How do ELEMENTALS heal?

[FCWesel]

How doe Elementals heal? Do they "regenerate" (but not the power, if you know what I mean) their mass or matter or energy? Can healing/harming spells affect them? (There seems to be something woring with that, but that's neither here nor there.)

 

[Shin Okada]

Well, they are living creatures and Elemental type has no special rules for healing. So they just heal as other living creatures do. They do regain hp by natural healing. And healing spells (and harm/inflict spells) work usually on them. They have some rules regarding bringing back from death, though (see MM glossary).

Regarding regeneration, if you are talking about loss of body parts or something, they do not have such things from the beginning. They do not have discernible anatomy. They are just mass of elemental energies. So, they do not, say, lose eye or limb.

 

[Jack Simth]

How doe Elementals heal? Do they "regenerate" (but not the power, if you know what I mean) their mass or matter or energy? Can healing/harming spells affect them? (There seems to be something woring with that, but that's neither here nor there.)

You seem to be after flavor on the first part - it's not really explained in the rulebooks how something that doesn't eat can still heal up when it's lost mass due to wounds. But they can, same as anything else (other than Constructs, Mindless Undead, and other exceptions to the general rule, anyway).

The second part seems to be a question of mechanics - while yes, it is odd that putting positive energy into being composed of a pure element that's NOT positive energy heals the elemental, by RAW, that's how it works. Ditto for the Negative energy spells hurting them.

 

[pawsplay]

They might have some positive energy. The old AD&D cosmology included Quasi-Elemental planes like Vacuum and Cold that occured when you mixed negative energy with an element.

 

[FCWesel]

So healing a fire elemntal should probably cause a cleric (or whatever) some damage, since he's putting his hand on PURE FIRE.

 

[Jack Simth]

So healing a fire elemntal should probably cause a cleric (or whatever) some damage, since he's putting his hand on PURE FIRE.

Thematically? Pretty much. Practically? No more so than a Wizard delivering a hostile touch spell should get burned by targeting a Fire elemental. A Fire Elemental doesn't have a Fire Shield-like ability.