Plant creature article for Dragon

[Shade]

Modules:

None* (Up through CotSQ--I haven't seen the new ones, and I don't believe the Eberron ones have any)

Planar Handbook - None
Classbooks - None
Racebooks - None
Savage Species - None

Lost Empires of Faerun - Greenbound Creature (template), CR + 2, changes to plant, gains slam attack, SLAs, damage reduction 10/magic and slashing, fast healing 3, grapple bonus, resistance to cold and elec, tremorsense

 

[Shade]

Heroes of Battle - None
Arms and Equipment Guide - None
Oriental Adventures - None

 

[Shade]

Stormwrack -- nothing

What FR books am I missing?

I'm not an Eberron fan, so I'm unsure for that setting.

I'll see what I can gather from Dragon.

 

[Shade]

Dragon:

Bonetree (280)
Ciruja plant (276)
Death's head tree (292)
Greenvise (292)
Green Guardian (304)
Marodin (292)
Myconid (292)
Needleman (292)
Orcwort (292)
Red Sundew (292)

 

[BOZ]

well that's fine actually, you were pretty thorough and hit all the major sources. if there is anything we overlooked, it is probably not very significant. we would probably want to do a "More plants" list like we did in the MotM article, so sometime between now and then we need to make sure we have everything that can be found.

one more:
Gas spore: 10-HD, CR 3, Large, spd 5 fly 20 (poor), Int -, 1 slam, death throes, infestation, all-around vision, beholder camouflage, flight

 

[Conaill]

Nobody's doen a triffid yet? Or is there a copyright issue with that one? How about Audrey II from the Little Shop of Horrors? Give it some Charm ability to convince someone to feed it. Great if you have a druid in the party who likes to collect plants.


Personally, I'd prefer to see more plants that actually behave like *plants*. I.e. not so much yet another weird monster that just happens to have sap running through its veins rather than blood. That might mean some of these would have to be written up as traps or even poisons instead of "creatures". Is that outside of the scope of this type of article?

For example, what about combining some fast-growing bamboo shoots with an anesthetic? Party lays down in a clearing in the bamboo forest, only to wake up finding themselves impaled on a bunch of fresh green bamboo shoots that burrowed right through their flesh. Or an umbrella tree which provides excellent cover against the rain. But as its boughs become heavy with rain, they start to hang lower and lower, blocking the way out. Then the poison gas starts to seep from the roots...

 

[Conaill]

Ooh... Corpse Flower!

Rumored to be the largest flower in the world, smells like rotten meat.

Nobody realizes that the central flower really *does* contain a corpse! When the flower is bloomed out, it opens up and releases a zombie or skeleton-like creature. This creature will first disseminate the flower's coconut-sized seeds, implanting a freshly killed small animal inside each to start the process. After that, it will then go find a fresh humanoid-sized inhabitant for the original flower.

 

[BOZ]

Personally, I'd prefer to see more plants that actually behave like *plants*. I.e. not so much yet another weird monster that just happens to have sap running through its veins rather than blood. That might mean some of these would have to be written up as traps or even poisons instead of "creatures". Is that outside of the scope of this type of article?

no, that is not outside the scope at all. in fact, i'm likely to do a "hazards sidebar".

 

[Conaill]

One more:

A plant with leaves which act as a sleep contact poison. Not too bad, until Fall comes around and the whole forest is whirling with leaves! Anyone succumbing to the poison will quickly be covered by leaves and turned into compost by the time Spring comes around...

 

[BOZ]

let me get to what was supposed to be the point of this thread, because i keep forgetting.

the reason i have listed all these stats is to see what we have already in D&D 3E, to avoid being too repetitive. this does not mean that just because we have a plant that swallows whole or drains blood or has poison, that we can't have another plant that does the same thing; we just need to be careful about too much of the same thing.

i'm thinking of at least three different article themes for plants (a "garden" theme, an underground plant theme, and a general plant theme; these may change as i think about it). each will contain conversions, as well as hopefully some new plants.

i don't know if there were any subtypes present on the creatures Shade listed, but there were only a handful on the ones i picked out from the first big three monster books. i'd like to see more plants with subtypes. bloodthorn and ironmaw are extraplanar, and kelp angler is aquatic (though do plants need that subtype?). i don't doubt that the udoroot has the psionic template. what i want to see is sometime with the fire or cold subtype, or incorporeal or swarm (!) or shapechanger or even one of the alignment subtypes.

maybe something that causes disease, or drains/damages ability scores, or has ray attacks or throw projectiles or other things that the other plant creatures don't have.

first of all before we get too bogged down in making new creatures, how about settling on themes. i think a maximum of 5 should be enough. what do you all think about that?