Plants, Intelligence, and Mind-Affecting Effects

Ogrork the Mighty · Mar 25, 2010

From the Plant type in the SRD:
- However, some plant creatures are mindless and gain no skill points or feats
- Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects)

So if a Plant has an Intelligence score, does that mean it loses the mindless quality and therefore the immunity to mind-affecting effects?

And what about a Plant's immunity to sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and stunning? Do these stem from the Mindless quality?

TheOverlord · Mar 25, 2010

Vegetable Mind

Ogrork the Mighty said:
From the Plant type in the SRD:
- However, some plant creatures are mindless and gain no skill points or feats
- Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects)

So if a Plant has an Intelligence score, does that mean it loses the mindless quality and therefore the immunity to mind-affecting effects?

And what about a Plant's immunity to sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and stunning? Do these stem from the Mindless quality?

I found this to be an interesting train of thought so I did a bit of research. I found an early article from wizards that says the following:

These living creatures have vegetable bodies and minds. Many plant creatures are fully mobile and also are capable of conversing or negotiating with other creatures. Others are barely mobile at all (or even sessile), and simply wait for prey. Because they lack internal organs and circulatory systems, plant creatures of any kind usually prove difficult to kill. --WOTC

What is worth noting is that they talk about plants capable of conversing and negotiating which means they were considering intelligent plants from the beginning and all the plant type text has the phrase that states that specific notes in a creatures entry can override any of the plant creature's basic characteristics. Therefore, if they wanted an intelligent plant race that still had to sleep they could simply state that they were not immune to sleep-related affects like most plants.

I think they intended that their "vegetable minds" provided the mind protection rather than being mindless...however that does raise the interesting question of Druids who can shapeshift into plants. They retain their own "non-vegetable" mind so perhaps there could be come calls made on that basis.

Dannyalcatraz · Mar 25, 2010

I don't have it in front of me, but you might check out the Woodling template- there you may find the answers you seek.

I believe its in MM 3.

Vegepygmy · Mar 25, 2010

Ogrork the Mighty said:
So if a Plant has an Intelligence score, does that mean it loses the mindless quality and therefore the immunity to mind-affecting effects?

A plant with an Intelligence score is not mindless, but it remains immune to mind-affecting effects.

Ogrork the Mighty said:
And what about a Plant's immunity to sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and stunning? Do these stem from the Mindless quality?

No, they do not.

Nedz · Mar 25, 2010

Just looked at the Woodling template in MM3. It basically just reiterates the Plant Traits block from the MM.
So Plants are immune to magic sleep effects, mind effecting spells and abilities, ...
Unless, of course, the specific creature entry overrides this: this is true for all plants.

frankthedm · Mar 25, 2010

Ogrork the Mighty said:
So if a Plant has an Intelligence score, does that mean it loses the mindless quality and therefore the immunity to mind-affecting effects?

Plants get those immunities regardless of if they have int scores. They "just have" the ability to ignore that class of spell.

Ogrork the Mighty said:
And what about a Plant's immunity to sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and stunning? Do these stem from the Mindless quality?

None of the plants immunities stem from the Mindless quality. The immunities are provided by the 2nd & 3rd bullet points of Plant Type; traits. The only time mindless is mentioned for the plant type is under the Skills section of plant features, so it has little bearing on the rest of the entry.

Plant Type
This type comprises vegetable creatures. Note that regular plants, such as one finds growing in gardens and fields, lack Wisdom and Charisma scores (see Nonabilities) and are not creatures, but objects, even though they are alive.

Features
A plant creature has the following features.

* 8-sided Hit Dice.
* Base attack bonus equal to ¾ total Hit Dice (as cleric).
* Good Fortitude saves.
* Skill points equal to (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die, with quadruple skill points for the first Hit Die, if the plant creature has an Intelligence score. However, some plant creatures are mindless and gain no skill points or feats.

Traits
A plant creature possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).
* Low-light vision.
* Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
* Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, and stunning.
* Not subject to critical hits.
* Proficient with its natural weapons only.
* Proficient with no armor.
* Plants breathe and eat, but do not sleep.

Corsair · Mar 25, 2010

Contrast the Ooze and Plant Types.

ooze says: Mindless: No Intelligence score, and immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).

Plant says: Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).

Voadam · Mar 26, 2010

Technically you can't use charm monster on a treant because they are plants and plant type creatures are immune to mind-affecting abilities while you can charm monster the not so alien mind of an earth elemental because elemental does not say immune to mind-affecting abilities. It is something I house rule in my game so that only mindless creatures are immune to mind-affecting spells.

Starbuck_II · Mar 26, 2010

Voadam said:
Technically you can't use charm monster on a treant because they are plants and plant type creatures are immune to mind-affecting abilities while you can charm monster the not so alien mind of an earth elemental because elemental does not say immune to mind-affecting abilities. It is something I house rule in my game so that only mindless creatures are immune to mind-affecting spells.

Do you houserule out Mind blank spell? Because it is just a racial mind blank effect.

Runestar · Mar 27, 2010

Starbuck_II said:
Do you houserule out Mind blank spell? Because it is just a racial mind blank effect.

Except that mindblank is an 8th lv spell, while polymorph can effectively grant mindblank at 7th lv (by transforming say, the party barb into a treant).

I don't think he is saying that virtually immunity to mind-affecting abilities is bad, but rather, the ease with which it can be obtained (FR has a LA+2 plant race, while woodling template is LA+3, for instance). Mindblank can only be accessed by spellcasters of at least 15th lv, which severely limits the number of people who can benefit from it.

Not to mention that this is a convenient solution to plants generally having poor will saves.

I just assume this has already been factored into their cr though (for example, the treant has a fairly high cr of 8, despite having only 7 HD, and I assume plant traits account for part of that).

Plants, Intelligence, and Mind-Affecting Effects

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