Do Fire Elementals light the area around them?

[Swashbuckles]

Nothing in RAW, though the flavour text says it's like a mobile bonfire, so I'd normally rule it's at least as bright as a torch (maybe even more since it's a great deal more fire, even at small size).

Where I run into a grey area (pun perhaps intended) is what happens when that fire elemental enters the area of a Darkness spell. It took a 2nd level spell to summon (higher for bigger and arguably brighter elementals).

How should I treat this in my game?

PS: The elementals have darkvision, so even if they can't light way, they can see where to go, I guess!

[Azothath]

as you are asking in the Rules forum, we have to say technically No.

Sensibly, yes. Use Vision and Light as your guide. Water and Earth also can have glowy inclusions/fungi/algae. As long as it is descriptive you are good to go - just don't have it dazzle foes within 10ft, etc.

[Melkiador]

A lot of things about elementals don't make a lot of sense. For instance, you can grapple a fire elemental without getting burned.

They are described as resembling a bonfire, so I do think it'd be reasonable for them to provide that much light and warmth, but there's a hole in the rules there.

[Diego Rossi]

Melkiador wrote:

For instance, you can grapple a fire elemental without getting burned.

Burn wrote:

Creatures that hit a burning creature with natural weapons or unarmed attacks take fire damage as though hit by the burning creature and must succeed at a Reflex save to avoid catching on fire.

While it is not RAW, I would say that burn affects those grappling with a fire elemental.

Same thing for the light. RAW, a fire elemental has no ability that makes it give off any light.
It can even benefit from invisibility or use stealth in a dark room ...

Rule of Logic implies that most combat maneuvers are equivalent to an unarmed attack and that a burning creature emits light, simply those things have never been codified in the rules because they seem self-evident.

Still RAW, a creature with the Burn ability cannot start a fire because Burn affects creatures, not items.

[Unbegreiflich]

maybe a refridgerator elemental with an open door...

[Pizza Lord]

Swashbuckles wrote:

Nothing in RAW, though the flavour text says it's like a mobile bonfire, so I'd normally rule it's at least as bright as a torch (maybe even more since it's a great deal more fire, even at small size).

Yes, they are like a mobile bonfire. They give off an equivalent amount of light to what you, the GM, would determine a fiery lightsource of their size would give off (a tiny or small one might be like a candle or torch), a medium might be like a campfire or larger as a bonfire).

They do not need a rule or a quality or yet another specific named creature ability that tells you that something on fire gives off light (or heat). They would need that for a fire that didn't do that. Like some darkflame or saying that some alcohol fire is invisible in other light and can only be seen as a blue flame in darkness, like a hellcat or something.

There does not have to be a specific or explicitly stated ruling for common sense and such. We don't need a rule that tells us that a creature that falls ends up falling towards the ground or in the direction of gravity. "But gravity is reversed here!" Well, then it 'falls' up. Same with a creature on fire. While being on fire is not the same as being made of fire like a fire elemental (if could just be an arm or part of your clothes or an outline like faerie fire, for instance), if you're giving off a torch's worth of fire, you should be illuminating the same area (with GM discretion, a GM can say that if the seat of your pants is on fire, then your body is blocking or shadowing it forward of you).

Just because it's a creature does not change this. If you have a campfire, or a torch, and it's giving off the light of a campfire, or a torch, and you animate it, it should still be on fire and giving off light (and should probably be resistant and not suddenly start taking more damage or burn out faster. ie. an animated torch should probably be able to endure an hour of being on fire from itself, as opposed to being caught in a fireball). An ice statue that becomes animated should be immune to cold, even if that isn't one of the 'special powers' given. "Yeah, you animated the ice statue... but it can't move because it's literally frozen solid like a block of ice. It doesn't have the, 'Able to move while frozen' quality."

Rules forum or not, the first rule is make sense. A creature on fire, gives off heat and light. The GM determines the amount and the effects and how they manifest, but a fire giving off heat and light is not something that needs a rule or stated creature quality beyond saying they inherently have that. If they say a creature has wings (whether it can fly) or four legs, they don't need to write 'winged' or 'quadruped' as a Special Quality in the stat line. If a creature is a living flame, treat it as such, the same as a living pool of water would be wet and can drown people in itself, even without some special 'drown' ability.

Swashvuckles wrote:

Where I run into a grey area (pun perhaps intended) is what happens when that fire elemental enters the area of a Darkness spell. It took a 2nd level spell to summon (higher for bigger and arguably brighter elementals).

How should I treat this in my game?

The light coming from their bodies is not magical. The illumination would be reduced as per any other non-ambient light source (note that most darkness effects only reduce light levels, though some can completely negate light to a supernatural state). A creature that could see through magical darkness would still see them as a flaming, fiery creature, just not illuminating the area around them.

Swashbuckles wrote:

]PS: The elementals have darkvision, so even if they can't light way, they can see where to go, I guess!

Yes, they function as any other creature with darkvision. Their darkvision is unrelated to their fiery body as it would be for any creature that suddenly found itself on fire. Just like a blindfold that (didn't burn up) covered their face or eyes would blind them whether they can see in the dark or not or were giving off light.

If you touch a creature on fire, it should be hot, and burn you as though touching something equivalently hot (you can certainly deal less damage than the Burn ability might state for an attack), but the fact that Burn deals with attacks does not negate the fact that a burning creature is on fire, only how the specific effects. That's not even a house rule, the specific effects and how you rule them might be, but saying fire is hot and burns things is not.