Druids, elemental body and the burn damage

[Evilthorne]

So I'm running a fairly high level game and have a Druid in the party that is not feeling the love of wild shape anymore. When they change into a huge fire elemental via elemental body they get the burn secondary power. But no where does it stat how the damage is scaled. Small elementals get 1d4, medium 1d6 but the three huge forms get all different damage which makes me think it is based on their hit dice and not size.

My thoughts are to allow the 2d10 variant for being higher than 16hd but just wondering what other thoughts are?

[Trish Megistos]

I'm not very versed in druids so this is all conjecture from the information you've given me. Do higher levels allow druids to turn into bigger elementals? If he's still normal size, you could use the huge elemental HD16 as a base, and then scale it down to whatever your druids size is.
2d10 would probably come down to 1d10 (from huge to normal).

[NatsuDragneel1981]

Old rules state that a druid may not take on a form with more HD than their own. And while that may not hold true based on the new wild shape rules, it is a good way to judge in this case. Find whichever elemental is closest in HD to his own (whether higher or lower) and use that elemental. That way, as they gain levels, the ability continues to be useful, without overpowering them too early. Just remember that you round down. Example would be if there is a difference of three HD between an elemental form and it's next level of power, the druid would gain the new level of power when he is within 1 HD keeping the old one when it could go either way.

[Chad Nedzlek]

"Huge Fire Elemental" is a specific creature. It's not just "any fire elemental of size Huge". The listed burn for a "Huge Fire Elemental" is 2d6. "Greater" and "Elder" Elementals are different monsters that the Elemental Body spells never let you turn into.

Elemental, Fire, scroll down to Huge Fire Elemental.

Druids are already really really strong. I think they don't need the buff that being so lenient here would give them, so if I were DMing, I'd be sticking with the strict reading of the rules.

[blahpers]

What Chad Nedzlek said. There aren't three different huge fire elemental forms for druids to change into--just the one, a huge fire elemental.

[Evilthorne]

They don't really change into any fire elemental truthfully. They. Nerfed the wild shape so much that the stat adjustments don't even come close to lining up even with a huge elemental. Heck if they shape into a fire elemental they are not even immune to fire.

[Dave Justus]

Despite this being in the rules section, I don't think this is really a rules question. The OP knows the answer, but is looking for alternate/house rules to help out.

Frankly, your change wouldn't break anything, but it wouldn't fix your player's issues either. A little bit more fire damage, at a high level when things are often resistant or immune isn't going to make wildshape awesome again. You are at a level where wildshape is lossing its luster compared to other things and honestly other than the druid changing tactics (which it can do, 9 level prepared caster gives lots of options) there isn't any easy fix for this.