Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 murkmind May 02, 2015 1:30:47	Hi.   I am fairly new to pen and paper style DnD, but I've played a fair deal of Dungeons and Dragons Online. I know the system somewhat, and I'm planning to run my own campaign. There is one problem. A player desires to roll an earth elemental character (medium, I'm guessing, so it's more or less human size). I am cool with that, but  I'm lacking ideas how to progress such character, what skills it should have, and how to adapt it's attributes (so he has more than 3 int, to communicate with others.) I don't want to break the game mechanics.   Any input would be appreciated.   Thanks.
#2 Kentus May 02, 2015 3:21:58	Even though it's not quite like an elemental, in the Elemental Evil Player Companion are the Genasi, beings with elemental origin. Even if this is not, what he's looking for, it may be a good way to design the race around it, even though I like to question to play an elemental in the first place and how it comes to be a player character. There has to be some good explanation.
#3 Macv12 May 02, 2015 4:04:10	Homebrewing an entire character class right off the bad is probably not a good idea.   Look at the free Elemental Evil PDF (you can find it online) to find the various Genasi races. They're basically elemental lites. The earth one probably does the worst job of capturing the feel of a creature literally made of its associated element, but it's a better idea than inventing one from scratch. Taking Druid as the character's class will probably capture a "nature-y" feel. You can be not-pathetic in melee combat while taking lots of earth-themed spells as a full caster to represent your powers. Honestly I'm not sure exactly what you want out of it, as I've never played an elemental or DDO.
#4 murkmind May 02, 2015 6:54:07	The thing is he insists on elemental. I haven't thought about the druid class. I will suggest that and perhaps it'll work in some peculiar way. Assuming that the backstory explains elemental's exceptional (for an elemental) intelligence, of course.   Thanks for the suggestions. I'll look those things up.
#5 jaappleton May 02, 2015 9:39:59	Have him pick Earth Genasi and just call it "Elemental".    Being a flat-out 'Elemental' isn't officially possible yet, the race doesn't exist for Fifth Edition. So he'll have to pick something, and call it something else. Or use a homebrewed race, but I doubt people have worked on one because they likely all focused on Genasi before Genasi were made official. So... The player has to decide: Don't play, or pick something and just call yourself an Earth Elemental.   As far as Class goes, that's more difficult. I agree that Druid is a pretty decent choice. The Sorcerer can actually specialize in various types of damage, like Fire or Lightning. But "Earth" doesn't exist as an element. So he can totally be a Fire Elemental (Fire Genasi) specializing in Fire (Fire Dragon Sorcerer), or do the same with Water/Ice. But not Earth.
#6 Macv12 May 02, 2015 10:25:41	Druids do pick up a lot of options in EE though. Mold Earth, Earth Tremor, Erupting Earth, Transmute Rock...fairly paltry though, even combined with the PHB stuff (which I can't be arsed to look up right now).   What do they want to do as an earth elemental? They can probably capture the idea of it by just reflavoring stuff. Change Fireball to bludgeoning damage and call it Earthshatter or some such, for example. But it depends on what they want to emphasize.
#7 supreme_slayer May 02, 2015 10:35:56	They could also just play a warforged that you call an earth elemental, choosing Terran as a bonus language. A being made of rock. Don't need to breathe, eat, etc etc. No burrowing and so on, but yeah.
#8 mellored May 02, 2015 11:23:46	an earth genasi, or warforged fighter would be fine. just flavor his heavy armor as being a rock, and let him use his fists as a maul.
#9 murkmind May 02, 2015 13:47:33	I like the idea of reflavouring stuff. I will mess around with other spells and see what I can come up with. As for what they want to do as an earth elemental... The player aims to be tough, have lots of health, and be a 'tank' sort of character (will definitely have some major weaknesses, otherwise I won't allow it). Damage output does not matter that much. Some supportive spells or abilities might be cool too.   Thanks for those great ideas.
#10 Whir May 02, 2015 15:27:42	Anything is possible -- what's most important, in my opinion, is knowing the rules well enough to build a balanced version of what it is he wants. I ran a one-off a while ago for two of my players on a no-shows night where they played earth elementals who were defending their territory from a company of dwarven miners. They had a lot of fun (they said).   I can't post the actual monster here for obvious reasons, but know that the earth elemental from the Monster Manual is a Large 12d10+con bad guy. Not precisely fit for play as a PC unless you're going to be playing a high level campaign. What you can do, and this is totally homebrew and will not follow any rules you'll find in any of the books that I've seen, is extrapolate backwards from the stats that are given. For example, if I were making it a playable race for one of my players, here is what I might do:   Earth Elementals are Large. I'd probably dump it to Medium. Even goliaths are Medium and they're eight feet tall. So you're a little stumpy for an elemental -- you're new to this! Earth Elementals have very high Strength and Constituion scores, but very low Intelligence and Charisma. I might make the starting stat bonuses +2 STR, +2 CON, -4 INT, -4 CHA. Pebbles isn't going to be the sharpest pancake in the tree, but at worst he's got a 4 INT (assuming default stat block), and that's enough to grind some Terran noises out. Earth Elementals have a burrow speed and their burrowing is magical. Possibly a little OP, but Aarakocra have a fly speed, and it's not like an Earth Elemental can burrow through wooden floor planks or off the deck of an ship. Earth Elementals have a pretty good natural damage reduction and immunities. Probably a little to a lot OP. None of the other races have this much "get away with charging a full party of worg-mounted goblins". However, they are susceptible to thunder, and a mere +1 weapon or firebolt spell can still ruin their day. Play your enemies smart to make up for it -- give your acolytes thunderclap and thunderwave (don't abuse it, you don't want to murder the poor guy because he has an imagination). Earth Elementals get more bonus senses than any PC race, but not as good in them as some of them. I don't particularly see this as unbalanced, or at least not as unbalanced as the resistances and immunities they get. Earth Elementals get natural armor and natural weapons. Truth, but that's not really anything to be afraid of. A first level fighter can run around in chain and a shield for an AC of 18 and the book version of the Earth Elemental is lower than that. Give him a natural AC of 16 (chainmail) or even 15 (chain shirt and +2 DEX) and he can only raise it by custom feats or something along those lines -- even wearing full plate wouldn't help because how the heck do you mount armor to an ever-changing piece of rock? Make his slam attack 1d8+STR bludgeoning and he follows whatever class he picks for number of attacks. Any old defensive fighter can pick up a longsword or battleaxe and do 1d8 all day, so no cheating there.   Right now, I feel the only major imbalance is the extra resistances. True, he's not getting extra weapon proficiencies, cantrips, advantage on random saves, or any of the myriad other things the PHB races get, but that's a lot of battle-effective awesomeness. Since we're already playing outside the box, you could adopt the ECL system from 3.5 and say that he needs experience as a character 1 level higher than he is to get to the next level. All his friends are level 3 and he's only level 2 and so on. I think 1 level would be fair, others may have a better idea or different opinion on level difference you could use. As mentioned above, the Elemental Evil Player's Companion added some interesting druid spells that relate to earthen elementalism, and you could make a fairly effective druid with the guy if you took the 15 in WIS, but I think a few druid abilities rely on CHA, and you're never going to have a high CHA with this guy. Personally, I'd spend my time (for min/maxing sensibility) as a berserker barbarian or dueling or protection fighter.   Hope this helps.
#11 jaappleton May 02, 2015 16:19:17	His Earth Elemental was once the prize of a Wizard, chiseled down so it could fit through the doorways of the wizards home. What? It worked for Shale.
(Reply to #11) Breefolk	jaappleton wrote:
#13 mellored May 04, 2015 5:41:01	Earth Genasi Elemental: +2 Con, +1 Str Speed 30:   You can walk though difficult terrain made from earth without penalty. You can cast Pass Without a Trace once per long rest.   Reflavor: You cannot use weapons, armor, and must be a fighter. You have 19 AC, this increases by 1 at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20, for a max of 23  (= heavy armor + shield + +3 adamantine armor).  You cannot be critically hit. Your unarmed strikes deal 1d8 bludgoning damage. (= warhammer), You can throw a rock 1d6 bludgoning damage at 20/60 range, use Str as your attack stat. (= light hammer ). Your attacks count as magical for the purposes of bypassing resistance.
#14 jaappleton May 04, 2015 6:04:32	Wonder if adding Destructive Wave at level 15-ish would be OK
#15 mellored May 04, 2015 6:27:49	jaappleton wrote:
#16 murkmind May 05, 2015 1:35:24	Wow, you guys have been really helpful! I think I now have a good idea how to make this character work.   Thanks a lot!
#17 RunningWilder May 05, 2015 5:57:46	You could always offer to have the character be an earth elemental flavour wise but use the stats for an earth genasi under the hood. Unless he just wants to play an earth elemental for the mechanical advantage.   If it's just for the mechanical advantage  then just do what you would do if someone told you they wanted to play a gargantuan red dragon.
#18 jaappleton May 05, 2015 9:21:20	Well, the new Unearthed Arcana has Storm Sorcerers if he wanted to be a Lightning Elemental.