Elemental (5A)

This is a work in progress.

This is a Bogeyman subclass.

The dancing flames! The soaring wind! The shaking earth! The roar of waves! This is me and my sisters! You will be punished!

As an elemental, you manifest the wrath of nature itself. The way you conceal your presence is by shrinking to tiny size. As a boogeyman elemental you are much more intelligent than normal elementals, and could in time become a ruler among your kin. But normal people can't discern this from your appearance and consider you a dangerous supernatural threat, liable to destroy everything around you.

Source: Original.

Subclass Features

Elemental Nature

At 1st level when you choose this subclass, your creature type becomes elemental. You must determine an elemental affiliation, choosing one or rolling randomly:

Element (d4)

Air
Earth
Fire
Water

You keep the general shape of your race but are made up of elemental matter. You cannot conceal your elemental nature, your elemental effects are always perceptible. You do not need to eat, breathe, or sleep, but you still need short and long rests to recover. Beyond this, each type of elemental have their own distinctive traits.

Air As an air elemental, you gain a fly speed equal to your land speed. You learn the Auran language. If you already know Auran, you learn Primordial instead. Your Dark Strike attacks do bludgeoning damage. You are immune to lightning, poison, and thunder damage.

Earth As an earth elemental, you have the Earth Glide ability. You can burrow through nonmagical, unworked earth and stone. While doing so, you don't disturb the material it moves through, but you become blind and disoriented while entirely inside earth. This means that you must always remain adjacent to an open space or become lost. You learn the Terram language. If you already know Terram, you learn Primordial instead. Your Dark Strike attacks do bludgeoning damage, and you deal double damage when attacking constructions such as walls or doors. You are immune to poison damage.

Fire As a fire elemental you are weightless. You can walk on and climb surfaces that could not carry a normal creature's weight, including the surface of liquids. You learn the Ignan language. If you already know Ingan, you learn Primordial instead. You shed bright light in a radius equal to your reach and dim light twice as far. As a bonus action, you can suppress this light entirely or trippel the radius of this light until the end of your next turn. Your Dark Strike attacks deal fire damage. You are immune to fire and poison damage.

Water As a water elemental you gain a swim speed equal to your land speed. You learn the Aquan language. If you already know Aquan, you learn Primordial instead. Your Dark Strike does bludgeoning damage. You are immune to acid and poison damage.

**Hostile Environment: Water**
Elementals do not prosper in environments dominated by element other than their own. This is particularly true underwater. Elementals do not risk drowning, but that is just about their only advantage underwater. Air elementals cannot use their fly speed underwater and must swim like a land creature. Earth elementals cannot swim at all, they have to walk along the bottom. Fire elementals can swim, but remember that creatures that are under the water gain resistance to fire damage and that the Dark Strike attacks of elementals suffer disadvantage unless the elemental has a swim speed. Of course water elementals are supremely at home underwater and suffer none of these disadvantages. See Underwater Combat in the Combat rules.

Size Change

At 1st level, you take a bonus action to change your size or return to your natural size. This ability gradually improves as you increase in level. In order to use this ability, there must be enough room for the new size you wish to assume.

At 1st level you can become Tiny. The main use of this size is that you appear harmless. As you will generally be seen as someone's familiar or pet and as long as you are accompanied you won't attract much attention. Immediately upon making an attack or using Monster Scare you return to your normal size without having to take any action to do so.

At level 6 you can assume Small or Medium size. This does not change your abilities.

At level 11 you can become Large. Your space and natural reach becomes 10 feet. Your Dark Strike attacks do two Dark Strike dice of damage.

At level 20 you can become Huge. Your space and natural reach becomes 15 feet. Your Dark Strike attacks do three Dark Strike dice of damage.

Condition Immunities

At 3rd level you become immune to exhaustion and the grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained, and unconscious conditions.

Elemental Resistance

At 6th level you gain resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical attacks.

Elemental Movement

At 7th level you gain abilities dependent on your element.

As an air elemental your flight speed is now twice your land speed and you gain hover.
As an earth elemental you gain tremorsense with a range of 60 feet. This allows you to navigate through the earth as long as you are within 60 feet of an open space.
As a fire elemental you can ignite your surroundings when you move. The first time on each of your turns when you move to within 5 feet of a creature or object, you can force them to take a Dexterity saving throw (objects always fail this) against your Dark power save DC. If they fail they ignite. An ignited creature is burning and takes your Dark Strike die in fire damage at the end of each of its turns. A burning object takes damage at least once, and may continue to burn or spread at the DM's discretion. A burning creature or another creature within 5 feet of a burning creature or object can use an action to put out the fire, and any amount of cold damage will also put out the fire.
As a water elemental you gain a swim speed equal to double your land speed and the ability to move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing.

Large Elemental

At 11th level you can become Large. See Size Change above.

Elemental Manifestation

At 15th level you gain an ability depending on your element. After using this ability you cannot use it again until the end of a long or short rest.

As an air elemental you can take an action to change into a whirlwind until the end of your current turn. As a whirlwind you can move into the space of hostile creatures, which counts as difficult ground. Each creature in your space at any point during your turn must make a Strength saving throw against your Dark Power save DC. On a failure, a target takes three Dark Strike dice bludgeoning damage and is flung to a spot of your choice adjacent to you is and knocked prone. If a thrown target enters the space of another creature smaller than itself, that creature must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw against your Dark Power save DC or take 1d6 bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone. If the saving throw is successful, the target takes half the bludgeoning damage and isn’t knocked prone. In either case, the creature thrown ends up in the nearest unoccupied space.

As an earth elemental you can take an action to cause an earth tremor. Intense tremors to rip through the ground in all directions out to three times your reach. Any creature on the ground in this area must make a Dexterity saving throw against your Dark Power save DC or take three Dark Strike dice bludgeoning and be knocked prone.

As a fire elemental you can use an action to cause a firestorm. You emit a fan of flame out to double your reach in all directions. Enemies in this area must turn must make a Dexterity saving throw against your Dark Power save DC or take three Dark Strike dice fire damage. A creature that passes its saving throw takes half damage and does not ignite.

As a water elemental you can take an action to change into a great wave until the end of your current turn. As a wave you can move into the space of hostile creatures, which counts as difficult ground. Each creature in your space at any point during your turn must make a Strength saving throw against your Dark Power save DC. On a failure, a target takes three Dark Strike dice bludgeoning damage. If the creature is of your current size or smaller, it is also grappled. You can maintain this grapple even after you resume your normal form. As long as a creature remains grappled it is under water inside your space. Each grappled creature takes up room inside your space, you can only grapple a creatures as long as there is room for their space to be entirely inside your space. You can move at half your normal speed carrying creatures grappled this way. Grappled creatures can attack and be attacked while inside you, this counts as underwater combat. At the end of a creature's turn when it is grappled by you, it takes your Dark Strike bludgeoning damage.

Huge Elemental

At 20th level you can become Huge. See Size Change above.

Designer's Notes

A tank, the damage of an elemental depends very much on how much space there is for it to grow.