What happen if a fire elemental fails to make the jump over a body of water?

[DreadArchon]

In that case, they take 1d10 damage per round.

...Rather than 20d6, as many here would suggest. Interesting, no? ;-)

No, it's not RAW, but RAW doesn't say anything about tossing a being MADE OUT OF FIRE into a lake. Go throw a lit match into a bathtub and see what happens...I bet you don't even have to do it to guess what happens.

Fire elementals are made out of fire, not burning materials. If you wish to bring physics into this, I'd point out that it's oxygen starvation that's killing the match.

You want real-world examples? Try pouring 8 pounds of burning oil into your bath tub. Or 8 pounds of pure sodium. Or a large amount of uranium undergoing nuclear fission. Each may be inclined to react differently than the match. (Warning: These are not actual items of advice. Seriously.)

It's not "floating across because it's impassable".

Which is another load of baloney. If you don't have a fly speed, you fall down go boom, you don't skate across stuff that will kill you.

Except that you just made that up, making it relevant only in games DM'ed by you. There's no evidence that water will outright kill a fire elemental that fast (indeed, one can explicitly be unprotected in the Plane of Water for a little while before dying!), or that it specifically can't "float across because it's impassable."

Further, there is reason to believe that one can "float across because it's impassable." First, there's the definition of "impassable barrier"--how can one be submergred in water without passing its surface? Secondly, there's realism--something that's humanoid and 32 feet tall but weighs only 8 pounds would be pretty bouyant, especially when pushed upwards by a huge amount of steam. Third, there's the "human materializing in stone" rule, wherein someone with his constituent molecules spread out within a bunch of rock only takes 1d6 damage per five feet of rock and gets shunted off to the side.

I don't see PCs claiming they can hover across a volcanic lake of lava because it's "impassable".

(1) Lava isn't impassable. You can bathe in it at first level if you want, though it won't be good for you.
(2) Clearly you've never played a game with the Scout class.



Overall, however, I stick by my assertion that it's a mental thing. The actual wording is:

A fire elemental cannot enter water or any other nonflammable liquid. A body of water is an impassible barrier unless the fire elemental can step or jump over it.

(1) If they treated it as solid, they wouldn't have to enter it to pass over it, thus making jump irrelevant. (2) The "cannot enter" part is separate from the "impassible barrier" part, implying that they do, in fact, sink in water, even if only the slighest fraction of an inch (due to their density). (3) There's no evidence anywhere else that water is in any way harmful to them, excluding planar properties, which are different in functionality than simple mundane bodies of water.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Ok, we have it established jumping over water is legal for a fire elemental to attempt. But what happens if the jump result come up a little short?

Hilarity ensues.

 

[Festivus]

I would say no. The reason it does damage is because it is its opposite element.



Well, the super-soaker itself? None. But the water it squirts might do some.



Earth is not Fire's elemental opposite.


For me I would compare the size of the elemental to the amount of water it is coming into contact with to determine the damage/effect.

For me, the image if a huge elemental emerging slightly smaller from a wall of steam created by it crossing a stream with great anger is too cool to allow some lame rule as written to get in the way.

Couldn't you balance the water damage taken by the elemental with some sort of area effect of steam damage to those in the vicinity? That would tend to discourage super-soakers a bit I suspect.... not to mention the instant fog cloud like effects.

 

[Deset Gled]

It's not expressed as 'opposite elements', but the Ring of Elemental Command places Fire/Water and Earth/Air in opposition:

Interesting. Particularly the fact that an Earth ring gives a penalty to electricity based effects. If anything, I would have thought it would grant a bonus in that situation.

However, it still does not indicate that a Fire Elemental would be damaged by water in any way. Nothing that I have found in the SRD or Manual of the Planes says it, either (Note that the Plane of Water damages fire based creatures, but that is is property of the plane, not of water. Even if the fire creature is in an air pocket on the Plane of Water and not touching a liquid in any way, they still take damage.).

I think DreadArchon summed up the rest I came here to say rather nicely.

 

[Hypersmurf]

However, it still does not indicate that a Fire Elemental would be damaged by water in any way.

No, not at all. I was just showing that there is precedent in the SRD for considering Earth and Air to be in opposition.

-Hyp.

 

[gnfnrf]

My take on the situation is as follows.

Impassible means "unable to cross to the other side", not "unable to enter". Unable to enter is covered by the previous sentence.

If a fire elemental tries to jump a body of water, I would make the jump check. If it is insufficient to clear the water, the elemental does not jump and ends its movement.

If a fire elemental is introduced to a body of water by other means, I'm not sure how I'd handle it. Probably, shunt them to an available space if one is reasonably close, and render the elemental helpless if one isn't close. But that isn't with support of the rules, just my instincts.

--
gnfnrf

 

[Sejs]

That would tend to discourage super-soakers a bit I suspect....

I was actually thinking regarding the super-soakers/buckets of water/etc thing.

Treat a moderate, but still significant amount of water doused on an elemental as a vial of acid.

Treat a large amount of water doused on an elemental as brief contact with lava. Large amount of water generates an area of steam around the elemental for a round or so. Steam = the hurt.

I dunno, but throwing assloads of water on a fire elemental to kill makes a bit more sense than killing it with swords to me.

 

[frankthedm]

I dunno, but throwing assloads of water on a fire elemental to kill makes a bit more sense than killing it with swords to me.

Yep!

Also bullrushing a fire elemental into a body of water sounds like something that ought to be rewarded. Not just a WA-Wa-wa! sound effect as it is shunted to a legal space for it to move to.

 

[frankthedm]

If a fire elemental tries to jump a body of water, I would make the jump check. If it is insufficient to clear the water, the elemental does not jump and ends its movement.

I would call "BS" on that as a player. Nothing else gets a take back on failed jumps,

 

[DreadArchon]

I dunno, but throwing assloads of water on a fire elemental to kill makes a bit more sense than killing it with swords to me.

I still totally disagree. (I see this a lot, and it's starting to become a pet peeve, so sorry if I come across as ranting a tad... because I am.) There's just no basis for this unless you argue fire elementals to be made out of burning wood, which there isn't reason for. That's why fire extinguishers are rated--you don't want to throw water on burning grease or on an electrical fire, for example. People get killed doing that.

Fire elementals aren't made of wood. They're elemental fire. They're basically a hole in the fabric of the planes, a conduit to the Plane of Fire, and as far I'm concerned you're attempting to smother spacetime by throwing water at them. This won't work because spacetime isn't fueled by oxygen.

The best analogy, IMAO, is the sun. I actually saw a message board where a number of people (over a dozen!) were arguing that you could "put out the sun by surrounding it with enough water."* Fire is a reaction. To get rid of it, you have to disable whatever is causing it, and the "throw water on it" approach is based wholly on the assumption that oxygen is what's causing it. Oxygen doesn't cause fire elementals any more than it causes the sun--both can exist in a vaccuum, so why not underwater?



*Physics note: The sun is a nuclear reaction. So, no, you can't douse it with water. Actually, as it has higher bond energy than iron, water would fuel the sun relatively easily. This, ironically, could be used to kill the star, as a star which burns faster also dies faster, but I don't think that a supernova is what you're trying to accomplish with the fire elemental thing (and even if it was, note that I don't consider fire elementals to be miniature stars, and thus it still wouldn't work).