Yes, let's just add Push from the Earth Elemental.
I'll go with the proposed Merge ability, too.
Updating the
Mineral Quasi-Elemental Working Draft.
Remember we've still got the Fast Healing to do. As well as deciding on the actual numbers, it needs a description as the Mineral Quasi's fast healing has a weakness similiar to
Antaeus:
Fast Healing (Ex): A mineral quasi-elemental's fast healing ability only functions when it is in contact with a mass of inanimate matter (earth, rock, soil,
et cetera) that weighs at least
tone-tenth, one-twentieth?] as much as the quasi-elemental itself.
The only thing is that it might be fun to make the Susceptibility to Lightning DC be equal to 10 or 15 + damage dealt rather than a "flat" value.
I would be quite happy to make the DC damage-based but would disagree on the actual scaling.
Let's say you have two Large Mineral quasis merged into a Huge gestalt creature. According to the normal CR rules, two CR 5 creatures is a CR 7 encounter, so what happens if it gets hit by a
lightning bolt cast by a 7th level sorcerer?
A 7d6 lightning bolt averages 24.5 damage, so that either DC 34.5 or DC 39.5 depending on whether its 10+damage or 15+damage. It's academic, because the merged creature has a +13 Fortititude save so wouldn't be able to hit either of those numbers.
Hmm... let's see how it goes for two merged quasis of all the sizes:
Merged Sizes
|
Fort Save
|
CR/CL
| lightning bolt
Damage
| Avg. DC
base 10
| Avg. DC
base 15
|
Small+Small | +6 | 3 | 3d6 (10.5) | 20.5 | 25.5 |
Medium+Medium | +9 | 5 | 5d6 (17.5) | 27.5 | 32.5
|
Large+Large | +13 | 7 | 7d6 (24.5) | 34.5
| 39.5
|
Huge+Huge | +19 | 9 | 9d6 (31.5) | 41.5
| 46.5
|
Greater+Greater | +25 | 11 | 11d6 (38.5) | 48.5
| 53.5
|
Elder+Elder | +33 | 17? | 17d6 (59.5) | 69.5
| 64.5
|
Monolith+Monolith | +45 | 19 | 19d6 (66.5) | 76.5
| 81.5
|
As you can see, the average save DCs are unachievable for the respective Fort saves at sizes of Large and upwards, and for Medium merged minerals it only has a chance of making the save for a 1d6 per caster level attack if the DC is 10+damage.
However, if we make the DC say 10 or 15 plus
half damage, the numbers work out relatively well:
Hmm... let's see how it goes for two merged quasis of all the sizes:
Merged Sizes
|
Fort Save
|
CR/CL
| lightning bolt
Damage
| Avg. DC
base 10
| Avg. DC
base 15
|
Small+Small | +6 | 3 | 3d6 (10.5) | 15
| 20
|
Medium+Medium | +9 | 5 | 5d6 (17.5) | 18
| 23
|
Large+Large | +13 | 7 | 7d6 (24.5) | 22
| 27
|
Huge+Huge | +19 | 9 | 9d6 (31.5) | 25
| 30
|
Greater+Greater | +25 | 11 | 11d6 (38.5) | 29
| 34
|
Elder+Elder | +33 | 17? | 17d6 (59.5) | 39
| 44
|
Monolith+Monolith | +45 | 19 | 19d6 (66.5) | 43
| 48
|
That looks more reasonable, especially the 15+half damage column.
There's still an issue with the dice spread producing a wide range of DCs - e.g. an 11d6
lightning bolt would result in a DC from 15 to 43 (base 10) or 20 to 48 (base 15), so it ranges from autosuccess to autofailure for a merged Greater Quasielemental's +25 Fort save with its result range of 26 to 45. Still, that's liveable.
It is worth noting that the larger sizes of merged quasis have VERY high Fort saves due to their excessively high Hit Dice, so if we were to use regular spell saves it's likely they wouldn't fail. A typical 11th level sorcerer's
lightning bolt is probably DC 20 or so, after all.
Oh, and note that I've listed the merged Elder Quasis with CR 17 like a Monolith rather than the CR 13 like two CR 11 creatures would normally have, since such a merger is much tougher than two CR 11 creatures normally would be.
Indeed, should we add a note as to the effective CR of encounters with multiple quasi-elementals? Even two Large mineral quasis merged together have double the attacks and healing of a regular Huge mineral quasi, and two Elders merged together have more Hit Dice than a regular Monolith - 48 HD rather than 36 - as well as the doubled attacks and healing, so ought to be a significantly higher CR threat.