Half elemental template: need LA advice

[Sarandosil]

Creating a Half-Elemental Creature[/size]

"Half-Elemental" is a template that can be added to any corporeal creature.

Size and Type: The creature's type changes to Outside, native subtype.. A Half Elemental uses the base creature's abilities and statistics except as noted here.

Special Qualities: A Half-Elemental retains all the special qualities of the base creature and also gains the following qualities depending on the father element.

Half Water Elemental

- Darkvision 60ft
- +4 racial bonus on fortitude saves versus poison
- Underwater Breathing
- Swim speed 30ft
- Water Mastery: A Half Water Elemental feels at home in water, and gains a +1 morale bonus to attacks and saves while submerged.
- Elemental Nature: A Half Water Elemental gains a + 2 circumstance modifier on all charisma based skill and ability checks when interacting with a creature with the water subtype, water elementals and other Half Water Elementals.
- Elemental Form: Once a day, a half-elemental can tap into her elemental nature and assume a full elemental form of the father element. The half elemental gains immunity to critical hits, poison, sleep effects, paralysis and stunning. Cannot be flanked in elemental form.

Half Earth Elemental

- Darkvision 60ft
- +4 racial bonus on fortitude saves versus poison
- Burrow (does this need a speed? 30ft?)
- Earth Mastery: A Half Earth Elemental feels at home on the ground, and gains a +1 morale bonus to attacks and saves while on ground.
- Elemental Nature: A Half Earth Elemental gains a + 2 circumstance modifier on all charisma based skill and ability checks when interacting with creatures with the earth subtype, earth elementals and other Half Earth Elementals.
- Elemental Form: Once a day, a half-elemental can tap into her elemental nature and assume a full elemental form of the father element. The half elemental gains immunity to critical hits, poison, sleep effects, paralysis and stunning. Cannot be flanked in elemental form.

Half Air Elemental

- Darkvision 60ft
- +4 racial bonus on fortitude saves versus poison
- Fly 30ft (good)
- Air Mastery: A Half Air Elemental feels at home in the air, and gains a +1 morale bonus to attacks and saves while in flight.
- Elemental Nature: A Half Air Elemental gains a + 2 circumstance modifier on all charisma based skill and ability checks when interacting with a creatures with the air subtype, air elementals and other Half Air Elementals.
- Elemental Form: Once a day, a half-elemental can tap into her elemental nature and assume a full elemental form of the father element. The half elemental gains immunity to critical hits, poison, sleep effects, paralysis and stunning. Cannot be flanked in elemental form.

A half air elemental that assumes full elemental form gains flight speed (perfect)

Half Fire Elemental

- Darkvision 60ft
- +4 racial bonus on fortitude saves versus poison
- Ignite: A Half Fire Elemental can ignite himself on fire three times a day, causing 1d4 damage/level to all those around him (5 ft range, anyone in his square basically. Good for grappling) (and suffers no harm from the effect himself). Lasts 2d4 rounds.
- Elemental Nature: A Half Fire Elemental gains a + 2 circumstance modifier on all charisma based skill and ability checks when interacting with a creatures with the fire subtype, fire elementals and other Half Fire Elementals.
- Elemental Form: Once a day, a half-elemental can tap into her elemental nature and assume a full elemental form of the father element. The half elemental gains immunity to critical hits, poison, sleep effects, paralysis and stunning. Cannot be flanked in elemental form.

A half fire elemental that assumes full elemental form gains the fire subtype and cold vulnerability as normal. A half fire elemental in full elemental form can choose not to burn objects or other creatures when interacting with them.

Environment: Same as Base creature
Alignment:Usually true neutral.

I haven't a clue what the LA would be on any of these. Not sure how long the elemental form should last.

Any other comments welcome too.

[Fullmetal_Alchemist]

Creating a Half-Elemental Creature[/size]

"Half-Elemental" is a template that can be added to any corporeal creature.

Size and Type: The creature's type changes to Outside, native subtype.. A Half Elemental uses the base creature's abilities and statistics except as noted here.

Special Qualities: A Half-Elemental retains all the special qualities of the base creature and also gains the following qualities depending on the father element.

Half Water Elemental

- Darkvision 60ft
- +4 racial bonus on fortitude saves versus poison
- Underwater Breathing
- Swim speed 30ft
- Water Mastery: A Half Water Elemental feels at home in water, and gains a +1 morale bonus to attacks and saves while submerged.
- Elemental Nature: A Half Water Elemental gains a + 2 circumstance modifier on all charisma based skill and ability checks when interacting with a creature with the water subtype, water elementals and other Half Water Elementals.
- Elemental Form: Once a day, a half-elemental can tap into her elemental nature and assume a full elemental form of the father element. The half elemental gains immunity to critical hits, poison, sleep effects, paralysis and stunning. Cannot be flanked in elemental form.

Half Earth Elemental

- Darkvision 60ft
- +4 racial bonus on fortitude saves versus poison
- Burrow (does this need a speed? 30ft?)
- Earth Mastery: A Half Earth Elemental feels at home on the ground, and gains a +1 morale bonus to attacks and saves while on ground.
- Elemental Nature: A Half Earth Elemental gains a + 2 circumstance modifier on all charisma based skill and ability checks when interacting with creatures with the earth subtype, earth elementals and other Half Earth Elementals.
- Elemental Form: Once a day, a half-elemental can tap into her elemental nature and assume a full elemental form of the father element. The half elemental gains immunity to critical hits, poison, sleep effects, paralysis and stunning. Cannot be flanked in elemental form.

Half Air Elemental

- Darkvision 60ft
- +4 racial bonus on fortitude saves versus poison
- Fly 30ft (good)
- Air Mastery: A Half Air Elemental feels at home in the air, and gains a +1 morale bonus to attacks and saves while in flight.
- Elemental Nature: A Half Air Elemental gains a + 2 circumstance modifier on all charisma based skill and ability checks when interacting with a creatures with the air subtype, air elementals and other Half Air Elementals.
- Elemental Form: Once a day, a half-elemental can tap into her elemental nature and assume a full elemental form of the father element. The half elemental gains immunity to critical hits, poison, sleep effects, paralysis and stunning. Cannot be flanked in elemental form.

A half air elemental that assumes full elemental form gains flight speed (perfect)

Half Fire Elemental

- Darkvision 60ft
- +4 racial bonus on fortitude saves versus poison
- Ignite: A Half Fire Elemental can ignite himself on fire three times a day, causing 1d4 damage/level to all those around him (5 ft range, anyone in his square basically. Good for grappling) (and suffers no harm from the effect himself). Lasts 2d4 rounds.
- Elemental Nature: A Half Fire Elemental gains a + 2 circumstance modifier on all charisma based skill and ability checks when interacting with a creatures with the fire subtype, fire elementals and other Half Fire Elementals.
- Elemental Form: Once a day, a half-elemental can tap into her elemental nature and assume a full elemental form of the father element. The half elemental gains immunity to critical hits, poison, sleep effects, paralysis and stunning. Cannot be flanked in elemental form.

A half fire elemental that assumes full elemental form gains the fire subtype and cold vulnerability as normal. A half fire elemental in full elemental form can choose not to burn objects or other creatures when interacting with them.

Environment: Same as Base creature
Alignment:Usually true neutral.

I haven't a clue what the LA would be on any of these. Not sure how long the elemental form should last.

Any other comments welcome too.

Have you looked in the book "Manual of the Planes" yet? They have a half-elemental template. Overall, I think yours work good. I can't decide on LA as well.

[brainface]

Size and Type: The creature's type changes to Outside, native subtype.
good, but not great. immunity to a few arbitrary spells, but can't benefit from enlarge person. As a player, i'd probably prefer the humanoid type, just so enlarge person would work ;)

Darkvision 60ft
good

+4 racial bonus on fortitude saves versus poison
okay. poison doesn't come up too often in my experience.

Movement bonuses:
Fly is great, burrow is very rare, and more likely to break things, i would think. I'd say water gets the short end of the stick again--being able to swim like a fish doesn't really help much if the rest of the party can't as well.

X Mastery: gains a +1 morale bonus to attacks and saves while X.
For Earth and Air, this is pretty much a constant bonus. Water gets the short end of the stick in a normal campaign.

Elemental Nature: A Half X Elemental gains a + 2 circumstance modifier on all charisma based skill and ability checks when interacting with a creature with the X subtype
fluff. little game benefit, just something neat to have, i'd say.

Elemental Form:
Neat, but solely defensive. The immunities aren't really useful in every battle, and it may not always be worth the standard action to activate. Personally, i'd prefer bonuses specific to the element type rather than generic elemental traits, but ymmv. Question--does full elemental form give any benefits not listed? (whirlwind, movement speeds, etc.)

I'd guess they're worth 1 or 2 LA, with the water one 1 LA less. I don't think templates with situational defenses are really worth that much, it's mostly the movement bonuses that make it good.

[Sarandosil]

I've looked at the template in manual of the planes. I didn't like it very much, mostly for the reason it adds nothing to the roleplay factor, with the possible exception of the spell like abilities which were exact replicas of cleric domains, making them redndant with a cleric character Overall I thought it was a very shoddily done template.

The idea behind redoing them was to stick to the theme, and give something useful in RP and out of combat. I'd rather they have a low LA, all things considered.

I do agree that water gets the short end of the stick though. Any suggestions to make them roughly equal in power?  

Size and Type: The creature's type changes to Outside, native subtype.
good, but not great. immunity to a few arbitrary spells, but can't benefit from enlarge person. As a player, i'd probably prefer the humanoid type, just so enlarge person would work ;)

Eh. Again, that was for thematic reasons. I'll just change that back to keeping the base type.

Question--does full elemental form give any benefits not listed? (whirlwind, movement speeds, etc.)

No, but I was thinking of giving them some of the abilities of elementals in the MM. (vortex, burn, drench, etc).