PDA

View Full Version : I'm looking for a tiny, permanent portal or a way to shrink a tree



JET73L
2010-12-21, 10:59 AM
Some of my friends are hoping to start a 4e campaign, and I was hoping to use an adapted version of the 3.5e Dryad race as my character. However, there is one thing on which I am stuck: Tree Dependence.

I already found this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130388&highlight=dryad) thread, which suggests cutting a Livewood tree down to a portable size or having the dryad bonded to a bonsai tree (bonsai are too small to be dryad trees, except for very tiny dryads), but I'm looking at one of two other ways:

Using a tiny, permanent portal to maintain that the dryad is technically within 300 feet of her/its tree, and using Transport Via Plants if the dryad has to physically re-enter the tree. I was thinking that the portal might be contained in some sort of gem, such as in the form of a necklace and/or embedded in the bark where the manubrium/sternum would be in a human.
Shrinking the tree to bonsai size (or smaller, if a miniature carbonated biome can be created around it) and carrying it around in a pot or globe.


The problem is that I cannot find any suitable spells. I don't know of any spells that can normally create a portal smaller than a creature can enter, aside from miniature bags of holding (which have only one opening, though if it comes to it an adapted object of holding could be feasible), and the only shrink spells I could find were far from efficient enough (Shrink Item with Permanency (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Shrink_Item) would be perfect if its affected volume was far more than 2 cubic feet per caster level. Having every available Level 6+ Sorcerer dryad/Level 4+ Wizard dryad group-cast Shrink Item on a few dryad trees [including my character's] to increase the species' presence in the modern world in the character's backstory would be pretty awesome if the DM allowed it).Edit: Shrink Item with Permanency only lets the original caster re-shrink and unshrink it, assuming that doesn't include unshrinking by way of tossing the item onto a solid surface, which would hardly be useful to the PC more than once and could be deleterious to the tree. It's up to the DM anyway, and I'm researching to see if some form of Transfer Spell exists in 4e, this just makes it less likely that the GM will accept that particular proposal.

If anyone has any other suggestions, I'm perfectly willing to hear them out, any input would be appreciated.

P.S.: I am aware that 4e already has a dryad PC adaptation without Tree Dependence, but that's the 4e version of Dryads, which are 7.5-11 feet tall and have shrubbery growing from their heads and limbs. Not really the sort of thing for which I am looking.

DracoDei
2010-12-21, 11:21 AM
Homebrew a ritual.

flabort
2010-12-21, 11:28 AM
Yes. Homebrewing a ritual is your best bet.
you can make it so that it creates a portal, shrinks the tree, or even lets you wander much, much farther away.

JET73L
2010-12-21, 11:38 AM
That is... an amazingly obvious solution, now that you mention it. Thank you, both of you.

I'm still accepting suggestions and information, especially regarding the portal. I seem to recall a spell that works like long-range version of Message, using a portal to physically transmit the sound rather than direct magical transmission, but I'm probably just thinking of a footnote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.