Feeding a Water Elemental

[Sorenant]

I just noticed Water Elementals are the only type of Elementals that doesn't have the "Doesn't Eat or Drink" trait. It's like this both in Magic and DF9 so I doubt it's an errata, but then why is that? Is there some particular reason to why Water Elementals needs to eat and drink?

Edit: It's not as odd as the above, but I've also felt weird that Water Elementals comes with Chameleon while Air Elementals doesn't, and Slippery feels partially redundant with Diffuse (MA115 says Diffuse makes you immune to grapples).

[Anthony]

Despite being copied, it's likely still an errata, though the incorrect ones are arguably the other elementals; I would argue that:

• air elementals should not eat, but should breathe.
• earth elementals should neither eat nor breathe.
• fire elementals should both eat and breathe (though their food is flammable materials), but should not drink. I'm not impressed by the Oxygen Combustion limitation on doesn't breathe; all it gives you is immunity to choking and strangulation (moot for diffuse creatures) and inhaled toxins (moot with immunity to metabolic hazards).
• water elementals should drink.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Despite being copied, it's likely still an errata, though the incorrect ones are arguably the other elementals; I would argue that:

• air elementals should not eat, but should breathe.
• earth elementals should neither eat nor breathe.
• fire elementals should both eat and breathe (though their food is flammable materials), but should not drink. I'm not impressed by the Oxygen Combustion limitation on doesn't breathe; all it gives you is immunity to choking and strangulation (moot for diffuse creatures) and inhaled toxins (moot with immunity to metabolic hazards).
• water elementals should drink.

I never thought about the topic, but that all makes sense; I like it!

Earth elementals get away a bit easy here. I agree with no eat/drink/breathe, but I could see them having a contact with the earth as a "sustenance" need (such that an elemental caged, or floating in space, etc. for a long period would "starve" from lack of that contact). Just a passing thought.

[Dalillama]

That sounds more like a minor Dependency, probably quirk-level due to the constant availability of ground anyplace you find an Earth Elemental and the considerable difficulty involved in getting one loose from the ground to start with.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

That sounds more like a minor Dependency, probably quirk-level due to the constant availability of ground anyplace you find an Earth Elemental and the considerable difficulty involved in getting one loose from the ground to start with.

Yeah, a minor or trivial Dependency may be the right way to do it. (Alternately, a GM could rule that earth elementals do require food – the food just happens to be rocks and minerals.)

[scc]

I'd defiantly say this errata stuff, as otherwise Fire Elementals wouldn't be able to move away from their fuel sources, and what would a Water Elemental eat anyway?

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

That sounds more like a minor Dependency, probably quirk-level due to the constant availability of ground anyplace you find an Earth Elemental and the considerable difficulty involved in getting one loose from the ground to start with.

If it is natural stone or bare earth, staying in urban areas means staying aware of where the parks and green spaces are.

[Phantasm]

Likewise, metal elementals should have Doesn't Eat or Drink as well as Doesn't Breathe. Wood elementals depend on if you're going with something like the unliving wood in the center (could be mistaken for a wood golem), a mass of vines, branches, and leaves (ala Swamp Thing), or the whole tree (ala Groot). The latter two cases probably should need to drink, flytrap-style eating optional but a need for nutrients by planting roots in the ground for a meal could work.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Sorenant

I just noticed Water Elementals are the only type of Elementals that doesn't have the "Doesn't Eat or Drink" trait. It's like this both in Magic and DF9 so I doubt it's an errata, but then why is that? Is there some particular reason to why Water Elementals needs to eat and drink?

Edit: It's not as odd as the above, but I've also felt weird that Water Elementals comes with Chameleon while Air Elementals doesn't, and Slippery feels partially redundant with Diffuse (MA115 says Diffuse makes you immune to grapples).

But it isn't like that in Elemental Meta-Traits (p. B262), which predates both. None of the Elemental Body of [Substance] meta-traits there includes Doesn't Eat or Breathe. So yes, it probably is an errata issue.

It's not that weird that Water Elementals have Stealth 1 as part of Body of Water, while Air Elementals don't have any level of Stealth as part of Body of Air. It suggests that if your body is made of water, it's a little easier to not be noticed/blend in with your surroundings, but people will still have a fair chance of noticing you due to refraction when they look through you. While it helps some while you're moving, it's more effective when your standing still. All of which sounds reasonable enough and Stealth is a good fit for describing it. That's probably why Water Elementals have Stealth.

OTOH, Body of Air doesn't have issues with refraction and should be just as hard to notice when moving as when standing still, so Stealth isn't a good fit for describing them. What is weird, is that Body of Air doesn't come with Invisibility as part of the build.

Diffuse doesn't have much overlap with Slippery. Slippery 5 makes you hard to hold and lets you squeeze through small openings. Diffuse is a form of Injury Tolerance and while most [but not all] foes cannot grapple or slam you, its primary benefit is making you hard to hurt. If you are Diffuse, you are: immune to crippling injuries; don't bleed; cannot go unconscious by having your blood supply choked off; take no extra damage from a blow to the skull; take no extra damage from an attack to the Vitals or Groin; and only explosions, area effect and cone attacks aren't capped at 1 HP or 2 HP of injury. Diffuse has a lot of bang for the buck.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Despite being copied, it's likely still an errata, though the incorrect ones are arguably the other elementals; I would argue that:

• air elementals should not eat, but should breathe.
• earth elementals should neither eat nor breathe.
• fire elementals should both eat and breathe (though their food is flammable materials), but should not drink. I'm not impressed by the Oxygen Combustion limitation on doesn't breathe; all it gives you is immunity to choking and strangulation (moot for diffuse creatures) and inhaled toxins (moot with immunity to metabolic hazards).
• water elementals should drink.

I can't say that I see an argument for those particular traits for those particular elementals, just a list of premises.

Why does an air elemental need to breathe? It's made of air. Likewise, why does a water elemental need to drink? It's made out of water. If either elemental needed this, they could consume their own body if nothing else was handy, but if they live on a plane of their element, they'd eventually consume the whole plane. Fire and Earth might be argued to need to eat (or drink for the earth elemental) and breathe, although that seems a bit unlikely given their opposite numbers don't need to.

On the other hand, not needing to breathe or eat or drink doesn't necessarily preclude being able to go through the motions of doing so. It just won't benefit them.

As for not being impressed by what the Oxygen Combustion Limitation gives you, it impresses me. The benefits with the limitation are exactly what you'd get if there was no limitation. The effect of the limitation is that although you don't need to breathe as such, you still can't exist anywhere fire couldn't, which seems like an eminently sensible limitation for a fire elemental.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by tbone

I never thought about the topic, but that all makes sense; I like it!

Earth elementals get away a bit easy here. I agree with no eat/drink/breathe, but I could see them having a contact with the earth as a "sustenance" need (such that an elemental caged, or floating in space, etc. for a long period would "starve" from lack of that contact). Just a passing thought.

Needing to eat dirt/stone/etc would be appropriate for an earth elemental. That stuff is pretty abundant and low price, however, so maybe Doesn't Eat or Drink with a -10% Limitation.

I've got a mostly-complete "Concerning Consumption" Overhaul, I may clean that up and post it (main thing it's lacking are foraging rules). Under that, earth elementals would probably have really low-cost food requirements. Water elementals might have fairly high-cost water requirements, if the water they consume needs to be particularly pure.

You could increase the cost of foodstuffs by requiring elementals to consume Essential materials (Essential Fuel for fire elementals).