Are you wondering how Wizards of the Coast has altered the monsters in the 2025 Monster Manual? Well, one way of showing this is to make side-by-side comparisons of the 2025 monsters to their 2014 equivalents. Today, we're looking at the Air Elemental.
Notably, the Air Elemental now appears in the "A" chapter of the Monster Manual instead of the "E" section. The description for the Air Elemental also includes a table of various compositions for the air elemental, with the air elemental possibly formed from a foul miasma or a cloud of shifting animal shapes.
In terms of base stats, the Air Elemental's AC, HP, and Ability Scores are all unchanged. However, the 2025 Air Elemental now has a 10 foot base speed in addition to its 90 foot hover speed. The Air Elemental now has resistance to all bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage (previously just non-magical bludgeoning/slashing/piercing) and has total damage immunity from lightning damage. Previously, it had resistance to lightning damage.
The Air Elemental's Slam attack was replaced by Thunderous Slam, with the new attack having a 10 foot reach instead of 5-feet and dealing Thunder damage instead of bludgeoning damage. The Air Elemental's Whirlwind attack only targets one creature in its space instead of each creature. The attack deals more damage than before (24/4d10+2 compared to 15/3d8+2) and still inflicts the prone condition on a failed save along with being pushed away from the Air Elemental. The 2025 Whirlwind's wording is more direct about the push effect than the 2014 Monster Manual, with the target no longer being "thrown" in a random direction.
Full statblocks are below:
2025 Monster Manual:
2014 Monster Manual:
