Tendriculous regeneration explanation?

[Voadam]

The Tendriculous is a big plant monster. I faced one in a game last weekend for the first time and almost lost my familiar after the thing swallowed him.

It has regeneration. This became apparent as I was blasting it and it was regrowing quickly, so I tried numerous energy types unsuccessfully to get its special weakness and ended up just doing enough nonlethal damage to knock it out and save my well-warded familiar. The DM and I were talking about it after I eventually summoned up acid spitting beetles to dissolve it permanently while it lay unconscious trying to heal up.

"Regeneration (Ex)
Bludgeoning weapons and acid deal normal damage to a tendriculos. A tendriculos that loses part of its body mass can regrow it in 1d6 minutes. Holding the severed portion against the mass enables it to reattach instantly. "

OK, acid working to dissolve tenacious plant materials I can see. Why bludgeoning? We could not come up with a satisfactory rationale.

Anybody able to think of one?

 

[Land Outcast]

I guess it's something like: if some parts are broken, sap starts coming out and reforming the missing parts, while if you just bash the branches composing it, sap doesn't come out, therefore not allowing the reconstruction.
(still, seems a wacky reason)

 

[LiquidBlue]

The rationalization I would use is that Slashing and Piercing Damage only serve to seperate the cells from one another. The individual cells remain alive, and can be rejoined. The bludgeoning damage serves to to kill the individual cells.

 

[Huw]

Bludgeoning would pulp the plant, causing far greater damage than slashing will. Plants have cell walls which animals lack. Think about it: you thresh with flails, not axes, and herbivores have wide flat teeth whilst carnivores have sharp teeth.

 

[lukelightning]

Maybe tendriculousses... tendriculouses... tendriculi... whatever were created by evil druids to kill axe-weilding (i.e slashing-weapon-weilding) lumberjacks.

 

[Tetujin]

I was actually running a module I got out of Dungeon that had one, the players hit it, I told them it was healing back, so they hit it with fire. I looked at the word "Regeneration" and thought "Ok, so Fire *maybe* Acid...so it's dead" a few rounds later I check out the stat block next to it and find out that only Bludgeoning and Acid get through. Well, not only was the party surprised to see it get back up in a few rounds, they really didn't have many options, they eventually summoned wave after wave of wolves to eat it (since bite attacks do Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing).

 

[VirgilCaine]

OK, acid working to dissolve tenacious plant materials I can see. Why bludgeoning? We could not come up with a satisfactory rationale.

Anybody able to think of one?

Because PCs don't use bludgeoning weapons almost at all.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Because PCs don't use bludgeoning weapons almost at all.

Speak for your own group... maces and flails tend to be the order of the day with mine.

On the other hand, piercing weapons that aren't ranged... or daggers or short swords... are very rare.

 

[frankthedm]

Because PCs don't use bludgeoning weapons almost at all.

That is mainly because there was not a 2d6/1d12 2 handed blunt weapon in the core rules.

 

[JustKim]

Bludgeoning would pulp the plant, causing far greater damage than slashing will. Plants have cell walls which animals lack. Think about it: you thresh with flails, not axes, and herbivores have wide flat teeth whilst carnivores have sharp teeth.

I'm certain this is the real reason.
Personally, I think the tendriculous is a dumb monster. It is way too difficult for its CR and not really interesting. It makes for a very lame encounter. Its regeneration, however, is probably based on observations of real earth plants.
I don't know if anyone here lives in the southern US, but there we have a plant called kudzu famous for being "the plant that ate the South". Kudzu grows so amazingly quickly that you can actually see it happening. It grows more than a foot a day. If you cut a kudzu plant in two, you will have two kudzu plants. If you burn it, it will grow back while you sleep. If you freeze it, it will go dormant until it warms again. The only ways to reliably kill the plant are to dig up its massive root system and pulp it (bludgeoning damage) or find an animal that can stomach the tough, fibrous plant (acid damage).