New Monster: Magma Elemental
This content can now be found at its most updated version in The Elements and Beyond, a free 246-page compendium that you can download right here, filled with 23 subclasses, 8 spellcasting feats, 134 spells, 213 spell variants, 85 monsters, 30 magic items, 4 races plus 12 new subraces each with racial feats, and even more goodies for both players and DMs!
“Watch out. In an enchanted volcanic dungeon, danger lurks around every twist and turn. It could even be hiding behind that huge boulder over there!”
– Final Words of an Adventurer before being slain by the “boulder.”
Player options aren’t the only thing you’ll find in the compendiums of D&D Unleashed. You’ll also find a variety of deadly and interesting monsters to fill the niches left in your campaign by the existing monster supplements (such as The Monster Manual, Volo’s Guide to Monsters, or Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes), like today’s preview, the devastating volcanic monster known for smashing the town, the ground, and everything around: the magma elemental.
The upcoming compendium The Elements and Beyond features a wide swath of new elemental monsters, including a great number of multi-type elementals, like earth/fire or air/water. Most of the dual-elementals, such as the Mud Elemental (earth/water), the Ice Elemental (water/air), or the Smoke Elemental (air/fire) are CR 6, enabling them to be summoned by a spellcaster who casts conjure elemental using a 6th-level spell slot. That group also includes the Lava Elemental, a smaller form of the Magma Elemental seen here. Both the Lava and Magma Elemental have the potent Lava Form trait, but the Magma Elemental gains many extra traits for its jump in Challenge Rating, including its ability to leave Molten Tunnels in its wake and its capacity to hide as a boulder.
The main features that define a fight with a Magma Elemental, though, are (in addition to its Lava Form) the pit of lava left by its Smash attack and the area damage dealt by Meteor Breath. The constant destruction of the battlefield does more than make the Magma Elemental a terrifying threat in an urban (and flammable) environment — it forces those fighting the elemental to move constantly, or else take more than half again as much damage just by being in the lava areas. But careless movement can trigger an opportunity attack, and triggering an opportunity attack gives the elemental another Smash attack and increases the rate of creating lava areas, making things worse and worse for its enemies if they don’t manage their movement. Slowing the Magma Elemental down using water or cold damage and keeping a distance while fighting it helps reduce the damage it does considerably, but it can still threaten creatures and buildings within 60 feet thanks to its Meteor Breath.
The Magma Elemental also serves well with other fiery monsters, especially those completely immune to fire damage, such as salamanders, efreeti, azer, or fire giants. Even a group of 20th-level characters will have a difficult time against two magma elementals burrowing into a room, with a handful of fire giants following through the burning tunnels. Of course it can be combined with regular Fire Elementals to make an interesting encounter: the magma elemental is relatively slower and tougher, likely to stay in the center of the fight, with many fire elementals speedily racing around the corners of the battlefield, lighting the enemies ablaze and making it even more challenging to take down the magma elemental in a timely manner.
The Magma Elemental’s CR makes it too powerful to summon and control, but player characters can still make use of it using the true polymorph or shapechanger spells. It also makes a wonderful addition to underground or volcanic dungeons; it is at home in elemental planes of fire or earth; it can act like an elemental hound standing guard outside an efreeti’s palace; and it can do something else even better that you think of instead!
Links: PDF | D&D Beyond: Magma Elemental
