Special Conversion Thread: Plants

[Shade]

Indeed, they are rather like non-aggressive, useful Brown Mold.

Yep, that's probably the approach we should take for 'em.

 

[Cleon]

Yep, that's probably the approach we should take for 'em.

Okay, here's Brown Mold's SRD writeup just to remind us:

Brown Mold (CR 2)
Brown mold feeds on warmth, drawing heat from anything around it. It normally comes in patches 5 feet in diameter, and the temperature is always cold in a 30-foot radius around it. Living creatures within 5 feet of it take 3d6 points of nonlethal cold damage. Fire brought within 5 feet of brown mold causes it to instantly double in size. Cold damage, such as from a cone of cold, instantly destroys it.

I was thinking more it does lethal cold damage, perhaps like a ray of cold - say a 10 ft. ranged touch for 1d4 damage.

 

[Shade]

I was thinking more it does lethal cold damage, perhaps like a ray of cold - say a 10 ft. ranged touch for 1d4 damage.

Yeah, I think that helps differentiate it.

 

[freyar]

Yes, that would work. Something like this?

Fireweed (CR X)
Fireweed feeds on warmth and is immune to fire damage. It normally comes in patches 5 feet in diameter, but each die of fire damage causes the patch to grow another 5 foot square. Once per round, each 5 ft square patch of fireweed can make a ranged touch attack to absorb heat from a creature within 10 ft; this attack does 1d4 cold damage if successful.

Because fireweed is an effective insulator, underdark creatures value it for its ability to turn underground hotspots into fertile regions. Its respiration can help purify toxic air, making it doubly variable. As a result, anyone deliberately damaging fireweed may invoke the anger of nearby creatures.

 

[Cleon]

Yes, that would work. Something like this?

Fireweed (CR X)
Fireweed feeds on warmth and is immune to fire damage. It normally comes in patches 5 feet in diameter, but each 25 points of fire damage causes the patch to grow another 5 foot square. Once per round, each 5 ft square patch of fireweed can make a ranged touch attack to absorb heat from a creature within 10 ft; this attack does 1d4 cold damage if successful.

Because fireweed is an effective insulator, underdark creatures value it for its ability to turn underground hotspots into fertile regions. Its respiration can help purify toxic air, making it doubly variable. As a result, anyone deliberately damaging fireweed may invoke the anger of nearby creatures.

I was thinking more a single ray with a damage that increases with the patch's size, and it only uses its ray in self defence. I also quite liked the idea of having a fire ray attack.

Also, I'd rather have it grow a bit more slowly than that. The original version says it grows 1 foot per die of fire damage, which appears to mean a foot in height. How about making it 1 square foot per point of fire damage, so it takes 25 points to add a square?

e.g.

Fireweed (CR X)
Fireweed feeds on warmth and is immune to fire damage. It normally comes in patches 5 to 15 feet in diameter, but each die of fire damage causes the patch to grow another 5 foot square. If attacked, a patch of fireweed defends itself with a cryo-thermal ray - a +X ranged touch attack with a range of 10 ft that does 1d4 damage plus 1 point of damage for every 5 ft. square after the first a patch of fireweed covers (e.g. a three square patch does 1d4+2 damage). This damage is half fire and half cold. A patch of fireweed has AC X and Y hit points per 5 ft. square. It is reduced in size by one square for every Y hit points of damage it takes.

Because fireweed is an effective insulator, underdark creatures value it for its ability to turn underground hotspots into fertile regions. Its respiration can help purify toxic air, making it doubly variable. As a result, anyone deliberately damaging fireweed may invoke the anger of nearby creatures.

 

[Shade]

I'm not fond of the half-fire ray (where'd that come from?)

The rest looks OK.

 

[Cleon]

I'm not fond of the half-fire ray (where'd that come from?)

From the warped depths of my imagination.

Well it doesn't say what kind of damage it does, so we could make it whatever we like. I was thinking it could be fire damage (as it's a "fireweed"), or cold damage (as it may steal heat). Then I thought it'd be kind of neat if it did both at once.

Maybe it shoots out some of the heat energy it's absorbed and then sucks it back again in fast succession, simultaneously heating and freezing its target to cause damage?

The rest looks OK.

So do we just have to settle on damage type(s) then?

 

[freyar]

Splitting damage types doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I could see the reasoning for either fire or cold by itself, though.

As for the size, I thought it meant absorbing fire damage makes it grow on the ground, since it can rapidly overrun large areas. Hmm. A little vague in the original, I guess.

 

[Cleon]

Splitting damage types doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I could see the reasoning for either fire or cold by itself, though.

Well that was the problem see, I reasoned they ought to do fire or cold damage but couldn't decide which, so settled on both.

As for the size, I thought it meant absorbing fire damage makes it grow on the ground, since it can rapidly overrun large areas. Hmm. A little vague in the original, I guess.

Well I think we're agreed it grows rapidly if it takes fire damage, the question is how fast?

 

[freyar]

Let's have Shade figure this out.