Air elemental

E air elemental
Difficulty	10
Attacks	Engulf 1d10

E air elemental
Difficulty	10
Attacks	Engulf 1d10
Base level	8
Base experience	126
Speed	36
Base AC	2
Base MR	30
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	No
Weight	0
Nutritional value	0
Size	Huge
Resistances	poison, petrification
Resistances conveyed	None
An air elemental: can fly. has no eyes. has no limbs. has no head. is mindless. does not have a solid form. does not eat. (*) is neither male nor female. is strong. never leaves a corpse.
Reference	monst.c#line1364

An air elemental, E, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is an unsolid, whirly elemental that is strong and capable of flight. An air elemental has an engulfing attack, and possesses poison resistance and stoning resistance.

Generation

Randomly generated air elementals may be peaceful towards neutral characters. An air elemental may also be generated as minions of neutral gods. Air elementals generated on the Plane of Air have three times as many hit points.

Eleven hostile air elementals are generated on the Plane of Air.

Air elementals are not a valid target for genocide.

Strategy

The air elemental is the fastest monster that can be encountered in the game, and its 36 speed is the primary factor behind its deadliness: the amount of turns it can get while engulfing you allows damage from the debris it pummels you with to pile up, even against fast and well-armored characters. Additionally, the damage is non-elemental, making it harder to reduce. One of the few defenses against air elemental attacks is to have half physical damage - a polyform that is huge or larger can also prevent engulfing.

If you are engulfed by an air elemental, you can escape using tools such as a bugle to scare it into releasing you - the knock and slow monster spells (or their equivalents in the opening and slow monster wands) can also force the air elemental to expel you, though their speed may allow them to get another chance at engulfing you. Teleportation is a fairly reliable means of escaping an air elemental, either by zapping it with a wand of teleportation on a non-teleport level, or else teleporting yourself on any other level. A wand or spell of sleep can also immobilize the air elemental and give you valuable turns to either escape or bring it down. In all of these cases, be mindful of an air elemental's 30 MR score, which gives it a significant chance to resist magic and scaring.

As a polyself

Air elementals are sometimes used as a polymorph form for traveling purposes, due to their high speed and flight: in terms of combat, their base AC of 2 is unimpressive, they cannot wear armor and the engulfing attack falls short as the sole source of damage when dealing with large monsters, such as the expected giants and dragons. The polyform is also blind and lacks hands to adjust rings or open containers, among other actions. A wand of probing can reveal the identity of items you pick up while moving, as well as wearing the Eyes of the Overworld.

History

The air elemental first appears in NetHack 3.0.0. From this version to NetHack 3.3.1, including some variants based on those versions, the air elemental's pummel attack dealt twice as much damage.

Messages

You are pummeled with debris!

You are engulfed by an air elemental.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, at least one air elemental will appear within the Cloud Bank of the Lawful Quest.