Special Conversion Thread: Plants

[Cleon]

OK, you've convinced me.

I'll go along with it to, we can just tweak the Animate Plant description.

As for the force-feeding grapple, I was just throwing the idea out to see what it stuck to. We could have something about it using its spores to reproduce by germinating in dead bodies it has slain with its animated plants.

 

[freyar]

Ok, then, revising...

Animate Plant (Su): A dirtwraith can animate a plant one size larger than itself. The dirtwraith melds into the ground at the base of the plant and intertwines itself inside the plant's roots, a process which takes 1 minute, after which the plant gains the statistics of an Animated Object of the appropriate size, with hardness 5 and a speed of X ft. Any damage always affects the animated plant first, which must be destroyed before any harm can be done to the dirtwraith within it. A dirtwraith can only animate ordinary living plants, it can not animate dead plants or monsters with the Plant type. Once the animated plant is destroyed, the dirtwraith may be exhumed from the plants roots; if left undisturbed, it will emerge from the ground 2d6 minutes later to seek a new plant host.

As for the spores, I like the idea of mentioning in the flavor text that they can release spores on dead victims of their animated plants to reproduce. But that shouldn't be something they'd do in combat.

 

[Shade]

Updated.

20 ft. speed for the animated plants?

2d4 rounds for the sickening effect of spores?

 

[Cleon]

Updated.

20 ft. speed for the animated plants?

The original description rather suggests the plants remain rooted in the ground, but I'd rather they become fully mobile.

I'd give them speed 10 ft., like a Treant's animated trees.

2d4 rounds for the sickening effect of spores?

Fine by me.

 

[freyar]

Agreed on 10 ft and 2d4 rounds sickened.

Tumble for the skill ranks, to help them get around opponents when above ground? Maybe Ability Focus (spores) for the feat?

A couple of corrections/additions:
1) Shouldn't the spore and dirtwraith flesh poison DCs be the same?
2) We need to explain how often the dirtwraith can use the spores and how big of a cloud it is. The original monster specifies 1/day, at least. Revising...

Spores (Ex): Once per day, a dirtwraith can release a 30 ft? radius cloud of poisonous spores centered on itself as a standard action. If the dirtwraith is currently animating a plant, this process requires a full minute during which the animated plant can take no other actions; the cloud is centered on the plant. As a result, dirtwraiths do not use their spore attack while animating a plant unless all their opponents are dead.

dirtwraith spores - Inhalation, Fortitude DC 12, initial damage 1d2 Con and is sickened for X rounds, secondary damage 1d2 Con. The save DC is Constitution-based. Corpses exposed to dirtwraith spores become grow a single new dirtwraith over a 48 hour period.

I went ahead and added the reproductive bit.

 

[Shade]

Looks great! Updated.

 

[Cleon]

Agreed on 10 ft and 2d4 rounds sickened.

Tumble for the skill ranks, to help them get around opponents when above ground? Maybe Ability Focus (spores) for the feat?

A couple of corrections/additions:
1) Shouldn't the spore and dirtwraith flesh poison DCs be the same?
2) We need to explain how often the dirtwraith can use the spores and how big of a cloud it is. The original monster specifies 1/day, at least. Revising...

Spores (Ex): Once per day, a dirtwraith can release a 30 ft? radius cloud of poisonous spores centered on itself as a standard action. If the dirtwraith is currently animating a plant, this process requires a full minute during which the animated plant can take no other actions; the cloud is centered on the plant. As a result, dirtwraiths do not use their spore attack while animating a plant unless all their opponents are dead.

dirtwraith spores - Inhalation, Fortitude DC 12, initial damage 1d2 Con and is sickened for X rounds, secondary damage 1d2 Con. The save DC is Constitution-based. Corpses exposed to dirtwraith spores become grow a single new dirtwraith over a 48 hour period.

I went ahead and added the reproductive bit.

Isn't it 1/day per pod, and the dirtwraith has 1 pod per HD in the original monster?

Apart from that it looks fine.

 

[freyar]

It might be easier to pick a fixed number of times per day and maybe put in an advancement note.

 

[Shade]

It might be easier to pick a fixed number of times per day and maybe put in an advancement note.

Good call. In fact, once per day (one pod) is the default, so it makes it easy. Simply add...

Advanced Dirtwraiths
A dirtwraith gains one additional spore pod for each Hit Dice gained. It may thus use its spores attack a number of times per day equal to its Hit Dice.

 

[freyar]

Comparing the dirtwraith flesh poison to the dirtwraith spores, let's change the dirtwraith spore entry to read "If a corpse is exposed to dirtwraith spores, one or more 1 HD dirtwraiths will sprout from the corpse 2d6 days later."

CR, then? The tiny animated object is CR 1/2, and these have the additional spore attack (though only 1/day) and a few more hp. I'm inclined to go with CR 1.

Treasure: 1/10th coins; 50% goods; 50% items as incidental treasure?