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

[AnonymousOne]

I wouldn't add 50% damage because fire elementals have a cold vulnerability, not a water vulnerability. I'm also tempted to say energy resistance cold would not reduce this damage.

Sooo if my outlandish swashbuckler rogue happens to dump his ice-cold Gin and Tonic on the Fire elemental it would take more damage than a glass of water? Poppycock!

For the record.... I think when we think "cold" in D&D terms we mean really F*%&ing cold.

 

[DreadArchon]

Sooo if my outlandish swashbuckler rogue happens to dump his ice-cold Gin and Tonic on the Fire elemental it would take more damage than a glass of water? Poppycock!

It might light the Gin and Tonic on fire, but if it was cold enough to do cold damage, it would do more than nothing to the Fire Elemental, so yes. Emphasis on "cold enough to do cold damage." As in, if you can drink it without being considered to be performing a coup de grace action on yourself, then it's not considered "cold damage."

For the record.... I think when we think "cold" in D&D terms we mean really F*%&ing cold.

I don't think it has to be very far below freezing, actually, but I don't remember offhand how cold "cold" is.

 

[phindar]

Absent a specific reference to fire elementals taking damage from water, I'd rule that the elemental who came up short on his jump check would be shunted back to the edge he jumped from (even if he had jumped 38' across a 40' river). There's be a lot of steam and some hissing curse words in whatever language fire elementals speak, but I'd probably draw the line there.

Now, in a game like AE which has a lot of elemental attack spells (and generally, the caster gets to pick the element), I go with opposing elements take double damage from those attacks, so a fire elemental hit with a Sorcerous Blast [Water] is pretty seriously screwed. But elemental magic is more ingrained in that system than D&D, where that doesn't come up all that much.

Or you could import an old Shadowrun rule, so that if a 8 HD fire elemental grapples a 4 HD water elemental, what you are left with is a 4 HD fire elemental. Although that probably wouldn't port to well to D&D as it would seriously nerf the higher level elementals, it would be vastly simpler.