Nauseating an elemental

[Muddman]

Ran into this one recently. The party mage cast a spell from Magic of Faerun and its effect is that it nauseates the target.

The snag (as the title implies) is that they were fighting an elemental. The rules state that they are immune to critical hits and stunning, but nothing says they are immune to being nauseated. Since this is magic and it was holding up the game and not a pivotal battle or anything, I let it go and let the spell effect it.

Later I got to thinking, should an elemental be immune to nausea?

 

[shilsen]

As written, elementals can be nauseated just fine.

I think it's a reasonable house rule to have them be immune to nausea. The PHB glossary defines nauseated as "experiencing stomach distress". Since an elemental presumably doesn't have a stomach, doing away with nausea for them is a reasonable choice.

 

[andargor]

This is a borderline argument, but:

Nauseated: Experiencing stomach distress. Nauseated creatures are unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate on spells, or do anything else requiring attention. The only action such a character can take is a single move action per turn.

Elementals do not eat, sleep, or breathe.

It can be inferred that elementals do not have stomachs, and therefore cannot be nauseated. The fact that they are immune to critical hits, which implies that they have "no discernable anatomy", also points in this direction.

Andargor