Or living water. Etc. And the images I've always seen of elementals seem to support the theory that they are, essentially, living "elements". But elementals don't actually seem to be creatures of their element.
Take the fire elemental. I've always thought of a fire elemental as living fire. However... how do normal weapons hurt living fire?
Or an air elemental...how does one GRAPPLE an air elemental? (It has a CMB and a CMD, and there's nothing in the monster's writeup stating it cannot be grappled.)
Or a water elemental...it's water mastery grants it a bonus to its CMD vs bull rush attacks. Just how does one (successfully) bull rush water?
The only one that actually makes sense in these situations is the earth elemental (sticking strictly with the first Bestiary...I haven't gone looking for more trouble yet). All the others seem to be somewhat oxymoronic.
Can someone help me understand? Or is this one of those concepts that "you either just get it or you don't"?
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Taffer
I like them fine the way they are.
However, if they're not to your liking, give them the Ghost template, and they'll become Incorporeal.
Taffer, there is probably no mechanical rule we can point to that will help you understand the why. However, at some point someone decided that air, fire, and water elementals (earth doesn't have this issue) are creatures with substance. Since they have substance they can interact with the world in a more or less normal fashion.
In Pathfinder, elementals are living beings with a constitution score. They are not just a simple representation of the element they represent. They have a biology (even if it is an alien one) and with that, substance.
If that is not enough, perhaps you can consider them to be the element personified rather than just the element. There is something (maybe some kind of force) holding them together. With that comes substance and thus they can be affected like any other creature with substance.
- Gauss
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I tend to think of the elemental planes as allegories of the material plane with the element dominant, so on the plan of water there is something akin to water, earth and air that isn’t water, earth or air. The essence of fire is woven into a facsimile of water that functions as such on it home plane. These allegories can have substance. Elementals being the most populace creature on the plane are like humans built of the element so they have flesh and blood it’s just not the same as our flesh and blood.