Treants and food/drink

[El Mono Digo]

In the plant description it says that plants eat and drink, which makes perfect sense for most regular plants. But how does this apply to a treant? Are they simply assumed to be getting what they need by standing on natural (non-dry?) ground most of the time or would a treant be expected to consume food of some sort?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

In the plant description it says that plants eat and drink, which makes perfect sense for most regular plants. But how does this apply to a treant? Are they simply assumed to be getting what they need by standing on natural (non-dry?) ground most of the time or would a treant be expected to consume food of some sort?

Welcome to the boards, El Mono Digo!

Regarding your question, I'd imagine that a treant would dig its roots into the earth for a period of hours each day to gather nutrients from the earth, just as a tree does. Then when sated it could pull up and go elsewhere.

 

[dcollins]

This isn't dealt with in normal D&D, so the exact in-game mechanic is totally up to the DM.

However, if we're going to compare to real-life plants, remember that plants actually get the great majority of their nourishment just from the air via photosynthesis (breaking CO2 into Carbon to add to its body mass). A tree really only needs to get water from the ground once every couple weeks to be just fine.

 

[ARandomGod]

This isn't dealt with in normal D&D, so the exact in-game mechanic is totally up to the DM.

However, if we're going to compare to real-life plants, remember that plants actually get the great majority of their nourishment just from the air via photosynthesis (breaking CO2 into Carbon to add to its body mass). A tree really only needs to get water from the ground once every couple weeks to be just fine.

A tree also needs some trace minerals and nutrients from the ground.
But if we're going to compare this to real world plants, plants that can move at all eat animals. All that movement takes extra energy. But you can easily assume that treants get most of their energy from magic.

 

[dcollins]

A tree also needs some trace minerals and nutrients from the ground....

Yep, which is in the water...

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Yep, which is in the water...

Or is pulled from the soil by the bacteria on their roots ...

 

[Philip]

Well, I seem te remember Treebeard from the Lord of the Rings consuming special draughts made from fresh spring water. Treants in D&D have mouths as well, so you can have them consume liquids normally.

But if you consider the need for extra energy for movement that RandomGod mentioned, you can easily turn it into some fun RP-ing. Having the Treant behave sluggish most of the time, only moving fast when really needed. And after having moved a lot for longer period of time, beginning to suffer from a hunger that cannot be stilled by just 'rooting'.

 

[Brett]

There was a dragon article a LONG time ago that had a look at this - it was one of the ecology series. It had some interesting effects from drinking the treant's special draught.... I guess that it is pretty much pure DM fiat whether the treants go real world (roots into the ground for a period of time), magical world (It's magic) or magical world with flavour (it's magic - but they do prepare their consumables using their own inate power infusing water....)

Some of the effects that could happen were things like str or con increases, size increases, bonuses to fort saves..... I can't remember them all.

-Brett

 

[somekindofjerk]

I would argue that while diurnal(sp?) animals and humanoids spend the night hours sleeping or at rest, a treant spends its eight hours rooted and absorbing, appearing to be 'asleep' from lack of sunlight.