At the moment, Alenka is 15th level, and I think has had the necklace for... 4 months? So we'll call that a 19 hit die limit for now.


A minor rule change is that you are limited to this list, which can be updated over time. I have a stat block at the top of each one. This includes their availability (can you use this after getting one killed), attack bonus (to-hit), damage dice and bonus, and saving throws.

So, first a review on how to read stat blocks. Check here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elemental.htm

Scroll on down to "Fire Elemental, Huge". Here's the stats of a basic one.




So, from the top:

Size/Type Indicates the size he occupies in a combat scenario. This also has some OTHER implications- for instance, being Huge gives you a big plus to your grapple, a small penalty to hit, etc. Type means a hell of a lot. For instance, the elemental type means:


WHOA lots of stuff right? This also tells you how to advance the character in most cases- when a creature becomes stronger, he's either gaining more hit dice in his "type", or he's gaining class levels. Do you see anything in there that is contrary to what we have in the game? My elementals are different in that they are dual natured, like humans- slaying an elemental immediately returns them to the idealogical source, where they gradually gain their traits back again. Elementals in Caligo also can't feel pain (and normally have no concept of it), and are normally poor at moral reasoning. But this is the stock elemental, so you could look these up easily enough (in this case, I just clicked the word "elemental" in the above link.


Next up is "Hit Dice". This is what it sounds like, but notice it could be complex if the creature had, say, four levels of fighter. Then we might see "16d8+4d10" there, and that would be a 20 hit die creature. Generally, a hit die is weaker than a class level- gaining a level of fire elemental is less effective than gaining a level of fighter. This creature is listed as a CR 7- a 16 hit die fighter would be 16th level, and substantially more challenging! Hit dice determine how many feats the creature has (divide by three) as well as their base attack and base saves. Notice in the "elemental" area that I quoted, it has the "base attack bonus" listed in there, as well as "good and poor" saves. So, what base attack would you expect out of a 3/4 BAB hit die creature with 16? Hopefully you said 12, and you can find that listed below.
Next to that is hit points assuming an average die roll without any slanting. That's a bit under for our games- you should roll this manually (roll each die twice, taking highest, assume the first is maximum), to get the actual hit points. If you don't have time, then use the number in parenthesis for summoned creatures.

Initiative is normally based on Dex modifier only, but a decent number of creatures have improved init. The fire elemental as listed does, and his Dex of 25 is a modifier of 7+4=11.

Speed is not always explicitly derived from other things. There are rules for making creatures larger- as you would expect, a larger creature can cover ground much faster than a smaller creature, while suffering a penalty to its Dexterity.

Armor Class does not normally improve with level. To get around this, you'll often see a pretty large natural armor on creatures that are supposed to be big and strong. Since this creature is CR 7, his natural AC is 4- not very much, especially to pal around with other 16 hit die creatures and characters. His total AC is a mediocre for YOUR level of 21, though this is a fine AC to challenge a level 5 party with.

Base Attack / Grapple- Base attack is normally derived DIRECTLY from hit dice times the progression. Some creatures are naturally martial, but this is rare- most creatures that get by via hunting or are made to be violent and powerful have a 3/4 base attack bonus. Creatures that disdain combat occasionally have the wizard BAB, but this is also rare. GRAPPLE- Yeti fucked this up and thought it was has plus to hit. He added his 11 die roll to his 24 grapple check to hit one of the NPCs, and that hit should have been a miss. You don't use grapple to establish a hit, or even just to grab someone- grapple is used DURING a grapple check. So if the fire elemental wanted to grapple, he would roll his NORMAL to-hit, and since he doesn't have improved grab or improved grapple, he would provoke an attack of opportunity. If the attack succeeded, his action would be wasted. If it didn't succeed, THEN the fire elemental would use his grapple check versus the opponent's grapple check to see if a grapple is successfully entered. IGNORE GRAPPLE ENTIRELY UNLESS YOU ARE GRAPPLING!

Attack line- This is normally what would happen if the creature did a standard. It normally lists his choices. For instance, if I was a male dire platypus, I would have a bite attack with my dire-bill, two claw attacks, and a poison spur attack. But with a standard, I would have to choose one. So this line would read:
Attack: Bite +13 melee (2d8+6) or Claw +11 melee (1d6+4) or Poison Spur +11 melee (1d4+2 + Poison)
Then "Poison" would be defined in the creature's entry. This has ORs on it because you can't do them all at once on a standard. I don't think this is the best way of doing it- I create one line for each type of attack normally. But the standard has this approach.
Yeti ALSO fucked this one up- be added the +17 to damage. In this case, the parethesis has the damage numbers, and the stuff outside is the +hit. When D&D uses the phrase "attack" it means "to-hit", and represents your chance on the d20 to "attack". Whenever it talks about the magnitude of an attack, it uses the word damage.


Full Attack- With all the restrictions of a full attack, this represents what happens when you have enough time in a round to run your full attack cycle. The male dire platypus would have his bite, both claws, and his poison spur there. A female dire platypus, of course, has no poison spur.

That would be ridiculous.


Space/Reach is self explanatory, and normally based on size. Some creatures have less reach- for instance, if you are large but quadrupedal, you probably have less reach. A fire elemental can sort of be what it wants to be, so this probably worked into assigning it the more favorable 15 foot reach. A creature can attack anything inside its reach- if it has the equivalent of a polearm, that will be called out differently.

Special Attacks and Special Qualities- Always look here, because often really important details, including weaknesses or immunities, are listed here.

Saves- These are based on the hit dice and type, and then modified by the stats. "Good" saves are: You halve the hit dice, rounding down. You then add two. "Poor" saves are: You third the hit dice, rounding down. Just as with players, add the Wisdom modifier to will, the Dexterity modifier to reflex, and the Constitution modifier to fortitude. If you don't have a Constitution, you normally don't get a modifier to fortitude (in Pathfinder, this becomes Charisma). Undead and Constructs normally have bad fortitude saves, and as such are vulnerable to destruction and disintegration.

Abilities / Feats - Self explanatory. Note that some times a really important feat will be snuck in here. For instance, a giant always always knows Power Attack, and should use it against PUNY HUNAMS, etc.

Enticed Mass of Fire
Huge 19 Hit Die elemental

Availability: Unlimited
Hit Points: 194
AC: 21
Standard Attack: Slams with two "fists". The first attack is at +19, the second attack is at +9. Each attack deals 2d8+4 physical and 2d8 fire and can inflict a burn. Critical threat on a 19 or 20, x2.
Full Attack: Slams with two "fists". Both attacks are at +19. Each attack deals 2d8+4 physical and 2d8 fire and can inflict a burn. Critical threat on a 19 or 20, x2.
Fort/Refl/Will: +10/+18/+8
Burn DC: 22. On a failed save, catches fire, burning for 1d4 rounds for 1d6 points of fire damage each round.

Oh, notice the "B" in the stat block. In the original, that's a superscript- it indicates a "bonus feat". Sometimes monsters will get a bonus feat without being able to use it officially (for instance, a swashbucklebot golem wouldn't be able to combat expertise because it is mindless, so you would add that feat with a B when designing it)- the "bonus" status allows it to be used.

Any fire elemental requests or ideas?

I feel like one should be able to make breakfast in bed. Freedom toast, please. And don't burn it.



And maybe pounce.

Yes. TITAN!

He likes s'mores... and toast.

Seriously I do not know. I mean, what might a fire elemental be into other than burning stuff?

How about helping kids in burn wards, you insensitive jerk?

http://i.imgur.com/93OwTja.jpg



I'd suggest a guarding elemental. Maybe he can be ordered to defend the cleric and has some ability to parry attacks. Higher AC, lower attack.

Or maybe a fellow that can throw Orbs of Fire.

Scale picture or URL it, that thing breaks thread.

Also LOL

I had ideas for the following:


A fire elemental with an unresistable low damage area attack with a cast time. No melee attacks.
A fire elemental that shoots pieces of himself out as missiles until it's time to go back home.
A guardian elemental that offers some degree of cover or assistance- Mark's parry idea is pretty great.
A fire elemental that offers flanking and a fiery sneak attack.

Even without these exotic ideas, there's the idea of a fire elemental who is very tuned for striking enemies, versus the typical ones. Remember that most of the monsters are sort of designed to interact with groups of players at appropriate CRs- so a fire elemental with 15 hit dice isn't going to be as accurate or useful as a 15th level fighter, because he's meant for a group of 7th level players to be challenged by. This is part of why the total hit dice you can control converges on twice your level over time.

I like the idea of a guardian fire elemental. How about "Tūroa" for a name?

Turoa Lir-Lam

Um, I had a write-up, but it's not in my inbox. I decided to go ahead with this guy even without it. I'll try to make a box so he's easier to run, and his guardelemental will just have a parry mechanic- but ultimately I decided to go with this guy even if he's a little mechanically complex.

Basically, when he hits stuff or shields people he gains fire motes, and then he can spend them on bigger hits or shields.

He looks really nifty!

Ok so Fire Motes: are these like the WoW motes?

So i spent time on Google before suggesting the name of Tūroa:

Comets.
-Auahiroa and auahitūroa, meaning ‘long smoke trails’, and ūpokoroa, were common names for comets. One tradition from the Mātaatua tribes in the Bay of Plenty says that Te Rā (the sun) sent his son Auahi-tūroa, a comet, to give fire to humankind. Auahi-tūroa married Mahuika, who bore five children, Te Tokorima (the five fingers): Takonui, Takoroa, Māpere, Manawa and Toiti. Another account says that the demigod Māui retrieved fire from the fingernails of Mahuika, his grandmother, and planted it in trees such as kaikōmako, rimu and tōtara, which were used in traditional fire making. Fire is often known as Tama-a-Auahi-tūroa (son of Auahi-tūroa).

Aboriginal mythology I think.

No.

In D&D, "mote" normally means "a small magical spec", which is very close to the real world definition. It's seen in descriptions of spells, usually referring to a glowing small spec of some magical something. Your best bet for picturing it is a freely glowing or at least reflecting small entity, notable mostly because the illumination is much greater than its size would indicate. A magical effect could explode in a hail of motes, for instance, or a spell could summon motes as its effect. The 2nd edition books use the term "mote" more, as do the 4th- for 3rd, I don't think it's in the PHB, but the expansion books went back to it.

The visual I'm going for is a small flickering red entity, like a star in the night sky, but no bigger around than a marble- but the illumination might make it appear bigger.

Samus has a blue mote to indicate her gun charge status:




In WoW, motes are almost always economic objects you combine to form greater objects. The motes of fire you are thinking of are used to combine into primal fire, which you then make old armor with. The visual there is http://www.wowhead.com/item=22574/mote-of-fire more of maybe a flaming ioun stone, but only exists in icon- there's no way to put it in the game world.

Given that these motes float around him and are used to power spells, the closest mechanical WoW equivalent would be like a shadow orb? They even both have a limit of three. Given how shadow orbs are made and what they do, I would say that's about it for comparison- you can't reduce damage, deal direct ranged damage, or do anything in melee with a shadow orb. Shadow orbs are like, you put a powerful disease on someone, or you horrify them.

I also had to google it before allowing it. I have a serious problem with players attempting to insert inappropriate / anachronistic / references to languages / references to places / references to people at times. In this case, it worked for the character.

Updated Turoa Lir-Lam: