MM3: Is something off with Fire Elemental Damage?

[Stalker0]

I was getting my first browse of the MM3, and I of course had to take a look at the elementals. All of them seem pretty solid...except the fire elemental.

For example, the greater elemental's slam attack does 15 ongoing fire damage (save ends).

Compare that to the earth elementals: 4d8+12
Water Elemental: 4d6 ongoing 10 (save ends) - this one is a controller btw!
Air: 3d10 + 8

Now the fire elemental does have an immediate reaction triggered burst 3 attack that does on average 9 fire damage...but at 21st level that's a pinprick at best.


Further, the fire elemental's damage is only one that is actually an energy type, meaning it can be resisted. I know there's no one in my party that doesn't have some fire resistance at this point.


So am I missing something, or does the FE just seem way off?

 

[Obryn]

I agree. It's a head-scratcher.

-O

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually the Water Elemental is 4d6 + 15 ongoing (save ends), hehe.

Yeah, the Fire Elemental's damage seems low on both powers. Comparing it to the Water Elemental its slam attack does about half as much damage. It is worth noting it has Hungry Flames, a close burst 3 Immediate Reaction to be being attacked which does 2d6+2 fire damage, which presumably will trigger every single turn and usually catch at least someone (it is enemies only as well, oddly enough). I wouldn't consider that to make up for the low standard attack damage though.

On top of that the Water Elemental has Surging Waves, which does 5d6+7 in a Close Burst 3 and slides 5 squares! Its a recharge 5,6 power, but still pretty good, not to mention its Drowning Essence, which is not a bad power either, though pretty situational. Still good for a minor action attack.

The Fire Elemental does have fly 8 and speed 12 and its vulnerability is a bit less significant. In some situations I might rather face the Water Elemental, but I agree in general the Fire Elemental is significantly weaker and maybe not going to do enough damage to actually bother a high paragon character much at all.

I'd consider modifying the Fire Elemental damage to something like 4d6 + 15 ongoing fire (save ends). That puts it up there with the other elementals damage and seems like it would put it on par with the rest of the elementals. Odd that I haven't seen anyone mention this before and honestly I didn't really pay much attention to it when I did a quick read-through of MM3.

Maybe its a mistake. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it gets errata.

 

[Obryn]

Odd that I haven't seen anyone mention this before and honestly I didn't really pay much attention to it when I did a quick read-through of MM3.

Ahem

-O

 

[MrMyth]

I was getting my first browse of the MM3, and I of course had to take a look at the elementals. All of them seem pretty solid...except the fire elemental.

For example, the greater elemental's slam attack does 15 ongoing fire damage (save ends).

Compare that to the earth elementals: 4d8+12
Water Elemental: 4d6 ongoing 10 (save ends) - this one is a controller btw!
Air: 3d10 + 8

Ongoing 15 fire damage, assuming people don't get bonus saves or bonuses on saves, translates to ~27 damage over time. 4d8+12 comes to ~30 damage, 4d6+Ong10 comes to ~32 damage, and 3d10+8 comes to ~24.5 damage.

So it is in the middle of the back, in terms of actual damage. The reason it feels much worse is three-fold:

1) 2 Earth elementals hit you, you take more damage. Two fire elementals hit you... you don't.
2) Ongoing damage is slower, which is a weakness - and the potential damage can be cut short by many player tricks at that level.
3) Resistance can cut the damage down, and since it is ongoing damage, resistance is 2-3 times more effective against it than normal.

With their immediate action, I think their damage comes out fine in terms of raw numbers. The main problem is that they get shut down completely by fire resistance.

Of course, this can give a possible advantage, as well, in the right situation - if you can pair them up with enemies who remove fire resistance or grant fire vulnerability, the ongoing damage and immediate damage suddenly becomes a lot more frightening. Having them join up with some Godslayer Infernos can be quite scary!

In the end, though, I agree the Fire Elemental falls a bit short of where it should be. The mobility is nice, but not quite enough to make up for how easily people can shut it down.

Especially since I just saw the comments that the Water Elemental actually does 4d6+ Ongoing 15, which completely humiliates the fire elemental's damage in every way. That's just sad.

 

[Celisasu]

What if instead of ongoing 15 it did ongoing 20 or 25 damage?

 

[Mengu]

Also of note, since the standard attack lacks a damage expression, this makes it hard to level up or down. I thought the best thing about the elementals was that just the right levels were provided to pretty much cover everything from level 1 to 25 or so with simple leveling. I noticed the fire elementals lacked that quality.

I'm getting ready to use some of these guys, and so on a hit, I added 1d6 for the level 1 version, 1d6+4 for the level 11, and 2d6+4 for the level 21. And this is non-fire damage.

I like the dice plus static damage better because it lets me do the level adjustments more easily, though it wouldn't be a big deal to make the damage 1d6/2d6/3d6.

 

[Obryn]

With their immediate action, I think their damage comes out fine in terms of raw numbers. The main problem is that they get shut down completely by fire resistance.

Yep. So some solutions?

"Hit: The target loses all Fire Resistance and takes X ongoing fire damage (save ends both)"

or

"Hit: This ongoing damage cannot be reduced in any way."

and/or

"If the target is already taking ongoing fire damage, increase it by X (5, 10, 15, whatever."

Still keeps the kooky flavor, but it makes multiple elementals scary, and fills the resistance loophole.

-O

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yep. So some solutions?

"Hit: The target loses all Fire Resistance and takes X ongoing fire damage (save ends both)"

or

"Hit: This ongoing damage cannot be reduced in any way."

and/or

"If the target is already taking ongoing fire damage, increase it by X (5, 10, 15, whatever."

Still keeps the kooky flavor, but it makes multiple elementals scary, and fills the resistance loophole.

-O

The worst part about it being mostly ongoing damage as-is isn't even multiple elementals. The worst part is even ONE elemental by itself is hosed because if it hits and the target fails then it might as well not bother to attack the same target next round, it can't stack any damage at all, so its guaranteed to be (at epic) pretty trivial damage (15 points a round, yawn). Assume the target has even 5 fire resistance and it is a total joke, the thing can run around singing the whole party, but it is guaranteed to never do significant damage to any one PC.

That was why I suggested 4d6 base damage, at least it hurts a BIT. Losing fire resistance or stacking extra ongoing isn't bad either. If it both canceled resist and the damage increased with each hit then I'd say it would be scary even without static damage.

Mengu has a good point too, without a real damage expression its rather hard to adjust the level of the thing. Maybe 1d10,2d10,3d10 would be ideal. Then you can level up or down smoothly through every possible level . Toss on canceling 5 DR as long as the ongoing is in effect and that would make it good and scary.

 

[Aegeri]

Throw it into an encounter with a volcanic dragon and a godslayer inferno. Nobody can resist the fire damage then (godslayer infernos aura) and the godslayer inferno can make every enemy within 10 of it automatically take any ongoing fire damage its taking.

It really depends on what other creatures you put into the encounter with it. Ongoing damage monsters are best paired with friends that penalize saves and reduce resistances (of which there are more than a few options in both cases these days). Also remember that ongoing damage has ways of being triggered between turns now, like the godslayer inferno and other monsters (or even zones or traps).

PC resistances are easy to negate though through terrain if you want. In fact I made terrain that strips resistances from non-elemental creatures and gives it to creatures with the elemental keyword (It's a large "zone" of elemental energy). Of course I only use this terrain the once in my campaign and I like to mix up my mechanics a lot. It's important to remember that monsters should not just be HP and stats, they need to be a coherent part of an entire encounter.