Horrid Wilting

[Voadam]

I would allow it to work.

Horrid Wilting's only stipulation is that it be a living creature. Fire elemental, is a living creature (SRD:Unlike most other living creatures, an elemental does not have a dual nature—its soul and body form one unit. When an elemental is slain, no soul is set loose.)

Don't make it hard on yourself by adding 'sense' to the equation. It doesn't have to make sense, and when you try to make sense out of it it becomes subjective.

Its not hard to make this house rule adjustment. It doesn't have to make sense for the game to work, but it might be cooler to have themed spells and monster work according to their flavor descriptions rather than a strict appliation of RAW.

It is a water draining spell, having it not work on non-water elementals seems thematically fine.

It seems to me you have to work hard to make it fit descriptively in affecting fire elementals and ultimately say, "that's the way it works because of how the rules work." which isn't as satisfying when trying to present an in game explanation.

 

[Oryan77]

Thanks for the quote Voadam.



Hah. See ? Evaporates moisture from the body of living creatures. If there's no moisture in the living creature's body, there is nothing to evaporate.

That's not house ruling, that's reading the text and applying it.

Yeah, I've been saying that the whole time. A Fire Elemental can't have moisture or it would no longer be "ONE" element to that creature. Like Voadam said, it wouldn't be pure fire.

"Elemental Type: An elemental is a being composed of one of the four classical elements: air, earth, fire, or water."

 

[Nail]

Yeah, I've never encountered a fire elemental...but I've encountered plenty of Fat Elementals. I've fought plenty of them within the last year and I'm finally down 10 lbs.

Yeowch. Good job!

I always learned that the dehydration of moisture causes fire to burn even more.

Yep, you've got it right. As you remove the compounds that are products of a reaction (even if they were not formed by the reaction), the reactants tend to react faster.

i.e. "dry wood burns more quickly than wet wood" and "burning the wood produces water vapor".

Then again, we've all been agreeing that Fire Elementals don't need anything to burn. So all of this real-world science (a.k.a. Common Sense) goes flying out the window.

 

[werk]

If there's no moisture in the living creature's body, there is nothing to evaporate.

That's not house ruling, that's reading the text and applying it.

The house rule is that there is no moisture (or any variable) in the target creature.

 

[Nail]

We could, I suppose, posit that the "moisture" need not be water.

 

[werk]

This argument is RAW vs. interpretation. No one can overcome interpretation, as it is subjective and therefor always 'correct' to the interpreter.

RAW baby!

 

[Scion]

See ? Evaporates moisture from the body of living creatures. If there's no moisture in the living creature's body, there is nothing to evaporate.

As I said in my first post, it is just as easy to say that the elemental has some strange sort of fire-burning-moisture-like substance that qualifies.

One can rule either way, the players should be able to know ahead of time.

Personally, I'd let it work. I really dont see any overpowering reason not to. Living creatures with anatomies that we really have no idea about. Literally they cannot exist in our world as we currently understand it, so they are not bound to the laws of physics that we are.

 

[Scion]

We could, I suppose, posit that the "moisture" need not be water.

which is true. Moisture 'can' be water, but there is no requirement for it to be so. It could be like taking the oil out of a car, it doesnt run so well after that

 

[Voadam]

The house rule is that there is no moisture (or any variable) in the target creature.

I don't see any rule that would indicate a fire elemental has moisture in its body.

A plausible rules interpretation of the elemental type would be that it has none, just the D&D element fire.

 

[Voadam]

which is true. Moisture 'can' be water, but there is no requirement for it to be so. It could be like taking the oil out of a car, it doesnt run so well after that

So it would work on constructs that have oil? Oh that's right they are not living creatures. Just animate non living material. Which is different from say an animate pure flame.